How to handle the heat

With heat waving a red flag across the country this 4th of July week, I thought you might welcome timely tips from an almost native Floridian who hopes to help you find your cool.

Dress for the heat. Wear loose-fitting cotton, gauze, linen, and other natural fabrics. Or, wear synthetic clothes designed to absorb moisture and let air flow.

Scan and then back up your important family documents and photos. Make backup copies of your manuscripts and other computer files too. Having backups is important any time, but if the heat brings storms, flooding, or fires, a flash drive or DVD enables you to keep all of your essential files with you.

Keep curtains closed during the day, and blinds drawn or tilted upward.

Instead of turning the air conditioner down to a super low temp, make it higher than normal, so your sunglasses don’t fog as you go out and your electric bill doesn’t punch through the roof. A few degrees might make a difference, too, in helping your community to avoid brownouts or blackouts as electrical usage soars.

When going out, apply UV protection or sunscreen to every exposed inch of bare skin, including the tops of your feet if wearing sandals and top of your head if lacking hat or hair.

Drink more water than usual, and have plenty of drinking water stored at home.

Always, always take drinking water with you in the car.

Never leave kids, pets, or people of any age closed up in a vehicle for even “just a sec.”

Keep cash in small bills on hand in case the electricity goes out, which means that stores cannot process your credit card.

Keep your car filled with gas in case electricity goes out, shutting down electrically-powered gas pumps. If things heat up too much, you might also welcome a drive to an air-conditioned church, mall, or movie theater.

To cool down without a/c, sponge icy water over pulse points in the forehead, temples, inner wrists, ankles, and back of the knees. (This helps to break a fever too.) If the water just doesn’t seem cold enough, don’t apply ice directly to the skin, but do add a cap of rubbing alcohol to the water.

If you’re outside long enough to feel drenched, you might need more salt than usual or an electrolyte-balancing drink. I also make my own energizer drink with one spoon of honey melted in a tad of warm water before adding one spoon of natural apple-cider vinegar then filling the glass with cool water, stirred and iced.

Plan light meals for hot weather – for instance, an all-veggie dinner or a fresh salad with all-natural, preservative-free dressing and cubes of canned tuna or slices of stir-fried chicken or salmon on top.

Buy bags of charcoal for outdoor grilling instead of heating up the kitchen.

Stock your kitchen with fresh, watery fruits or melons and foods that do not have to be refrigerated.

Vow not to sweat the small stuff nor stuff your mind with thoughts of anything hot.

Pray to keep your cool.

~~

© 2012, Mary Sayler

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What to do if your work weighs you down

One of the biggest problems I’ve had over the years as a Christian writer is getting overloaded with “good work.” Demands and deadlines appear, while time disappears too quickly—a problem Jesus also encountered in His work.

So if your work-schedule has become too burdensome or sent you scurrying around at warp speed, the best response to the title is “nothing.” Just sit down a while. Rest up. Pray. Read a Psalm. Read this poem:


Laborious
by Mary Harwell Sayler

The spider owns the air
on which the web is woven,
the bird that patch of sky.

Why does my work weigh me down?

In the beginning, the Creator made work
an invitation,
not the chore that later came
when the garden got
left behind.

Rampant ideas
tangle untended.

Money mars motivation.

Time demands priorities.

Deadlines jangle,
words juggle
to fit a perfect page.

Enough!

May this day be woven
of sky and air and Holy
Spirit.

Let God be
the center
of the air, the work, the
weave.


~~

© 2012, Mary Sayler, all rights reserved. The poem "Laborious" appears in Mary's poetry book Living in the Nature Poem published by Hiraeth Press © 2012.
May the peace and quiet of the Lord be with you always.

~~

Writing on Memorial Day and beyond

Yesterday for Pentecost we celebrated the Jewish memorial to the coming of the Torah and the Christian memorial to the coming of the Holy Spirit. Today we celebrate and remember the men and women who serve this country and protect our freedoms.

