Did You Fact Check That? By T. L. Wiens

How much time does a writer spend researching while writing a manuscript? How many times do they get a manuscript edited before publishing? One study I looked at said the average fiction manuscript gets read through about thirty-five times before it gets published. Non-fiction averaged about fifteen reads. A lot of time and effort go into getting a good finished product.

Did you know that every book in the New Testament with the exception of Philemon warns about falsehoods coming into the lives of believers?

Matthew 7:15

Mark 12:24-27

Luke 6:26

John 8:41-44

Acts 20:28-30

Romans 16:17-18

1 Corinthians 3:3-9

2 Corinthians 11: 12-13

Galatians 2:3-4

Ephesians 4:14

Philippians 3:2

Colossians 2:8

1 Thessalonians 3:5

2 Thessalonians 2:11-12

1 Timothy 4:1-3

2 Timothy 4:3-4

Titus 1:9-11

Philemon

Hebrews 13:9

James 5:19-20

1 Peter 5:8

2 Peter 2:1

1 John 4:1

2 John 1:9-11

3 John 1:9-10

Jude 1:4

Revelations 2

This is far from a comprehensive list and yet it’s not a subject I’ve heard much preaching on in comparison to the emphasis God put on it. In fact, I’ve heard more sermons on passages where there is only one point of reference in scripture on the matter.

We need to be diligent in our faith, making sure our theology is on track. That means checking our sources. Is the translation of the Bible you use accurate? Is your minister preaching truth? What does your denomination believe?

You put the work into a manuscript to get a good end result. Is not your eternal destiny worth the same amount of effort?

Just How Amazing is the Bible? By T.L. Wiens

How hard is it to write a book? There are aspects of the task that come easy while other things are not so easy. Getting all the dates right and keeping facts straight is one of those things that I find hard. And while logic would say writing non-fiction should be easier in this sense, that’s not always the case.

The time chart of the Bible is one of the aspects of the Bible that convinces me only God could have written this book. Here’s a book that spans hundreds of years and used the writing skills of many human authors but it all flows. There are no mix ups with names or dates. The timeline of Genesis agrees with Revelations. That amazes me.

If I leave a manuscript for a year, I forget details. There are four hundred years between the New and Old Testaments. Yet, the author didn’t miss a beat. And I doubt there were many edited copies of the epistles to fix any author oversights. It all just works together.

I read a book which was made up of four novellas that used the same characters with each novella focusing on a different main character. Each was written by a different author. And you could tell. The little things were out of place like different dialogue styles. I don’t find that in the Bible. While I can identify different writer’s style, I don’t find the story itself varying. The Moses of the Old Testament is the same as in the New Testament. God is always God.

For me, there is no doubt that God and only God could be the author of the Bible. I believe what He wrote is true, not just stories. The miracles happened, the conversations happened and through these lives we can find the path to bring God into our own lives. The Bible is truly an amazing book that no matter how many times I read, I find something new, a plot that transports me into a different place. A living book that changes the lives of its readers like no other.

My Brian is Numb By T. L. Wiens

I had a very creative piece I was going to submit to the blog this month. I lost it somewhere in the hundreds of files on my computer. I’ll probably find it ten minutes after posting this. Instead, you will get this Nanowrimo worn out brain.

I finished my 50000 words in eight days. I guess that’s what happens when I take a month off writing. I can’t type fast enough but I know a lot of people struggle to get the words down. That’s why I dislike the number game.

I know goals are good but we don’t all write fast. Some of us cannot stand to look at red scattered throughout our text and have to stop to correct. I know people who think getting one written paragraph a day is quite an accomplishment. All of these represent the same deep desire; they have to get the story written at whatever pace they are able to do this.

November is also Remembrance Day month. While I have plot complications that I want to get on paper, there are other things in life that are more important. Remembering the sacrifice of soldiers who all gave and give their lives is one of those occasions. Some die on the battlefield, some suffer slow excruciating living deaths and all are haunted with the memories that change them. This deserves my time. Writing stops.

