You Can't Have Rain Without the Mud

I attended a women's conference on Saturday - an annual event put on by our church. It starts out with a light breakfast and then we split into classes. The first class I attended was called "There is Sunshine in My Soul Today". One of the points the teacher made really touched me.

She related this experience to us. There was a lengthy drought in our area that lasted three years and of course it was affecting her family's crops and gardens. Everyone prayed and prayed for rain, but the drought continued. Finally after a region-wide fast, the heavens opened. The local reservoir filled in three days even though the experts had said it would take a few years of good rain to get it back to normal levels. This sister said it was a miracle and everyone including her was so grateful for the rain.

Then she started noticing the mud - in the yard, the driveway, on the carpets, the kitchen floor, and the kids feet. She complained about the constant mess and the constant cleaning that resulted from the mud. One day she said something about the mess to a friend and she got this response. "You prayed for the rain. You can't have the rain without the mud."

How often do we pray for specific blessings and then complain about the side-effects?

I started thinking about this again today as I listened to the wind blow - not just little breezes, but 70 mile-an-hour winds. They seem to push through the house and I have the hardest time getting warm. I took my daughter into the city today for an orthodontist appointment and on the way home I stopped at the gas station to put gas in the van. While I stood there filling the vehicle, I had to brace myself against the wind and lost my balance a time or two. And I think my legs got a good workout as I walked against the wind on my way to the school this afternoon.

The thing is, I've prayed for years that I would be able to raise my children in this wonderful community. I love living in the same town my family helped settle 110 years ago and being able to teach my kids about their heritage. But I can't have my home in this area if I don't take the wind as well.

It's something I need to think about more as I look at the blessings in my life. Even the mud and the wind have their place. Without the wind we'd never fly a kite. An when was last time you let the mud squish between your toes?

Picture Tag

The rules of this tag are that you open your picture file and pick the sixth folder and then the sixth picture in that folder.

This is a picture taken at my oldest daughter's birthday three years ago. (I can't believe we are gearing up to celebrate her sixteenth birthday in three weeks. Time sure flies.) Anyway, her teacher had been reading the class The Guardians of Ga'Hoole by Kathryn Lasky. Both my daughter and son loved the series so she got the boxed set of books 1-6. These are books I keep saying I'll get around to reading, but I just haven't picked them up yet. Maybe I still will at some point. Considering how much we love books and reading at our house, it's appropriate that the picture is of a book, although I'm not sure why we took this picture.

Anyone who hasn't done this yet may consider themselves tagged.

Editing Tips, or, Things I Need to Watch For

I offered to edit a manuscript for a blog friend of mine just before Christmas. Over the last month I've been working on it quite a bit. My husband wonders if my time wouldn't be better spent working on my own manuscript, but since I started reading through the book, I realized I was working on mine at the same time.

As I read through the book the first time, I became quite aware of the flow of the story and how the plot lines wove together. I ended up with two notebooks next to the computer. One with detailed notes about the manuscript I was working on, and another with brief notes reminding me to check on the same problems in my own work. After a second slower read through, I realized I was learning more about good writing in general.

Some of the things I caught that I need to go back and check for in my own are:

• Repeated words. Sometimes it is so easy to use the same word over and over again without even realizing it. After all, a dance is a dance. But with careful rewriting the same section can be written to use the words fewer times and will actually be more interesting to read. There are also an author's 'pet' words. As I read over mine this afternoon, I realized I use the words 'really' and 'finally' way too often. I have some work to do there.
• Show don't tell. It is so easy to get caught in the trap of just telling the story. In some ways it is more natural since that is how we often tell others about the things that happen in our lives.
• Dialogue. Written dialogue doesn't sound like spoken dialogue. When we talk to others we often throw in words like, 'uh', 'oh', 'um', but when those are used in a story, they slow down the flow of the conversation.
• Include all the important information. Often when I tell a story, I forget to put all the necessary facts in. I know all the background and forget that the reader doesn't. Sometimes I reread what I've written, I realize there are big holes that will leave the reader confused.

These are all reasons why it is a good thing first drafts aren't published and every book goes through multiple revisions. Working on this friend's manuscript was a great exercise for me and makes me even more anxious to get a critique group going. But that's another post for another day.

Righteous Desires

For the last two weeks, my oldest daughter has been talking about Especially For Youth. She has never attended before, but this year her friends have spent many hours trying to convince her to go. Last summer we told her to wait until she was sixteen. Since money is always tight and our small community doesn't have many opportunities for teenagers to earn money, we knew she might only get one chance to go. This year she is going to be sixteen, but every time she brought it up, I put her off. I told her she needed to sit down with me and her dad so we could discuss whether it was actually a possibility.

I think EFY is a wonderful program and wish I had had the chance to go when I was her age. For me the issues were the same - money. It wasn't such a big deal though since hardly any of my friends went. Now it almost seems like something all the kids do.

We sat down one evening and discussed with her all the issues we were concernced about. First, there is drivers ed. She needs to take this course soon so she can get her license and possibly get a job in the city. That will set us back many hundred dollars. Then there is the EFY factor - several more hundred dollars. She has also been hinting that she needs a dancing kilt for her highland dance. I agree with her, but that is several more hundred.

