Cool!

The Portuguese edition of Life Interrupted has been nominated for an award!

Check it out here!

And for those who need a translation (me) go here

Big Book Giveaway for Chapter a Week!

Christmas is just around the corner! (yep - it's true!) So Chapter-a-Week is giving away another ten-pound box of autographed Chapter-a-Week books to one Chapter-a-Week member.

Chapter-A-Week is a group for those who love Christian fiction and want to sample a chapter a week from some of the finest authors writing in the genre. Those who sign up will receive a free chapter excerpt each week along with information about how to order the book. So sign up ... and get your friends to sign up. If you get a friend to sign up (and they mention your name in their email) you'll be entered twice! The more friends you sign up the more times you'll be entered!

To sign up for chapter a week go here.

To enter the contest - simply send an email with "Chapter-a-Week Christmas Giveaway" in the subject line to cawcontest@gmail. com and you'll be entered in the drawing. Do NOT reply to this message. We'll draw the winner November 27th, the day after Thanksgiving so the books will arrive in plenty of time for Christmas!

Gen Xers

Does this sound like you or your spouse? Do you agree or disagree with these statistics?

The Facts:

• Gen Xers consist of “41 million Americans born between 1965 and 1979 plus the 3 million more in that age group who have immigrated here.”
• Gen Xers are serious about life. We don’t just take life as it comes, but give great consideration for critical decisions about our present and future. And when it comes to parenting, we want to know how to do it right. We take parenting seriously because we remember the latchkey existence with too much free time and too little parental involvement, and we want to give our kids more.
• Yet Gen Xers are also stressed out. We want to do it all … now. And when we do, we often find ourselves overwhelmed. Work, family, techno-stress. We’ve bought into following our dreams, and finding our purpose. And to do it all, we struggle as we balance kids, ministry, work and service. (We love to volunteer, to give, to help, to see we’re making a difference!)
• In addition to that Gen Xers are self-reliant, yet high spiritual. We’re skeptical, yet what we do believe, we want to apply to everyday life. We’re realistic, not idealistic. Our faith has to be true lived-out, or we don’t buy into it.
• According to George Barna, only 28 percent of Gen Xers (ages 20-37) attend church compared to 51 percent of Builders (58+). Yet, according to a Special 2001 edition of Newsweek, “Eighty-one percent of Gen X mothers and 78 percent of fathers say they plan eventually to send their young child to Sunday school or some other kind of religious training.”
• Finally, because of the loneliness and alienation of splintered family attachments, “experts” have claimed that the strongest desire of our generation is acceptance and belonging. Unfortunately, as parents we often don’t find the companionship and acceptance we long for. We believe in giving the best to our kids, we really do. Yet we question we we’re doing it right, question if we can do it at all. Is something wrong with us if we don’t follow our parent’s parenting footsteps? Is it okay to do it our own way?

The Problem:
According to Reach Advisors’ 2003 survey of 3,020 parents (supplemented by their analyses of government data) they found that twice as many Gen-X mothers as boomer mothers spent more than 12 hours a day “attending to child-rearing and household responsibilities.” Roughly half of Gen-X fathers devoted three to six hours a day to domesticity; only 39 percent of baby-boomer dads could say the same. Who would have guessed that the supposed cynical drifters of the 1980’s would be complaining about too little time with the children?

Breaking It Down:
Gen Xers are great parents, who provide tons of time with their kids, yet the problem arises when:

• They’re overwhelmed, wanting to give their children everything now.
• They’re tired of trying to do too much.
• They’re unfocused, wanting their children to experience everything . . . instead of focusing on their child’s unique personalities and gifts.
• They’re on their own—many times living hundreds or thousands of miles from family support.
• They are curious about spiritual matters, but often don’t know how to connect.

In Their Own Words:
“I feel most parenting books or articles give unrealistic steps that promise perfection, if only I'll follow their exact formula. I've realized I won't hit ‘perfect’ this side of heaven and the guilt from those parenting books is something I don't need. I would like to see parenting advice that encourages me to deal with my heart and my child’s without unrealistic steps that seem to promise perfection. It’s so discouraging to be given two or ten steps that I don't understand how to apply, and then to be told how well the steps work if I'd just do them right and on a consistent basis.” Amy Wallace, born 5-21-1970

Do you relate? Which of these statistics struck a cord in you?

