Fun Friday: A Timeline in Pictures
I’m sure you came by today expecting another list of movies in a given genre, but today I’m taking a break from that, as I’ve recently found a very interesting timeline of my life and family history that I wanted to share with you . . .
The year was 1952. Both of my parents were nine years old. But if I’d been alive and in high school, here’s what I might have looked like compared to a picture of my maternal grandmother (left) and paternal grandmother (right) from around that time:
In 1960, Mom and Dad were seventeen years old and entering their senior years of high school. Here’s what I might have looked like if I’d been their age (left) and an actual picture of my mom from 1960 (isn’t she beautiful?):
Now we get to 1964, when Mom and Dad were studying hard and getting ready finish their undergraduate degrees. Here’s what I would have looked like (left) and what Mom did look like in her college graduation portrait:
In 1974, I turned three years old. We lived on post at Fort Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. But if I’d been in high school, I might have looked something like my Aunt Rinn around that time:
Two years later, in 1976, we’d just moved from base housing at White Sands Missile Range into our first house in Las Cruces, NM. I started kindergarten at Loma Heights Elementary School.
Skipping forward eight years to 1984, we’d just moved across town to a larger house and I was an eighth-grader at Mesilla Valley Christian School. In reality, I hadn’t quite bought into the big-hair trend, but I did have the big glasses goin’ on!
In 1986, my sister, Michelle, graduated from high school, and I transferred from MVCS to Las Cruces High School for my sophomore year. This hairstyle makes my almost-mullet look a whole lot better!
In 1989 I graduated from high school and moved to Baton Rouge to attend LSU. Back then, I wished I could get my bangs this big! Here’s my actual senior picture—I’d “fanged” my bangs before I left the house, but obviously they fell before the photo shoot.
In 1994, it had been a little more than a year since I’d dropped out of college, and I’d just started working at The Journal newspaper in Fairfax, Virginia. I think by this time in my life, I’d just about figured out how to get my hair this big and crispy:
1996 was a big year in my life—it’s the year I turned twenty-five, and it’s the year I moved to Nashville. But I don’t remember ever attempting a style like this! This was when I went into my “grow it as long as possible” phase!
Anyone remember Y2K? Remember what hairstyle you were wearing? I think I was over the as-long-as-possible hair phase by then.
See what you’d have looked like in these and many other years at www.yearbookyourself.com. And if you really want to see something funny, choose the opposite gender:
ACFW Recap 3–Saturday Night & Sunday Morning
As I suspected, the details of everything that happened during the day at the conference has become sketchy—whether due to brain overload or the head-cold I brought home with me. One of the best classes I remember taking on Saturday was Chip MacGregor’s “Building a Brand” class. From now on, everyone is to refer to me as the Princess of Amish-Vampire-Bouncing-Grandma-Young-Adult-Inspirational-Romance Novels (just want to make sure I’m not leaving out any trends there).
But anyway, on to the pictures from the awards banquet. Everyone showed up in his or her finest (or favorite) outfit to learn the names of the Book of the Year, Genesis Contest, Mentor of the Year, Agent of the Year, and Editor of the Year, as well as who would be receiving the Member Service award.
Here I am before the banquet with my wonderful agent, Chip MacGregor—who really should have won Agent of the Year:
Last year, “Clan MacGregor” started a tradition of getting as many of Chip’s clients to sit at his table at the banquet. There were more of us there than would fit at one table, but we love sitting at his table because it’s definitely the classiest table at the event, as demonstrated by Jim Rubart and Chip:
Lori Mynheir and Susan Meissner think about getting in on the action as author Mark Mynheir (who taught the “Police Procedural” continuing session at the conference) looks on:
My forum buddy, suspense writer John Robinson, has the “hang” of it, as award-winning YA author Jenny B. Jones tries to keep her mirth under control in the background:
Hey, Susan Page Davis, I think you need to tell Brandt Dodson that the point is to let go of the spoon!
I couldn’t really get good pictures of the award winners, but this one came out okay. Here’s Sharon Lavy winning the Member Service award. Way to go, Sharon!
And of course, Banquet is the time when we want to get our pictures taken with our friends whom we only see dressed up once a year—I mean, whom we only see once a year and we want a photo of us when we’re dressed up . . .
