November is upon me, and that makes it a good time to reflect back on what I thought I would accomplish this year when it began, and to think about what I want to accomplish in the year to come. Who was it that said that a life left unexamined is not worth living? Well, I find that I do better when I do examine the life that I am living, and setting clear goals is part of that examination.
This past year, I wanted to continue to make time for my family, do an even better job at practicing my yoga exercise, and make more inroads with my writing. I feel very good about my achievements in this area. I not only go to my yoga classes, I also teach yoga a couple of days each week. I have had several good visits with my family besides daily conversation on the phone. (Thank goodness for unlimited calling plans!) I have also started this blog to help reach out to others interested in Christian writing and living a Christian life in a modern world.
I am also pleased to say that I finished the first draft of my second novel and am halfway through the first draft of a third. The novel I just completed is a contemporary Christian romance, while the third book is an historical mystery.
So, I’m already well on my way to setting some goals for the coming year. First of all, my second novel has naturally lent itself to a spin-off story–something I hadn’t planned or even realized until I finished the book. Secondly, I want to complete the first draft of my historical mystery.
I’m not sure that I will be completing my second novel for publication by the end of 2012. The one thing about creating truly good writing is to give time to yourself between that first draft and your serious editing. After all, when you first complete something, you really feel close to it. It’s your baby, that you snuggle close, too close to see the flaws and improvements that must be made. Because I want to make sure that what I write is good Christian fiction, I have to give myself distance between my first draft and my editing process. I also have to pray about the message the book should be giving and hope that God gives me enough insight to ensure that I achieve that message through my story.
When it comes to personal growth, I find that turning to my Bible is the best place to start for goal setting. For example, all I need to do is contemplate the fruit of the Spirit or one of Paul’s letters to the early churches to come away with a clear list of the kind of race to run in this walk with Christ.
How do you approach your daily living? Does goal setting make a difference in your life? In your relationship with God? Before the holidays are upon us, take a moment or two to reflect on where your life has been this past year, and where you think God wants it to go in the year to come.
Author: Ramona Levacy Billingslea
I am a 50-something Texan with a feisty cat and a supportive husband of 25+ years. With a Master's degree in English with an emphasis on creative writing, I have taught creative writing at Texas Tech, won awards for my writing and been blessed to be mentored by Horn Professor and poet Dr. Walt McDonald. I earn a living by helping my husband's family run a health food store, but my avocation is writing. I hope you enjoy reading about some of my triumphs and tragedies as I continue to work on figuring out what life is all about and on growing my ability to share my writing. May your own journey be a blessed one.
Hidey holes
There are weeks when I am more than tempted to find a nice, warm hole somewhere to crawl into and pull the covers up over my head. Stress plays a big part during these weeks. Either I have had too much to do, have pulled myself in too many different directions, or otherwise placed too many pressures on myself. Often, they are weeks when I have been called upon more often than I am comfortable with to put myself out in the world and interact with people. (Being a natural introvert, social activities can be a real nightmare.)
I mention these areas because I know so many other people often feel the same way, even if it is for different reasons. The bottom line is, God doesn’t want us to hide in little holes away from the rest of humanity. How can we be Christ to the world if we are hovering under the covers in our bed?
So, my first step on weeks like this should be to turn to my Bible and my God in prayer. Then, I need to take a good look at my life and how I am spending my time and then get it all back into balance. Then, I need to pull back the covers and crawl out of my hole–with a smile, ready for the world.
The problem is, that’s not what I usually do. I usually wind up in a frenzy of activity, literally holing myself up in house chores and errands, and anything else that will cut me off from real human contact. I usually wind up being snappy with the people who have to be around me, or shut myself away from them emotionally while I feel sorry for myself.
Why is it that we know what to do, but so often refuse to do it? The only slack I can cut myself is considering how even David, who had a heart like God’s, wound up doing the wrong thing now and again. Now, like David, I need to step up, wipe the dust off my knees, repent of my failings and determine to take the first step, yet again, of my renewed self. No finding hidey holes in the week ahead. Instead, I need to pray for the courage and the balance in my life to make the difference God put me here to master in the first place.