What a privilege to live in the United States of America! What a wonderful gift to have freedom to worship God! What an amazing gift to live as Holy Spirit-filled citizens in the Kingdom of God!

As Christian poets, writers, and editors we also have the gift and privilege to research, write, edit, publish, and review Bible-based books, articles, devotionals, poems, stories, letters, post-a-notes, email, text messages, and other genres that help us to “memorialize” our faith as we honor God, remember the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and celebrate the Holy Spirit in our lives.

~~

© 2012, Mary Sayler, all rights reserved. For short articles and devotionals on a variety of Bible topics, follow Blogs by Mary. And may God remind us of all we have been given to write with enthusiasm and love in Jesus’ Name.

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An Interview with Spiritual Author Mary Harwell Sayler | Hiraeth Press

An Interview with Spiritual Author Mary Harwell Sayler | Hiraeth Press

Are Christian publishers afraid of poetry?

Christian or not, book publishers have the same goal: Selling books. And Christian or not, book editors surely do not want to risk the reputations of their companies or themselves by publishing books apt to have few sales. That’s understandable, but if Christians are to be the head and not the tail of publishing trends, perhaps we might reconsider.

Would we have the poetry of Dante, Milton, Herbert, or Eliot if they were seeking publication today?

Would poems by Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins find a place in our society?

Why does Amazon show 5,240 results for “spiritual poetry” and 22,634 for “religious poetry books” with many new titles released by traditional publishing companies, while 10,453 titles for “Christian poetry” merely include poems by Christians or present the works of poets long dead or overflow with self-published poetry that often demonstrates little thought of readers and no editorial input?

Readers, movie-goers, and television-watchers show an avid, sometimes morbid, interest in the afterlife and spiritual realm, so the “market” is obviously there, and the field is wide. Lord willing, I’ll post an overview of the exquisite Torah-based poetry of a Jewish poet this week on the Bible People blog because I am delighted to see poetry on a literary level bring Judeo-Christian scriptures to life. But we need more Christian poets and writers who speak in an educated, poetic voice to spiritual seekers.

We need more artistically winsome ways to win over people who see the church as irrelevant and win back Christians who have fallen away.

We need more Christian publishers ready to take a stand and take a chance that, yes, all genres have power. Poetry has power, and from the beginning – in the very beginning – was the most highly poetic Word.

~~
© 2012, Mary Harwell Sayler, all rights reserved. For articles on a variety of Bible topics, see Blogs by Mary. May God bless and guide our work in Jesus’ Name.
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First Look at Living in the Nature Poems by Mary Harwell Sayler | Hiraeth Press

First Look at Living in the Nature Poems by Mary Harwell Sayler | Hiraeth Press

Holy Week makes an ideal time to visit churches, inconspicuously!

Christians may still be in the majority in the U.S.A., but church pews do not reflect this very well! With attendance dropping dramatically from year to year, smaller churches have become in danger of closing. These trends seem particularly worrisome in a climate building toward religious intolerance of Protestant, Catholic, Evangelical, Pentecostal, and other Christian denominations.

What if all of our churches closed?

or

What if our churches embrace one another in Christ and work together to re-unite, rather than dis-member, the Body of Christ?

For many years, my family and I had a variety of work-related moves around the country that gave us the blessing of being part of almost every major denomination. Therefore, I consider myself an ecumenical part of all! That’s not an experience Christians commonly have, however, so I want to let you know what I found to be true in every denomination of every church of every size:

People get their feelings hurt and stop attending their home church.

New pastors, priests, and rectors come and go, sometimes changing things too quickly for church members to accept and adapt to the changes, and so they pull away.

Christians who grew up in the church their parents picked might be familiar with that denomination but might not choose it for themselves!

Many people seem afraid to search for another denomination, perhaps because their families might not approve or they’re timid about attending an unfamiliar service without an invitation from someone who can accompany them and explain the order of worship.

