This phrase from the book of Genesis describing the very beginnings of creation could not be more appropriate this season, or this year. As 2020 slides into its last month, we look back with questions and concerns. But doubts and wonderings only make light more precious.
Used as a noun, here’s the definition of light: the natural agent that stimulates sight and makes things visible. But light also radiates warmth, so welcome during winter in the northland. And so we light our house this year.
This is the third re-stringing of lights on our pine tree. A phantom squirrel (we think?) sharpened its teeth on the first two strings, which were blue.
With no more blue lights available in town, we’ve switched to multi-colored, and will see how that goes, remembering, of course, that’s it’s still 2020.
Having just learned of Lance’s mom’s positive COVID test results, we’re watching and waiting in yet one more way. Hopefully she has a mild case, but no one ever knows. This “not knowing” makes just about anything we go through more difficult, doesn’t it?
And so we light our house this year. Thanks to Lance for this photo, and may your preparations for Christmas bring you great joy.
This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for so much. This year has brought some unique challenges, and the support of many friends, tangible and virtual. At my three-month appointment yesterday, my surgeon shared x-rays that show good progress in my hip replacement recovery. Whew!
We have friends and family touched personally by the Covid virus, others battling cancer or enduring delicate surgery. My circumstances seem minor in comparison, yet it’s wonderful to hear good news!
In one of the Mayo Clinic waiting areas, this graphic from 2010 shows the number of joint replacements performed up to that time, ten full years ago. Imagine what the numbers would be now, and the progress that’s been made.
It’s such a gift to be able to access this sort of hard-earned expertise, and so good to know that the worries I experienced concerning healing were baseless. Well, they DID have a base in fear. Most of us know how anxiety can weasel its way into our lives again and again.
This stands true with my fictional characters, too. They’re regular folks, normal humans, and often believe lies about themselves and the world around them. Their faith may be hindered by deep-rooted, irrational fears … that’s the whole idea: they grow and change, overcome and gradually experience victory.
How thankful I am to be able to write! Especially during these months of hunkering down to avoid infection, my characters have kept me company.
Researching the incredible wartime challenges they had to face puts things in perspective, and being able to use my gifts–to contribute understanding of that era to this old world–means a lot. Writing warms my soul and brightens my life like Christmas lights on a shadowy night.
As winter approaches and northern Iowa days become gray and gloomy, it’s good to focus on gratitude. In this pause before entering the season of Advent, lights take on new meaning. It’s been a rough year for so many, but today, may thanksgiving fill our hearts.
Certain urges kick in with this change of seasons, right? We make more soups and start baking certain items, or at least thinking about it.
Some extremely industrious, organized folks have their gifts wrapped and ready (not naming names, Carolyn!) I’m often one who resists putting up the tree too early, but not this year. Last week I started checking our lights.
Do the events of 2020 have anything to do with my behavior? Absolutely!
I rarely share recipes, but here’s one for the yummy cinnamon honey pretzel mix shown above–quick, easy, delectable.
Mix one 11 oz pkg of pretzels in shape you prefer, 3 cups corn Chex, your choice of nuts, raisons, craisins, etc. (I used cashews and walnuts.) Melt 1 cup butter with 1/2 cup honey, pour over dry mix and stir.
*** The photo above is minus corn Chex, didn’t have any in the house, but my make-do inheritance from the Greatest Generation kicked in, and husband likes it anyway.
Bake at 350 degrees for 5 mins, remove and stir. Repeat and cool a minute or so. Toss with mixture of sea salt and cinnamon. Cool thoroughly.
Makes enough for…depends how many other snacks you offer!
On this topic of the holidays and food, here’s a review of one of my latest books:
If you’d like to engage in a bit of time travel,“World War II Holiday Scrapbook” is a nifty way to do it.
Whether you’re a history buff, or crave a bit of nostalgia for holidays celebrated with homemade gifts and packages sent lovingly to foreign shores, this book is for you.
The focus is on the home front. Everything from Christmas treats in the time of rationing to how Christmas was celebrated in the White House.
It’s a lovely read with pictures of much cherished gifts from that time as well as heartwarming stories.
