For those who know me personally, the idea of me and romance going together probably just doesn’t fit. But I must admit, I am a “closet romantic.” I like to read a good, clean love story.
As a person trying to write good, Christian fiction, the concept of a love story takes on much bigger dimensions. Love, especially in connection to Christ’s covenant with us, is all-encompassing. Remember, when Christ was asked what the most important commandment was, He said love God first and love our neighbors as we love ourselves. These two commands, He explained, cover all the others.
Isn’t this one of the most profound truths about our relationship to God? Love explains it all. It’s so simple to explain, and yet so, so complicated to enact in everyday life.
So, the love between a man and a woman, which is at the heart of every good romance, isn’t enough for a good, Christian romance. That type of romance needs to make us think about the ways we love in our relationship to God, our own selves and others, not just the tension and nerves that lead up to the perfect kiss.
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.
Time is a powerful editor
If you ever wondered who your best critic may be, don’t plan on your present self for your most recent work. Also, don’t plan on your mother, or favorite uncle, or even your meanest aunt. For one thing, people who love you will always see your work through that love filter. For another, chances are these loving people also share a big cache of the same experiences you do. They can, in other words, read into what you may have actually failed to convey to an audience that hasn’t seen you in your nappies.
You can be your best editor, eventually. When you have just finished the first draft of something is not the time to be that editor. When you have just written something, it is still too new and fresh, your baby, cuddled in your arms and loved. Put it away for a time, as long as you can and still make your deadlines, before returning to it with an editor’s eye.
I was reminded of this advice, heard so often from experienced and successful writers, as I was digging through my old short stories this week to begin working on a collection to publish. Some of the stories are so old, I have somehow managed to lose the original files. In all honesty, some of them may have even been typed up on the old electric where I began to learn the keyboard in my high school days.
The point is not my age showing, but that, as I have begun to look at these stories afresh, I am seeing the nuances I failed to offer in language and structure the first time around. I can also see how much I have grown as a writer through the years, as real-life experiences have tempered my abilities to paint pictures with words.
Time can be the great healer, then, of hearts and wounds, and words.
Living the Fruit of the Spirit
As I sat in Bible class on Sunday morning, listening as others were picking out what they had found of note in the previous week’s reading of Galatians, a couple of pretty powerful conclusions came to me.
The first began as I looked at the footnote in my NASB for the phrase “the righteous man will live by faith,” which said that what was meant here was actually closer to the word “faithfulness.”
Now, faith and faithfulness, I believe, are two entirely different animals. In our venacular, we tend to equate the word faith with belief, which implies just believing that Christ is risen is sufficient for salvation. But faithfulness means something beyond mere belief. Faithfulness
is more like believing by doing. Aha. Now, we have a problem. If I must believe by doing in order to be redeemed, then do my actions and not grace save me? Perhaps a better definition of faithfulness might be belief through being.
Let me explain.
The second grand conclusion I discovered Sunday was the fact that the fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23 are actually the “fruit” of the Spirit. Singular, not plural, implying a crop or harvest of something. Once redeemed, the one who lives in faithfulness is seeking to be one who embodies all of the characteristics of Galatians 5:22-23. This is a state of being, fostered by the indwelling Spirit, redeemed upon inevitable failure by the grace of Christ.
Which brings us to the question of legalism. When Christ said his yoke was light, I believe he meant in comparison to the yoke of fulfillment which constituted Jewish religion at that time. The Talmud (as opposed to the Torah, upon which our modern OT cannon is based), which elaborated on the items of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, had grown to include so many items, that I am sure living up to its mandates would be something like living in the mind of a person with OCD. Wash hands so many times before touching this, step on a crack, break your mother’s back. That sort of thing.
When Christ proposed to lift the yoke of this kind of living, He could not have meant that living
would suddenly be easier. How is it a lighter yoke to be loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, meek and in control of the self–all the time? It is lighter, perhaps, in that instead of following a distinct set of rules, the freedom of salvation means the freedom to be, not do. The actions that happen as a result of being are much lighter than actions required from a list of doing.
I think the Western mind may have a problem with this concept that believing still requires doing because we do not wrap our minds around the concept of dualities. There’s a little bit of the feminine in the masculine and vice versa. We all have good and evil. Being is more than just believing, even though our actions, ultimately, are not what save us. When Christ, and subsequently Paul, smashed the legalistic requirements of salvation, they opened the door to a way of life that embodied more than any written law. Living the law of Christ is very different from living the Talmud. It is much more challenging, but it is also freeing because, as the Nicole Nordemann song reminds us–“His mercies are new every morning.” No matter how often we fall, as long as we sincerely repent, Christ helps us rise to begin again.