But then, many Christians seem shy about inviting others to church for fear they will be rebuffed or thought of as a religious fanatic!

Other reasons cause declining interest, too, but what do we do about what we know?

We can let the situation slide until the whole church backslides into an ineffectual influence at a time when the power of Christ is surely needed!

or

We can pray about the problem and see what God brings to mind. For example, some workable solutions might be to:

Invite friends, family, or neighbors to attend a worship service with you.

Consider visiting a church denomination you have never attended.

Look for the official website for the headquarters of every denomination that interests you, and also visit sites of denominations you think you would never consider joining!

Research the mission statement, creed, or general information about each denomination.

Especially, notice the mutual beliefs important to you.

For example, if you believe in baptism by immersion, check out the official websites for Southern Baptist, Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, and Roman Catholics, the latter of whom lets you choose immersion if you desire. That assumes, though, that you have not already been baptized in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit since that is considered a valid baptism by Catholics, Episcopalians, and many other denominations.

With a little online research, you can find out whatever you want to know, but here’s what I found that’s important to me:

Most Christians in most denominations love God and the Bible.

Most denominations have the same basic tenets of faith, for example, believing in God as the Father of Jesus, Mary as the Virgin Mother, Jesus the Christ as Savior, and the Holy Spirit as our advocate and spiritual guide.

Most churches also welcome visitors – with open arms anytime, but if you want to be inconspicuous, that’s most likely to happen during Easter (or Christmas) as people return to church worship, recalling the reasons to come together and celebrate:

Jesus Christ has come!
Christ has forgiven you!
Christ has died for your sins!
Christ has risen!
Christ lives in you and in the church Body of Christ.

What Good News to celebrate with each other in the churches of our choice! What Good News to write about in our poems, devotionals, books, stories, articles, letters, emails, tweets, text-messages, blogs, and love notes throughout the year!


~~
© 2012, Mary Sayler, all rights reserved. For articles on a variety of Bible topics, follow Blogs by Mary.May God bless your Holy Week and your church search in Jesus’ Name.
~~

Writing fiction for Christians of all ages

First, have a Bible-based theme and purpose clearly in mind. For example, three of my novels focused on Romans 8:28: “For we know that all things work together for good for those who love God.” Each time I used that theme, the stories differed, but my purpose remained the same: to help strengthen the faith of readers and draw them closer to God.

Together your theme and purpose make a thesis statement that you can use later in your book proposal and back jacket blurb. As you write and revise fiction, your thesis statement will also help you to point your story or novel toward a credible ending while developing characters who care enough to act for and against your story theme.

Fiction for Christian readers especially needs a factual foundation with biblical truths acted out on each page. This means being true to Judeo-Christian values and to human nature -- true to the fears, frustrations, anger, worries, and longings people experience over the course of a lifetime and over the course of your story plot.

To immerse yourself in true drama, just look around. Watch people, but also consider the ups and downs in your own life. Most importantly, read the Bible, especially the book of Genesis. In that first book of the living word of God, you will find the beginning of almost every interesting story on the earth!

Those timeless yet timely Bible stories, Bible plots, Bible people, and biblical settings continue to affect every culture and also replay in contemporary lives and homes. To find good models to help you develop your story characters, look at the character development of Abram to Abraham and Sarai to Sarah.

The Bible also offers countless possibilities for developing a story plot. For example, read about the actions-reactions-consequences and outcome (i.e., the plot) that occurred when Abraham took Sarah’s advice and took her maid! See what happened before and after Ishmael was born and, later, Isaac. See if similar sagas might work well in faith-building stories for today’s readers, including non-Christian or secular readers with no awareness of Judeo-Christian values or what might happens when people try to follow God.