That's when we get to the issue of righteous desires. All these things are good and will benefit her in the long run, so how do you decide where the little money you have goes? She offered to pay for all of EFY on her own, but I was concerned that she wouldn't be able to replace it, not having a job, and then what would she do the next time something came up?

In the end, her dad and I talked and agreed because she doesn't spend money lightly and almost never asks us for a single penny, we would pay half of the EFY costs. All three of us felt good about this decision, so last Friday I let her register. Let's just say she was a little excited. Actually, I've never seen her so hyper.

Then yesterday she came home from school and asked me if I remembered an assignment she'd been given in her computer class before Christmas to design a poster for Crimestoppers . I didn't. She went on to tell me the teacher had encouraged them to enter the finished poster in a contest the Crimestoppers association was having. So in class yesterday, the teacher received a phone call informing her that my daughter won the contest. The prize is $500. Almost exactly what it was going to cost to go to EFY.

Amazing how things come together when we have righteous desires. We'll still pay for half of the EFY, but guess who gets to pay for half of drivers ed.? It's a win-win situation for everyone. (Another bonus - the teacher told the class that if any of them happened to win, they would receive 100% on the project.) Can I just say what an awesome teenager she is and how proud I am of her? I love these moments!

Patience is a Virtue

I'm not very patient. I try to be and when it comes to my kids, I don't do too badly. When it comes to my writing, it's a different story altogether.

I wrote my first manuscript quickly, as it was my attempt at NaNoWriMo in 2006. When I wrote the last word, I put it away for a month before I reread it and started on the revisions. It was a long month. When I did finally pull it out, the work seemed to take much longer than it should. Having never revised anything of that length before, I had to figure out what sort of revision process would work for me and how to go about it.

Once the revisions were completed, I handed it out to several people to get opinions on it and unearth further problems to solve in future revisions. I'll admit, I wasn't very good at waiting for people to read the book. On one hand, I didn't want to know what they thought. On the other hand, how could I keep working on it if they didn't get back to me?

If I thought that was bad, there is the whole submission game. Waiting to hear from publishers has turned me into a compulsive checker of email and phone messages. So if I didn't have patience before, the whole writing process is teaching me to sit back, take a deep breath and move on to the next project.

In the last month I've exchanged a few emails with one publisher and now I'm waiting to hear more from them. During this month I'm discovering I haven't developed as much patience as I thought I had.

Since I've done my revisions on my current WIP for the day and finished editing a friend's manuscript, it's time to walk away for awhile. I'll have to work on this virtue for one more day. It's just another way I get to grow as a writer.

Now What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

We love music in our home. All of us are musical - from playing instruments in band, playing the piano, and singing. My youngest daughter has taken piano lessons for a few years, takes guitar lessons from my dad, sings in the school choir, and now is trying to learn how to play the drums. She is hoping that we will get her a harp someday. Now this would all be wonderful if she would actually practice.

She likes to spend her practice time writing her own music. She'll write guitar chords down, make up lyrics and then sing her little heart out. The most interesting is when she decides to write drum music. Her favorite right now is called "Crazy Girl". You can imagine what that sounds like. She needs to learn some real drum technique so it isn't just banging. (Her dad gets to teach her that.)

After Christmas the kids all quit taking piano lessons because the teacher retired. My oldest daughter has moved on to voice lessons, my son is just being encouraged to play every day, but I told the youngest she wasn't done yet. So guess who the new teacher is going to be? That's right...the mom as piano teacher thing. Should be interesting.

Last night she wasn't practicing her guitar very effectively, so when she was done, I sat down and took it from her. (My dad tried to teach me as a teenager, but I really wasn't that interested.) I opened her song book up and picked a piece of music. Using the chord chart at the top of the page, I stumbled my way through "Home on the Range". She sat and helped me get some of the chords right and informed me I would have to cut my fingernails if I wanted to be any good. I agreed, then challenged her, promising I would learn the song before she did.

The challenge must have done some good. When I got home this evening, she was playing the guitar with my dad, and that's the song they were working on. She's determined to learn it before I do. So I guess if I want her to work harder on the guitar I need to appeal to her competitive spirit. I don't think I really wanted to play the guitar, but it's just one of those crazy things I do for my kids.

So what have I gotten myself into? Not only do I have to teach her piano lessons, I've got to teach myself guitar lessons. It's all worth it if she can use the skills to develop her songwriting talents. I'm excited to see her develop her musical abilities. And maybe I'll actually learn a new musical skill in the process.

Back on Track

I've spent the last week reading the manuscript of a friend and fellow blogger. It's been great to work on and hopefully the comments I've made will be helpful. More importantly, it's been helpful to me.

For Tristi's challenge this month, I signed up with the intention of editing my current WIP. The first day of January came and went. My excuse for not starting anything was that we were still having holidays. That excuse carried on for about five days. Then I had to work at the school a few days. Basically I was just having a hard time getting my mind back on track.

Then I started working on this manuscript. As I read through someone else's work and notice things, I make little notes to myself. There are things I read that need to be fixed and I know if I check my own work I'll find the same mistakes. It seems to be so much easier to find the errors in someone else's writing. That is why it's so good to have others read your writing before you send it out to the publishers.

So it's all been good. I'm back on track, I'm almost ready to send the manuscript back to my friend and mine should be ready to get out to readers before the end of the month. It feels great to finally be out of my funk and getting work done again.