People like me get excited about books for writing, so I’m thrilled to welcome Zoe McCarthy this week. For years, I followed her helpful blog posts that explained grammar and usage in a hands-on manner, and now has compiled them into a text that I’ve enjoyed perusing. And she is giving away a
My review: This volume literally (pardon the pun) bursts with necessary information for both fiction and non-fiction writers. Through the years I’ve consulted various grammar handbooks, and also used several in instructing college writing classes. I can heartily recommend this one. Concise and filled with down-to-earth examples, it offers treasure to serious writers.
I congratulate the commenter who wins her giveaway of a signed copy. To qualify, just leave a note for her in the comment section. And here is Zoe:
“You need to turn your blog posts into a book on writing,” an editor told me. Then a few weeks later, literary agent Diana Flegal said the same thing. She later wrote, “Since the market for fiction writers is tougher than ever, I bugged Zoe, and her agent, for a Zoe McCarthy writing book.” So, I took these professionals’ advice and created Tailor Your Fiction Manuscript in 30 Days.
On the eve of Halloween, I’ll share scary challenges that confronted me and snippet assurances I received in endorsements.
Overwhelming material.I’d researched and written over 150 posts on writing topics I’d used in writing my seven inspirational romances and teaching writing workshops. I didn’t want to dump posts into a book. How could I organize so many posts into a coherent guide for writers? Scary. I wish you could’ve seen the posts’ print-outs stacked into meaningful piles covering my office floor and furniture. Editor coordinator for Pelican Book Group, Jamie West, wrote, “A concise, detailed, step-by-step resource for all writers.”
Daunting dream. How could I structure the book to help writers get their manuscripts in shape and guide first-time writers in writing their stories? I wanted to free writers from experiencing rejections like I’d received on my journey. Freelance editor Denise Loock wrote, “If you follow her advice and implement her strategies, a publisher will be much more likely to issue you a contract.”
Perfection. Since Tailor teaches writing, I wanted it to be perfect. Recently I spotted a typo in one of my examples.Ugh. I wrote, “I didn’t steal this heroine.” I meant a drug, not a woman. Multi-published author Tanya Hanson said, “As an English teacher, I can attest that her tips on good grammar and her hints for excellent sentence and paragraph structure are spot on. But as an author, I also appreciate her ever-present advice that excellent skills are not enough: you must tell a good story, too.”
Confidence. No scary ghost can attack me on one aspect. I believe in Tailor. Multi-award-winning author and president of Word Weavers, Eva Marie Everson, penned, “Zoe McCarthy’s book is a fresh and innovative refocusing of your novel or novella. Through a few simple—and fun—steps, Zoe helps writers take their … manuscripts to a spit-polish finish.”
Aspiration.I hope Tailor will lessen fear of writing. Bestselling cozy mystery author and Twitteriffic owner, Elizabeth Spann Craig, wrote, “Zoe M. McCarthy’s step-by-step reference guide leads you through the process, helping you fight feeling over-whelmed.” I smiled.
The cold has come, the sun has gone…it’s time for pumpkins! The other day I cooked one and made pumpkin bread, a perfect break from editing a manuscript.
Topped with melting butter, savored with a mug of hot tea. Oh my–the simple joys of the season. I’ll get back to my work soon, but the enticing aroma of pumpkin bread baking is calling me…
It’s the loveliest time of year here. Last night’s rain brightened the colors, making today perfect for a walk into the countryside. But if you trek down our front steps, beware!
While I long for a several-mile hike, my regimen of icing my leg after very short ventures may remain for some time. Someone who remembers her own post-surgery frustration reminds me, “The doctor said inflammation and swelling is actually a good sign…it means there’s healing.”
I wish this knowledge automatically made me more patient with the process, but something I read recently gives me food for thought. Soren Kierkegaard, a nineteenth century Danish philosopher, wrote:
“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day, I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.”
This has been my m.o. for decades, and I doubt I’ll ever lose the desire to walk. But right now, I’m stymied. The one thing my doctor advised, “Walk, walk, walk!” and which I really want to do, brings considerable pain.
With the weather so gorgeous, venturing out for brief periods helps, knowing my ice awaits me. Viewing the golden/persimmon/chartreuse/scarlet-orange spectacle all around our home helps, too. Normally I’d be out there raking away, but this is my year to sit back.
We’ve all endured some “sitting back” during 2020, haven’t we?
Meanwhile, one Danish philosopher’s life instructs me . . . he lived to be only forty-three, yet contributed to the world of thought long after his passing. Things may not be exactly as I wish, but lovely day of life can take first place on my gratitude list.