Although fiction may not be a “true story” that you’ve experienced or heard about, it must be a truth story -- one in which each character speaks or acts as a similar person would in real life. Sometimes, though, Christian writers believe they have to show a character’s relationship with God in such a positive, upbeat light that non-Christian readers think the resulting fiction is overly sentimental or downright sappy! Inspirational novels and stories do well to end on a word of hope, of course, but each chapter needs some kind of struggle, conflict, or obstacle to overcome, not only to strengthen Christian faith but also to build an interesting and highly credible story readers will enjoy and believe.

~~

© 2012, Mary Sayler, all rights reserved. May God guide you in writing biblical truths in Jesus’ Name.

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Writing devotionals

Devotional writing begins with devoting daily quiet times to praying, Bible reading, and meditating on what God says to us and wants us to say to others. This way of getting closer to God may receive more emphasis during Lent, but for devotional writers, these quiet times become a way of life especially appropriate in a Christian writer’s life.

Not every Christian poet, writer, or Bible lover will be drawn to devotional writing, but if you are, you probably like to read the Bible! You probably remember to pray, and you probably have insights that come to you as you spend time with God.

To get ready to write, keep a notebook handy for those inspired thoughts God puts on your mind. Better yet, get a wide-margin Bible in each of your favorite translations, so you can interact with Holy Scripture and respond by taking note.

In addition to shaping those fresh thoughts into devotionals, you might have poems or articles that, with a little tweaking or revising, would fit this pattern for short devotionals:

Title – For short devotionals that you plan to send to a magazine or other periodical, the title will usually be a short phrase or single key word. For a full-length, one-year devotional book, your title needs to reflect your 365-day theme and purpose such as Devoted to Marriage: Devoted to God. Each day’s devotional would then use the date as the title.

Bible verse – After the title comes a Bible verse from which the entire devotional flows. If you’re writing for Catholic readers, the New American Bible (NAB) makes your safest choice for quotes, but the Revised Standard Version (RSV), New Jerusalem Bible (NJB), and Good News or Today’s English Version (TEV) usually work too. For evangelical Christian readers, the main choices will be the New American Standard Bible (NASB), New International Version (NIV), English Standard Bible (ESB), or King James Version (KJV.) For interdenominational choices, consider the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), New Living Translation (NLT), or new Common English Bible.

If you’re writing a book of devotionals, be aware, too, that each translation comes with its own set of rules for permission. Most of the above translations allow you to use 250 verses without having to get permission from the publisher, but some let you go up to 500 verses or more. To find out, look in the front matter of the edition you choose.

Text – With your chosen Bible verse to guide you, the main body of your devotional might be a poetic flow of insight or a true-to-life episode to illustrate that particular verse. A “take-away” will then show your readers how to apply the verse in their lives, but most importantly: This will show, not tell them!

Prayer – In one or two sentences, a prayer ties together all of the above and helps readers to seek God’s guidance in that area. Also, a full-length book of devotionals needs to have a consistent format, and the closing prayer is no exception. So, decide at the start if you will use first person plural (we/ us/ our) or second person (you/ your.)

First personal singular (I/ my/ me/ mine/) can make a devotional seem all about me-me-me, while second person can sound, well, preachy! First person plural can help to unite you and your readers since we are all in this together. Before you decide on a perspective to use in your devotionals, try them out to see which seems most natural to you. If, however, you know which publisher you hope will accept your manuscript, follow their guidelines.

If you do not know who publishes what, you will find annually updated editorial contacts and guidelines for your devotional articles, books, poems, novels, children’s books, and more in The Christian Writer's Market Guide, a highly recommended book that lists traditional publishers who just might be highly open to your work:



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© 2012, Mary Harwell Sayler, all rights reserved. If this article helps you to encourage a Christian writer-friend or someone in your church to write devotionals, just acknowledge this source. For fresh views of Bible topics, see Blogs by Mary.

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Does one Bible fit all Christian readers and denominations?

