ICWF Blog Tour Finale

Hello, folks!  If you haven't had a chance to check out all the great posts in the ICWF Blog Tour, the links are now updated so that you can do that.  Thanks to all the participants who shared their experiences with Inscribe and to everyone who followed the tour.  I'd also like to give a huge congratulations to Kurt and Val Jones, winners of the grand prize draw: a one-year ICWF membership, a copy of Inscribed, and an ICWF book bag.

Being a Member of the Writer Family – Ramona Heikel

I grew up noticing that my personality seemed a little “off” from others, and I wasn’t quite sure where I fit in to the world. No one else seemed to think the way I did, or have the same perspective that I had. It was like being brown-eyed and brown-haired but everyone else in your family was blonde and blue-eyed. Where did I belong?

I always loved to write and one day I went to the library and checked out some books on writing. Then the most remarkable thing happened: I found distant relations that looked like me! Kathryn Lindskoog, in her 1989 book Creative Writing for People who Can’t Not Write, described the typical personality traits of a writer. Wide-eyed, I realized that someone who had never met me was describing me and all my quirks as though they’d lived with me all my life. This feeling of coming home has constantly boosted my enthusiasm for writing, and given me the sense that I was born to write.

Vinita Hampton Wright also wrote a book about writing, entitled The Soul Tells a Story. Since I’d adored her award-winning novel Velma Still Cooks in Leeway, I figured I could find a gold mine of advice that would help me develop fascinating characters and plots. But instead of revealing writing techniques, she revealed herself, and I found a kindred spirit. This helped me to further understand myself: my creativity, moods, habits, choices of jobs, sensitivity, and my reactions to people and to the world in general. I realized that some of the feelings that made me lonely at times could be the very things that could help me create gripping stories like hers that change a reader for life. Her words were so sisterly, comforting and encouraging.

I’ve always felt a strong connection with the authors of the books that transform me, both as a human and as a writer. When I wrote to Francine Rivers about the religious themes in her secular romances, she replied with a warm letter telling me about her life and faith. I also sent a card via snail mail to the U.K. to thank Rosamunde Pilcher for all the joy her warm, wholesome characters gave me. And having Jane Kirkpatrick at an Inscribe conference point out the harpies on my shoulder (whining like Woody Allen) made the distance between the admired and the admirer shrink to the closeness of a mom and daughter.

Not long ago, I discovered Madeleine L’Engle and learned that we shared an enjoyment of science and a similar approach to our faith in Christ. In the June 2002 The Writer magazine, Madeleine L’Engle quotes Jean Rhys as saying, “All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. And there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don’t matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake.”

I read those words as, “We writers are a family unit. Writing is in our genes and it’s what we’re on this earth to do.” Now where’s my pen and paper? I think I feel a trickle coming on.

Posted by Ramona

Happilywriting.com

Humility - Janis Cox

I admit it – I don’t like this word – humility. It sounds wimpy. Whenever I hear the word I get frustrated because I don’t like to admit weakness. When I want something done I look for strength to pull me through – mine or God’s strength – but certainly not humility.

But I am learning more about what God means when He uses this word.

“Humble yourselves, therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time” (1 Peter 5:6).

That doesn’t sound as bad, does it? If I can put myself lower, show Christ, then God will exalt me later.

There are three things that keep me from attaining humility – self-righteousness, judgment and control.

When someone takes me to task for something that I have not done, my first notion is to get upset and try to right the wrong. Sometimes this would lead to words, not nice words either. A new way of dealing with this is to step back, let the harangue continue until spent, then don’t say a word. Something happens inside me when I work this way. My spirit stays calm, my peace stays secure and the other person feels perplexed. What just happened they say?

Lack of humility comes from being self-centred. I see that now.

Even in my judgment of others this rings true. I know I should not judge others because God will judge me in a harsher manner. Oswald Chambers (June 22) says succinctly I have no right to judge.

“The great characteristic of a saint is humility - Yes, all those things and other evils would have been manifested in me but for the grace of God, therefore I have no right to judge.”

So judgment is wound up in humility as well.

Then there is control. I like to be in control. I am a task-oriented person. Give me something to do, run or figure out and I will do it to the best of my ability. This, too, rubs against the ways of God. He wants to be in control, not me. So I need to push down my controlling nature – let God show me the way.

In all three, self-righteousness, judgment and control I am insisting on my own rights. And every time I do that I hurt the Son of God.

Oswald Chambers (July 14) says:

"Never look for right in the other man but never cease to be right yourself."

Here is the kick in the pants I need.

He also says (July 15):

"Quit praying about yourself and be spent for others as the bondslave of Jesus."

Identifying the problem helps me to know what to work towards.

How are you on the humility scale?

..........................................