For more info check out Generation NeXt Parenting and Generation NeXt Marriage

Guest Blogger ... Ben Whiting!

Show Me - Lessons from Screenwriting

This semester at school I’m taking a class on screenwriting. As a detail-person, I hoped the class would help me get better at pulling back to see the big picture of a story. It has done that, but I’ve also learned some things that I think the primarily visual medium of film can teach novel-writers.

First-Person Perspective Can Be a Crutch

When we covered introductions, several people in class had the tendency to give a summary of where a character was in life or a habitual activity they engaged in that revealed more of who they were. For instance:

Jim, a 39 year old construction worker, bends over a table in his garage with a piece of wood and sanding paper in his hands. The wood-carving is a small statue of a mermaid. It is a gift for Sarah, the fifth one he’s made in the last two weeks. He’s loved her ever since college, even though she continues to reject his advances.

A lot of these things translate easily onto the screen: the character’s age, occupation (just put him in uniform), what he’s doing, and so on. But Sarah isn’t on-screen, and neither are the four other statues. Or his repeated attempts to capture her heart. Those details tell me more about Jim, but only if I can see them.

Novelists have the luxury of being able to put these types of things into a scene when writing from an intimate POV by having the character remember them, but I think this method can quickly become a crutch. Yes, you want to get the reader inside the character’s head, but you don’t want to relay all information to them this way.

It comes down to Show vs. Tell again. There are certainly things you can and should give the reader through flashback or a character’s thought-process, but try to take full advantage of the power of images. Get creative and push yourself to reveal more of your story and your characters visually.

Internal Conflict Is Insufficient

Another place novelists can fall back on first person POV is in the realm of internal conflict. In film, with few exceptions, you don’t have the ability to go inside a character’s head. Voice-overs rarely work. Internal conflict is fantastic, but you have to come up with a way to make it visible.

The method my instructor recommended to us is projecting the internal conflict a character feels onto a relational conflict they have with one of the other characters.

For instance, in the short film I’m writing for that class right now, my hero stumbles upon a great deal of money. Being poor, he’s immediately tempted with the idea of keeping it. He’s poor and struggling to put food on the table for his kids. His hesitance to act can reveal some of his indecision, but not much.

That’s where his wife comes in. She pressures her husband to keep the money. In her mind, it is the answer to all of their problems. She won’t have to beg store owners to give her just one more week to pay off their debts. The couple’s argument ends up representing the inner turmoil he’s feeling over the decision, but in a more powerful and immediate way.

Try to find ways to do the same thing in your story. Find ways to make the internal conflict tangible, so that each side is represented visually and the audience can see the back-and-forth, blow-by-blow battle between the two of them.

~o~

Ben Whiting is a full-time English student at the University of Texas at Arlington and co-general editor of the award-winning collegiate publication Marine Creek Reflections. He recently completed the rough draft of his suspense novel, Penumbra.

13 Tips for the Overcommitted, Overloaded, and Overwhelmed

The day had spun away faster than the last squares of toilet paper on the end of a roll. The clock announced my children’s bedtime, and I couldn’t be happier.

“Mom, can I quickly do something?” Leslie, my ten-year-old daughter, asked.

“Make it real quick.” I sighed, scanning over my endless to-do list, wondering if I could squeeze a few more things into the end of the day.

A few minutes later, Leslie placed a hand-drawn grid in front of me. The days of the week were written in perfect, fifth-grade cursive. “This is my schedule, and I’m stressed out. I have no free time.”

It was my daughter’s voice, but did I hear her right? Did she use the phrases, ‘My schedule?’

‘Stressed out?’ ‘No free time?’ Did these words come from a child?

Leslie ran her fingers over the squares. “Look. I have basketball two days a week and piano lessons on Tuesdays, not counting daily practice.”

As she continued on, I realized her brothers’ schedules were not much better. No wonder our lives had become hectic. Attempting to mesh my kids’ daily activities with my own was like attempting to squeeze another dirty pan into an already full dishwasher—no matter how things were rearranged, they just weren’t going to fit! My daughter and I discussed what could be cut.

“Let’s wait on swimming lessons,” I said. “And cut out art class altogether. That will free up Wednesdays and Fridays for just hanging out.”

I noted relief on Leslie’s face as she erased those items off her page.

“Thanks, Mom.” She scurried off to bed. “I feel better already.”