When translating from ancient Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic languages into contemporary English, variations occur because of the synonyms translators choose from and also because of archaic phrases that would puzzle readers today. Some translators convert each word into English, but most choose to render old idioms or colloquial expressions into current thoughts or contemporary phrases, rather than translating word for word.

If you plan to write Bible stories, Bible studies, church curriculum, or other Bible-based poems and manuscripts for Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox readers, you’ll do well to compare the many fine translations on the Internet, or, better yet, get a copy of every English version of the Bible you can find.

As you see how biblical scholars translate a familiar verse or story in a truthful but fresh or unfamiliar way, you’ll broaden your view of God’s word and better understand where your readers are coming from, regardless of their denominational beliefs.

Whether you use Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox editions of the Bible, all of the books of the New Testament will be the same and in the same order. In the Hebrew Bible or “Old Testament,” however, the number and placement of the books may vary, depending on whether the translators accepted the Septuagint – the Greek Bible that most Jews and Christians read up until the first century or so.

After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the Jewish leaders agreed to accept only the books written in Hebrew as they canonized the Bible, but the early church continued to use the books in the Greek Bible too, referring to them as deuterocanonical.

Then, after the Reformation, the deuterocanonical books were removed from English versions, including the King James Version, which originally included them all. After this, the “extra” canonical books were generally referred to as apocryphal, which means hidden.

Those books remained hidden from many of us until recently. But then, just this week as I researched information for the new posting “Which Bible would Jesus choose?” for the Bible Reviewer blog, I discovered that almost every translation of the Christian Bible now offers all of the books!

Bible book publishers may still refer to the “extra” books as the Apocrypha, but who cares as long as you know what to look for in the bookstore. You also might enjoy, as I did, the joy of discovering those “hidden” books for your personal reading. More importantly, perhaps, Christians who once again have all of the books in common might be less apt to think of ourselves according to denominations but according to our solid word-for-word translation into the Kingdom of God through our one Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

~~

© 2012, Mary Sayler, all rights reserved. If you want to share the information in this article, be sure to acknowledge the source and website. For more information on the many wonderful translations of the Bible, visit Bible Reviewer. May God bless your Bible reading and your Christian writing life.

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Writing in Bible love

As Valentine’s Day approaches, Christian poets and writers have a blessed opportunity to write about love from God’s perspective, which has far greater substance than romantic notions and fuzzy feelings. This biblical view of love remains constant, year-round, so, Lord willing, I’ll be addressing What the Bible Says about Love with appropriate scriptures, prayers, and short devotionals for private use or discussions in your Bible study group.

For example, the posting “The Bible Defines Love” discussed “the love chapter,” I Corinthians 13, reminding me of a poem Sandy Brooks accepted several years ago for Cross & Quill, the newsletter of the former Christian Writers Fellowship International (CWFI) for which she and I both served as directors.


Taking A Bible Stanza
(from I Corinthians 13)

Though I speak with the most angelic voice
heard in human hearts….

Though I resound as a clear bell calling
all readers to ring with praise….

Though I prophesy with power,
decipher mysteries, acquire
insight, and utter wisdom well….

Though I have faith to move
mountains of people with perceptive words
and cast rejection into deep depths of the sea….

Though I write all I have been given
and hand over my body of work
without reimbursement or acknowledgment….

Though I may boast of publication and best-sells….

Without love for God and readers, my work is nothing.

The loving writer-poet must be patient,
kind – not proud.

The loving writer-poet must not insist
“My work, my way!” nor be
manuscripted with resentment,
but rejoice, rejoice in giving voice to truth.

The loving writer-poet bears all
disappointments, believes all
timing comes from God, and has all
hope to end: endure.

The loving writer-poet knows
we know in part, but every part
of every reader needs
The Loving Word of God.

This love story, theme, or purpose
never ends.

poem by Mary Harwell Sayler originally published in Cross & Quill. Used by permission of the author.


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© 2012, Mary Sayler, all rights reserved.

