Out for a while
I'll not be writing blogs for a few days. See you later.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
What Is Going on in China Today
According to the American Bible Society, the church in China is growing faster than one can possibly imagine. Chinese church leaders report that thousands turn to Christ every single day, with 500,000 baptisms every year. The new believers have one thing in common: they all want a Bible of their own. But with the church growing so fast, there is a famine of Bibles in the land. In some areas, 100 persons have to share the same Bible.
Earlier this year the Chinese government gave permission for the printing of 3.5 million Bibles in China itself. They will be printed in Nanjing, a miraculous cooperation between the government of China and the United Bible Societies, of which the American Bible Society was a founding member. The printing presses are ready to roll with the capacity to print 50 Bibles per minute. It is only the cost of the paper that is missing.
Every $1 donation for this effort will help put a Bible in the hands of one or more Chinese believers. A roll of paper to print 600 Bibles can be paid for with a $600 gift. I urge you to join me in taking part in this important achievement. To give a secure gift online, please visit ChinaBibles.AmericanBible.org/ If that looks too complicated for you, you may send a check online to American Bible Society. Mark you donation as Bibles for China. If you can’t send it that way, the mailing address is:
American Bible Society
PO Box 96812
Washington, D. C. 20090-6812
Thank you and God bless you.
♥♥♥♥♥
According to the American Bible Society, the church in China is growing faster than one can possibly imagine. Chinese church leaders report that thousands turn to Christ every single day, with 500,000 baptisms every year. The new believers have one thing in common: they all want a Bible of their own. But with the church growing so fast, there is a famine of Bibles in the land. In some areas, 100 persons have to share the same Bible.
Earlier this year the Chinese government gave permission for the printing of 3.5 million Bibles in China itself. They will be printed in Nanjing, a miraculous cooperation between the government of China and the United Bible Societies, of which the American Bible Society was a founding member. The printing presses are ready to roll with the capacity to print 50 Bibles per minute. It is only the cost of the paper that is missing.
Every $1 donation for this effort will help put a Bible in the hands of one or more Chinese believers. A roll of paper to print 600 Bibles can be paid for with a $600 gift. I urge you to join me in taking part in this important achievement. To give a secure gift online, please visit ChinaBibles.AmericanBible.org/ If that looks too complicated for you, you may send a check online to American Bible Society. Mark you donation as Bibles for China. If you can’t send it that way, the mailing address is:
American Bible Society
PO Box 96812
Washington, D. C. 20090-6812
Thank you and God bless you.
♥♥♥♥♥
Sunday, April 10, 2011
A Tip Perhaps Just for You
If you have trouble hearing the television, upping the volume to the discomfort of others, here is a listening device for you free of charge. Get comfortable in your recliner with your feet up; lean back a bit; clasp your hands behind your neck with your elbows pointing toward the ceiling; be sure your wrist areas are behind your ears. Your arms act like a wing chair, only better, driving the sound into your ears. Find the perfect position for your head and you can hold it for a fifteen-minute segment easily. Rest your arms when the screen shows something you don’t want to see, such as commercials you’ve seen 114 times already. In a public place—if you want to eavesdrop—placing one hand behind your neck in such fashion for a brief period of time might work. Eavesdropping is allowed only to writers, of course. And to spies on the right side. Happy listening!
If you have trouble hearing the television, upping the volume to the discomfort of others, here is a listening device for you free of charge. Get comfortable in your recliner with your feet up; lean back a bit; clasp your hands behind your neck with your elbows pointing toward the ceiling; be sure your wrist areas are behind your ears. Your arms act like a wing chair, only better, driving the sound into your ears. Find the perfect position for your head and you can hold it for a fifteen-minute segment easily. Rest your arms when the screen shows something you don’t want to see, such as commercials you’ve seen 114 times already. In a public place—if you want to eavesdrop—placing one hand behind your neck in such fashion for a brief period of time might work. Eavesdropping is allowed only to writers, of course. And to spies on the right side. Happy listening!
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
The 39 Steps and North by Northwest
It is said there are only 37 basic plots in literature. If that is true, it must be so for serious movies. I want to compare two films to illustrate what a writer can do with a tested, successful plot to inspire his own.
