Live with Flair

The Glorious Homemade Trellis

noreply@blogger.com (Heather) — Sun, 19 May 2013 05:13:09 PDT

My husband calls a neighbor to help dig holes two-feet deep. He'd built my trellis for Mother's Day and needed help putting it in the ground.

The trellis for my climbing roses is officially in!

Now, with this structure in place, the climbing roses might be planted, tended, and enjoyed for years to come. The roses will span out far and wide, and I will love them.

I like to remember the order of things: create a sturdy structure, and then let the beautiful things grow wild.

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Do you have a favorite kind of climbing rose? Do tell!

A Spiritual Lesson from My Compost Bin

noreply@blogger.com (Heather) — Sat, 18 May 2013 10:14:05 PDT

I stick my hand into my compost pile to pull back a space to dump some more fruit peelings, coffee grinds, egg shells, and vegetables.

It's so hot in there under the leaves and grass that I actually pull my hand back in shock.

(Aerobic bacteria that's breaking down my bucket of offerings releases so much heat as it works. Decomposition isn't easy. It's hot work. It's a smoldering mound that you can't use for a long time.)

"It's working! It's really working!" I tell my chemist husband who agrees it shocked him the first time he felt the heat of composting. The heat is a sign of conversion: what we put into the pile transforms into nutrient-rich soil that allows our garden to bear glorious fruit.

In the process of breaking things down inside my own heart--of purifying, refining, and becoming a useful vessel for divine activity, I remember that in that dark space of change, it's real work. There's a heat involved in that refiner's fire--that compositing bin--that lets me know I'm changing.

It's working.

It might take a long time, but I can feel the heat in my own heart.

__________________________
Don't you love spiritual illustrations from nature?

10 Tips to Revising a Story (and a Life)

noreply@blogger.com (Heather) — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:29:59 PDT

I've been learning so much about fiction writing these day, so I thought I'd share various tips.

If your story's stuck, maybe try this:

1. Chop off the first 50 pages. Start here.

2. Start at the end. Then tell the story through a flashback.

3. Put characters in the middle of a crisis on the first page.

4. Reveal a character's past through dialogue or flashbacks instead of a long narrative.

5. Remove details so the reader feels smart. Readers can fill in details better than you think.

6. Switch the point of view from third person to first person or vice versa.

7. Have a character summarize the conflict of the story in just one sentence.

8. Ask how every chapter adds tension. If it doesn't, maybe cut it.

9. Introduce an enemy--or at least a distasteful character--early on. Readers like to root for characters against other characters.

10. Remove a subplot if your narrative gets too complicated. Complex doesn't necessarily mean good.

I think about these tips in the same way I think about living. In other words:

1. Stop living in the past. Start with today.

2. Remember that we win in the end with God. Look at our life as one big flashback from a glorious ending.

3. A little adventure goes a long way. Don't run from crisis; get right in there.

4. If we're replaying a long narrative about our pasts, it's just boring.

5. We don't need to know all the details. That's not faith.

6. Maybe we need to consider another point of view.

7. What's our personal mission statement in one sentence? What's the driving force of our lives?

8. Unresolved things can be good. They drive us to seek God and move more deeply into a life of faith.

9. There is a real enemy of our souls, but Jesus wins.

10. Simplify.

______________________
I love the writing life!