Last night was publishing class night.  The lady who spoke, Nancy Berland, was very good.  However, after thirty minutes, I had heard so many new terms that I had never heard before--concerning the ins and outs of getting your book to market--that I felt like a two year old listening to Einstein.

Everyone else in the class has been writing for the purpose of being published--and understands the "lingo".  I wrote my book just to "get it down" and hadn't thought much about the next step.  And that was thirty years ago.  I am illiterate on the subject of getting a book to market.

In the last thirty years, a million, zillion things about books have changed.  It is overwhelming, to say the least.  People don't hold a book in their hands like they used to.  And there are so many computer related pieces of information, that it makes me want to throw my hands in the air and give up.  I guess if you were writing for a living, you would have a financial motivation to learn all of the things you need to know about marketing.  But the minute someone says "computer," I get brain freeze.

I just want to throw all the pages in the air and see where they land.

Think about all of the new words that have entered the English language in the last fifty years.  Computer related terms.  The list is endless.  I don't know what most of them mean.  I now know what it feels like (to a five year old) to be presented with a list of letters and be told that they are going to make words with those letters so that they can read.  Read.  The cornerstone of learning.

I need a ten year old to help me.  I need a permanent helper by my side.  Permanent, because when I do learn something new, unless I use it over and over again, I forget it.

I am still learning how to use my I-Phone.  The power these gadgets give you is unbelievable.

I'm making headway.  I won't give up.  It's not my nature.  But, sincerely--God help me.

I've been on a reading binge.  One book a day.  The library sends me six books every week.  What am I reading?  I can't remember because I never look at the title or the author.  Unless it is John Grishom.  I like the way he constructs a story.  I have learned to write by reading.  I look at phrasing, sentence structure and what words introduce a new paragraph.

If an author bumbles around, or gives too many descriptions of flowers, the sky, houses on the street, or what someone is wearing, they have lost me.  I don't like fol-de-rol.  I find myself skipping entire paragraphs of fop-de-rol,  looking for the next sentence in which something happens.  I'm not much on scenery.

I found that when I write, I have been starting too many sentences with: "And", or "So", or "But"--as a follow-on to the preceding paragraph.  Bad structure.  But Carolyn said it was okay to do that from time to time.  I've just been overdoing it.

I love to read.  I know a good book when I read it.  I just haven't exactly figured out what makes it good.  It isn't that it is romance, or mystery, or biography, or historical fiction, it is the way the writer presents the material.  The more I read, the better I write.

Which makes me amused at the apostle Paul and the way he wrote.  He was a rabbit chaser.  His head was full to exploding with knowledge, and when he would start a sentence, some word in it would remind him of something else, and off he would go.  One passage in Colossians that I have referred to many times: "...If you continue in the faith...and aren't moved away from the hope..." and then Paul goes of on a tangent for five verses before he finishes the sentence.

"Which is Christ in you, the hope of Glory."  In between all of that, he talks about a dozen other things before he finishes the sentence.  "...If you continue in the faith...and aren't moved away from the hope...which is Christ in you the hope of Glory.  You have to be careful when you read something that Paul wrote or you will come to the wrong conclusion.

When we lived in Beaufort in 1963-66, we lived next door to a Jewish doctor (I'll call him David--not his real name) aspiring to be a neurosurgeon.  He had an opportunity to interview for a neurosurgical residency in Philadelphia, so Ken offered to fly him there.   David had never been in an airplane--much less a supersonic military jet equipped with an ejection seat.

But he was willing to do the chamber (test for anoxia--where you pass out from lack of oxygen) and the ejection seat trial, because he was broke and couldn't even afford the gas to drive.  Contrary to popular opinion, everyone in the military is broke from moving.  Yes the government pays for the moving van, but back then, that was it.  I'd explain all the other costs but I would run out of space.

Long story short, David didn't tell Ken that he had never been in an airplane until they got back from Philly.  They got caught in an ice storm and had to lay over with Dave's Kosher parents for a couple of days and when they returned, they were running low on gas, so Ken did what he had done a zillion times in Korea, he turned off the engine at altitude and glided until they were close to the landing strip before he fired the engine back up to land.

"We never had enough gas to do our runs in Korea.  You would get as high as you could coming in from a run, turn off the engine and glide.  Sometimes we ran out of gas--and had to do a dead stick landing.  The key was getting as close as you could to the air strip and try to reserve enough fuel so that you could turn the engine back on and land.  Sometimes it worked."

"I remember once when I was coming back in, I explained the situation to the tower and he told me I was seventh in the "Low on fuel" landing pattern.  That's when you get a little nervous," Ken said.

Dave swore he would never get in an airplane again--even though he agreed that it was a once in a lifetime experience.  "No problem," Ken told him.  "Everything was under control."

Dave got the job.

I had to miss church Sunday and get a substitute for my class that I teach.  I've got whatever is going  around.  Sore throat, chest congestion, headache...bummer.

The lady who keeps records in the class called and said that one of my members died this week.  That was a shock.  She had gone to visit her daughter in Texas for a month and had a heart attack.

Death comes to us all.  The Bible says it comes like a thief in the night.  Unexpected, to rob us and take our most valuable possession--life.

Sometimes it is expected.  But either way, expected or unexpected, it still it robs us of the people we love.  My grandson called last night and talked for an hour or so--which was wonderful.  He is good to call me.  I wish I could call my grandmother.  Or my mother, or my dad, or Ken...and the list goes on and on of people who knew me, loved me and remember all of the same things that I remember.  When you live a long life--as I have--you lose people that you love.

