Welcome to Flashback Fridays! For the summer and beyond, I’m going to run some nostalgic posts on parenting and writing from writing wannabes, newbies, and published authors. Many of these prepublished writing interviews are now published. So I encourage you to visit their sites and see what they’re up to today. First up, me and author Paula Moldenhauer!

From  March 7, 2006

What is my destiny?

I have always thought my destiny was to write and be published. And I still do, but I’m beginning to see that God can have more than one destiny for your life and for different seasons in your journey.

Here’s what Paula Moldenhauer has to say about Embracing the Destiny…

“So he will do for me all he has planned. He controls my destiny.” Job 23:14 (NLT)

Every woman (and man) has a destiny. As the queen, joined to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, our destiny has eternal impact.

For some of us, our destiny includes the shaping of little Princes and Princesses. Some of you have written about your experiences as Queen Mother. Often this task stretches you beyond anything else you’ve done. May I encourage you to catch a far-reaching vision for this calling?

As you love each child, the Father is pouring into her the ability to receive His love. As you pray over your child, those prayers are a fragrance reaching to heaven, calling forth heavenly assistance and blessing into his life. And every day you speak destiny into that child as you encourage his gifts, tell her of Jesus, and reveal to him his worth as God’s own prince.
It is within this destiny that generations are shaped. It is from this seed that grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be born and nurtured. The Queen Mother shapes the future of the world.

The season of Queen Mother never ends for those called to it. Though someday it will require less focus and time, it will never require less love or fewer prayers.
Embrace your destiny as Queen Mother. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you and show you how to serve in this most honored position. Let Him give you rest and rejuvenation when the task seems too big.

And never, ever forget that this destiny is one of great worth to the King. This is one of His most favored positions, for He, Himself compares His love to that of a mother, promising to care for us as a mother cares for her nursing baby.

Many of you who receive this devotional have embraced a destiny as Royal Scribe. It is not an easy task, for the words of the King must be shaped according to His will and given to others in His way and time. If He has poured that passion within you, embrace it with abandon. Do not be deterred by rejection letters, harsh critiques, or naysayers. Write from your passion. Write the unique truth the Lord has given you. He has called you and chosen you for this position.

But remember, the King is charge. Be putty in His hand. Let His scepter point the way on the journey. If He asks you to refocus your attention to something He wants written, do it! If He wants to refine your character instead of sending you a paycheck, let Him! If He chooses to use a different scribe to share the message you wanted to share, rejoice that His message goes forth!
Ask the Holy Spirit to make you resilient and alive. Don’t let the struggle or the disappointments shut down your heart. Write. Feel. Live your destiny as a Royal Scribe!

Other destinies include Royal Teacher, Royal Chef, Manager of Accounts, Shepherd, Assembler, Artist, Banker, Checker . . . the list is as endless as the ways in which you serve. Serve well. Let those with whom your life intersects experience the love of Jesus.

Serve in kindness and integrity. Ask the Lord to empower you to act like royalty when the customer is a jerk, the boss is a fraud or the children whine. Let the Holy Spirit refine you and blossom you that you may make the world a better place by your contributions.

Many destinies have nothing to do with job or position. He’s asking some of you to embrace your destiny of Loving Spouse to a wounded husband or wife, while others are called to sit at the feet of the Groom and worship, taking your eyes off of your responsibilities and simply discovering His love.

Whatever your destiny, be encouraged. The Lord is in charge. He will do all He has planned for you. He controls your future.”

Visit Paula today and see how far she’s come!

End of school always labeled freedom. I can’t help but remember those elementary days and how we all dashed out of the school building on the last day. Some of the kids ripped their papers out of their notebooks, letting the wind carry the testimony of the hours of work away.

I was never one to litter, but I did the dash! Perfect blue sky promising late-rising mornings, lazy days with friends and neighbors, and cool evenings of kick ball under the trees in our front yard.

With homeschooling, my kids don’t have that same dashing feeling. Or do they?

My twins have been completing one subject after another these last two weeks. Last night one of them came to me. “I’m done with History.” Satisfaction and victory lit her eyes.

