According to research done at the University of Maryland, reading makes people happy. This question appeared in a poll published in Parade magazine yesterday. 5. Question: If you're sad, which of the following is most likely to cheer you up?
[a] Watching reruns of your favorite sitcom
[b] Reading a novel
[c] Tuning in to the news
Answer: [b]. People who read often are happier than those who watch more TV, according to researchers at the University of Maryland––even if the plot of their paperback is depressing.
Wow, so even reading a depressing book can cheer you up!
It is interesting to me that what people don't want in their personal real life is exactly what makes for good fiction: CONFLICT! We love to read about other people's misery. It seems that people want a diversion from thinking about their own problems, and what better way than to read about someone else's?
There is a bit of irony in this for me. As a writer, I want to encourage people to think about their own lives. I want them to form an emotional bond with my characters, so that as my characters encounter problems and overcome them, my readers will be inspired to do the same. In other words, I want them to look at themselves! But the very reason they read fiction in the first place is as a diversion (so they won't have to think about their own lives).
Ahh, the challenges of being a writer....
At least the research shows that readers are happier.
I think I already knew that.
Have a great August. I know I will. I'm moving back to Kenya this month. More about that adventure later....
Harry
Reading makes people happy!
God's BFF?
I passed a local church with a sign out front today. On one side, it said, "You are God's BFF." On the other side, it said, "Accept God's friend request."
Hmmm.
I get the current social media references and it all may be true, but something about the messages seemed to trivialize something that's very precious to me. I am God's friend. But He is also Lord of the universe.
Does God request our friendship? Perhaps so, but the transaction to purchase our friendship and our sonship came at a huge personal cost (to Him). The sign makes it sound like something of an invitation to a party, not a life of sacrifice, growing love, and service. The emphasis seems to be in the wrong place. Instead of what we are to Him; salvation is all about what He is.
Maybe I'm taking it too seriously. Someone may drive by, read the message, drop in for a Sunday service and a life will be changed.
Or maybe not.
What about you? Do you like the message? Why or why not?
Harry
What would you pack?
I am leaving for Africa in less than six weeks. Not just for a two-week vacation, but moving back, taking up Kenyan residence and planning to stay for three years.
So that means packing. My wife has put out an open action-packer (Rubbermaid container, the perfect maximum size for allowable plane luggage) to periodically add the things we think of that we want to take along....Must have books from a crammed bookshelf, my favorite high-tech flashlight, a new pair of running shoes for my wife, her must-have brand of hairspray (unavailable in Kenya), and American stamps for mail we send back to the US with visitors.
That made me start thinking. What would you pack if you could only take one suitcase (let's say, other than needed clothes) and you were leaving for a long, long time to a place far, far away without a lot of American "stuff."
What would you pack?
Are you a good liar?
I ran across this post after an author-friend pointed it out.
Take the test. It's fun and may be a little informative.
My "Q" pointed to the right. How about yours? Do you think it works?
Just a little fun for a Friday!
Harry
Follow the link to take the test: http://blog.eyesforlies.com/2008/12/friday-fun-q-test.html
The Great Creator of the Grand Canyon
Why did I wait so long to visit the Grand Canyon? I finally went last month and took the pictures on a hike down from the south rim. I took lots of pictures, but as cliche as it sounds, it's true, "pictures don't do it justice." But they are all I have for illustration, so it will have to do.
“This is shocking. The love of God is not God's making much of us, but God's saving us from self-centeredness so that we can enjoy making much of him forever. And our love to others is not our making much of them, but helping them to find satisfaction in making much of God. True love aims at satisfying people in the glory of God. Any love that terminates on man is eventually destructive.”1
Later, he summed it up: “Nobody in this room would go to the Grand Canyon to increase your sense of self-esteem. Nobody stands on the edge of the Alps or the Rockies or the Grand Canyon in order to go there to feel better about ourselves. Do you know why you go there? Because you were written to be satisfied with splendor, not self. You were created and a law written on your heart to be infinitely, eternally, fully, joyfully satisfied in a grand splendor not a great self. I plead with you lay it down. Lay down your quest for the applause of men, the approval of men, and begin to get on a quest for the one thing that will satisfy your soul -- the splendor of Jesus Christ and all that God is for you in him. I just plead with you for your own soul's infinite happiness that you will stop pursuing it in the wrong place … We have an invincibly triumphant savior - Jesus Christ. Don't turn away from him to yourself. Don't want praise for you; give praise to him. Know him; he'll satisfy you.”2
1“The Goal of God’s Love May Not Be What You Think It Is,” Dallas Morning News, October 14, 2000.
2 Piper, “Thankful for the Love of God! Why?” November 18, 2001. Both articles available from Desiring God Ministries
Lessons I learned from my mom.
Picture adapted from "Everything's Coming Up Sock Monkeys!" by Bonnie Kraus Connelly
Here are a few edited comments from the tribute I gave at my mom's memorial service yesterday. Mom was in failing health for some time and her passing, although a sorrow to us, is also a rejoicing as she has no more pain.
My mom taught me that life is better if you don’t take it too seriously. She would not want us sitting around mourning. She’d want us laughing.
When I was younger, my mother took me for a weekly violin lesson. Now many of you know that Mildred was always on time. I wasn’t. And she would be in her big green Buick, behind the wheel in the garage waiting for me. She’d wait until I was in the garage, right in front of the car when she’d lay on the horn.
She faithfully wrote her children letters while we were away at school. Before email, when people actually did this. They weren’t profound, but newsy, just making a connection with the twins and me. And at the bottom, she’d adjust the size of her handwriting to fill in the space. Am running out of room now so must close. Small if there wasn’t much room. Or big if she needed to fill up the page.