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One day in the life of a full-time Christian writer-poet-editor

Years ago an acquaintance from church asked what I do, and I said, “I’m a writer” to which she responded, “I know. But what else do you do?” If you hope to be a “full-time writer” you might wonder the same. Since I’ve been doing this for my most of my adult life – well, part-time when I was a full-time “stay at home mom” – my workday might give you a glimpse of the “real” writing life, which differs each day for each person and each project.

Working in an office at home necessitates a general structure to get anything done. So each morning, as FL weather permits, my husband and I take our coffee onto the deck to watch the arrival of birds and wake up a bit.

Inside, at my desk with half a cup of cooling coffee, I pick up my favorite devotional book, God Calling, and savor the day’s reading, which also speaks a word to Christian writers who have dozens of great ideas and not enough time, “My will shall be revealed as you go.” Yes, thank You, God! I count on that a lot, especially on days when the To-Do list has grown beyond To Do-able.

If I were working on a book contract, I would most likely get right to it. Ditto if I had a book of poetry or devotionals to critique today. Instead I search for something to wear then lug an overflowing laundry basket toward the washing machine and walk away from that mountain as others await.

Without warning, a poem comes to me, and I hurry to write it down before I forget. To be precise, I pull up the Word file for my poems, add and date a new page, then type:

Move

My faith
God’s power
No more mountain

©2012, Mary Harwell Sayler, All rights reserved.

I thought I might be working on new blog postings this morning, but email beckons me to various LinkedIn Groups. Someone I’ve never heard of wants to connect, so I check out his profile and accept his invitation then notice that a bunch of people checked me out too. No clue who, but I recently sent invitations to several editors, who just might approach me with book contracts and magnanimous advances. Most likely though, I'll need to study their current list of titles and topics, see where my ideas fit, then contact one editor at a time for each project.

Sometimes other people make the first move. Years ago, for instance, an editor at a writer's conference, where we'd both been invited to teach, phoned to ask if I'd like to write a series of devotional books for her company. Like, yeah! More recently, though, I discovered I had been made the moderator for a poetry group on LinkedIn without being asked! My first thought was to close down the group, but after prayer, it came to me that those few hundred poet-members might be interested in The Poetry Editor blog and website. So I changed the name to The Poetry Editor Group, added my logo, and encouraged discussions about writing, which doesn't always happen.

This morning, for instance, someone wants to hawk his website under Discussions, but I move the URL to Promotions where it belongs. In the manager’s section, I recognize some names as members of the group (which I’m happy to say has doubled in size!), but I have to look up the Profile for another person who wants to post a comment. Nope, not a member! Oh, why not! As with all the main social networks, LinkedIn is free with no obligation. Oh, well. The poet has a helpful comment to add, so I post what she has to say in the Discussion as she'd intended.

I often start or join group discussions too, but if I do so now, I won’t get anything else done, so I sign out, then check Facebook to see if family or friends posted anything significant. Yeah, someone had a birthday I acknowledge then notice that one of the literary journals I “Like” has posted a call for poems that relate to a particular picture. Checking my Word file, I find 2 two-lined poems that fit, so I post both under Comments as the editor instructed. I then check my Facebook “Author” page and The Poetry Editor page I maintain and am happy to see new “Like’s” on both!

That’s encouraging since I really do want to offer helpful tips to poets and writers in each post. But, oh, I see someone has been posting on my page! I don’t mind if other writers and poets respond to something on my page with a link to theirs. But this guy put a hotlink to his website which is rabidly against anything ecumenical. After deleting that post, I see a note from another writer in another country, who wants me to take a "quick look" at his work.

How can a full-time writer-poet-editor take a “quick look” at anything? Why can't the writer take a long, serious look at his own work, reading it aloud and listening for areas that need improvement without asking me to do it for free? This comes up so often by so many people in so many places that I sigh, pray, and tell the man he will find many helpful articles and resources freely provided on my blogs and websites. I also let him know that I’d be glad to provide a professional, one-on-one response to his writings for a reasonable fee, but I probably won’t hear from him again.