How about you?
Fish or Cut Bait?
I am working on a short story collection, among other things, and in doing so, I have dredged up some of my former “masterpieces” to consider. I have begun by typing up one of the older ones that I no longer had a text file on, at first just typing what was on the page and doing some small edits here and there.
But, as I came to the conclusion of my previously written story, I realized that I hadn’t done quite as good a job as I thought at the time. In fact, I might even have written a total bomb. I can only say that my creative writing instructor at the time must have taken mercy on me, or given me a pass for the totality of my work.
So, now is the time to make the decision ever writer has to make at some point in the process of most works. Do I have something worth fighting for as a final product, or should I file this one in the round cabinet, where so many of my lost hopes have found their final resting place?
For this story, I find that there are several elements in the original story when it comes to the characters and even the action that I just failed to fully develop. I, being much younger and less experienced in the world, simply let the ball drop. The problems and conflicts and possibilities of the characters and plot, I find, do still intrigue me. And, I know that I am more qualified than I was at the time to further explore the relationships that I barely skimmed the surface of on my original attempt.
The downside to my story is I have a central action that needs to take place that I know very little about and have very little interest in personally. So, I have to get the discipline to study this area enough to make the details of the action believable, or I have to decide to change the setting and circumstances of the story to avoid having to do the research to ring true. How important is the original central conflict to the true conflict I find developed as I drafted the piece, the conflict that I think I could develop into something much more fulfilling?
These are important issues to any story re-write. Becoming a good writer is so much more than just dreaming up a storyline and characters. We have to also be winnowers, shifting the chaff from the wheat. And that is always a bit easier to do the longer it has been since you first wrote something. Even Ernest Hemingway said that the first draft of anything is trash. That’s so hard to take to heart when you are in the early drafts of anything new. But, when you have the luxury of time to reflect on your writing, it’s actually so right.
For now, I’m going to keep fishing on this short story. Only time will tell if I should truly let all or part of the story go.
Finding the empty spaces
The French philosopher, Montagne, once said, “My life is filled with many tragedies, most of which never happened.” We choose how to interpret the information with which we are bombarded daily. We choose what to let in, what to keep out, and how to react and think about the things that happen to us. Really understanding that and practicing it in our daily lives in a positive way can be very empowering.
One of my biggest problems is that I seem to be always thinking. Even when I pray, I often have undercurrents of the day running through my head behind the words I am saying out loud to God. If my mind is never still, will I ever really know that He is God?
That leaves me looking for the empty spaces in my brain. I know they are in there. God orders moments of rest for us. He tells us to be still. He spoke to the prophets, not in the whirlwind, but in a whisper. In the quiet places of my mind, I’ll find the message of the Holy Spirit.
But where are my empty spaces? I know where they are not. Not in front of a blaring television or a flashing computer screen. Not gossiping on the telephone or shopping in the mall. Not fretting about chores that need done or stories to write.
There are times and places for all of these things (though some of them should have none of my time at all). But there should be a time in each day when I can be still, stop thinking, concentrate on my breathing and wait for God’s whisper. It will take practice, like all things worthwhile, but in a world full of information and distractions, it is necessary.
Have you found your empty spaces lately?
Pursuing Gentleness
Paul admonishes Timothy to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. I am no Timothy, but if I am trying to use my writing to share Christianity, then surely I should also take these pursuits to heart. It goes without saying that righteousness and godliness are challenges every day. However, I think one of my biggest challenges from this list is actually gentleness.
Why would I say that gentleness is the hardest pursuit? I believe it is because gentleness is the one admonition that truly requires us to remove all judgment, see things from others’ perspectives, and gain our best hope of leading someone out of the darkness and into the light.