For all of you challenging yourself to Nanowrimo, I pray the story comes and your fingers fly across the keyboard. For those of you who are seeking out other endeavors, I pray God’s leading.

God bless you all. It is wonderful to be a part of this family.

 

Wild Weekend by T. L. Wiens

I think this will be a Thanksgiving I’ll remember for awhile. First came the news that my mom had diabetes. Then she and my step dad were in a car accident. Thankfully, they weren’t badly injured. Mom suffered some whiplash. Then came the storm. Winds howled at sixty kilometers an hour plus. At some points, wind speeds of 125 km/hr were recorded. This caused accidents, property damage and power outages. We were among the lucky ones to get our turkey roasted. I finished the sides on my barbecue. As I review, I realize this is about the story of my life for the last year.

I know the purpose of a writer’s conference is to encourage writing. I guess I knew going in, my heart wasn’t there. I enjoyed meeting the people whose names I see on the listserv and Facebook. It was nice to put real people to the computer generated images. But my enthusiasm waned during the workshops. Then I attended Melanie Fischer’s session. I know what I got out of it wasn’t on her agenda but it was on God’s. I needed a break from writing.

For months, I’ve pushed myself to the computer and struggled to get things written. When I reread these efforts, I can see the lack of cohesiveness in the words. When I brought up the subject of taking a break with fellow writers, I got the standard advice to get to the computer and it will happen. I was miserable.

In Melanie’s workshop, we were asked to figure out the “cubby hole” where God wants us. The heaviness lifted as I accepted God had a different place for me than behind the computer for a time.

I came home rejuvenated. The guilt of not sitting at my computer was gone and still is. Funny, I’ve resisted this for so long and now that I just let go, things are happening. A lady read my book and loved it. She’s not a believer. She then gave her friend the book. I haven’t had encouragement like that in ages.

I will write again. I can feel the Nanowrimo urge building. But I won’t fight the rest and will remain a stranger to my computer until the Holy Spirit shows me the time has come to let Him speak through my fingers once again.

Conference Reaction by T.L. Wiens

Last night I felt a sudden sharp pain in my toe. When I reached down in the darkness I realized an insect was having a meal. After taking my revenge, I thought about the different biting insects.

That brought up thoughts of the Brown Recluse Spider. This small creature’s bite goes from a small itchy red spot to massive swelling, loss of skin,  difficulty breathing, permanent nerve damage, and in small children, can lead to death. One little spider bite.

That sent me to thinking about the conference. For me, an introvert, the thought of going to conference is very much like that spider bite. It starts with the pain of travel, meeting people and then I think about sitting in workshops where my attention deficit will kick in. Unlike the spider bite, the long term effects are not debilitating but positive.

So I’ll push myself out of my comfort zone, let the pain come and likely meet a few other writers who are suffering the same symptoms of conference attendanceitis. Then I'll head home with some new strategies for my writing and maybe even a few new friends.

See you all at the Inscribe Fall Conference!

Sharing Stories by T. L. Wiens

I recently got the privilege of being my daughter’s birth coach. Nothing about this birth followed the rules I learned during prenatal classes with my daughter going into labour a week before the baby made an appearance. I know medical people like to refer to this as “false labour.” Midwives hate that term and won’t use it. I have to agree with the midwives. For seven days, my daughter had contractions that did not stop. It left her exhausted which tells me that her body was working very hard—nothing false about it. Together, we worked at breathing and trying different things for my daughter’s comfort. By the time we got to the hospital, we had a system. When it came time to push, the nurse stood back.

            “Mama’s got this,” she said as she held back her fellow nurse.

            And we did. I watched as my granddaughter took her first breath and let out her first cry.

So what does this have to do with writing? During this week long ordeal, I abandoned the medical expertise and started doing a lot of research. I went back to things I talked about with my mother and my own experiences with birth. I searched the internet for stories and information. It was during these searches that I read several entries in different blogs that upset me. What I found was a lack of older women helping the younger women. So many of the entries were scared first time mothers trying to help other scared first time mothers.