In 1935 Hitchcock made the film “The 39 Steps,” acclaimed to be his first among his great ones. This plot was adapted from a book by John Buchan, published in 1915. In 1959 Hitchcock’s film “North by Northwest” came out without its having been a book, so far as I can ascertain. Hitchcock might have assigned a scriptwriter or writers to adapt the first Steps to make a similar film. Now we have a remake of Steps. It’s possible some viewers can see the new Steps and North without realizing the similarities. Let’s compare the 1959 “North by Northwest” with the 2008 “The 39 Steps.”
Steps’s main character, played by Rupert Penry-Jones, flees, falsely accused of murder. North’s main character, Cary Grant, flees, accused of a false identity. Both are single men concerned with the next business adventure, Penry-Jones in Africa and Grant in New York. Both make part of their get-away by train. Both have money in their pockets, and use it generously to make progress in their fleeing from both the law and spies on the wrong side. Both are helped early on by females who turn out to be spies on the right side. Both are chased by an airplane but escape, Penry-Jones by a 1914 plane and Grant by a crop-duster. Both really run for their lives, Penry-Jones running longer than Grant. They learn at last, someone in high intelligence kept track of them all along, and used them to get the bad spies. As for being realistic, they are about equal in my estimation, perhaps Steps out ahead by a short distance. Cary Grant seems to add a touch of humor to his attitude, no matter how serious the plot. Penry-Jones is always sensible but laughs in the right places and it's a most attractive laugh, just the way someone would laugh in real life. This 2008 movie is one of the best I’ve ever seen. When I get a new suspense film, I study it as a writer, watching it several times and will view it still in the future.
In spite of the similarities mentioned above, these two films are quite, quite different, making it difficult to guess what is about to happen even with this much knowledge about them. If any writer is tempted to adapt a plot from elsewhere, I strongly suggest you watch these two and see how it’s done and NOT get yourself charged with plagiarism.
♥
It is said there are only 37 basic plots in literature. If that is true, it must be so for serious movies. I want to compare two films to illustrate what a writer can do with a tested, successful plot to inspire his own.
In 1935 Hitchcock made the film “The 39 Steps,” acclaimed to be his first among his great ones. This plot was adapted from a book by John Buchan, published in 1915. In 1959 Hitchcock’s film “North by Northwest” came out without its having been a book, so far as I can ascertain. Hitchcock might have assigned a scriptwriter or writers to adapt the first Steps to make a similar film. Now we have a remake of Steps. It’s possible some viewers can see the new Steps and North without realizing the similarities. Let’s compare the 1959 “North by Northwest” with the 2008 “The 39 Steps.”
Steps’s main character, played by Rupert Penry-Jones, flees, falsely accused of murder. North’s main character, Cary Grant, flees, accused of a false identity. Both are single men concerned with the next business adventure, Penry-Jones in Africa and Grant in New York. Both make part of their get-away by train. Both have money in their pockets, and use it generously to make progress in their fleeing from both the law and spies on the wrong side. Both are helped early on by females who turn out to be spies on the right side. Both are chased by an airplane but escape, Penry-Jones by a 1914 plane and Grant by a crop-duster. Both really run for their lives, Penry-Jones running longer than Grant. They learn at last, someone in high intelligence kept track of them all along, and used them to get the bad spies. As for being realistic, they are about equal in my estimation, perhaps Steps out ahead by a short distance. Cary Grant seems to add a touch of humor to his attitude, no matter how serious the plot. Penry-Jones is always sensible but laughs in the right places and it's a most attractive laugh, just the way someone would laugh in real life. This 2008 movie is one of the best I’ve ever seen. When I get a new suspense film, I study it as a writer, watching it several times and will view it still in the future.
In spite of the similarities mentioned above, these two films are quite, quite different, making it difficult to guess what is about to happen even with this much knowledge about them. If any writer is tempted to adapt a plot from elsewhere, I strongly suggest you watch these two and see how it’s done and NOT get yourself charged with plagiarism.
♥
Saturday, April 2, 2011
A Day in the Life of . . .
Biography is a great love of mine and one kind of bio I especially enjoy reading is the occasional piece about a writer’s typical day of writing. From past readings of such, I’ve learned some writers, particularly male writers, spend a regimented three-hour segment of the morning to write, with the door to the room locked, or good as locked, and allowing no interruptions unless the house is on fire. In that short period of time, they may produce a whole chapter of a novel. This is only the first draft, of course, and people who write this way usually admit the first revision is where the hard work starts. The novel probably goes through several revisions before the author allows someone else to read it and make corrections in his flawed grammar and whatnot. After those corrections, he likely places the product in the hands of another writer—famous, if he knows one well enough—for real criticism. After that, he may work like a demon or give up entirely or somewhere in between these extremes, even placing the copy in a drawer somewhere at the risk of forgetting it. Perhaps it was the whatnot that got him.