Jan Cox



Jan, a former school teacher and small business owner, found a new passion in writing in her retirement. She has published two devotionals and a number of articles for magazines and a Bible study. She is owner of Under the Cover of Prayer and moderates the site. She also writes at A Better Way. Jan has written a children’s book in which she is also the watercolour illustrator. She hopes to publish it this year.

Wind, Water and Rock - Marcia Laycock

Those are three of my deepest impressions of my recent trip to Canada's eastern Arctic, Nunavut. But there are many others.

I've always considered myself a "northerner," having been raised in Northern Ontario and then lived in the Yukon, Canada's western arctic, above the sixtieth parallel. But I gained a new perspective on that word during this trip to Baffin Island. It was indeed a new kind of "north" and a decidedly cross-cultural experience.

Nunavut is a vast area with lots of water, ice, rock, very few people and even fewer roads. The capital, Iqaluit, is its largest community with a population of about 6,500. Visiting there in July, the height of tourist season, made me think our group of five women would not be too conspicuous, but that proved false.

People stopped to chat on the street, asking where we were from and why we had come north. Their interest was genuine and their smiles warmed our hearts as they said, "Welcome to Iqaluit." We met a few of the local characters, like Al who was delivering a loaf of banana bread to the post office clerk. He invited us outside to meet his companion, Freddie One Eye - a friendly mutt with a bright red bandana around his neck. We met Yvonne, who gave us a tour of the Legislature library, Charlotte, a film producer who gave us a sneak peak of her company's latest project, and Carolina, a doctor from Guatemala whose journey to Canada's north is inspiring. To name just a few.

The taxi drivers (there are about 80 in town) were also friendly and always happy to give guided tours as we paid our six dollars to be ferried anywhere in and around town. Our first driver was delighted to take us to the end of "The Road to Nowhere." We hiked the five kilometres back to town, enjoying the barren vista with thousands of tiny wildflowers clinging to lichen-covered rock. There were also thousands (maybe millions) of mosquitoes, but a brisk wind helped to keep them at bay for most of the hike. We were happy to see Frobisher Bay come back into view as we neared town.

Walking the streets of Iqaluit made us easy targets for carvers and craftsmen who offered us their artwork. Some of the carvings were well done but we had already visited the museum gift shop, where our friend advised us to shop. I was delighted to acquire a polar bear made of white marble from Arctic Bay and a wall hanging of dancing polar bears made by a young woman named Eve, from Pangnirtung, who just happened to be there. I enjoyed chatting with her so much I forgot to take her picture!

Since we were visiting a Parks Canada employee we were fortunate to be invited to a community feast honouring a new project launched by Parks and the Canadian Wildlife Federation. Arriving a little late to the community hall, we were surprised to see there were no tables set up. The food was piled in mounds on plastic and cardboard in the middle of the floor, with the people seated around the edge. After a few short speeches an elder demonstrated how to skin and gut a seal. Then the feast began. It was a feast of "country food" - raw seal, Muktuk (frozen whale blubber), Beluga whale meat, Caribou and Arctic Char. Yes, I had a taste of it all. Liked the Beluga best. :)

Our time in Iqaluit drew quickly to a close as two of us headed yet further north, to experience a smaller Nunavut community, Pond Inlet. Set at the northern tip of Baffin Island, Pond is headquarters to another Parks Canada office which administers the Sirmilik National Park, stretching across the islands north of Baffin. Pond gives a spectacular view of the inlet, Equinox Sound and three massive glaciers on Bylot Island. Two good sized icebergs had floated into the Sound just a few days before our arrival - one resembling a seal, the other a large white wall tent. We strode the shoreline, chatted with people on the streets and in the Co-op and had a wonderful encounter with five ladies in the craft room at the visitor's centre. They were making small crafts from seal skin, in anticipation of a cruise ship due to arrive the next week. Not many ships stop at the small community so they take advantage of the boat load of tourists when they can.

Two of our traveling companions joined us in Pond on the second day and we celebrated by having supper at the Sauniq Hotel. Turkey and trimmings for only $35.00 each. Since staying at the hotel cost $200.00 per night per person, we figured we were getting a pretty good deal.

The trip ended all too quickly as we once again boarded the First Air turbo prop for the flight back to Iqaluit where we had time for a quick lunch with our Parks host before boarding again for the long flight to Montreal.

Northern images continue to swirl in my mind - the deep tourquoise of Pond Inlet, the dancing dark eyes of the children, the wide smiles of the moms and grannies as we took their pictures, the startling clarity of the light at midnight, the roar of ATVs and the sighing of the waves of Frobisher Bay.


I do consider myself a northerner and I consider myself wonderfully blessed to have experienced Nunavut, Canada's eastern Arctic.
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For more pics of the trip see my FaceBook page.