Rachel Starr Thomson

Yesterday I spent half an hour or so rounding up my editing credentials for a potential client who wanted to know more about who I am and what I’ve done — happy clients, published books, industry connections, and so on and so forth. It’s an interesting exercise, this putting together of a public face to present to someone.

If asked, most of us would split people in two: they are inner (soul) and outer (body). I read recently, possibly in Strong’s Concordance, that the soul/body split is a Greek concept, while the Hebrews had an entirely different one: your inner self is who you are, and your outer self is who people think you are — your reputation or “name.” The narrower the division, the more genuine and whole the person.

For any professional, but perhaps especially for professional writers, there’s a temptation to create an outer persona that’s not really you. Writing can be intensely personal; it can also be intensely fake. The reason most young writers freak out when anyone asks to see their writing is that it feels so vulnerable. Maybe we can overcome that by cutting off the vulnerability, but I think I’d rather take my chances and do all I can to stay real.

The closer my outer self is to my inner self, the happier I’ll be — and the more chances I’ll have to actually talk to others in a way that impacts them. We can obfuscate when we write, but when we read, we’re always the real us. I think we owe it to our readers to meet them authentically and communicate out of who we really are.

Sorry for no post yesterday; I slept in after a late performance the night before, answered overdue business e-mail, met with two young ladies who may be interested in working with Soli Deo Gloria Ballet, drove five hours home from the Niagara area, edited an article, and visited with a friend from England before falling into bed in sheer and utter exhaustion. All of which amounts to me forgetting to blog.

I do have exciting news, though, which is that later this year I get to guest blog for fantastic agent Rachelle Gardner of the fantastic agent blog CBA Ramblings, which is a Writer’s Digest pick for 101 Best Websites for Writers and really, really a great resource for anyone trying to break into traditional publishing. I’ll be writing on the topic of keeping the heart in writing, something I’ve been thinking a lot about as I get busier and busier.

A pithier post tomorrow, I hope; for now I need to tackle the busy.

O God . . . turn thyself to us again. Thou hast made the earth to tremble; thou hast broken it: heal the breaches thereof; for it shaketh.

Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah. That thy beloved may be delivered; save with thy right hand, and hear me.

Who will bring me into the strong city? Wilt not thou, O God, which hadst cast us off? and thou, O God, which didst not go out with our armies? Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man. Through God we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our enemies.

Excerpts from Psalm 60, KJV

Elizabeth from England, long-time faithful reader and commenter of this blog, left me this comment yesterday. I thought I’d share it:

I just want to let you know – because you’re a writer, so you’ll understand why I’m feeling on top of the world at the moment! – that I just finished my “big” project. There are some typoes to correct (of course!), but otherwise … almost exactly three years after I officially started, I’ve officially stopped working on “C.” Wow! I am SO excited! :)

There’s something almost surreal about finishing a book. You put so much time and effort and heart into it, it can be hard to believe it will ever end. Of course, in the grand scheme of things it’s not “over” — books never are. They go on, even aside from all the work involved in seeking publication. So congratulations, Elizabeth, for finishing this step :).

Two days ago in a fit of procrastinating I cleaned my room. Mind you, it needed cleaning; “Clean desk and room” had been on my to-do list for three days but I didn’t do it until I had another thing on the list that I wanted to procrastinate more.  When it was all clean I lit several candles (and the tip of my index finger, don’t ask me how) and settled down at my little wooden desk and wrote. Even though I cleaned to avoid writing initially, I think I write better in a room that’s devoid of clutter, dust, and distraction.

Clean spaces are important. They relax me, help me think clearly, help me pray with more focus, bolster my creativity. I know people who work in cluttered, disastrous, hurricane-aftermath spaces, and I don’t understand how they can function. Sometimes I wonder if they just gravitate toward messes like I gravitate toward cleanliness; other times I think they’re just working under their actual abilities because their surroundings are weighing them down even if they don’t know it.

My review of Fearless yesterday was in all ways honest, but it left something out: Max Lucado’s writing style frequently irritates me. Before I go into why that is, let me say two things:

1. Lucado’s God Came Near positively impacted my life to a greater degree than almost any other book I’ve ever read, and

2. I’m not criticizing him. I suspect he’s called to write the way he does, because actually, his greatest strength is the same thing that irritates me. And no, irritating me does not automatically qualify it as a weakness. But I think it’s worth discussing because it lops over into other matters of writing and faith.

As I read Fearless, agreeing with just about every word and finding myself irritated anyway, I tried to put my finger on what bugs me about Lucado’s writing. I think I figured it out. It’s the way he brings ancient truths into the modern world and so entirely modernizes them. It’s a matter of diction, word choice. Phrases like this (selected at random upon opening the book):

“God’s go-to therapy for doubters is his own Word.”

“The fuel needle was on empty; the clock was on the last hour; the pantry was down to crumbs. Philip added a personal audit.”

“A storm has turned their Galilean dinner cruise into a white-knuckled plunge.”