In other of his writings, Paul admonishes to lead other’s gently, especially those who have turned away from God in the things that they do. He also warns to be careful not to fall into the same trap of evil as the one you are trying to turn back to God. Sin is so tempting because it is the easy way. Trying to make the right choices is much more challenging, which is why we must have Jesus in our lives in order to have a chance of doing what is right. The easiness of sin is also why being gentle when we are trying to instruct in ways that are opposed to sin is so important.
Of course, Paul makes it clear in other texts that there are times, once gentleness has been tried unsuccessfully, when a person must be handed over to the devil in the hopes of shocking that person into coming back to the light.
But this kind of heavy hand is not the purview of a writer of fiction. No, I should reflect a gentleness that expresses the faith, love, endurance, righteousness, and godliness of a strong walk with Christ.
Thankfully, my writing is something I can edit, ponder, and “perfect,” not like my conversation, which is often quick to judgment and often not gentle. So, like all readers of Timothy, I must strive every day to be gentle, not just when I am trying to write something. And that may just take the most endurance of all.
Defining Christian Fiction
Just what is good, Christian fiction, anyway? Should it be all sugary and simple, with clear black and white edges? Should there be major near-misses and only glimpses of tragedy? Or should it be all messy and obscure with very few answers and more questions than you can shake a stick at?
For myself, I like to break the phrase into its obvious parts. First, it is good fiction. Good fiction shows without telling, renders the reader through the experience, has vibrant language full of nouns and verbs, reflects the age in which it is set, leaves the reader with an enhanced sense of what it means to be human.
Christian fiction centralizes primarily on characters who believe in Christ and are striving to live accordingly or on characters who are coming to know Christ. Its characters should reflect their knowledge of the Bible, make choices according to its precepts, ask for forgiveness when they inevitably stumble.
Just as “a life worth knowing must be lived,” I believe good, Christian fiction must reflect what it means to really be Christian in any age. That includes making bad choices sometimes, having really bad things happen to really good people, and dealing with wanting God to say yes when you really know, deep down, that His answer is no.
Abraham Lincoln once said of Christianity, “it hasn’t been tried and found wanting. It hasn’t been tried.” The reality of that statement is what makes me want to write. I think God gave me a talent for writing so I could help myself figure out what it means to be Christian in this modern world. I also hope that I am supposed to be sharing that talent (and that I don’t just have some super ego that wishes that’s what He wanted from me).
I take very seriously the admonition that teachers of the Word are held accountable for what they teach. I also take seriously the power of fiction to make us think differently about the world in which we live. If I create good fiction and Christian fiction, hopefully I will help somebody besides just myself understand the challenges that stand between our own needs and the simple but powerful edict that sums up Christianity–to love.
Perfection Versus Good Enough
This week, I am particularly working on picking my battles when it comes to my overwhelming compulsion to be a perfectionist. First of all, perfectionism doesn’t exist. All I can do, in the end, is my best. In addition, my best is further actually qualified by the parameters of the current task, the deadline I face, my current state of health, etc. Finally, I often work too hard at being better in areas that are good enough, thereby leaving areas in my life that could actually use more effort dangling in the wind.
The most important point about perfectionism, however, is that no matter how good I am at anything, I don’t have to be in order to achieve the most important thing of all–the mercy of God. God gives me salvation through the grace of my faith in Jesus, whether I am perfect at the latest thing I am working on or not.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not completely off the hook. Because of my acceptance of God’s love, I have become, as Paul tells us, “a new creation.” I want to do what is good and right and loving, extending the grace that has been offered me to others as well.
So, if I am going to worry about perfection in anything, it should be in my walk outside the life of sin. Being dead to sin, I should wake up each day trying to be perfect in Christ, forgiving and loving others and myself when I stumble, being open in my communication with God, from whom there is no secrets, so that I might be forgiven my mistakes and start the next day anew, His mercies surrounding me to help me do better this next day I have been given.
And I don’t exceed in anything that is truly important to God if I get caught up in the day-to-day spiral of trying to bring to perfection that which only requires good enough, especially when love should truly be the greatest goal of all.
