Road Trip

I'm heading out for a couple of weeks on a road trip with my Mom. I've never been further west than Mississippi so this is a grand adventure. This special trip overlaps the first anniversary of my Dad's passing, such a difficult season that we went through last year. But this time it will be filled with celebration.  In fact, this Mom and Daughter outing will commemorate our big birthdays. Mom will be 70 in September, and I will be, oh, dear, 50 in November. This trip will include time to write, research, and even visit a writer friend. My itinerary includes:  Photoshoot & Family Visits (MA). Family wedding (OH). Creation Museum (KY). Colonial Williamsburg & Visits with Writer Friends (VA). Family Visits (MA). Home again (ME) to finish writing Colonial Courtships.

See you when I return!

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.  ~St. Augustine

Writing Under Difficulties

Have you ever written under great difficulties?

I sure have. Sometimes I liken the life of a writer to that of a mailman. "Come rain, come snow, come hail or

Laptop of the 1890's!

sleet, the postman always delivers." And authors do, too. Many writers I know have endured terrible difficulties under which they had to press on. Last year at this time was such a time for me during the last days of my step-father's life I was writing my novel, The Shadow Catcher's Daughter. After Dad died I had 4 weeks remaining to complete it. My publisher graciously allowed me 2 extra weeks. And by the grace of God I completed it. There have been other difficulties I have worked through (health issues, family responsibilities, personal challenges, etc.) as many of you have. One thing I have determined — writing is not for the faint of heart.

Here are some excerpts from past times that testify to this fact. I hope you enjoy.

A 19th Century Take on Women Writing Literature

'Writing is like flirting: if you can't do it, nobody can teach you; and if you do it, nobody can stop you.' So says the heroine of a contemporary novel, and I am bound to say that I agree with her.

So states Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, the author of an 1905 article in The Writer, a popular Boston literary magazine which commenced publication in 1882 and is still being produced. I get such a kick out of reading old writings — illuminating society of past times, yet sometimes resonating with the thoughts we have today.

As the article continues I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did for both advice and humor.

To those who feel that they cannot write now, but some day hope they will, I can only give the celebrated advice of Punch "to persons about to marry"— "Don't." If you feel that you can help writing, by all means do help writing, and turn your thoughts and your wishes in another direction.

"Mute, inglorious Miltons," believe me, are very rare birds indeed. As a rule genius — like murder — "will out." I fear I have not much patience with those people who are convinced that they could have done some great thing if circumstances had been different. Circumstances have very little to do with the question. These persons could have done some great thing if they themselves had been different, I admit; but that is the only "if" they can lawfully plead.

Make a Way

Make a Way by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman (Streams in the Desert)


"I will make all my mountains a way" (Isa.49:11).

God will make obstacles serve His purpose. We all have mountains in our lives. There are people and things that threaten to bar our progress in the Divine life. Those heavy claims, that uncongenial occupation, that thorn in the flesh, that daily cross--we think that if only these were removed we might live purer, tenderer, holier lives; and often we pray for their removal.

"Oh, fools, and slow of heart!" These are the very conditions of achievement; they have been put into our lives as the means to the very graces and virtues for which we have been praying so long. Thou hast prayed for patience through long years, but there is something that tries thee beyond endurance; thou hast fled from it, evaded it, accounted it an unsurmountable obstacle to the desired attainment, and supposed that its removal would secure thy immediate deliverance and victory.

Not so! Thou wouldest gain only the cessation of temptations to impatience. But this would not be patience. Patience can be acquired only through just such trials as now seem unbearable.
Go back; submit thyself. Claim to be a partaker in the patience of Jesus. Meet thy trials in Him. There is nothing in life which harasses and annoys that may not become subservient to the highest ends. They are His mountains. He puts them there. We know that God will not fail to keep His promise. "God understandeth the way thereof and knoweth the place thereof. For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven"; and when we come to the foot of the mountains, we shall find the way.--Christ in Isaiah, by Meyer

"The meaning of trial is not only to test worthiness, but to increase it; as the oak is not only tested by the storm, but toughened by them."