BJ Hoff's GRACE NOTES

Happy Thanksgiving

A couple of entries ago, when I was working on lists for books-as-gifts, I thought I would be putting together a Part 3, listing books for writers and possibly books for Mac lovers. It didn't work out, and I confess the lapse is due to time. I don't have to tell you what a busy time of year this is, right? I'm still thinking of doing such a list--but not this week.

For now, I'm going to post the same Thanksgiving wish I offer you every year, and then I'll be signing off for the week to spend more time on the WIP, to be together with my family, do some holiday decorating, and eat too much. 

In the meantime, don't forget to sign up for the contest. Back in a few days!

BJ

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I’m thankful for the God who saved me, the family who loves me, the home that shelters me, the friends who believe in me, a church that welcomes me .... For seasons that change and truth that doesn’t ... For music that stirs and soothes and heals and speaks of feelings beyond those I can voice ... For a country that values freedom and is willing to pay the price to preserve it for ourselves and others .... I’m thankful for countless books to read, and for those readers who read the books I write, for the editors who make the books better, and for the publishers who make the books possible .... I’m thankful for small furry creatures that make me smile when nothing else can, for the sturdy oak trees in my back yard that grew up with my children and now shade my grandchildren and give sanctuary to my memories .... I’m thankful for every gift of goodness that brings me gladness, every trial that takes me to my knees, and every prayer uttered in my behalf that made a difference, though often unknown to the one who cared enough to pray ....

And I’m thankful for you, every one of you, that you trust me enough to ask me for an answer to a question or offer a word of encouragement or a prayer. You bless me again and again with your caring hearts. 

I wish you a bountiful, prayerful, joyful Thanksgiving and a holiday season that blankets you and those you love with amazing grace and enduring peace.

God bless you.

BJ

Announcing the "What's Your Secret" Contest!

Just like Rachel Brenneman, we all have secret dreams and hopes.

Some of us dream of helping to develop world peace, or dancing in The Nutcracker, or finding a cure for cancer, or maybe just taking a vacation with a loved one.

In honor of these dreams, and to add a little fun to our holiday season, I'm announcing the "What's Your Secret?" contest, exclusively for my readers!

To enter the contest, simply complete the following sentence in twenty five words or less:

"I have always secretly wished I could _______________"

Submit your entry via my contact form NO LATER THAN DECEMBER 5th.

All entries will be entered into a drawing, and one winner will be chosen. Plus, I'll pick my top five or ten favorite entries and share them here on my blog, along with a secret dream I've always had.

Now for the best part...

Here's what you'll win:

The winner will receive a brand new copy of Rachel's Secret for a friend or family member, (signed and dedicated to anyone you choose). The winner will also receive a handcrafted heart puzzle box (like the one Eli made for Rachel), with a surprise gift inside!

So, what are you waiting for? Submit your entry today, and feel free to pass this contest on to your friends:)

Enter the "What's Your Secret" Contest!

The Gift That Really Does Keep on Giving--Part Two

So ... in my last entry, I talked about books being such a great idea for gifts and listed a few of my favorite books-as-gifts. But now we're coming up against the time when we need to be thinking about books to give. Your gift list is going to be different from  mine, of course--and anyone else's--but let me just make a few suggestions of books that I believe will make good gifts for at least some of the folks on your list. Some of these books are new, some aren't.

The following are all nonfiction. However, I've realized after doing the first two of these "lists" that I'm probably going to do a third, the next one a bit more specialized: Books-as-gifts for writers ... for Mac lovers ... and maybe a few novels. Maybe.  

The ESV Study Bible. Editions are available in hardbound, leather, and imitation leather. The latter is one of the nicest bindings I've found on any Bible that's not genuine leather. This is my favorite Bible translation, so admittedly I favor it as a study Bible--but even if that weren't the case, I'd recommend it for the quality and workmanship. 

The NLT Study Bible. Another fine Bible in terms of quality and scholarship, and also available in hardback, imitation leather ("TuTone"), and leather. If someone on your list prefers a somewhat easier to read translation in a comprehensive study Bible, this is an excellent one.

For the Tozer fan on your list, here are three recommendations: The Best of A.W. Tozer, Book One and The Best of A.W. Tozer, Book Two, compiled by Warren Wiersbe. A wide collection from many of Tozer's writings, with all excerpts identified by the book from which they were selected. Also, a 2008 biography--A Passion for God: The Spiritual Journey of A. W. Tozer, by Lyle Dorsett. A highly interesting, thorough biography of Tozer, but one that presents a few "flaws" as well as his more admirable attributes. Well-written and carefully researched by a respected biographer.

My Utmost for His Highest--Leather edition from Discovery House. Oswald Chambers. The classic of all devotionals in a lovely edition.

The Encyclopedia of Music--Wade-Matthews and Thompson. I neglected to include this on my list of my own favorite books-as-gifts, but it's definitely one of them. A huge tome filled with information about the great composers and their works, instruments of the orchesta and more. Beautiful color illustrations.