Here I am with Harvest House editor, and friend, Kim Moore:
And with three of the four other ladies who attended from my local group: Tamara Alexander, J.M. Hochstetler, and Krista Phillips:
Oh, and that reminds me to give a huge congratulations to Tamera Leigh, another Middle Tennessee Christian Writers member, whose novel Splitting Harriet won Book of the Year in the Lits category. Way to go, Tamera!!!!!
Here’s another shot of me with dear friend and author Ronie Kendig, whose suspense/thriller novel was just contracted by Abingdon Press:
And I had to have my picture taken with Cinderella and Prince Charming—Tiff “Amber Miller” Stockton and Stuart Stockton. Of course, it would have helped if they weren’t trying to explain to someone else how to use their camera!
Let’s try that again:
DCCPs (that’s Dazzlingly Clever Critique Partners) Erica and Georgiana and I were going to try to get a new picture of us at the banquet, but lines of communication got crossed. We did, however, get a new picture of the three of us together:
that we could compare to last year’s photo so that we could see how far we’ve come:
Aren’t my crit partners gorgeous?
Before they all could get away, I had to get a picture of my Sunday morning breakfast companions—Connie Stevens, Stu & Tiff Stockton, Erica Vetsch, and Georgiana Daniels:
And finally, to close out the conference recap, here’s a little video I took Sunday morning at the end of worship time. Don’t worry about the fact the video is sideways, what’s important is the sound:
(If the video player doesn’t work here, you can view the video at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4346850505312081379&hl=en)
ACFW Recap 2: MOA Book Signing
We’ve always had an “open to the public” book signing at the ACFW conference, but it’s always been at the hotel and rarely drew more than a handful of people from outside of those attending the conference. This year, because of our proximity to the Mall of America, ACFW decided to hold the book signing at the mall. They had signs up all over the mall to draw shoppers attention to the event:
Originally, it was supposed to take place in the Best Buy rotunda. In addition to the tables where authors were signing, they also had a stage where panels of authors answered questions and talked about writing and ACFW. Here’s the panel that included Angie Hunt, Karen Ball, James Scott Bell, and Brandilyn Collins:
Here’s another view of the rotunda:
But they had to add a couple of tables due to the number of authors who wanted to participate.
The tables kept going . . .
And going . . .
And going . . .
And going . . .
And going . . .
Here’s Nashville author Tamara Alexander (with Nancy Moser) signing outside of Bloomindale’s (sorry it’s blurry!):
And Nashville author J.M. Hochstetler signing outside of Old Navy:
And I caught MTCW member Krista Phillips getting a book signed by Rachel Hauck:
So, just in case you can’t tell, this book signing was MASSIVE and great exposure for Christian fiction and ACFW with the thousands of people who experienced it!
ACFW Recap 1
I don’t think I’m going to be able to do a day-by-day recap of everything that happened in the week that I was in Minnesota, but I will try to hit the highlights.
After I spent several days in Rochester with Erica and her family (will post about that later this week—including photos from our visit to the Spam Museum in Austin, MN), we drove over to “the Cities” (actually, the suburb of Bloomington) where the conference was to take place. One of the first things we did was go to the airport to pick up several people: Brandilyn Collins, “Mama” Ruth Seamonds, Rose McCauley, agent Sandra Bishop, and DCCP Georgiana Daniels. Here Erica and I are with Mama Ruth at baggage claim:
Our Keynote Speaker for the conference was best-selling author Angela Hunt:
And, as she has been since the first ACRW conference in 2002, best-selling author Brandilyn Collins served as our emcee:
Author Rachel Hauck did a wonderful job of putting together the worship times and leading us in singing:
And here I am with authors Patty Smith Hall (who won the Historical Romance category of the Genesis Contest) and Rachel Hauck, the two women who are responsible for encouraging me to join ACRW when I met them back in April 2001 at the Blue Ridge conference:
Thursday night, after the opening keynote address, I went to the “Start Your Writing Career with Barbour” late night chat. Here are our three beloved Barbour editors: Susan Downs, Rebecca Germany, and JoAnne Simmons:
Friday morning, I had the honor of giving the devotional to help get the first full day of conference off to a running start:
After a day of stuffing all the knowledge into our heads as we could (and I spent two hours helping Ronie Kendig keep the editor/agent appointments running smoothly), I went to the Mall of America for dinner with some of my Nashville gals (JM Hochstetler, Krista Phillips, and Esther Gross). After that, I went to the aquarium for the Barbour authors event.