A few of my favorite . . . authors
Maybe it’s not a law on the books in some creepy, courthouse basement, but it is a law of nature that to be a good writer, you need to be a good reader. Also, I think you can tell a bit about the kind of writer a person is based on his/her favorite authors. Here are some of mine.
If you are interested in good, Christian fiction (and, presumably, that’s exactly what has found you here), then you may have already enjoyed some of the great work of Francine Rivers. Her Redeeming Love and The Last Sin Eater are page turners that will have you laughing, crying and in suspense. You really get to know and love her characters. And no Christian writer that I’ve come across does a better job of historical Christian fiction than Ms. Rivers. These books are for teens on the verge of adulthood at the youngest, if for no other reason than the depth of the issues the stories deal with.
My absolute favorite writer on general Christian topics (I guess you might call him an essayist) is Philip Yancey. He is straightfoward, more than well-read on a wide variety of subjects, and not afraid to admit when he doesn’t have an answer. He is “tuned in” to God in a powerful way, and taking time to read some of his books can only enhance your own walk with and understanding of our relationship to God. At least, that’s been my experience.
Since I have always been interested in history and other cultures, there are a few mass audience writers that I also enjoy. Bernard Cornwell is someone who does a great job of rendering you through the experiences of events that happened hundreds of years ago. Edward Rutherford also does a great job of going far back in time and making us understand the world from different perspectives. I especially liked his Sarum and London books.
Having a Master’s degree in English, I also enjoy good, stand-the-test-of-time literature. Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Jane Austen are some of my favorites. Newer writers like Toni Morrison and Leslie Marmon Silko also rate at the top of my list for their ability to represent all of us at the same time they see the world from their unique, cultural perspectives. Fiction that has the lyricism of poetry will get me any and every time.
Finding my writing feet
I have been writing stories and poetry since I learned to read and write. Before that, like all of us, I was writing stories in the childplay of sea-faring adventures where the living room couch became a schooner or the jungle-infested journeys where my stuffed animals were my companions.
I was never much one for the dress-up play. That was too “girly.” I was much more interested in the ideas that could be conjured from the history and culture that surrounded me in my home smack-dab in the middle of Indian Territory. There were flints and arrowheads to be found, after all. Or ghosts to discover in the attic or narrow closets of the 100-year-old home where I lived. My sister and I, entombed in the past, made secret plans to knock out the wall of the utility room, behind which we were convinced lurked a hidden room, full of treasure–or skeletons.
Was it any wonder I slept with a night light? When you are young and sometimes too smart for your own good, a great imagination can be as much a detriment as a blessing.
I learned to love the rhythm of words from the music I embraced. Old country songs, gospel hymns, and true rock-and-roll. Even though I was high school age in the 80s, I couldn’t tell you anything about the music of that era. My radio station was tuned to oldies radio, where Buddy Holly and Paul Simon taught me all I needed to know about the love of language and the ability to take people to another place through words.
In the beginning was the Word, John tells us. I embrace the full depth of that concept. For, without words, which even God used to breathe this world into existence, where would we be? How would we know anything? Define the self? Communicate the full breadth of what it is to love?
I celebrate with other wordsmiths our love of language and encourage us all to keep up the good fight of perfecting what it is to make meaning for ourselves and others through this very precious gift of language with which the good Lord has blessed us.
Writing Blues
To be honest, even though I feel compelled to write, it isn’t always fun. It is especially trying when I have to fit it in to a busy schedule. Frankly, I don’t know how you other writers do it. I am especially proud of those parents who find time to write besides already having two full-time jobs–the job that pays the bills and the job of raising children.
I have to admit, I don’t write everyday. Some people say you have to, or if you don’t, you don’t really want it badly enough. Maybe that is true, but my truth is that my paying job requires me to write and use my creative skills and there are just some days when my brain is too tired to sit in front of the computer and come up with even more creative writing, no matter how interested I am in my current story.
If all great writers are a little crazy, maybe I have a shot. I deal with a lot of anxiety and guilt in life in general, riddled with “shoulds” and the good, old Puritan work ethic. When it comes to my writing, these tendencies can make things much more difficult for me. I can never tell if I am being too hard on myself or not hard enough. Like, should I really be feeling guilty, or am I just feeling guilty because of my own brain malfunction?
I don’t know if other writers have these issues. One thing I read earlier this week was a good reminder for me, though, on how to deal with them. The character in the novel I was reading had a task she felt compelled to complete, but inadequate to undergo. The character finds comfort in realizing that if God truly wants her to accomplish the task, He will give her the help she needs to complete it. I just have to keep reminding myself that, even as I try to work on activities like this blog.
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