“What do you mean? You have another couple of lessons.”

“Nope I piled them up and did them all today and I made a 97 on my final test.”

Wow. End of book stimulus!

My other twin has two more lessons to take before she’s done. But she has it over her sister because it is her LAST subject. Her sister still has the same thing to do with English.

And I found out why it was so important to finish earlier than normal this year. When all of her school friends from the youth group were enjoying spring break and we kept going, one of my twins told them that she’d remember their week off when she finished a month earlier than they did.

I think she’s going to do a little face-rubbing this Sunday.

But that feeling of freedom remains the same. Even for the mom. But for me, that freedom is deceptive. Have you ever felt that way. Okay, so I’m not grading papers and going through lessons, but I don’t have weeks of open days where I can write to my hearts content. In fact, writing can get even harder during the summer months.

Since my girls aren’t otherwise engaged, we take short day trips, do projects and spontaneous goofy activities. Without a routine, I’d get no writing done at all.

So I’ve set up a semblance of a schedule. During the day I get snatches of time to work on social media and a little writing here and there. But every night, sweet hubby engages the kids in games or a movie and I get quiet writing time from about 9 to midnight. (Yes, I still like to sleep late!)

Once or twice a week, I’ll take the whole evening from 5 or 6 on to get in a good long writing session. So our summer days are lazy and fun, just like the kids need them, but the writing goes on!

Your Turn: How do you schedule the UNSCHEDULED days of summer?

Photo by Dean Terry

There have been some great posts recently about the difficulty of this writing journey we’re on together. If you haven’t read The Lonely Writer and When You Feel Like You’ve Been Left Behind, you should go do that now. Both of those posts really resonated with me because it seems like the disappointments on this road far outnumber the successes.

Just last week, I was talking whining to a friend about how I’d hit a wall of discouragement. The whine-fest went something like this…

I’ve been going after this thing for a few years now–learning, writing, learning, writing–but I don’t have anything to show for it. It doesn’t seem like I’m moving forward. Is all this work even doing any good? I feel like I’m wasting my time.

I needed a little boost, some kind of nudge to keep going. And just like the Lord, within 24 hours of that conversation, He gave me a huge dose of encouragement. Exactly what my heart needed to keep putting in the work. Along with it, He reminded me of this verse.

“Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” Psalm 127:1

I have a vision in my head of how I’d like my writing “house” to look. It includes lots of books with fabulous covers sporting my name, and enough income that I can call it a “job” without laughing. But, pretty as that dream house may be, it may not be the house the Lord is building for me. I can work my fingers down to nubs trying to build the house I want, but if the Lord is building something else for me, all my work will be for nothing.

The thing about building a house is that you have to start with a solid foundation. If I just slap some walls up and then focus on making the yard look pretty, my house won’t last very long. But God has a beautiful master plan for my writing life, and He builds houses the right way, even when it requires ridiculous amounts of time and energy. I have to trust that He knows what He’s doing, that the house He‘s building will be infinitely better than the one I’m dreaming of. My job is simply to do the work He gives me and trust that, together, He and I are making progress. And in those moments when I’m exhausted and it feels like the house will never be finished, all I have to do is ask and He’ll give me the encouragement I need to keep going.

Do you need some encouragement to keep going? If so, leave a comment. I’d love to pray for you.

Guest post by amazing mommy friend GennyHeikka

Life is busy and motherhood is busier. It can be easy to function on auto-pilot, missing the moments that make parenting rich. It can be easy to feel overwhelmed and isolated too.

If you’re a mom, you know that parenting can be chaotic, stressful, and complicated. There are temper tantrums and sibling squabbles. There is self-doubt and frustration, even fear and uncertainty. But there is also laughter and love… and, yes, even bliss.

So how do we find that bliss on the days filled with stress or frustration?

Sometimes, the way to experiencing mommy bliss can be as simple as learning to laugh at things you might not find funny at first (because parenting is full of those things!), and learning to cry when you need to (because you are worth it). Here are some tips.