Death has robbed me of countless people that make up the tapestry of my life.  I can count on one hand the people who are left from my generation.  Friends and family.  People that can give me advice and direction.  Who were my elders and contemporaries.  Fourteen aunts and uncles.

I am the last leaf on the tree.  In the November of my life.  And that is a fact.  I praise God that I have had the joy of serving Him with my life--due to the input of all of those people.  Without the influence of the people God that put in my life, I can't help but wonder how destitute my spiritual life would be.  What a blessing I have had.

Well, I just reread what I have written--to edit it--and it sounds terribly sad.  I'm not sad.  I'm not depressed.  I am thankful.  God has blessed me.  And even though I have lost so many people, I have all of the generations that have come after me.

"My quiver is full of arrows" is how the Bible puts it.

Becky Bacon came to stay for a couple of days.  We went out to Pat's house,  and Becky fell in love with Pat's log cabin.  It is nice.  Since we finished Pat's master bathroom, she has been energized to do the rest of the house.  So my job was to help her measure for tile.  (She fixed us corn chowder and baked us some of those Lobster House biscuits.  Delish.)  We got everything measured and ready to start the next project which is the utility room and kitchen.  She has lived without water to the ice maker for seventeen years.   Which would have driven me crazy.  But then, I am spoiled.

Becky wanted to read the first three chapters of the book I've written--so I gave them to her.  She loved it and begged for the fourth chapter, which I hadn't printed yet.   I handed her my computer and she read three more chapters.  I was encouraged.  She made me promise to mail the rest of it to her.  She and Carolyn always tell me the truth.  If I need to be straightened out, one of them will do it.

The manuscript has to got to go to Carolyn.  She is my English guru, and will correct the flaws.  This book has sat dormant for twenty years and I am just now energized to take the last steps to being done with it in spite of the editor that said he hated it after reading the first sentence.

I have the best friends in the world.  Amy Smith still writes me every few weeks just to encourage me.  Sally Casey calls as well.  Once I start on the list of friends, there is no where to stop.  Friends are one of life's greatest treasures.  We lean on each other in times of sadness an grief and rejoice with each other in times of joy.

Thank all of you for being my friends.

Talk about discouraged.  I took the first chapter of the book I have written to an editor who is also a professor of English.  He hated it.  He told me that the first sentence should state the problem, or the crisis, that the book intends to solve.  That there had to be dramatic emotion in the first paragraph for someone to continue to read.  After he read the first sentence, he said that if he had picked it up to read, he wouldn't have gone any further.  That he would have watched a ball game on TV instead.
He didn't have anything positive to say.

I read the first two chapters over the phone to Scott, and he told me, "Mom, you can write.  Don't let some knucklehead get you down."  He also said, "Take it to a woman editor."  And then he said, "I get it.  I was raised by women.  I understand how they think."  He was referring to the fact that until he was four, Ken was deployed most of the time and Pat, Becky and I were the only family he had.

I will pick myself up and find an editor that is interested in my subject matter.  When you write, your copy is like your baby.  You want everyone to say, "What a pretty child," even though it may be the ugliest kid you ever saw.  But you have to be aware that some people don't like kids.  Period.  And some editors are going to hate what you write from the git-go.

I know that will be true about what I write, and am ready to change what needs to be changed.  I just want someone to point me in the right direction and give me some constructive help.  "I hate it," isn't constructive.  I like the first chapter.  I have no idea how I would change it.  I guess that is what is important.  Being happy with what you have written.

I edit what I write (to all of you out there) three or four times until I have said what I want to say--and said it the way I want to say it.

It is now 24 hours later.  I went to the class on publishing and the lady speaker for the evening was the editor of a publishing company.  She liked what I had written, and took the first three chapters with her when the evening was over.  So I am now out of the dumps.

Maybe Scott was right.

1 John has some memorable verses that we all know.  2:16 gives us the three categories of sin that humans commit:  "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world."  1. sexual, lustful sin.  2. Stuff we think we have to have for happiness, greed.  3.  Pride. Who I am. What I do. What I say--Making a God of ourself.

And then there is 3:1-2  "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God...it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know...we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is."  We are going to get to see God!!

3:18 "My little children, don't love in words, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth."  John reiterates that it's not what you say, but what you do that shows love.

My favorite passage  is when John reassures those who are wondering, "Can this be true?  Am I really a child of God?"  John ends his letter by saying in 5:11-12 "And this is the record, that God has given us eternal life and this life is in his Son.  He that has the Son has life, and he that doesn't have the Son of God doesn't have life."  John is saying: "I've told your the truth.  You can absolutely trust what I am telling you.  I have written the truth.  Recorded it.

Followed by my favorite verse: 5:13 These things I have written to you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God."  Once again he is giving us a written record of truth.

The thing I love about this verse is that:  1. He is writing to Christians:  "...to you that believe..."  2.  So that you can have total confidence:  "...that you may know you have eternal life..." 3. "...and that you may believe..."So that your belief grows stronger every time a you read John's words.

You believe, you know, you believe...  Knowing produces belief.  Belief produces knowing.  That's called growing in Christ.  Making yourself "...ready to give an answer to any person who asks a reason of the hope that is within you..." 1 Peter 15:3  I personally believe--and know what I believe.