Masks
I recently had to attend a convention-type event for my day job, which turned out to be a very pleasant experience. For an introvert like myself, that outcome for such events is not usually the case. At any rate, for myself, as with even the extroverts in the room, events like conventions are places where we can become aware of the different faces we wear in the world because these are the types of places where we meet a lot of people we do not know. In a psychology or literature class, you might call these faces “masks.” For an introvert like myself, I have to put on a brave face in crowds. I make myself smile, nod at people’s comments, and try to think of good questions to ask so I can add something to the conversation. Around my family, I can immediately allow my displeasure to be shown. When I am around strangers, I have to find more delicate ways to get a negative opinion across, if that is what is called for.
When I start to think about the different masks I wear, the different roles I play in this life–from wife to daughter, from sister to friend, from employee to boss–I am struck by the realization that God sees all my masks, every one of them, not just the mask I put on to pray or go to church on Sunday morning.
You understand, I am not talking of masks as fake facades, but as differing projections of the self. We are, after all, slightly different if not enormously different, in different situations. But God sees the person underneath and the projected self all the time, even the much of the time that we forget He is watching.
How alike would my masks become if I could see myself through God’s eyes all the time? I would become a better person, certainly, but would I be a different person at home visiting my parents than I am teaching a class to my employees?
I would hope that any differences would be of such little importance (perhaps better posture in one situation than another or slightly less formal language, for example) that my masks are all essentially the real me. And, hopefully, the real me is the projection of God any true believer in Christ should always strive to be.
Are You Too Young For Glue?
I was relishing one of my Dennis the Menace books the other day, when I was particularly struck by one of my favorite cartoons that I had completely forgotten about. In this one drawing snippet into the life of a rascally young boy, Dennis is standing in front of his mother, perfectly cute and cuddly looking as only children and puppy dogs can be, but covered randomly from his head to his toes with pieces of paper. The caption for the picture reads, “You were right, Mama, I’m too young for glue.”
When I finished chuckling and put the book back down, I was struck by the idea that this simple truth might be applied to my own, Christian life. How often, after all, do I plunge head on into situations or plans without first considering what the Bible, and thereby, God, has to say about it? The first example that came to my mind was Christ’s admonition to remove the moat from our own eye before worrying about the speck in someone else’s. How often, in a single day, have I wound up with bits of paper stuck to me without even realizing it through the rush to judgment and gossipy talk in which I have engaged?
I’m too young to play with glue yet when it comes to many aspects of the Christian life, even though I have been trying to live my faith as a way of life for more than 30 years.
How about you? Are you old enough for glue yet? Let’s keep praying and studying the Word, and I am confident God’s grace will get us there.
God is not restrained
The last time you read about the adventures and perils of David and his good friend, Jonathan, the son of David’s enemy, King Saul, did you happen to linger for any time at 1 Samuel 14:6?
I didn’t, but I’m glad today that the preacher at church did, for in that verse, Jonathan, who is about to face down 20 Phillistines with only the aid of his armor-bearer, proclaims his faith in the Lord by stating that God is not restrained by many or by few when it comes to accomplishing His will.
As the preacher asked this morning of the congregation how many of us had let ourselves give up because we were too few, I was struck anew at the concept of the mustard seed and God’s ability to do more than we can ever imagine with even the smallest gesture on our part that is in keeping with His will and accomplished through faith.
God cannot be restrained. God will not be restrained. I find that comforting in the wake of so many crazy things that seem to be happening in our world. I also find that comforting as a struggling writer who feels that God gave her an ability to write for a reason. I, of course, am often thinking that reason should be something much more grand and glorious than I have heretofore accomplished, but Jonathan’s example reminds me that the smallest thing I do with my writing might just be what God had in mind when He handed that talent to me.
So, ask yourself today, where in my life am I forgetting that God cannot be restrained by many or by few? Go ahead. Prayerfully and with faith, take that tiny step you’ve held yourself back from when you were thinking, as I was, that it would not be enough.
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