Laugh:

-Create fun and playful moments with your kids. Instead of saying, “Not now,” when they ask you to play with them today, try saying yes instead. Do things you wouldn’t normally do: Let your kids build a fort in the living room and leave it up for a few days. Take a walk to the park when it’s past their bedtime. Make a surprise stop for a treat. Once you start intentionally creating fun moments with your kids, it starts to become a happy habit.

-Laugh at those otherwise not-so-funny moments. A few years ago, I was having one of those nights (I was at that delirious mommy breaking point where you are either going to burst into laughter or tears at any second) when my daughter called from her bedroom on our phone intercom and asked me to cook her bacon as a bedtime snack. (It was 9 p.m. and she was serious!) I couldn’t believe it. Luckily, I started cracking up (instead of bawling). I laughed, then she laughed, and we both ended up laughing so hard we couldn’t stop. I could have gotten angry; instead, it ended up being a funny memory we still talk about today.

Cry:

Moms are experts at just dealing, right? We’re pros at delaying stress relief. But in the same way it’s impossible to keep a teapot from eventually whistling to let off steam, we moms need to find ways to turn down the heat and get relief from all that pressure. Crying can help; it not only releases toxins, it also releases stress hormones. But crying isn’t just about tears; it can also be very much about strength, healing, and acknowledging your feelings.

-Cry for you. Being a mom can remind you of when you were a child. When your daughter turns eight, you remember when you were eight. When your son gets his first pet, you remember yours. Some childhood memories are good. But others are not so good. It’s these hurts (if unresolved) that can affect your parenting today. “Struggling with the past can prevent you from experiencing joy as a mom in the present,” says Laura Faudree, MFT and Director of the Soul Care Center at Bridgeway Church in California. So what’s a mom to do? “Give yourself permission to acknowledge and accept your feelings because they’re real and legitimate,” says Faudree. “When you do that, you’re able to accept your children’s ranges of emotions as legitimate too, and you’re able to accept them for who they are, and not who you want them to be.” When we acknowledge and work through our own feelings as moms, we become healthier and happier, and so do our kids.

Cry for help. “Do you need anything?” my friend asked me one time when my husband was away travelling. Our daughter was about a month old and I was adjusting to life with a newborn and navigating the week as a single mom. My friend had called to check on me. I looked around the room—at my daughter squirming in her bouncy seat ready for another feeding, at the pile of laundry on the floor needing to be folded, at the kitchen that I still hadn’t cleaned—and I said… “No, I’m fine.” Since then, I’ve gotten better at accepting help when I need it. And it’s a good thing. Because when we’re reluctant to ask for help or accept it, nobody benefits. We get stressed, and so do our kids. Asking for help, or accepting it when it’s offered, especially during times we might need it the most (when a new baby is born, a child is sick, we are sick, or a spouse is traveling), can make all the difference on the bliss scale!

Want to read more tips on finding happiness as a mom? Download Genny’s new book Finding Mommy Bliss! It is available now in the new, free Snippet app in the app store here: http://appstore.com/snippetapp. Find out more about Genny at gennyheikka.com and connect with her on twitter@GennyHeikka.

Earlier this week I talked about your writer’s attitude over at my Real-Writer’s Blog. I won’t copy that and paste it here, since it’s lazy (and the web crawlers don’t like it), but I’ll continue my thoughts.

A successful writer becomes a success long before the first book contract is signed. Success happens when you make the decision that it will happen. No, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that if you visualize it, it will happen. That’s T-shirt philosophy and I won’t insult your intelligence with it.

My version of making the success decision is this: Once you’ve determined that you will do whatever it takes, work as hard as it takes, sacrifice whatever it takes, and make it as much a part of your life as eating, that is the moment you become a success. You become a writer.

The Long Road to Writer

For some reason, writing is the one profession that many of us feel doesn’t require years of training and education. I doubt that any one of you would decide to become a brain surgeon and walk into the nearest hospital, demanding a six-figure salary, a private office, and a country club membership. So why do new writers give up after a few years?