With the sound of her feet padding to her room, I turned to my own calendar, recalling something I’d read earlier that day: “We spend ten percent more than we have—and it no longer matters if one is talking about time, energy, or money,” wrote Richard A. Swenson, M.D., author of The Overload Syndrome. “We work hard, play hard, and crash hard.”

Seeing the relief on my daughter’s face at the thought of free time made me realize how far I’d let all our priorities get out of hand. It was time to stop the insanity.

I'll post more about this on next week - about what God has taught me about priority - but what about you? Are you Overcommitted, Overloaded and Overwhelmed? What are you doing about it? Or what do you need to do about it?

What I Am Not

Becoming a mother is a complicated thing. Not only am I trying to negotiate a relationship with my child, I am trying to negotiate a relationship with myself as I attempt to determine how I mother, how I feel about mothering, how I want to mother and how I wish I was mothered. ~ Andrea J. Buchanan, in Mother Shock

Sometimes the easiest way to discover who we are is to know who we are not.

• We are not our children. We all know mothers who go overboard trying to make themselves look good by making their children look great. I saw one woman on the Oprah television show who had bought her preschool daughter more than twelve pairs of black shoes just so the girl could have different styles to go with her numerous outfits! Just as we -don’t get report cards for mothering, we also -don’t get graded on our child’s looks or accomplishments. While you want your children to do their best and succeed in life, your self-esteem -shouldn’t be wrapped up in your child.

Life as I See It
My individuality will never end. There will be no one exactly like me, not even my child. She will be like me in some ways, but not at all in others. I -wouldn’t have it any other way.
 — Desiree, Texas

• We are not our mothers. I remember the first time I heard my mother’s voice coming out of my mouth. The words “because I told you so .  .  .” escaped before I had a chance to squelch them.

It’s not until we have kids that we truly understand our mothers—all their frets, their nagging, and their worries.

It’s also then that we truly understand their love.

Since you are now a mother, it’s good to think back on how you were raised. If there were traditions or habits that now seem wise and useful, incorporate them into your parenting. You also have permission to sift out things you now know -weren’t good. Just because you’re a product of your mother, that -doesn’t mean you have to turn out just like her. Repeat after me, “I am not my mother.”

• We are not like any other mother out there. Sometimes you may feel like the world’s worst mother. After all, your friend never yells at her son — and sometimes you do. Then again, your friend may feel bad because you have a wonderful bedtime routine that includes stories and songs. In many cases, the moms you feel inferior to only look like they have it together. All moms feel they -don’t “measure up.” Instead of feeling unworthy, we should realize that everyone has strengths and weaknesses. The key is where we place our focus.

The Bible says, “Let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without .  .  . comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we -aren’t” (Romans 12:5 – 6, MESSAGE).

The problem with comparison is, we always measure our weaknesses against the strengths of others. Instead, we need to thank God for our strengths. We can also ask God to help us overcome our weaknesses — not because we want to compare ourselves, or look good in someone else’s eyes, but because we want to be the best mom out there.

Have you struggled with this?

Helpful Hearts

Nurturing Helpful Hearts in your children (from toddlers to teens)!

1. Read a story about people who have helped each other (try Mark 2:1-5). Point out to your kids how kind and loving behavior is appreciated.

2. Make one evening a week "Share-the-Load Night." Tackle household projects together like washing the dishes, stacking wood or helping the children clean their rooms.

3. When you find litter in a public place, encourage your child to help you pick it up. Explain that you're providing a clean area for others to enjoy.

4. Make helping each other fun. With younger children, take turns buttoning each other's coats. Let older children rake the yard together and jump in the leaves all they want.

5. Have a "Big Helper" contest. Make a simple chart and keep track of family members who have helped each other. At the end of the week, reward all helpers with a family prize such as an ice-cream outing.

6. Help your child create "Serving Coupons" to give as gifts. A younger child could include coupons for helping Mommy sweep. An older child could offer coupons good for walking the dog or reading a story to his little sister.

7. Each morning, encourage your children to think of one way they can help someone else during the day. At bedtime, talk about their acts of service and thank God for the specific ways they helped.

8. Remind your child that praying is also a form of helping. In situations when we can't physically assist others, we can ask God to help in his own special way. Teach your child that God is the best helper of all.

FIT TO BE TIED by Robin Lee Hatcher

Who says a woman can’t do a man’s job?