Here I am with author Kelly Hake:
And here’s Tiff Stockton, who writes HeartSongs as Amber Miller, riding the giant statue of a tortoise at the aquarium:
The rest of my MOA/aquarium photos can be seen here.
So that gets us through Friday night. Tomorrow, I’ll post photos from the massive book signing at the Mall of America, and Thursday, I’ll post photos from the banquet. Hope you’ll come back to see what a good time we had!
Home from Conference!
Just wanted to put up a quick post to say I’m finally home from Minnesota. I had a wonderful time and have some great info and pictures to share in the upcoming days, but right now, I’m too tired.
I do have to share this though . . .
At conference every year, the Barbour editors announce three names of new authors they’re offering contracts to. This year, the HeartSong Presents contract went to my critique partner and very dear friend ERICA VETSCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So please jump over to her blog and congratulate her!
Fun Friday: Favorite Documentaries
Ha! I bet you thought that I had exhausted all of the categories of film in which I might have favorites. You thought wrong! [Insert evil laugh here.]
I’m not one to just sit down and watch documentary films, but there are some that I’ve seen that have been so riveting that I can’t help but count them amongst some of the best works I’ve witnessed. Most were made for television. Some are short, some are long. But I found all of them fascinating enough to watch more than once. (Some of these video clips are pretty long, so I don’t blame you if you don’t watch the whole video.)
5. Rome: Engineering an Empire (The History Channel, 2005)
Given that my second favorite miniseries is A.D., which is set in the first-century Roman empire and the fact that the history of my last name traces its roots back to the Roman empire, it shouldn’t be any wonder that one of my favorite documentaries focuses on Rome and the amazing feats of engineering they accomplished, even as they conquered and subjugated millions across Europe and Asia Minor. What I find most fascinating about the history of Rome is that their technology for running water, for construction, for “modern” amenities were somehow lost, bringing about the Dark Ages. It’s fascinating to postulate how much more advanced our society might be now if we hadn’t lost the knowledge and industry forged by the Romans.
4. SiCKO (Dog Eat Dog Films, 2007)
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t 100% accurate in its portrayal of healthcare in other countries, but everyone who lives in the U.S. and thinks their health insurance is infallible needs to watch this film. It’s okay to disagree with Michael Moore and his political views. But taking a hard look at the healtcare system in the U.S. is important, and this film raises some serious questions about it. And it’s highly entertaining, if nothing else.
3. Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy (LucasFilm, 2004)
This documentary was originally aired on the History Channel to coincide with the release of the “original” Star Wars trilogy on DVD. It’s also included on a separate bonus disc in the boxed set. Why do I love this? Because I love Star Wars, and as I’ve mentioned before, it’s the first movie that I can vividly remember seeing, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
2. 9/11 (CBS Television, 2002)
In early September 2002, two brothers, French filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet, were making a documentary about the New York Fire Department. The firehouse where they were following rookie firefighter Tony Benetatos was only blocks from the World Trade Center towers. They were having a very uneventful morning until they noticed a low-flying plane overhead—and filmed it as it crashed into the first tower. The Naudets kept the cameras rolling as the firefighters deployed to the WTC. It is some of the only footage taken inside the lobby of the WTC just moments after the first plane crashed. Miraculously, none of the firefighters from the house where they were filming were lost. There is no rhetoric, no politics. Just raw footage and even rawer emotions.
1. The Civil War (A Ken Burns Film, 1990)
This is the documentary that made it possible for me to pass my senior-level Civil War seminar at LSU (the premiere university for the study of the American Civil War) almost without cracking a book. Ken Burns’s film changed the way documentaries are made—mixing reenactments with still photos, interviews with historians with dramatic readings of surviving letters and journals by celebrities such as Morgan Freeman (Frederick Douglass), Sam Waterston (Abraham Lincoln), Julie Harris (Mary Chestnut), Jason Robards (Ulysses S. Grant), and Garrison Keillor (Walt Whitman), and it made famous the voice of narrator David McCullough, already an award-winning biographer/historian in his own right. Want to know just how influential Ken Burns’s style is on filmmaking? Apple named a feature of their iMovie 3 software after him: the Ken Burns Effect. Here is a clip of my absolutely favorite part of the documentary (audio but no video):
Writers’ Work Spaces
Are you curious about what other writers’ writing spaces look like? Apparently this is a natural curiosity, as the Guardian newspaper in England has been running an ongoing series looking into the places where some big name authors pen (or type) their work.