On the other hand, many women do not have the leisure in their daily routines to set aside three hours every day for such activity. If they write after they retire from an office job, the household chores continue. There may be some chores that have waited for that retirement to get done. Retirement also holds a surprise: one’s mail increases, with ads from every insurance company, retirement home, fitness program in existence, it seems. This is when those lovely, big blue recyc carts come in handy. One’s pitching arm gets stronger. But if one opens these (to see if there’s a good side to this onslaught, maybe unused postage stamps, for example), this habit can take too much time. Better to close your eyes and pitch.
The point is, there is never time to write, unless you make it. You make time to go to a grandchild’s ballgame, friends’ anniversary celebration, weddings, funerals, vacation, grocery shopping. Don’t tell me these are different, that you have to do these, for a real writer knows he must write . . . or die. One book out there has the title, Write for Your Life. I haven’t read it, but I imagine it’s about this very problem.
On the other side of the coin is the retirement that allows the place and the freedom to write, when one lives alone—with books and paper all over the house, even to sit naked at one’s computer to write (I’ve heard of this)—and still the chores continue but no one is there to help with them. If a writer starts getting everything in order before she starts writing, she likely will not write. Not unless she has gotten everything in order the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that, leaving not much for today to get in order. And it’s still 11:00 when she is ready to write but it’s time to fix lunch, for breakfast was at seven, and she knows she will get hungry and that will interfere with the writing, and . . .
What does one do? It depends, of course, on how deep the desire to write is, but if it is long-lived, and she finds no other pursuit so satisfying and fulfilling as writing, she needs to keep the television off, postpone chores, and write first. If it turns out she writes all day and the chores go till tomorrow, perhaps she could buy a stack of paper plates, bowls, and cups till she gets the novel through its first revision. Throwing dirty clothes into a washer isn’t a big job, and if she buys clothes that don’t need ironing, drying them is simple too. As for interruptions, she must be able to post her office hours and have people make appointments. If they don’t accept this procedure, it means they don’t think she is a writer or something like that.
♥
Biography is a great love of mine and one kind of bio I especially enjoy reading is the occasional piece about a writer’s typical day of writing. From past readings of such, I’ve learned some writers, particularly male writers, spend a regimented three-hour segment of the morning to write, with the door to the room locked, or good as locked, and allowing no interruptions unless the house is on fire. In that short period of time, they may produce a whole chapter of a novel. This is only the first draft, of course, and people who write this way usually admit the first revision is where the hard work starts. The novel probably goes through several revisions before the author allows someone else to read it and make corrections in his flawed grammar and whatnot. After those corrections, he likely places the product in the hands of another writer—famous, if he knows one well enough—for real criticism. After that, he may work like a demon or give up entirely or somewhere in between these extremes, even placing the copy in a drawer somewhere at the risk of forgetting it. Perhaps it was the whatnot that got him.
On the other hand, many women do not have the leisure in their daily routines to set aside three hours every day for such activity. If they write after they retire from an office job, the household chores continue. There may be some chores that have waited for that retirement to get done. Retirement also holds a surprise: one’s mail increases, with ads from every insurance company, retirement home, fitness program in existence, it seems. This is when those lovely, big blue recyc carts come in handy. One’s pitching arm gets stronger. But if one opens these (to see if there’s a good side to this onslaught, maybe unused postage stamps, for example), this habit can take too much time. Better to close your eyes and pitch.
The point is, there is never time to write, unless you make it. You make time to go to a grandchild’s ballgame, friends’ anniversary celebration, weddings, funerals, vacation, grocery shopping. Don’t tell me these are different, that you have to do these, for a real writer knows he must write . . . or die. One book out there has the title, Write for Your Life. I haven’t read it, but I imagine it’s about this very problem.
On the other side of the coin is the retirement that allows the place and the freedom to write, when one lives alone—with books and paper all over the house, even to sit naked at one’s computer to write (I’ve heard of this)—and still the chores continue but no one is there to help with them. If a writer starts getting everything in order before she starts writing, she likely will not write. Not unless she has gotten everything in order the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that, leaving not much for today to get in order. And it’s still 11:00 when she is ready to write but it’s time to fix lunch, for breakfast was at seven, and she knows she will get hungry and that will interfere with the writing, and . . .
