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The Blog Editor

Strong Verbs Give a Strong Message by Sharon Espeseth

Looking forward to spring walks

On holidays, my husband Hank and I drove past a church sporting a brief, but all-encompassing message. All it said was, TRUST, LOVE, FOLLOW, CARE, SHARE. "Wow!" I thought. "That is the Christian faith in a thimble, and it's all verbs.

The Christian walk is one of action. As I scribbled this church sign on a paper napkin, a few Bible verses flashed through my mind.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart." (Proverbs 3:5a)

"Love the Lord your God . . . and love your neighbour as yourself." (Luke 10:27)

"'Come follow me,' Jesus said, 'and I will make you fishers of men.'" (Matthew 4:19)

These few verses fleshed out the memo, but kept the Christian mission succinct. One could add more about caring for people in prison, sharing with widows and orphans, healing the sick, caring for the elderly, acting justly, but that is all included in "love your neighbour as yourself."

Strong verbs! Any writing teacher worth his hire will remind us to use vivid and virile verbs; and go easy on the adverbs.  Precise verbs show action and inject life into a story. Verbs with punch lessen the use of passive voice. To say, "She was driven crazy by the dog," is lame compared to, "The dog drove her crazy when he pattered in with muddy feet." Action verbs tell it like it is. Well-chosen verbs bring life to the page.

The language of the Bible demonstrates effective writing while teaching the spiritual lessons God wants us to understand. Look at the verbs in John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." What life-giving verbs! What a life-giving story.

Prayer: Thanks for the reminder, Lord, of how simple, yet powerful and complete is the Christian calling. Help me share the good news of your plan of salvation enacted 2000 years ago. I am in awe of what you did for me, for all of mankind, to save us from the errors of our ways.

Spreadsheets - Shirley S. Tye

Microsoft Excel is an excellent program to keep track of “Income and Expenses”. At the top of the spreadsheet, I enter the months into each column. Down the left hand side of the top portion of the spreadsheet are income amounts (book royalties, magazine articles, workshops, et cetera) with a total for each month. Below that on the left-hand side are listed all the expenses, such as: accounting fees, telephone long distance, courses and workshops, resource books, membership fees, office supplies, photocopies, postage, promotion/advertising, website costs, travel costs (traveling to a place to hold a workshop; gas, meals, hotel room), home-office expenses (heat, hydro, house insurance totals are generally calculated based on percentage of the square footage of the office over the total house). The rows total on the right-hand side of the spreadsheet giving totals for each item such as; total expenses for office supplies and total income from workshops. Each column gives totals at the bottom of the spreadsheet for each month.

Catalogue envelopes (5 7/8 inch x 9 5/8 inch) are great for storing each month’s receipts. At the end of each month, I put like receipts together (for example: office supplies such as; paper, printer toner, pens) and add and print the totals on a calculator. I staple the calculator paper with the total to the receipts and write the month, year, and what the items are on the calculator paper. I enter all the expense and income totals to the Excel spreadsheet. Doing this monthly, saves a lot of time at the end of the year and gives me up-to-date totals for all income and expenses as the year progresses.

Spreadsheets can be set up to keep track of “Writings at Market”. This spreadsheet helps me keep track of the work that I’ve submitted, the publisher or contest I sent the work to, whether it was paid or rejected, and when it was published. At the top of the spreadsheet, I have the following titles; Title (of the writing), Type (article, poem, et cetera), Word Count, Publisher (or contest), Sent (mailing date), Return (date the work was returned if not accepted), Published (publication date), Paid (date I received payment), Amount (payment amount). Another column that I use is Receivables. I’ll enter the dollar amount in this column if I know the amount I’m expecting to receive. Once it has been received, I move that amount into the “Amount” column. At the bottom of the “Amount” column is the total payment received.

Spreadsheets keep a lot of information in one spot for easy, quick viewing. They certainly help keep me organized.

Writer's Block Sometimes Comes With Four Legs and A Tail -- Elaine Ingalls Hogg

Thank you, Elaine--and helpers--for joining InScribe Writers Online as our Guest Blogger today.   

I've inherited a helper, two helpers actually, but only one of them likes to help me type.

When our daughter moved house a few years ago, she asked us to take care of her two cats, Angus and Alex, for two weeks.

Little did I know when I agreed to let these two creatures into my home that they would tug on my heart strings, but they did; tugged enough so that when Heather said she needed to find a new home for them, I agreed to keep them.

The two cats have made themselves quite at home in the last three years. No, worse than that, they've taken over my home and during the day when I'm in my office, their favourite resting spot is on my desk. More than once I have to move a cat tail when I want to type in order to find the keys. Some days, like today when I'm experiencing an attack of writer's block, I don't mind if 23 pounds of cat sits on my keyboard. Moving his furry presence with its pleading blue eyes gives me a perfect excuse to procrastinate.

Why am I procrastinating? Because the words haven’t come easily during the past year. I could blame it on a number of circumstances…illness in the family but that wouldn't be the whole story. Whatever the reason is for the words to be blocked, written words aren't the only ones that have dried up. If I'm honest, I hit a wall in my prayer life this week.

I have prayed the same prayer for several years now, prayed daily for God to take care of people I care about but because I couldn't see the answers, this week I almost gave up. I wanted to say, "God are you having hearing problems? Are you tired? You don't seem to be paying attention to my prayer. If you were, you'd have fixed that problem by now."

So for a while I’ve allowed the cat to use my computer for his pillow. I’ve despaired that the words are locked away, that I couldn't write and I couldn't pray.

Today, I read in my Bible where Gideon, a top notch soldier whose story has been passed down for many generations through the words in the book of Judges, also went through a period when he entertained doubts and wondered if God was hearing his prayer. He asked, "If the Lord is with us (me), why has all this happened to us (me)?"

I read on, interested to learn how such a man changed from questioning to becoming a man of faith, a man whose life story is worthy enough to be included in the Bible. I learned Gideon had gone through trying times. He and his people were in slavery for seven years. Then God called Gideon to set his people free. Freedom was a prayer that had been on Gideon's lips for many years but when God answered his prayer Gideon could hardly believe what he was hearing. He expressed his doubts to God and asked for a sign that his prayers had been heard. God didn't cast him aside because he needed his doubts squashed. Patiently, lovingly, God used a series of miracles to teach Gideon he was talking to a God who could be trusted.

When I finished reading Gideon's story, the writer's block that had crept across my fingers and stopped the words from flowing disappeared. So as I push Angus away from my keyboard, I'd like to leave you with this thought.

This week God has reminded me that answers take time; sometimes seven years, sometimes more, but God does hear our prayer and the answers will come.

Elaine Ingalls Hogg
Award-winning author and inspirational speaker
author@nb.sympatico.ca
http://elainehogg.com
Blog: http://elainehogg.wordpress.com
Read Janet Sketchley's interview with me here