Some of my favorites are:
Jane Austen
Margaret Forster:
Graham Swift:
Will Self (I had to include this one because of all the Post-it Notes!):
Check out the article to see even more.
And now, for comparison’s sake, here’s mine:
From the Archives–Inspiration: The Breath of Life
This article was originally posted in March 2007.
This past weekend was the monthly meeting of my local group of writers, Middle Tennessee Christian Writers. Whenever we’re together, we always talk about our current works in progress or story ideas we’re thinking of. Sometimes, these turn into brainstorming sessions when someone is having trouble with a particular plot-point or character. Most months, I think we all leave with so many fresh ideas swimming in our heads that we have to go home and write before we lose the spark of inspiration.
But what is the “spark of inspiration”? What is it about us creative-types that leads us into wild flights of fancy from something as simple as an overheard sentence or as complex as the Revolutionary War?
Sure, there’s the whole left-brain/right-brain science where those who are lefties are more analytical and those who are righties are more creative–but where does that leave those of us who are firmly in the middle? It must be more than just which hemisphere of our brains dominates our thought processes.
If you type “define:inspiration” into Google, there are lots of interesting results:
- arousal of the mind to special unusual activity or creativity
- a sudden intuition
- an unusual or rare occurrence or fact, often one that cannot be explained
- The process by which the lungs take in air
- To breathe into, to breathe, to animate or enthuse, the action of the Holy Ghost moving through all the soul’s vehicles on every inhalation of the Holy Breath
I love that the same word we use to describe how we come up with ideas for our stories means the same thing as breathing. In Genesis, we read:
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:27, NASB)
God created. We have creativity built into us. In His image. Image . . . imagination. We can think of things that are abstract, even make things up because we are images of Him. But there is, oh, so much more than creativity and imagination.
The LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7, NASB)
God spoke everything else into being–every other living, breathing creation came into being because God spoke. But Adam received inspiration–the very breath, the very life force–of God.
When we see a beautiful Tennessee sunset and call it inspiring, it is God breathing His breath of life into us. When we are inspired to pray or to share Christ with someone, it is the breath of God filling our lungs. And when the inspiration for a story strikes, it is God’s breath tickling our ears as He whispers, “Write it. I will give you the words.”
Reading vs. Writing
READING:
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WRITING:
The Quotable Book Lover
Several years ago, I picked up a little book off the bargain table at B&N entitled The Quotable Book Lover (ed. Ben Jacobs & Helena Hjalmarsson). I pick it up occasionally when I need a really good quote about a certain aspect of fiction or reading or writing. So, since I’m off visiting dear crit partner Erica right now, I thought I’d share some insights on reading/writing from some authors who are better known than me:
“A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.”
~Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands (1992)
“An author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.”
~Benjamin Disraeli (1873)
“My books are water; those of great geniuses are wine. Everybody drinks water.”
~Mark Twain, Notebook (1885)
“Writers aren’t exactly people . . . they’re a whole lot of people trying to be one person.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
~George Orwell, “Why I Write” (1968)
“I never think at all when I write. Nobody can do two things at the same time and do them both well.”
~Don Marquis
“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it life: a live thing, a story.”
~Ursula K. Le Guin, Dancing at the Edge of the World (1989)
“Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.”
~Helen Keller, The Story of My Life (1902)
“Wordstruck is exactly what I was—and still am: crazy about the sound of words, the look of words, the taste of words, the feeling for words on the tongue and in the mind.”
~Robert MacNeil, Wordstruck (1989)
“Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book.”
~Dwight D. Eisenhower
“[Publishers] cannot, or at least should not try to argue with authors. Too many are like children whose tears can suddenly be changed to smiles if they are handled in the right way.”
~Michael Joseph, The Adventure of Publishing (1949)
“Definition of a classic: A book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.”
~Alan Bennett
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