Into the Fire

To conclude my limited knowledge of French words and phrases for the week, I will end with this well known expression of thank you very much.

Thank you to those who visit here, who comment, who write, read, and voice opinions, who love Jesus, and to those who don't yet know Him. Thank you for taking the time to communicate via social media. Thank you for respecting my views even when we differ. Thank you very much for being an integral part of Into the Fire. Wouldn't do it without you.

Merci Beaucoup and Au Revoir!

Father, abundant and everlasting thanks goes to you of course. For life, love, and being found by you. Apart from you, I can do nothing. I'm, as always, desperate for you. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

              http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/au_contraire

Over the years here you've read my commentary and disagreements with some of the ritualistic conduct of Christian publishing. Professional writing/publishing blogs have presented their guidelines for prospective writers/authors, citing key phrases such as "We're always looking for fresh voices" while continuing to publish exactly the same type of literature previously presented for several years.

More and more I'm hearing dissension in the opinions of authors who've gone the traditional route in publishing but are now resorting to self/custom/e-publishing because they're not getting satisfaction from their customary publishers. Good authors are being dropped. Marketing has become a do-it-yourself requirement for authors. So the question becomes: Why not do it all myself and skip the middleman (i.e. the publisher)? If they can take their audience with them into their private publishing efforts, they tend to make a lot more money if they can maintain sales.

The decision by many Christian fiction publishers to pull back from taking risks, since the economy has truly tanked for the last five years, has minimized and narrowed their demographic of readers, further alienating some who were looking for a Christian worldview in their meaningful and less rigid fiction choices.

The "acceptable" selections in some bookstores have reduced the volume of customers, many preferring to shop the broader menu from Amazon. CBA (Christian Booksellers Association) and secular bookstores have closed their doors in the last few years because whatever their business practices were could not support the overhead of staying open.

With that in mind one might consider a revolution of sorts should be taking place for bookstores, but, instead the "traditional" Christian market seemed to withdraw attempts to maximize their market share by taking few chances and relying on their predictable and staid demographic for support. The only fiction offered which seemed to show some adventurous and exciting progress has been from the thriller/mystery genres where the restrictions seem far less severe or extreme compared to the romance genre which remains "clean and chaste" with formulaic and predictable characters and outcomes.

So my third blog post using the "au contraire" title keeps my "on the contrary" opinion going regarding Christian fiction while maintaining my French theme for the week.

Father, you are my counsel. You are my director. You are my correction and my deliverer. Help me to always have ears to hear and the heart to obey. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.      

                   http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/c%27est_la_vie

"That's life." How many times have you heard that expression in reference to a bad thing, an unfair occurrence, or after registering a complaint to a parent, employer, or friend? If you're a parent, how many times have you found yourself saying it to your offspring?

It's a non-committal phrase which tries to capture the unexplainable, the random events which may or may not be disappointing, and those which seem untouchable but still affect us.

Frank Sinatra sang about it, Americans and others have borrowed it, and somehow it does a fine job of summing up our existence here on earth at times. Resigning ourselves to the straightaways and curves life takes can be quite a process, one we occasionally don't wish to traverse.

When I experienced the reality and dichotomy of writing novels and the publishing world, I had to get to the place where I could say "C'est la vie" and mean it. Believe it or not, I'm there. How about you? Where in your life did you have to come to terms with the expression and admit either reluctantly or contentedly "That's life"?

Father, you're the only One I know who can bring peace into the phrase "C'est la vie". Thank you for that. It's sometimes – maybe often for some of us – a tough road to get there, but with your steadying hand, we make it. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.     

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire

• lais·sez-faire
• [ lè say fér ]

1. principle of no regulation of industry: the principle that the economy works best if private industry is not regulated and markets are free
2. refusal to interfere: refusal to interfere in other people's affairs, or the practice of letting people do as they wish

                   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joie_de_vivre

Many years ago I worked for a year in retail after a freshman stint at the U of W to save enough money to travel to Great Britain and Europe. Having talked a friend into making the exciting trip with me, we flew away to Heathrow in London after a brief stop at a New York airport to change airlines. Autumn arrived on my birthday, and I had just turned 20 years old and looked forward to my adventure. Road trips to California (once), British Colombia, Canada (once or twice), Oregon, and through Idaho to Montana (twice), with my parents was as far as I'd traveled.

We'd purchased 3-month Eurail passes for travel, and we were on our way and on our own. Adventure, a few mishaps, new American friends who studied in France and became our guides while there and provided lodging in Aix en Provence, made up those three months of two young women's European introduction.

We were warned the French people didn't like Americans (even back then), but we saw nothing of that in France. Rather, we were treated kindly and enjoyed the role of young American tourists. France is – or was - a gorgeous country. We didn't see a lot of it, but what we experienced was beautiful and enchanting. It's amazing to me that I can say I've been to the Louvre, gazed up at the Eiffel Tower, shopped in Paris, visited the Cathedral at Chartres and the Palace at Versailles.

But this post isn't about my trip to France. It's about recapturing the "joie de vivre" when everything around us in this world screams sorrow and depravity. It's about remembering simpler times, indulging joyful memories, looking forward to the perfection of heaven after having served well on earth. Sometimes it takes a focused mind to recall that wonder at life itself, to search for joy and celebrate even the tiniest experiences that make us laugh out loud or display a whimsical smile.

