Hey everyone (who still reads this blog or who is finding it for the first time), you might want to click over to the Active Christian Media podcast:

A Writers Chat with Author Hal Paxton

Stacy and I discuss things related to writing and a few things not related to writing. Tips, novels, and testimonies of faith.

I recorded it a week ago and meant to post about it before now, but work and life has been a time eater.

You can find Stacy’s blog at Active Christian Media.

For a long time I used Google Notebook to store ideas and info I would find around the net in the hope of using it later, but Google Notebook has been largely unsupported by Google for a long while. Thus integration into things has been a problem.

The other day I was listening to a pod cast on CNET.TV discussing a product called Evernote. I was able to get most of my notebook transfered over to it and have been playing with it for several days now. I like it.

Might be worth your time to check it out. I also like the idea that it appears to be far more private than Google Notebook as far as my data goes and it has a paid service that one can upgrade to in order to access other features that look promising.

Along with synchronizing data across computers, you can access it on smart phones and other technological mediums.

I stepped on the scale this morning for the first time in more than a month and I learned an important lesson about writing.

Not working the writer’s muscle means not fitting into the writer’s clothing.

I’ve been slipping over the last couple of months on my regular walking and exerisie routine. Injury beset me and it has been a slow recovery. But the biggest problem I’ve had to deal with is not the injury, it was the breaking of habit.

Habit is such a strong factor in what we do. Whether we get up every morning and drive the same route to work, or commit the same sin again and again, or take the time each day to spend in God’s Word.

In exercise, habit is a huge factor too, and mine is broke.

If you do a search on how many days it takes to break a habit, you will find a host of sites that say it’s twenty one days. Like this one, 21 Days to A Positive-Attitude Habit.

I tend to think it takes less then that for the good habits but maybe not. It really doesn’t matter. My habit of walking and daily exercise were broken and I got on the scale this Monday morning and found out why my pants were getting tight.

Twelve extra pounds.

So instead of stepping into the shower I dusted off the work out clothing and spent forty five minutes on the torture machine of my exercise bike.

And I was reminded about how this relates to writing. Because like my exercise routines, I’ve gotten out of the habit of daily writing. Though I can not use the excuse of injury. Indeed I could argue that my physical injury should have led to more writing.

That didn’t happen. Nope, I let life crowd in and steal time I normally set aside for writing and then, with a creeping silence, my writing habit ceased.

Which doesn’t lead to pants fitting tight or twelve extra pounds, but it does lead to poor writing, poor editing, and a poor man.

So I now find myself in the position of needing to break two bad habits and replace them with two good habits.

Life is fun that way. It leads to experience, wisdom, and writing fodder.

We do have fun we writing humans.

Do you know what the secret to being a good writer is?

A good publicist? A good software program? How about an education in writing? Oh, maybe it’s a super imagination?

Well all those are great but they are not the secret to becoming a good writer or even better, a master writer.

I’ve listened to writers at conferences and on the web and I’ve talked with other writers one-on-one on this very secret. In the end the concensus from some of the best living writers of our day say that the secret to becoming a master writer is writing.

It’s pretty simple. To become a good writer and then a master writer, one needs to write.

Write with consistence and persistance. Write when you feel like writing and write when you don’t feel like writing. Write during your free moments and by all means be like a Boy Scout and be prepared with a note pad when the ideas for writing burst like bubbles upon your brain.

Writing is a way of life. If you live it you will grow and mature in it.

I’m still waiting on news of my two book submissions to publishing houses. And I will admit that with the waiting I’ve not been as consistent in my writing. That is not a good thing. Writing has become a struggle and fight with other pressing life needs. Discouragement has even played a role in keeping me from the keys and that, given ground will only gain more ground.

But I’m not about to allow that to continue. I’m going to do something to gain back the ground. I’m going to write and I’m going to throw into the mix the value of persistence.

Let the writing begin. And let it start with me…. Okay, that’s just silly. Where else would my writing start.

What is the cost of being a writer?

Everything has a cost. But what is the cost of being a writer?

Isolation? Yeah, at times isolation is a cost. Getting away from people so that one can concentrate on shaping words onto the page.

Loneliness? Yeppers. With isolation can come loneliness. But for the writer that sometimes is a double edged pen. What do I mean? Well, many writers I know, including myself, are loners. We like to be alone with our thoughts, with our prose, with our muse. But we don’t like to stay there. Once those cravings for isolation are filled and the loneliness begins to eat at us instead of we eating at it, we struggle outward looking for companions beyond those that color our pages.

Dollars? Hmm…. Well, so far for me this is definitely a cost. Sacrifice for the ability to craft words has in many ways meant letting go of a bank account that is healthy. Of course there is this hope that shines just over the horizon that my writing will supply that account with some added food.

Hmmm…. All thiese food analogies are reminding me that I need to dig up some lunch.

Those are three that come to my mind.

Can you think of any other costs?

Just one.

I’m running behind today. Okay, truth is that is the normal state of my days.