If you have someone on your list just starting out to build a good classical music library, or if you want to provide a concise reference book to a more experienced listener and collector, Building a Classical Music Library by Bill Parker is an excellent handbook. There are far more exhaustive references, but this one isn't as overwhelming as some, and it's inexpensive--which many of the more hefty ones aren't.

And for those on your list who love all things Irish ...

Bringing It All Back Home--The Influence of Irish Music. Nuala O'Connor. First published in the early nineties, this is still in print. It's a wonderful combination of social history, interviews with Irish musicians and groups, and generally speaks to the title itself, "The Influence of Irish Music."

Far From the Shamrock Shore, by Mick Moloney (with an accompanying CD). A concise story of Irish immigration to America documented in words and song. Great book!

History of the Irish in America by Ann Kathleen Bradley. Another "favorite" I should have included on my own list, and one that's sure to delight those interested in all things Irish. One of those big, sprawling coffee-table books filled with history and photos. My mother gave me this at Christmas many, many years ago, and it's one of the first books you see in my living room. 

The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing. Seamus Deane, general editor. Justifiably pricey, at one time this could be had in a hardbound three-volume set with slipcase. I'm not sure if it still comes this way. 

Faces of Ireland. Walker, O'Broin, McMahon. A collection of photographic images concentrating on the years between 1875 to 1925. A fascinating publication. 

The Great Shame. By Thomas Keneally (also the author of Schindler's List). A huge and important look at the Irish and most of all at man's inhumanity to man. A must-read if you want to understand the Irish and Irish America.

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Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World. Vicki Myron with Bret Witter. I can't say enough about this wonderful book! I loved it. Yes, I'm also a cat-lover, but trust me, you'll love this book even if you're not. It's not simply about a cat--although he's a magnificent cat--but it's also about a town and its people, about courage and resilience and love.  

Marley & Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog. The title speaks for itself. I was hyping this one last year and still am. It's just--a good book!

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Companion books to television documentaries ...

The War: An Intimate History 1941-1945. Ward and Burns. The companion volume to the 7-part PBS series. Not just another coffee-table book, but a comprehensive documentation of World War II in text and incredible photographs.

The Civil War: An Illustrated History. Ward, Burns and Burns. In my estimation, this is one of the best-illustrated and most readable histories of the Civil War.

Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography. Kunhardt, Jr., Kunhardt III, and Peter Kunhardt. More than 700 illustrations from various collections, including the works of Brady, Gardner, and other leading photographers of the day. An extraordinary and beautifully done biography.

Baseball: An Illustrated History. Ward and Burns. I gave this to my husband (a big baseball fan) at Christmas a couple of years ago, and he remains fascinated with it. Over 500 photographs in sepia, black and white, and color.

As I said, probably more to come next week.

BJ

The Gift That Really Does Keep on Giving--Part One

Two-parter coming up ...

Over the past week, the media has splattered lots of gloom and doom about the book publishing industry. This isn't exactly new, of course. We've heard the predictions and seen some of the consequences in other years when the economy was staggering just to keep a foothold. Unfortunately, problems seem to grow in accordance with the attention they receive from the media. So ... readers and writers unite: let's help keep a proper perspective and do our part to stop an avalanche before it starts to roll.

Give books for Christmas! What other gift is as enduring, as special, and as relatively inexpensive as a book? What other gift can actually help to build memories (what about the books you've read to your children through the years?), spark ideas, trigger change, and warm the heart (in some cases, even help to heal a heart)? And what other gift recalls the giver and the occasion with continuing fondness while repeating the blessing with each use? 

Think about some of the books you've received as gifts: those you treasure most, the ones you wouldn't part with for any price, the ones that occupy a safe and special place in your home (and your heart) and are unfailingly accompanied by a warning to children and grandchildren who dare to remove them from the shelf. Here are some that I treasure, not only for the the books themselves, but for a variety of personal reasons: 

The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing. Seamus Deane, General Editor. A three-volume set. .

The Blind Seer (Biography of George Matheson)

The Celtic Twilight. W. B. Yeats

The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats: Definitive Edition, with the Author's Final Revisions

A Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend, and Folklore. W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory

Trinity. Leon Uris

Paddy's Lament. Thomas Gallagher

The Great Hunger. Cecil Woodham-Smith

Hall's Ireland. S.C. Hall

A Writer's Ireland. William Trevor

Ellis Island Interviews. Peter Morton Coan

A first edition of Gone with the Wind. Margaret Mitchell

Shelby Foote's Civil War trilogy

2 Volume American Heritage Pictorial History of the Civil War

Little Women Louisa May Alcott (childhood gift)

Milton Cross Encyclopedia of the Great Composers and Their Music

The Joy of Music. Leonard Bernstein

This Is My Best. Anthology edited by Whit Burnett

2 Volume Norton Anthology of American Literature

Sermons and Soda Water. John O'Hara

The Complete Short Stories of O. Henry

Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia and Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature

*Still to come: The Gift That Really Does Keep on Giving--Part Two 

BJ

    

Writers on Writing

It's a dreary, rainy day here, and I'm not feeling especially creative. But for another purpose, I was looking up what some other authors had to say on a a couple of subjects. Before I knew it, I got more involved than I'd intended--I  almost always do that when I start browsing books on writing. Anyway, I thought I'd share some of the thoughts I found with you. 