The word Rambunctious first appeared in print at a time when the fast-growing United States was forging its identity with optimism and exuberance. That era, the early half of the Nineteenth Century, also birthed words like rip-roaring, scalawag, scrumptious, hornswoggle, and skedaddle. Did Americans alter the largely British rumbustious because it sounded too stilted? Rumbustious, which first appeared in Britain in the late 1700s just after early Americans signed the Declaration of Independence, was probably based on robustious, a much older adjective that meant both “robust” and “boisterous.”
This week Lance sent me some shots of a normally rambunctious animal, but right now, cold has settled over our area. This plump specimen seems ready to rest. Our courtyard, our best attempt at an English garden, provides ample place for that, especially this year when I cannot get out there to trim and haul away summer’s faded bounty.
In more rambunctious seasons of my life, I might’ve run out and clapped my hands, yelling “Shoo! Shoo!” to avoid having to deal with a passel of baby bunnies next spring. But now, I look out the window in search of beauty, and find incredible creatures like this hidden away.
Sometimes, a little maneuvering provides a gorgeous perspective. My husband does this all the time with his photography. Behold:
Here, he squatted down, I think, to snap a photo through the leaves of the pin oak sapling in our courtyard. His long-range objective? To capture an outrageously adorned tall maple on the north side of our house.
Ah….perspective! I find myself writing about this often. Perspective can make all the difference as we go through life. In times when we’re limited by physical or emotional boundaries, seeing things differently comes in so handy.
What may seem a limitation can open up whole new worlds of thought and ingenuity. Suddenly we understand the way someone reacted in similar circumstances, or grasp a fresh nuance in a person’s choices.
Welcome to Diane Tatum, who writes in several genres. She’s here with her Christmas novella, Dreaming of a Wedded Christmas, and offering a free copy to a commenter.
Dreaming of a Wedded Christmas is my tenth book but my first free-standing Christmas story. This tale begins in the boardroom of Wycroft Booksellers. Grandpa Jay is cleaning his glasses while the young people around the table argue over the future of the company. I wrote this much at a writer’s conference. Then it sat in my journal until I was interested in writing the full story when I received the opportunity from my editor to write a Christmas novella.
This story is part of a set available this Christmas, called MISStletoe Romances. Each story is centered on nearly missing something. My story is a triangle love story. Jaymie is engaged to Dave Garrett. During their search for a house, Jaymie meets Kyle Mason, their real estate agent. Literal sparks fly. The closer they all get to Christmas, the more stress they experience and the more Jaymie feels confused about the wedding.
I write romantic fiction in several genres. My first book is Gold Earrings, an historical novel. I’m writing a Main Street Mysteries series. The next installment of Dorie and Ross’s story is called DNA Secrets, and my Colonial Dream series is historical fiction. The fourth book in that series will be A Time to Create. I have two other free-standing novels: Mission Mesquite, and Oxford Fairy Tale, part of a set Romancing the Billionaire.
I began writing in elementary school. My first degree was in Accounting so I could support myself while pursuing my dream of writing. God intervened by bringing my husband into the picture. I finished my degree and we started our family. I started writing youth Bible curriculum for Lifeway and articles for magazines in the early ‘90s and finished Gold Earrings, my first novel begun in high school. After finishing a master’s degree in teaching Language Arts, I taught full time for eleven years. My husband asked me to “come home and write my stories” in 1989, so I did.
I’m living my dream and enjoy my novels. God inspires my stories and gives me the opportunity to publish them. I’m giving away Dreaming of a Wedded Christmas to one reader of this blog. Please leave a review on Amazon for me.
I’m a little late, but a week ago was my dad’s birthday.
During WWII, he served with the Army Air Force in North Africa, and after four years returned to his father’s Iowa farm. He was still hitching up horses when he left, but after training in Washington, D.C., spent three years sleeping in tents and driving Army trucks.
Like most veterans, he rarely spoke of his experience, but once he described an airplane loaded with soldiers headed back to the States. Something went wrong and the plane exploded on the runway. Who knows what else he witnessed?
After the long trip back across the Atlantic by ship, coming back to the farm must have seemed like heaven to him. No more freezing in the desert at night, no more standing in line for rations or meals if he was lucky, no more waiting days for a shower.