What does one do? It depends, of course, on how deep the desire to write is, but if it is long-lived, and she finds no other pursuit so satisfying and fulfilling as writing, she needs to keep the television off, postpone chores, and write first. If it turns out she writes all day and the chores go till tomorrow, perhaps she could buy a stack of paper plates, bowls, and cups till she gets the novel through its first revision. Throwing dirty clothes into a washer isn’t a big job, and if she buys clothes that don’t need ironing, drying them is simple too. As for interruptions, she must be able to post her office hours and have people make appointments. If they don’t accept this procedure, it means they don’t think she is a writer or something like that.
♥
Some Routines for One’s Routine
A possible bad thing about getting a new computer is losing some writing in the process. I discovered last night one of my unfinished stories—novelette, I intend—is missing. I still have the old hard drive; so my computer expert will just have to retrieve it for me. It pays to keep a hard copy of everything and it probably is in my hard-copy filing cabinet. If so, I would rather retype it, possibly revising as I do so, than have the computer gone for a day or two. This is a new Dell which I like, but I’m still trying to get used to a wireless mouse purchased on Thursday. It wants to fly off the monitor. I practice using it by means of solitaire. I’m improving.
Solitaire reminds me: when you are at your computer and writing from the heart, perhaps shedding tears for a moment, don’t jump up too quickly when you finish the touching scene. You could have a heart attack. Sit there another five minutes and play solitaire till you are a bit calmer. Another good idea is to have some icons for especially chosen comfort “items” on your desk top that you can bring up with two clicks. I have two of these on my screen: a photo of my fifteen-year-old granddaughter, Piper, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia. I seldom see her and have not seen her since her mother, my daughter, Susan, died in 2006. But Piper’s darling face on the monitor is so much like Susan’s, it is a comfort. It’s amazing to look into her chiseled features and know she is fluent in the Japanese language and has been since before first grade. At age three she began attending a Japanese school in Atlanta and in order to stay in the school, she had to become fluent in the language by the time she entered first grade. Her older brothers had a similar program but in French and Spanish. France, Spain, and Japan are countries that Susan worked in as an international fashion model. She loved languages and she must have learned more of each of these as her children learned them.
The other calming icon on my desk top contains the Twenty-third Psalm, with artwork. Reading this is an excellent way to begin one’s time at the keyboard. After two days of glorious summer, today is dark. rainy, windy, a great time for writing. With these yellow walls, Piper’s face, and the 23rd Psalm, the weather outside is of no consideration. It can be summer in what I write.
♥
A possible bad thing about getting a new computer is losing some writing in the process. I discovered last night one of my unfinished stories—novelette, I intend—is missing. I still have the old hard drive; so my computer expert will just have to retrieve it for me. It pays to keep a hard copy of everything and it probably is in my hard-copy filing cabinet. If so, I would rather retype it, possibly revising as I do so, than have the computer gone for a day or two. This is a new Dell which I like, but I’m still trying to get used to a wireless mouse purchased on Thursday. It wants to fly off the monitor. I practice using it by means of solitaire. I’m improving.
Solitaire reminds me: when you are at your computer and writing from the heart, perhaps shedding tears for a moment, don’t jump up too quickly when you finish the touching scene. You could have a heart attack. Sit there another five minutes and play solitaire till you are a bit calmer. Another good idea is to have some icons for especially chosen comfort “items” on your desk top that you can bring up with two clicks. I have two of these on my screen: a photo of my fifteen-year-old granddaughter, Piper, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia. I seldom see her and have not seen her since her mother, my daughter, Susan, died in 2006. But Piper’s darling face on the monitor is so much like Susan’s, it is a comfort. It’s amazing to look into her chiseled features and know she is fluent in the Japanese language and has been since before first grade. At age three she began attending a Japanese school in Atlanta and in order to stay in the school, she had to become fluent in the language by the time she entered first grade. Her older brothers had a similar program but in French and Spanish. France, Spain, and Japan are countries that Susan worked in as an international fashion model. She loved languages and she must have learned more of each of these as her children learned them.
The other calming icon on my desk top contains the Twenty-third Psalm, with artwork. Reading this is an excellent way to begin one’s time at the keyboard. After two days of glorious summer, today is dark. rainy, windy, a great time for writing. With these yellow walls, Piper’s face, and the 23rd Psalm, the weather outside is of no consideration. It can be summer in what I write.