It took me almost six years to earn an engineering degree. I did some part-time study as well as full-time. No one was going to pay me to be an engineer before I held that diploma. Most writers don’t have the luxury of learning our craft full-time. Some of you have an hour a day, some have an hour a week.

Now, according to a prominent agent, it takes the average writer four complete novels before she is published. Okay, how long does it take you to complete a novel? If it takes a year, which is pretty fast, you can expect it to take four years to get published. If it takes you two years to complete a novel, it may take you eight before you see your name gracing the bookshelves of your nearest Borders.

Re-taking Writing 101

Some of us have gone through our “dark years,” where we quit writing altogether. I have no stats to back this up, but I’m willing to bet that few of us can just pick up where we left off. We need to re-take a few classes. It may take us a fifth or sixth novel before we’ve honed our craft enough to satisfy an acquisitions editor.

Like I said, it comes back to your attitude. Are you hoping to get published or are determined to work as hard as it takes to get published, and published again, and again? There’s a huge difference. The vast majority are in the hopeful group. A select few fall into the Write-attitude category.

So how about you? What changes have you made in your attitude to place you in the tribe of people called Writers?

I started novel-writing when chick-lit was “the thing.” It’s not “the thing” anymore, but I miss those quirky characters. Bridget Jones in granny panties. The Finland-loving Rebecca Bloomwood. And, of course, Kristin Billerbeck’s Ashley Stockingdale.

Why? Because I relate to them. I’m not angst-ridden like Bella Swan or strong and silent like Katniss. I’m more of an accidentally-falling-backwards-out-of-my-boyfriend’s-truck-into-the-snow-so-all-he-sees-when-he-opens-his-door-are-my-legs-sticking-straight-up-in-the-air kind of girl. And I refused to be ashamed of it. There’s a great deal to be said of quirky characters. We are:

1.)    Memorable. Who stole the show in Pirates of the Caribbean?

2.)    Lovable. Who was your favorite character in Back to the Future?

3.)    Entertaining. Ever watch The New Girl?

As much as I wish I could write beautiful, deep stories like Francine River’s Redeeming Love or Tamara Alexander’s Rekindled, I can’t keep my characters from sock-skating on hardwood floors or rolling down the windows on each other in the car wash. They split their pants (instead of the pins) when bowling and sneeze violently in the sunshine. And…you know…if my character is beautiful, then naturally I’m sending her to a climate where her curly hair will frizz like she’s a 80s rock star.

Yep. When I sold my first book Love Finds You in Sun Valley, Idaho on the proposal alone, I was pretty excited, but I got even more excited when I read the proposal to remind myself of what I’d planned to write. See, I’d included a chubby, unicycle-riding 12-year-old named after Superman’s dad. Talk about a quirky character.

Jor-El brought heart to my story as well as hilarity. It wouldn’t have been the same without him. Really, he defines what I want my writing to represent. It’s fun but not fluff. Charming yet challenging. Light-hearted and life-altering.

Maybe I grew up watching too many Meg Ryan movies. Or maybe I learned to embrace the nonconformity of a childhood where my little sister was allowed to wear two dresses to school at the same time if she couldn’t decide between them and my dad was guilty of riding a bike through town with an inflatable pool floaty (in the shape of a frog) on his head. Or maybe I was just gifted with the ability to “make the tragic entertaining” as an agent once told me.

Whatever my excuse, I’ve decided that you can take the chick-lit away from this author, but you can’t take this author away from the quirkiness of chick-lit. From Lizzie Bennett to Elle Woods, my favorite characters all learn to be themselves despite the embarrassing situations they encounter—a lesson that is sure to serve me well.

Being a writer is like strapping yourself into a straight jacket and then jumping on a Rockin’ Roller Coaster. Once strapped in, you can’t get off and you have to trust that the operator will bring you safely to the end. In the meantime, you’re helpless, torn between the terror and the excitement as you’re body’s knocked around the seats while your car twists and turns, dips and rises, all in the dark.

And when you finally get to the end, then turn around and jump back on the thing, you have to ask yourself how sane you really are! Why do you do the things you do? Because you’re a writer!

Are YOU ready to for the ride of your life? 