Cleo Arlington dresses like a cowboy, is fearless and fun-loving, and can ride, rope, and wrangle a horse as well as any man. In 1916, however, those talents aren’t what most young women aspire to. But Cleo isn’t most women. Twenty-nine years old and single, Cleo loves life on her father’s Idaho ranch. Still, she hopes someday to marry and have children.

Enter Sherwood Statham, an English aristocrat whose father has sentenced him to a year of work in America to “straighten him out.” Sherwood, who expected a desk job at a posh spa, isn’t happy to be stuck on an Idaho ranch. And he has no idea how to handle Cleo, who’s been challenged with transforming this uptight playboy into a down-home cowboy.

Just about everything either of them says or does leaves the other, well, fit to be tied. And though Cleo believes God’s plan for her includes a husband, it couldn’t possibly be Sherwood Statham. Could it?

About FIT TO BE TIED, the Library Journal said: "A master of lively historical romances, Hatcher demonstrates an expert ability to craft spunky, unlikely heroines who go against the tide of the times in which they live, making for fun, exciting stories. She also pays close attention to historical detail. This second series entry (after A Vote of Confidence) is highly recommended for readers of inspirational and historical romances and women's fiction."


BIO
Best-selling novelist Robin Lee Hatcher is known for her heartwarming and emotionally charged stories of faith, courage, and love. She makes her home in Idaho where she enjoys spending time with her family and her high-maintenance Papillon, Poppet.


About FIT TO BE TIED, the Library Journal said: "A master of lively historical romances, Hatcher demonstrates an expert ability to craft spunky, unlikely heroines who go against the tide of the times in which they live, making for fun, exciting stories. She also pays close attention to historical detail. This second series entry (after A Vote of Confidence) is highly recommended for readers of inspirational and historical romances and women's fiction."

A Note from Robin
The Sisters of Bethlehem Springs series sprang from the question: Who says a woman can't do a man's job? And I can't fully express just how much fun I've had looking for the answer through the eyes of my heroines in this series. Although I have no favorites among the novels I've written (each were special to me at the time I wrote them), I do have some favorite characters. Cleo Arlington is one of them. I love her for her strong faith, for her quirky turns of phrase, for her confidence with horses and her lack of confidence with men, even for her impatience with Sherwood, the English aristocrat that she's supposed to turn into a cowboy. I've been so delighted that readers have taken her into their hearts the way they have. I hope you'll feel the same way about her.

Spiritual Role of Moms!

I was checking my email this morning when I came across an interesting email from George Barna (www.barna.org).

Here is a short excerpt:

May 7, 2007

(Ventura, CA) - Mothers inhabit many roles inside and outside the family. Within the household, they are often counted on to be the emotional compass, organizer, and multitasking manager of the family. Add to that list another common function: spiritual energizer.

According to a new Barna study, women who are raising children are among the most faith-minded and spiritually active segments of the American population. The study explored faith-related activities, commitments and perspectives, relying upon nationally representative interviews among more than 10,000 adults and nearly 2000 women who are currently parenting children under the age of 18.

The study shows that more than three-quarters of moms identify "family" to be their highest priority. At the same time, a majority of mothers strongly agree that their faith is very important in their life. In contrast, fathers also tend to list family as their top priority in life, yet they are much less likely to equally attribute importance to faith.

You can read the rest of the article here.

I am blessed that my husband has grown as a spiritual leader over the years. I think there are three major reasons for this.

1. God convicted me years ago of my tendency of being John’s “Jr. Holy Spirit.” God reminded me that He can and will speak to my husband ... Thank you very much.

2. I’ve allow John to "do" spiritual leadership his way … not how I think things should be. I have my ideas of the types of family worship or Bible Study I’d like to try, but my way does not mean the only right way.

3. I pray for my husband’s success. I pray that He will listen to God’s leading. I pray that I will follow and be an encourager.

Also, I thought of something else that ties in … as parents its our job to raise our sons to be the spiritual leaders of their future homes.

In fact, just this morning I was talking about this with my 17-year-old son. I told him, “You know what? The type of girl you’re looking for will be more attracted to your spiritual maturity than anything else. So the more time you spend with God, the more you’ll attract a girl who has a heart for God.”

I’m also excited because of a new resource I just bought. This weekend I was super-blessed at a women’s retreat that featured the speaker Sheri Rose Shepherd. Sheri is a fellow Multnomah/Waterbrook author.