My mom taught me how to cuss. And not Baptist cussing like gosh, darn or even gee whiz. We weren’t allowed to say those words because they were too close to real cussing. Now, for mom it was, Deed! Or if things were worse, Deed and double! Oh my stars! Or if things were even worse, “oh my stars and garters!” (What does that even mean?) Growing up, I didn’t know who Pete was, but if Mom invoked his name, I knew I’d done something pretty stupid. Oh for Pete’s sake! Most good mothers have a comment specifically to make their children feel guilty for when their stupidity was particularly epic. Christian mothers design these comments to be carried on into the child’s adult life. Mildred’s was remarkably effective in this regard and I still hear her voice when I’m being stupid. “Oh for pity sake or just oh for pity!”
She taught me not to put on airs. She was never one who sought to impress others with social standing or clothing. This carried over into the time she served as a missionary both in Africa and in Albania. She refused to let anyone put her on a pedestal as a missionary. In fact, she never got very spiritual about her calling to go. I remember at a commissioning service before she and pop left for a year in Kenya when she was asked about why she would want to go and serve. Here was her chance to let everyone know of her answer to the great commission or her great calling. Instead, she simply said, I’ve always wanted to be a return missionary and I guess going is the only way to accomplish that.
Mom taught me that the day goes better if you have a secret stash of Three Musketeers candy bars. And in her last months when I knew she didn’t have long and didn’t have an appetite, when I’d help feed her, we pretty much just concentrated on the dessert.
Mildred taught me that the only kind of acceptable snake was a dead snake. I remember my mother watching over us as we swam in the Warwick River. Now, my mother couldn’t swim but she wasn’t there to rescue the kids if they were in trouble. No, she was there, shotgun by her side to kill the snakes. There were always extra kids there. I can’t really imagine what the other parents thought. The only adult watching the children in the river can’t swim. But don’t worry, Mildred’s got a gun.
My mother taught me that the Bible could be read and understood without a seminary education. She had a high school education. She had the audacity to believe that if the Bible said “Do not be anxious,” well then, it must be an affront to a loving God if she walked around in a careful state. She considered worry a sin, and therefore it was a foe that, like a snake, should be vanquished. Once she learned this principle in mid life and started to practice it, she acted like a woman who wasn’t about to be pushed around by a spiritual enemy. And she wasn’t above invoking the name of Jesus out loud to put the devil in his place. I can just imagine the devil’s reaction to hearing my mother was out of bed in the morning. “Crap, Mildred’s up. She’s got a gun.”
Oh for pity sake. I hear ya Mom…cussing in church…but they weren’t my words, I was quoting the devil’s vocabulary.
My mother taught me about contentment. Mom turned everything into a song. Growing up, if we were out of dessert except for applesauce, she made up a goofy song about it. Even in her waning months when she was frequented by pain, she often started grunting or gasping with a pain but quickly turned it into a song so that it would go something like this Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh to be like thee, oh to be like thee. The pain was forgotten, replaced by a melody. Later, when she’d forgotten most of her favorite hymns, she still remembered children’s songs, so she would cry, Oh dear. Oh dear. And soon her pain would find a melody. Oh dear what can the matter be?
In fact, even in her final weeks when she was confined to a wheelchair, unable to walk, on oxygen, non-healing leg wound because of poor blood flow, I said to her, “You never complain.” She looked at me from her wheelchair, oxygen tubing in her nose and she said, incredulous at my comment, “Well, I don’t have anything to complain about!”
My mother taught me about facing tragedy. Many of you know that Mom’s life wasn’t without its sorrow. After having four miscarriages, her doctors told her she was unable to have more children. But then she lost two sons to a river drowning before I was born. Later, she miraculously had twin girls and then me. But how did she respond? With fear and avoidance? No, she responded by facing a threat head on, equipping us, getting my sisters and I into swimming lessons from an early age. And then she moved us down to the river so we could grow up swimming.
She wrote down a few things she wanted spoken at her memorial service and I was reviewing them this week. She wrote this on the bottom of the page. “I’m expecting that I will see all of you again soon in your perfected eternal life. Please, don’t any of you disappoint me! See you soon!”
Well, I’m running out of room now, so must close.
Have Skeleton; need muscle.
I'm in the initial stages of a new novel. I call it the skeleton stage.
I start with a central idea that will carry the meat of the project. The first idea comes with a protagonist, someone who I am determined to get into a lot of trouble before everything is done.
The skeleton stage is all about research. I need to elaborate on the central conflict adding muscle (sub-plots, characters, troubled backstory and layers) that will give my story movement.
Then I'll need organs, the major plot points that will get my protagonist through the chief conflict, arriving at the end with some definite growth as a result of dealing with the conflict.
I need skin and connective tissue to bring it all together in a way that won't seem choppy and disconnected. It has to look real enough so that readers won't think, "that would never happen."
At this stage, I have an open folder called "Novel 15." Inside, I have documents that are nothing but a jumble of ideas. I'm searching for the reasons for my characters to act like I need them to act. I'm learning to know my characters at this stage. Some days, it feel like a bag of loose bones. I've got a tibia, a set of ribs, some vertebra, a mandible, a femur and a humerus.
Now I need to fit them together.
The more work I do now, the better and faster the result later. The problem is, when the word-count on the novel isn't piling up, there is a sense that nothing is getting done. That's not really true; but it's a feeling I need to fight.
I'll be happily writing away soon enough, heading down that road until I reach a final step and pull out the paddles on the defibrillator to see if I can shock this monster into life!
Enjoy the process, folks. Whatever you are working on, I'm pretty sure there is a "skeleton stage." Do the foundation work right and you will see the good results later on.
Here's to the bones!
Harry
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