♥
Friday, April 1, 2011
One Minor Book and One Great Film
Yesterday was a summer day here and this morning the sun is out bright again. What a day to be outside and what a day to write. The two are related, you know. With your computer, you can create a most desirable type of day, whether you’re into fiction or nonfiction, and if you do a good job at that, you are there in that setting. Of course, you won’t get any Vitamin D by writing inside the house. But you can expect other good things, such as ego satisfaction, making deadlines, and learning something. One time, in this bright yellow room, I wrote a scene of bad weather, with torrential rain and wind that didn’t want to stop. When I finished that writing and went out into the non-yellow other rooms, I was shocked that there was no storm of any kind going on and there hadn’t been. The power of the pen! But I suppose it’s really the power of the brain, right?
My brain has been busy on several fronts lately: much time going into watching the news, but also readying some manuscripts for submission into contests, and a little reading. I got through The Paris Wife by Paula McCain, the subject being the first wife of Ernest Hemingway. It is a novel but, according to the author, based on a good deal of research. I read it to learn more about the writer Hemingway, as I like to read about any writer, but this story almost made me sick. What a life of drinking, infidelity, more drinking, and actually admitting he expected to go to hell when he died. I’m glad the book was only 314 pages. The facts about how to write that came through, I already knew.
There’s another film to add to my list of those that have some important running in them. Remember that blog? I’ll go back and add this one to that list. The new one, an old, old Hitchcock film, now remade, is “The 39 Steps,” shown last Sunday on Masterpiece (PBS). There’s more running in this one than in any of those others. The point made in that blog is that if you want to sell a story to Hollywood (or as in this case, the BBC), put running in it, especially running for your life, not necessarily in sports. Hollywood knows people don’t go to get popcorn during a running scene such as these. Even the back cover of this DVD shows the male lead, Rupert Penry-Jones, running with a small plane, WWI type, trying to run him down and kill him. It’s a movie you don’t fall asleep during. And just think: the Scottish author of the book (which I read in the 1940’s), was more famous for his writing than for his governmental career. He served five years as Governor General of Canada. The name is John Buchan. Back to the DVD a moment: the star’s running is so important, we see him at it in one form or another on the front, back, and spine of the case. Perhaps the best advice for writers is Run, Baby, Run.
♥
Yesterday was a summer day here and this morning the sun is out bright again. What a day to be outside and what a day to write. The two are related, you know. With your computer, you can create a most desirable type of day, whether you’re into fiction or nonfiction, and if you do a good job at that, you are there in that setting. Of course, you won’t get any Vitamin D by writing inside the house. But you can expect other good things, such as ego satisfaction, making deadlines, and learning something. One time, in this bright yellow room, I wrote a scene of bad weather, with torrential rain and wind that didn’t want to stop. When I finished that writing and went out into the non-yellow other rooms, I was shocked that there was no storm of any kind going on and there hadn’t been. The power of the pen! But I suppose it’s really the power of the brain, right?
My brain has been busy on several fronts lately: much time going into watching the news, but also readying some manuscripts for submission into contests, and a little reading. I got through The Paris Wife by Paula McCain, the subject being the first wife of Ernest Hemingway. It is a novel but, according to the author, based on a good deal of research. I read it to learn more about the writer Hemingway, as I like to read about any writer, but this story almost made me sick. What a life of drinking, infidelity, more drinking, and actually admitting he expected to go to hell when he died. I’m glad the book was only 314 pages. The facts about how to write that came through, I already knew.
There’s another film to add to my list of those that have some important running in them. Remember that blog? I’ll go back and add this one to that list. The new one, an old, old Hitchcock film, now remade, is “The 39 Steps,” shown last Sunday on Masterpiece (PBS). There’s more running in this one than in any of those others. The point made in that blog is that if you want to sell a story to Hollywood (or as in this case, the BBC), put running in it, especially running for your life, not necessarily in sports. Hollywood knows people don’t go to get popcorn during a running scene such as these. Even the back cover of this DVD shows the male lead, Rupert Penry-Jones, running with a small plane, WWI type, trying to run him down and kill him. It’s a movie you don’t fall asleep during. And just think: the Scottish author of the book (which I read in the 1940’s), was more famous for his writing than for his governmental career. He served five years as Governor General of Canada. The name is John Buchan. Back to the DVD a moment: the star’s running is so important, we see him at it in one form or another on the front, back, and spine of the case. Perhaps the best advice for writers is Run, Baby, Run.
♥
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