Yes, I know it’s Thursday, and my post is supposed to be one of encouragement. All butterflies and rainbows.  Not gonna happen today. As some of you may have heard, we’ve had some bad news in the world of Christian fiction this week. B&H has decided to close down its fiction division. To add to your depression, writers who were scheduled to have books released through B&H have had their contracts cancelled.

Understand, these are mostly new writers, never before published, who’ve worked hard, suffered one setback after another, and finally, finally gotten a contract with a major publishing house. Only to get within a few months of their release date and have the plug pulled. Karen Ball explains it well in her post over at the Steve Laube Agency–The Painful Side of Publishing.

Weep with those orphaned authors. Pray for them. If you’re one of them, my heart aches for you. I hope it never happens to me or any of my close friends. But I know there’s a good chance it will.

Are you a Writer?

 Before I move on with Depression Thursday, I have a question for you: are you a Writer or someone who likes to write?

The distinction is critical. If you are someone who likes to write, you’re in good company. If I were to guess, I’d say that 99% of the people who ever decided to write a novel fall into that category. Just like 99% of the kids who played little league baseball never worked their way into The Show.

I don’t care if you’ve been published. You are a Writer long before you ever see your book in print. No one ever went from the occasional writer to first contract without making the decision to be a writer.

Know your business

So, assuming you’ve made that decision, here are the facts of your business:

1. Publishers must make a profit or they go out of business.
2. It is not a publisher’s job to promise any writer a long career.
3. There’s no such thing as a Christian publisher or any business, for that matter. Christians work there, but the purpose of a business is to make money, not spread the love of Christ (that would be your job).
4. You do not work for a publisher. You work for You, Inc. You enter into a business agreement with a publisher. If it falls through, you move on. Yes, it’s painful. But you’re a writer, not someone who just likes to write. This is your business.

If you think it’s unfair, then you’ve never been in business for yourself. Unfair would be to continue a money losing venture until you’re forced to close down and lay-off a lot of employees who rely on you to make the tough decisions and keep their families fed.

Writers Move Forward

Now for a bit of sunshine, sans rainbows. Most, if not all, of those writers will find a new home. They’ve lost some time, but in a few years, they’ll hardly notice the difference. And they’ll be wiser for the experience.

There’s still a market for X number of Christian fiction novels out there. The hole left by B&H will be filled quickly by another publisher, who will need to sign more authors to fill it. I love the free market. It’s never not worked.

If you are a Writer and God has called you to this ministry, you will not be deterred by changes in the business climate. If you are a Writer, then you truly love to write, and write well. If you are persistant, you will be published. It’s the lesson we’ve all learned here at Writer…Interrupted. It’s why we’ve adopted the motto “No Writer Left Behind.” We’ve watched one friend after another go from horrifyingly-bad-first-attempt writer to multi-published author. They didn’t give up.

That’s why they’re Writers. Writers never give up.

What about you? Does the B&H news frustrate you or have you simply sidestepped it and moved on?

Guest Post by Jeff Satterly

It’s often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but I think that saying a picture is “worth” any amount of words isn’t exactly true. Both images and written text have value for conveying information and providing insight and understanding into something, but some pictures, and photographs in particular, have a value to the historian that defies  comparison with a written description. This is the power in a photograph to tell a story.

Words can paint a pretty accurate picture of people, things and events in our minds, but there is simply no substitute for the power of a photograph in capturing a moment in time exactly as it would have appeared to those experiencing it. For writers, a photograph can be the first step in telling a story.

When it comes to the study of history, the power and immediacy of photographs from the past are one of the best tools for allowing historical events to speak to us on their own terms. Take, for example, this photo  of the destruction at the Idlewild Poolhall in Omaha, Nebraska. There is a great amount of wreckage strewn about, and some men are clearly removing a body from the debris while others seem to be moving about nearby, and many more are gathered in the background, including two policemen. One man in the upper left third of the photo seems to be staring directly into the camera, a grim expression on his face.