Feeling discouraged by the frequency of requests for freebies, I remind myself how Jesus said that “workers are worthy of their hire,” but I hit the “like” button on several FB postings to encourage other Christian poets and writers as much as I can. In the process, I notice an announcement from Sally Stuart – The Expert in Christian publishing whom I interviewed in this blog last year – about the release of her 2012 marketing guide. Hitting the “Share” button, I let FB Friends know about this valuable resource.

Before untangling myself entirely from the Internet, I check email for The Poetry Editor and see new followers of the blog and also, an editor’s acknowledgment of a manuscript I submitted. In my personal email, another editor-writer agrees to an interview I hope to post soon, and a writer tells me how the contest I judge helped to boost her confidence. Nice to hear – and a good idea to discuss in another blog posting.

My coffee has gotten cold, but I sip it anyway, and my husband sticks his head in the door. Yeah, I’m ready for our half-mile round-trip walk to our rural post office, where, no, the manuscript someone was supposedly sending for a writing consult did not arrive.

Back home, I dump a load of darks in to wash then come back to the computer to see if one of the editors of my upcoming book of poetry has responded to the poems she asked me to send as representative of the book. Picking three was easy enough, but in case they didn’t speak clearly for the book’s theme, I added a note to explain, “Basically, what I’m saying is: We’re part of the universe. Although I’m aware that nature can seem cruel, love and spirit continue on, regardless."

It’s now almost 10 a.m., and I need to focus on blog postings that got behind while I redesigned my websites. Feeling a bit overwhelmed, I wonder, “Lord, did You want me to start so many blogs?" or was this my big idea? Either way, the biblical injunction comes to mind of doing whatever the hand finds to do. Hand – mind, whatever.

All of the blogs began as I researched Bible topics that interest me: For instance, “Christian Healing Arts” got started because I wanted to give credit to God who created everything, including methods and ideas for healing that people seem to think they invented all by themselves. “Bible Prayers” began with research for a Bible study class that took almost two years to cover with excellent feedback from everyone in the group. As a Christian concerned for families (especially the Family of God), I also wanted to see “What the Bible Says about Love.” In addition, my personal Bible readings often resulted in Bible person-poems.

Initially, I'd hoped to do a one-year devotional or nonfiction book on the Bible topics I had researched, but having no immediate takers, I woke up one morning with “Do blogs” in my head. Hoping that God had put the idea there in answer to prayers for guidance, I soon discovered that juggling several blogs gets tricky! Or sticky! i.e., I now use computerized “Sticky Notes” to type the name of each blog and the last date posted. I also keep a Word file for each completed article, along with a list of titles and dates posted, and I type in words or phrases that suggest ideas for future articles. If blog followers ask a question that might interest other writer-readers, I note that as a potential topic too.

But here it is 11 a.m. on a Saturday, and I just put in the second of four loads of laundry. Having skipped my dish of yogurt, I’m thinking about lunch – most likely left-overs of home-cooked meals I make by the batch a couple times a week and freeze.

Living in the country does not make home delivered pizza a meal-time option, but the rural environment provides a wonderful place to get quiet, enjoy nature, and write about whatever God brings to mind. You might wonder, though, when and if I do any actual writing during the day, but, the truth is, while we’ve been chatting, I’ve been writing this article, which, Lord willing, I will tighten and revise after lunch and laundry and post long before church tomorrow with its welcomed day of rest.

~~

© 2012, Mary Harwell Sayler, all rights reserved.

For additional help with your writing: See the Interview with Sally Stuart. To find a list of the above mentioned blogs and hotlinks, visit Blogs by Mary. To connect, visit hotlinks for Profiles or pages on the major social networks. Thanks. And may God guide and direct your work in Jesus’ name.

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