I think I try to pack more into each day than is possible. Maybe I should pack my days using those Space Bags. You know. The ones where you use the vacuum cleaner to suck out all the air and scrunch everything up for storage.

That would be nice to do with not only my days, but the mess of my desk.

That’s as far off the path I was setting, that I wish to go.

Anyway, I was going to post just one little reason for joining a writers group.

Encouragement.

That’s it. Encouragement.

Yesterday I met with my monthly writers group and we went over the stuff we brought. I left very encouraged as a writer.

In part it’s because of the commonality of us all. We each have a desire for words and a desire to use those words to share the passions that Jesus placed in us.

And it is also because of the great feedback I got on my writing. By that I mean help to improve it.

So if you’re not part of a critique group. Find one. If you can’t find one, make one.

Okay. I’m a writer. And oddly enough, I appear to be human.

This duplicity often times leads to stress and frustration. The writer in me wants to write frequently and repeatedly. Yet the human in me often finds the storms of life troubling and burdensome to the body, mind, and soul. When that happens the writer just can’t seem to think clearly enough to string more than a couple of semi-coherent words into more than mere pixels on the screen.

That’s where I’ve been during the last several weeks. Stressful things happening in my own life and the life of my church family.

The writer wants to write, but the human that finds it necessary to eat, live, and breathe needs to scrape together some pennies. Not only that, but being a warm body with a pulse means there is a need to work in fields that God asks me to tend with my time and hands.

The good thing about these times, these storms, is that they are fodder for the writer to draw upon when the writing time is available.

That said, I guess there really isn’t a duplicity at work here.

I’ve been reading from Psalms almost every day and I so love that book because it so sings of being a human in love with the Lord God, a human fallen in nature, struggling in life under all kinds of pressures and stress, but still able to recognize and praise God.

I try to start my mornings with those scriptures. I take the date, for example today is the 5th, and I read that Psalm. Then I add 30 to that number and read that Psalm which would be 35. Add 30 and read 65, and so forth until I’ve worked through the entire book.

It’s a wonderful way to start the day.

Well, I’ve got some time, so I’m going to try and write for the next hour or so.

Until next time.

Greetings. I’ve got two updates. One on the novel and one on the software WordWeb, I mentioned in this post several days ago.

Oh, and here’s a picture of my favorite writing nook at my local Panera. It’s secluded enough to give some privacy and has a nice place to plug my laptop in. Plus it gives me a good view of people coming and going which I love because I can scribble notes for character reference when it comes to creating other people to populate my works. And best of all, the AC doesn’t freeze me out. The other location I sometimes sit at when this one isn’t available is right under a vent and it gets cold there quick.

Now, the update on my novel, Sins of Our Fathers. I mentioned somewhere, either in the eMail updates or on the site here, that I submitted a proposal to Tyndale. Well, I heard from the acquisitions editor last week and it was decided that it would be a hard sell to their market. She said my writing, the pacing, and the dialog were all good. So I’m waiting at the moment to see what decision Strang will make and I’m considering sending it to B&H Books as I just received in the mail an advance copy of Shade, by John B. Olson, and it looks to me have some content and intensity that is similar to my novel.

The second item on the free software, WordWeb. I’ve been using it and I like it. It’s quick and works as far as I can tell in pretty much every program where there are words that you may need to look up. I’ve used it in Word and FireFox without any trouble. So give it a shot. You may find you like it too.

Cheers.

This morning I clicked over to my eMail and my brother sent me a link to some software that looks like it might be pretty helpful.

Plus it’s free, and as any starving artist knows, free is good

The software is:

WordWeb

I haven’t tried it out so I don’t know how good it is, but one of the nice aspects to it is that one doesn’t need to be connected to the Internet to use it.

If you try it out let me know how good it is. I do have a synonym software program installed that I use regularly. It would be nice to have the definition and antonym capability, too, so I may try it out eventually myself.

Who am I kidding? I will be installing it and giving it a look see.

I guess if you are breathing then you likely know that life is full of difficulty and frustration.

Of course if you don’t know this then you are one of three types of people.

1. Born with a platinum spoon in your mouth and never in want.
2. Insane – ie. detached from reality.
3. Dead.

I do suppose you could be two or maybe three of those as well.

Either way it’s pretty safe for me to write that the majority of us deal with frustrations and difficulties all the time.

My question is, how do you deal with them in your life? When at work? Or at home?

There’s a number of pretty large frustrations hammering at me in my life right now and I find them distracting from writing. And part of those frustrations is the hope I have for my novel, Sins of Our Fathers.

The Scripture say:

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Pr 13:12 NIV)

At what point does the heart become sick? How long must hope be deferred?

More importantly, how does one tighten the belt and strive on with what one considers their talent and calling when it appears that the belt is as tight as it can get without cutting off the circulation to half the body?

I think one of the keys is supportive friends and family.

Another of course is sheer will. The emotions can rage but the head must slap them down and say, “Get to work.”

How about you? Any thoughts on these questions? This sort of situation?