One of Sheri’s books that I bought is Preparing Him for that Other Woman. I can wait to start reading it! With two teen sons I need all the encouragement I can get!

Oh, and if you haven't read Generation NeXt Parenting yet, then make sure to check it out. I give more ideas about how to train our kids while also being a helpmate to our husbands.

previously published on Generation NeXt Parenting blog. Like this? Want more? Check out Generation NeXt Parenting or Generation NeXt Marriage.

Veteran's Day: A Blast From the Past

By Diane Hale Moody

In early October, my dad received a phone call inviting him to be the special guest on a media flight aboard the Liberty Belle, a restored B-17 which would be making a stop at an airport near Nashville. My sister and I eagerly accompanied him to the airport on October 5 and soon basked in the joy of watching our 86-year-old father treated like a rock star.


It had been over 64 years since Glenn Hale flew in a B-17. He considered himself a “draft dodger” of sorts, enlisting in the Army Air Corps when he was 18, thereby able to choose which branch of the military in which he would serve. Dad wanted to fly!



He reported for service in February of 1943, shipping off to Sheppard Field in Wichita Falls, Texas for boot camp. Later he would pass the necessary qualifications to become a pilot and head for Stockton, California where for two months he learned to fly multi-engine planes in Advanced Pilot Training. His graduation ceremony was filmed for a scene in the 20th Century Fox movie, Winged Victory, which was released in late 1944. (Later, Dad got to see the movie in London with his brother Harold who was on leave from the Field Artillery. Harold quickly spotted his younger brother on the big screen.)

Stationed at Framlingham, England, Second Lieutenant Glenn Hale served as a co-pilot in the 390th Bombardment Group, 570th Squadron of the Mighty Eighth Air Force. Dad flew 14 missions between December 1944 and July 1945, all to German targets. Ironically, records from the 390th indicate that he once flew aboard the original Liberty Belle on December 30, 1944.

But the flight he remembers most took place on March 2, 1945. From the beginning, the crew knew their B-17 had engine problems. Five hours into flight, Pilot Dick Alberts dropped out of formation and headed for Poland so they could bail out over Russian-occupied territory. Dad had never jumped before. In the moments before he exited the aircraft, he remembers making a deal with the Lord, promising to read the entire Bible if he survived. “He kept his side of the bargain in 10 minutes,” he recalls. “It took me many years later.”

And then he jumped. Scared at first, once his chute opened he said he actually enjoyed the descent. He landed near a farmhouse near Turek, a small town in central Poland. He and his fellow crew members were then transported by train to Odessa, Ukraine on the Black Sea. Two months to the day from their bailout, they landed back in Framlingham—the same week the war ended.

While bailing out of a B-17 left an indelible imprint in Dad’s memory, it was the next mission for which he is most proud. As part of Operation Chowhound, he and his crew had the privilege of making a food drop over German-occupied Holland. The Dutch were starving, forced to eat tulip bulbs to survive. Dad was so gratified to be part of a mission that saved people rather than destroy things.

Glenn Hale began his journey home to the states in late June of 1945, his last flight as part of the Flying Fortress. He arrived on American soil on July 4th, and yes, with heartfelt emotion he knelt down and kissed the ground. “I entered the service as a boy, and I came home a man,” he says, the unmasked pride twinkling in his still-blue eyes. Thanks to the GI Bill, he completed his education at the University of Iowa where he also met the love of his life. Glenn and Anita Hale were married for 58 years until cancer took my mother’s life in 2007.

As the restored Liberty Belle took off on that Monday in October to the familiar deafening roar of the plane’s engines, Dad sat just behind the co-pilot’s seat. “It’s like being back with an old friend,” he told the reporters clustered around him. “Every time we took off on a mission, I always had the thought in the back of my mind, ‘Will I be back tonight?’”

It wasn’t until 1983, when he saw an article in his hometown Tulsa newspaper about the 390th looking for veterans for a reunion, that he reconnected with many of his old war buddies. He and mom attended the reunions for over 20 years. This year’s gathering was held in Nashville where Dad now lives. The Liberty Belle’s visit to the area was in honor of those remaining vets. And Glenn Hale will tell you his invitation to ride on that B-17 was one of the highlights of his life.

This Veterans Day, I thank God for my father and all the others who have willingly fought for our country. As he so often reminds us, “Freedom doesn’t come free.” May we never forget that lesson, Dad.