Photographs like this are fascinating for their unparalleled depictions of historical events exactly as they happened, but they also tend to have a sobering effect once one stops to contemplate the fact that every last person pictured in the photograph is almost certainly dead today. We are looking at the world as it appeared to these people, in the midst of events that must have been among the most shocking and memorable in their lives, and of which no physical reminders exist. For the writer, a photograph like this hat captures a snippet in time can inspire many different stories.

The modern view of this location shows quite clearly how the corner in Omaha where the Idlewild Poolhall once stood bears no trace of what was there before Easter Sunday of 1913, nor of the pile of rubble that remained after an F4 tornado killed 14 people in just a few moments that day. There is also nothing left of the anonymous people who stood near the wreckage and stared back at the photographer as he recorded a moment in time – they are likely dead, their physical existence at end, and we have no way of knowing their names or professions, let alone their hopes or fears. For a writer, that is where the inspiration can start. Thoughts like what did someone experience on that day, were their hopes crashed, what dreams or loved ones were lost, what did they have to overcome to survive are all the beginnings of a powerful story.

Because these people were in the right place at the right time, they were etched onto a photographic negative, and so their shadow has been cast down through the years to today. We don’t know the name or anything else about the man who stares back at us from the left side of the photo, and I find myself filled with questions about him. We know from his grimace and the situation itself that he must have been filled with some combination of shock, anger, disbelief, and sadness, but what is his story? Was he a passerby or a volunteer come upon the scene, or was he playing pool just moments earlier with his friends, many of whom are now dead? As a writer, this is the power in a photograph to tell a story.

We will never know the answers to many questions, but this photograph has at least allowed us to know that this man existed, and that he was there. A written description of the destruction at Idlewild Poolhall and its aftermath can convey what happened, but by its very nature would have left this man not only dead, gone and anonymous, but also invisible to us as historians. Much like all the people in the background, barely seen, and of course all those just out of the frame, he would be absorbed into the abstract mass of “history,” where only a few select individuals live on in the written word. Instead, I can sit and look upon this man’s face from one hundred years later, and wonder. And perhaps some writer might take that wonder to the next level and use the power in this photograph to tell a  story and bring those faces in the photograph to life once again.

Thanks so much to Gina Conroy for letting us share some of our ruminations on the photographs we’re studying for our historical project. We’re humbled by the interest in this project, and we really hope you enjoyed this snippet of history!

We’d also like to thank some of the great archives and archivists who have done so much to work to help preserve the amazing history of the 1913 flood, including the Dayton Metro Library and historian Trudy Bell. The amount of history compiled at these two websites is truly amazing. Lastly, thanks to Jason from InsuranceTown.com, who lent us some of the resources we used to help prepare content for the web and publish our blog, and inspired our Mapping History Contest.

Don’t forget to check out HistoricNaturalDisasters.com for more images, and for information on our Mapping History Contest – help us figure out the locations pictured in historic photos from 1913 and you could win $100!

By Geoffrey Kuchera | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Mountaintops are beautiful. It’s there you feel free as if you have the world at your fingertips. You have a front row seat to God’s majestic sunrise and at night, an unobstructed view of  the vast  universe.

It’s a wonderful place to experience, but you can’t stay up there for ever. Though sometimes we wish we could.

Even Jesus knew that he had to eventually come down from his mountaintop  experience to do the work necessary to fulfill his purpose in life. While his time of refreshing and transforming on the mountain was necessary, it was his ministry in the valley that was most important. That’s where the people were!

Whether you’re dancing on the mountain or down in the valley getting your hands dirty, each experience has it’s place and purpose in your life, even a writer’s life.

Our mountaintops may consists of signed contracts with agents and publishing house, typing THE END, and reader fan mail. But it starts down in the valley of writing and editing where we pour out our sweat and tears. In the valley we connect with our souls so we can connect with the reader. In the valley the real work is done so we can experience the brief thrill of the mountaintop and offer that same experience to someone else.

But eventually we have to come down and write once more. For without the valleys in our lives, their might be no way to get to the mountaintop!

Where are you in your life? Mountain top or valley? Learn to embrace both and enjoy your time wherever you are!