Too many hard things rob us of joy, pick away at contentment like at a painful scab, and point to the devil's work instead of to those still beautiful elements of our Creator.

Today, if I can offer you anything, I pray you would take a few moments to grasp that joie de vivre. Laugh out loud, smile at a memory, blush at a romantic moment, hum a favorite tune, and remember the One who's blessed you in this life. 

Father, I pray you'd bless those who read this with your presence and insights, your reassurance of your love for them, your available forgiveness, and your unmerited mercy and grace. Show them joy, Lord. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.  

Will evildoers never learn –

  those who devour my people as men eat bread

  and who do not call on the Lord?

There they are, overwhelmed with dread,

  for God is present in the company of the righteous.

You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,

  but the Lord is their refuge.

Psalm 14:4-6 (NIV)

As I said one person's fun is another person's not so much. Here are five fun things I either once did or still do enjoy.

                  
                   
                               The simplicity of plain fun.

            Lord, thank you for it all. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

You know those people. The ones who organize "fun" things like game nights, Super Bowl parties, concerts, weekend trips to exciting places. Fun is number one to them, and they're darn sure going to be doing or finding something fun to do most of their down time. Accompanying those fun activities are lots of laughs, food, and experimentation to make the fun even grander.

So. Think of those fun-loving people and translate them to a fictitious character. Do they come off as shallow? Maybe slightly self-centered? How do you create a worthwhile fun-loving character? Is he – or she – clever, determined, sarcastic, giggly? What's the reality in his/her life to make them who they are?

Most of us enjoy fun times and participate willingly in events we enjoy. But some of us are more of the serious types and don't spend a lot of time focusing on fun until we finally realize we're depriving ourselves of some much-needed pleasure – even if it's in small doses.

So. Is it hard to write a fun-loving character? Is it more difficult to write that serious one? What about quirks? Easier to put them into the fun-lover or the serious character? What kind of character do you prefer to read about or create?

And who are you? Fun-lover or the more serious type. I know. Most of you will say "in between", but I know you lean strongly one way or the other. 'Fess up. Which is it?

Father, you designed us with differences. We have the freedom to exercise our character traits in the arena where you put us. Thank you for your love in spite of us. In the Name of Jesus, Amen. 

I know I'm dating myself with this graphic of Jefferson Airplane before they became Jefferson Starship, but let's talk about fun. A three letter word that will collect an assembly of responses no one could possibly catalogue. One person's fun is another person's anathema. We have expressions that have surfaced to apply to types of fun such as "good, clean fun", but even that particular description suffers by comparison in the minds of different populations.

Fun is definitely a subjective experience. While the overall assumption is "fun" must be synonymous with enjoyment, again what I might consider fun, you wouldn't care to embrace.

Some people consider skydiving or scuba diving or cave diving tremendous fun. Others consider a trip to the Guggenheim Museum or Death Valley the ultimate fun adventure. And still others find a fun "trip" to consist of taking a hit of LSD. Huge margins of difference for the definitions of fun.

Let's also admit that some fun things fall under the category of sin, another three letter word. No one wants to think of fun as sin, but it can be. I can attest to that. And if sin wasn't fun, who would do it?

The above picture depicts a time of chaos and rebelliousness couched in "fun". Rock and roll reigned. "Love" children played with drugs, alcohol, and each other. Dabbling in that kind of fun or immersing oneself in it could have catastrophic results, but still young people indulged themselves in the free love party heard round the world – at least in the USA and Europe, particularly Great Britain.

The repurcussions of "fun" that encompass sin carry over into the aftermath of the experience. We can't always be young and dumb and let fun consume us. Even fun gets boring. And it isn't really the same kind of desirable when youth leaves us behind. Sin requires a reckoning. No doubt about that. Either here or in the afterlife. Our choice.

So. Fun times reside in memories or the present tense, ill-defined in general, but specific for each one of us. Some of us have mixed our fun with sin on occasion and straightened out those issues with the Lord. Others party on with sin-centered fun. What happens when fun times aren't so fun anymore?

The ultimate option? Jesus Christ. He brings a special, very real definition to fun times.

Jesus, you define every good and perfect gift, and you are definitely fun. Thank you for that. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.  

Writing is fun. Except when it's not of course.

What's definitely not so fun is the process of getting published. Of getting rejections. Of writing query letters and synopses. Of creating blurbs. Of soliciting your work.

Which is why e-publishing has its selling points for serious writers. Yes, it can be an opportunity for the wannabe authors who don't know the difference between a noun and pronoun, the appropriate place for commas, or the right verb tense, to display their lack of craft. However, experienced and best-selling authors are realizing they can do for themselves what their former publishers no longer will and are packing their audiences with them on the journey.  

Indie presses have created new and expanding possibilities for writers who haven't been able to crack the traditional publishing ranks, and their momentum is increasingly valuable to authors in waiting and for those who've grown weary of their publishers not needing them anymore.

It's no secret there are definitely areas of the writing game which are not so much fun. But writers keep writing. And waiting. And producing. And hoping. It's what we do.

Father, you're faithful. That's all that matters. Thank you for leading me where I must go. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.