In Titus 2:3-5, it says “The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.”

It made me realize how blessed I am to have a mother who taught me, told her stories and passed on the lessons she learned. As a writer, I can now share her wisdom and add some of my own. There is a great amount of wisdom being lost because we are failing to teach and guide our daughters as the Bible instructs. It’s something I’m going to be more aware of and do my best to change.

Joists—Characters of Strength By T. L. Wiens

My renovation project is moving forward. I reached the point where I needed to remove a load bearing wall. There’s a lot of work to be done before you start swinging the sledge hammer on this particular job.
First, we opened the wall to expose the complications it would present. Heating ducts and electrical greeted us. These were easy fixes. We rerouted the circuit for the electrical and removed the ducts which we planned to relocate anyway. Everything was going along fine.
We built temporary support walls on either side of the load bearing wall. These would serve as supports until we got the beam in place. That’s when things got complicated.
Upon closer inspection, we discovered whoever put the duct work in, removed a large chunk of the joist beneath the floor. To add to the issue, the main heating duct line was directly below so we didn’t have access to the joist from the basement. A simple job just became quite complicated.
We had no choice but to remove the basement duct work that would later have to be rerouted. Then we had to fix the broken joist. Because of the weight this particular area would be bearing once everything on the main floor was finished, we set in a post to support the now repaired joist. With all that done, it was easy to get the beam in place.
What does all this have to do with writing? For me, the joists and wall studs of a book are the characters. Main characters need to be well built, holding the plot together; the joists of the structure. Minor characters are more like the wall studs, also important but they can be moved and changed with a lot more ease than a joist.
Like the house, a weak main character will put the entire structure in jeopardy. As writers, we need to make sure we have this part of our book working well. It’s funny how a poorly developed main character can cause a minor character to bend and bow the structure of a book. Sometimes we have to go back and rewrite, restructure our characters.
For me, characters often develop as I write. Most of my early manuscripts have at least four chapters that will never see print. They’re my character development stage.
I do other things to develop characters like in depth character sketches. I like to use some of my video games—usually my Wii and put a real face on these people. Or I’ll look at images on the internet until I find the look I’m going for. To have a visual helps me to see other characteristics like facial expressions.
Most writers, myself included have a purpose when we write. We fall in love with certain events. But sometimes our characters don’t fit the actions. There’s nothing worse than a book where suddenly the shy quiet main character becomes some party animal for one chapter and one chapter only. Worse is if there’s not any given reason for the change. I’ve come to understand the stories I write aren’t really about my wants for the plot but rather learning to listen to the characters to develop my theme.
When you have strong joists and well built walls, you have a structure that will stand for a long time. When you build strong main and minor characters in a book and stay true to who they are the plot will almost write itself.

The Responsibility of Being a Christian Writer by T. L. Wiens

Recently I ran across this quote by Eddie Boyette:

“(In movies)Who really cares about historical accuracy? Movies are, first and foremost, entertainment. They are not designed to help you pass your history final. Read a book for that.”

When I read this quote, I shook my head. As a fiction writer, I realize there is no more accuracy in fiction writing than in many “based on a true story” movies. But this man is not alone in his perception of the difference between movies and books.

When the Left Behind series came out, I read a couple of the books and lost interest. Then I had a conversation with a Christian lady from my church about these books. She was reading the Left Behind books as if they were scripture. I was shocked that someone I thought had a good grasp of God’s Word would buy into something that was written and promoted as fiction.

It reminds me of the huge responsibility I have as a Christian writer to stay true to “The Bible.” The story around these truths might be fiction but I must maintain accuracy to God’s teachings. As the old saying goes, “You might be the only Bible someone ever reads” literally.

(Comment made on Answers.com 7 movies that will absolutely enrage you
http://www.answers.com/article/1205637/7-movies-that-will-absolutely-enrage-you?paramt=21&param4=fb-ca-de-entertainment&param1=dyk&param2=19344061&param5=10152433830056186&param6=20096941#slide=1)