Therapy. Fuel needles. Audits. Dinner cruises. Max’s style is always very clear and very today. I like this when he shares his own stories, but not when he’s retelling stories from the Gospels. Why? Because for me, one of the great attractions of the Bible is its sense of antiquity, its mysterious oldness. Modern language strips all that out.

The King James Bible, which I read almost exclusively, comes under fire all the time for being “too old”; too archaic. But I love that about it — the palpable otherness of its wording. It reminds me that this story is ancient, that I’ve stepped into mystery, into the miraculous, into a world I don’t quite recognize that promises to transform the one I do. That’s why, in my own writing, I lean toward the poetic. I’m trying to capture something with my tone that I can’t say merely with words.

Of course, like so many things in life, this isn’t a matter of either-or. It’s not right to use archaic language and wrong to modernize, or vice versa. God is in the business of communicating with very different people, which may be why He chooses such very different people to do the communicating. Even within the Bible, styles sprawl across the map: Moses does not sound like David who does not sound like Paul who does not sound like Matthew who does not sound like John.

All told, I’m grateful for writers like Max Lucado who can strip the pretense out of truth and make it so present and real. And I’m grateful for others, who restore the majesty and the mystery and the beauty of holiness in the way they write. I know which way I lean in my own work. Most of all I’m grateful for truth that is so much greater than the style in which it’s communicated.

“Each sunrise seems to bring fresh reasons for fear.” In Fearless, the latest of many books by Max Lucado (the man is, I think, writing an entire library on the basic theme of God’s reality in the modern world), each chapter is an examination of fear—and of the reasons we needn’t give in to it. Lucado’s style is, as always, extremely accessible, packing ancient and life-changing truths into easy-to-read chapters.

Addressing fears from the deeply personal (“What if God isn’t real?” “What if I don’t matter?”) to the circumstantial (“What if the economy collapses completely?”), Lucado recognizes our fears, points us to Christ, and imparts courage in the message that ultimately, God is still here, is still real, is still in charge. Because these things are true, we can do as Jesus urged us and take courage.

Fearless is a simple book with a simple message, but that message is life-changing. Lucado calls our fears into the light, where God is waiting to meet them.

For information and interactivity (webcasts, Q&As) check out TheFearlessTimes.com.

I’m a member of Thomas Nelson’s Book Reviewer Blogger Program: http://brb.thomasnelson.com/

Yes, I know, I reinvent things a lot. This blog, being flexible because it’s a blog, gets the brunt of it, along with my daily routines and yearly goals. But really, isn’t flexibility a sign of life? The more something grows and buckles and heaves and sheds its skin, the more it’s obviously living.

In this case, I’m reinventing Inklings because it’s become too business-focused, and while I do happily run a freelance business, I only run it because I have other things I care about. That is, if faith and creativity and the intersections of the two didn’t matter to me, I wouldn’t be writing novels. If the spiritual realities of the world weren’t real, I wouldn’t pen articles. If words didn’t have meaning, I wouldn’t edit them. So.

I want to focus less, here on Inklings, on writing novels and penning articles and editing words, and more on faith and meaning and creativity and intersections. More content, fewer mechanics.

What that means is that you can expect to see more ruminations, excerpts, story excerpts, and that sort of thing here, and fewer writing tips (though I’ll still post them when I feel like them), business commentary, and things of that ilk. We’ll see if this reinvention sticks. If not, the skin will be shed again and we shall see what shiny new thing emerges.

Thanks for coming on the journey with me :).

Beverly Pierce Stroebel is a Mayflower descendant with a passion for America’s history and future under God. I had the privilege of editing her book Full Sail: A 21st-Century Spiritual Cruise On Board the Mayflower, a creative journey that brings history together with the spiritual concerns of the present, just released from VMI Publishers. The artwork is beautiful, no?

Bev says the book is “Now available online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and CBD. If convenient, ordering at local bookstores will raise awareness about the book. For a signed copy, contact me at beverlystroebel@sbcglobal.net. Price: $14.99 + $3.01 S & H = $18.00. Also available on the Store page at www.mayflowerfullsaillogbook.com.”

Check it out :).

Ask your neighbors for an off-the-cuff reaction to the words “Christian literature” and you’re likely to hear them stumble through a list of belittling adjectives.

Christian fiction has a bad rap these days — and Christian writers may consciously or unconsciously find themselves working within some very small boxes. It’s too bad, as Richard Doster’s excellent article, “A Lost Art,” expresses:

Despite the swelling ranks of able Christian writers, the reaction demonstrates that we’re viewed as an inconsequential presence in the world of literature. This image belies reality—in fact, Christians are heirs to the tradition of Chaucer, Dante, and Donne; successors to Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Chekov; the literary descendants of G.K. Chesterton and Dorothy Sayers, and of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, and of Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy.

Yet we have, willingly, banished ourselves to the “inspiration” section at the back of Barnes & Noble. And by doing so, we may have abandoned our neighbors and left literature in the hands of writers who’d leave them hopeless.

Read the whole article here. It’s very worth your time, if only to remind you of the grand tradition in which we can choose to stand.