Aaron Patterson's Blog: Guest Post by Bill Myers: "Writing Edgy Christian Fiction."

Aaron Patterson's Blog: Guest Post by Bill Myers: "Writing Edgy Christian Fiction."

Revise us

Steinway artist Randall Atcheson gave new flourish to old hymns at The 2012 Christian Writers Guild conference. He also sang with gusto if not giftedness and practically danced on the piano, delighting worshippers with his colorful tie and matching socks sprouting out of checkered loafers. He embodied joy.  Best of all, he rewrote the lyrics for his audience of writers.  Revive us again became Revise us again and wouldn’t we all like that?

The Tree of Life -- the movie

Order The Tree of Life from Netflix, light a candle and take a comfortable seated position on the couch. As a gripping meditation, Terrence Malick’s 2011 film The Tree of Life is a stunner.

 The drama of the human family plays out against dramatic visual imagery that paints the bigger picture.  Set to classical music and an original score by Alexandre Desplat the film poses God’s question to Job—where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?—but without words.

Writer's Block

Come out of that crawl space

you formed in your head

glide past with purpose

your unmade bed.

Cut swath through the clutter

of  loved ones’ play

shrug them off kindly

lay claim to your day.

Sit down in the sunbeam

that shines on the floor

move pen across paper

behind a closed door.

             Now.

                         Write.     

eMotion

I just put The Motion of the Ocean by Janna Cawrse Esarey on my Nook. I discovered this adventure story in a bookstore in Antigua. Esarey lives in the Pacific Northwest where young professionals and people with salt water in their veins seem to converge. She gives us a generous peek into the cruising lifestyle along with some well worded wisdom on relationships (she was honeymooning with the boat captain).

One of many passages I could relate to was a discovery she made as she was being tossed in the air by a storm.

Teaching old dogs new tricks

Trying to teach a really smart person how to use Facebook is tough. Husband is impressed with how in the know I am about the trivia of so many people’s lives so he asked me once again how to use Facebook. 

The last time I tried to untangle the mysteries of friending, posting, liking versus commenting, chatting and managing permissions in this volatile terrain things did not go well.  He wrote an essay in his status box and when it got rejected he took it personally. He declared the app to be stupid because it wouldn’t do what he wanted it to do. That’s the problem. His expectations are too high.

Husband thinks that Facebook is a benign application that is designed to facilitate social connections.  That’s a bit of a Trojan horse. It looks like that is the purpose but actually, it wants to alter our DNA.

The 30%

I've been ruminating on life's statistics: the 99% vs the 1%, the  80-20 rule...then I remembered a blog my daughter wrote a couple of months ago about a lesser known statistic: schizophrenia is 70% hereditary and 30% evironmental.She is writing a novel that explores the legacy of mental illness. I asked her to be a guest blogger on Riddles on the Harp.  Reprinted with permission from My Wilderness Years.

April Trabucco

The Writer Magazine’s email newsletter this week was titled “Why we need pain to write.” I’m all over that, but not by choice. If that’s the key, I should be churning out chapters by the hour. There is the requisite time necessary for licking one’s wounds though and that turns out to be an involved process. There’s also work and children and house and said source of pain that require ample tending. So chapters are not churning as fast as I would like. Is it to my creative detriment that I'm an optimist and cherish the happy times that come when hope prevails?