Actually the deadline isn’t that much of a worry. I like having deadlines. That means some editor somewhere is wanting to read my story and then suggesting ways I can improve it before readers pick it up. I’m always ready to improve what I write. Of course, I do admit I have times I resist the improvement, but usually if I read with an open mind I see what the editor or copy editor is seeing. I have one basic rule in editing to suggestions made by my editors. I tell myself if the editor had problems with this or that sentence or scene then I can be fairly confident that at least some readers will have the same sort of problems. I don’t want my stories to be a problem to read. So I change it.
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Sometimes that means changing something else and that changes another thing. You know like those rows of dominoes that all fall down when you knock down the first one. What is a story except scene built on scene built on scene. They all inter-connect and must line up for the story to make sense. So if you change one thing then you have to be sure everything else still lines up the way it should. Gee, if my editor read that last sentence she’d be getting her red pencil out for sure. But I’m hoping you kind readers out there will understand what I’m trying to say. You know that old saying, do as I say, not as I do. Maybe that goes with writing too. Write as I say, not the way I write. Especially in this journal. Journals are for free thinking and writing, aren’t they? Now I’m going to be like Sesame Street’s Grover in that Hide and Seek book my grandkids love for me to read to them. He asks the reader to pretend not to see him on the page since he hasn’t found a good place to hide. “Please say yes! Please say yes!” That’s the only way I can write in a journal. Just as it spills out.
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It wasn’t a good day down here on the farm yesterday with family health news. My mom fell and wasn’t able to get up. Until she gets better, we’ll have to stay with her around the clock. Not sure if she had a stroke or not. But we’re praying that she’ll begin to be more like her old self soon.
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And then my niece had trouble giving birth and now her baby girl, Emily is having breathing troubles and has been put on a ventilator. That’s the family that has the little girl, Kaelyn, who is taking treatments for cancer. But the mom and dad and Kaelyn, too have such powerful faith and are so depending on the Lord that they are an inspiration to all who know them as they continue their faithful journey.
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My recent books have all shown the faith journey of my characters, but we all step out in faith each and every day. Some days are nothing but flowers and sunshine and some days it rains troubles. In my books, of course, there has to be a good amount of that trouble rain to give conflict to the stories and give the characters something to overcome. Life often is the same. Hope you are overcoming and looking forward to some days of flowers and sunshine. Thanks for reading.