"Fiction writers employ the sort of sleight of hand used by a magician ... and somehow they make it look easy, although often the techniques are invisible ... But of course, writing fiction is not easy or merely a matter of employing tricks. Fiction writing means applying craft and artifice, and, like a conjurer's lightning-speed maneuvers, it can be learned. You look beyond the magician's charming grin and focus on his ever-moving fingers, the devices tucked up his sleeves, and his bag of gadgets. You start by mastering a few card tricks and then move on to a more difficult step: disassembling the magician's contraptions, applying them to your understanding, and finally adding them to your stories." (Jessica Page Morrell, Between the Lines)

"Conflict is not so much a single ingredient as it is linked to every element used to write fiction. Obstacles create conflict and conflict is the engine of fiction. No conflict, no story." (Morrell, Between the Lines)

"The business of the writer is not to express an opinion, but to present the facts and their effect on the characters, and leave the formation of judgement to the reader." (Rhona Martin, Writing Historical Fiction)

"The hallmark of good writing is the one word that dispenses with the need for many." (Martin, Writing Historical Fiction)

"To carry conviction, your characters and the situation in which they find themselves must be of the era in which they live. They must think, act, live and breathe in the way appropriate to their time." (Martin, Writing Historical Fiction)

"There is no such thing as instant fiction. The work goes on all the time; while you're driving your car, while you're brushing your teeth, when you're falling asleep, when you're waking up. It's going on inside you all the time. Constantly, that's where all the writing is done, except the setting down of it. And to dodge this enormously difficult work is to be lazy, and to be lazy is to be dull. To be dull is to be unread." (William Sloane, The Craft of Writing)

"The reader reads fiction more for its people than for any other element, whether plot, setting, or shock value." (Sloane, The Craft of Writing)

"A true work of fiction is a wonderfully simple thing--so simple that most so-called serious writers avoid trying it, feeling they ought to do something more important and ingenious, never guessing how incredibly difficult it is. A true work of fiction does all the following things, and does them elegantly, efficiently: it creates a vivid and continuous dream in the reader's mind; it is implicitly philosophical; it fulfills or at least deals with all of the expectations it sets up; and it strikes us, in the end, not simply as a thing done but as a shining performance." (John Gardner, On Writers and Writing)

"What writers do, if they haven't been misled by false canons of taste or some character defect, is try to make up an interesting story and tell it in an authentically interesting way--that is, some way that, however often we may read it, does not turn out to be boring." (Gardner, On Writers and Writing)

"Don't cast sidelong glances, and compare yourself to others among your peers! (Writing is not a race. No one really 'wins.' The satisfaction is in the effort, and rarely in the consequent rewards if there are any.) ... Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read ..." (Joyce Carol Oates, The Faith of a Writer)

"Write your heart out." (Oates, The Faith of a Writer)

BJ

 

Real People

What do you look for, hope for, expect from a book?

I was talking with some friends recently about this, and from time to time I've also run these questions by my daughters. It was interesting to hear almost identical answers: people so real I'll remember them. Even the unlikable characters need to be memorable. 

Which naturally leads to another question: what makes a character memorable? Here the answers seemed to take slightly different directions: I want to know characters, to understand why they do what they do. I need to care about them, to like them well enough that I can sympathize with them and want nothing bad to happen to them. I want them to be enough like me that I can identify with them. I want them to be victorious in whatever they set out to do.

The common reply, though, was this: I want them to be real. 

I suspect that each writer has a different way of creating her cast of characters for a story. Some writers follow a strict pattern, building character notes and charts, while others let them "grow" as they go along. Some use software to construct characters with specific traits that will make them three dimensional, provide motivation and direction. Sometimes, though, characters just are. That's what usually happens with me. I don't have a method. My "people" just seem to come to life as I think about them and live with them, day by day. They often surprise me; at times they frustrate me; on occasion they amuse me; and sometimes they simply exasperate me. But always--they're real to me.

It's fascinating to hear what readers look for in novels, and just as interesting to hear other writers discuss the ways they go about developing the people who make up their stories. 

And what about you? What makes a character unforgettable for you?

BJ

Veterans Day 2008

Thank you for your sacrifice ...

     May it never be in vain.

Q & A

Q. How many books did you write before you sold your first? 

A. Actually, I sold the first book I wrote. But I've never published it. Only a few weeks after I signed my first contract, I learned of some major problems taking place in the publishing house. They were the kind of problems I was naive enough (then) to believe never occurred in Christian publishing, and the whole mess scared me off. After a week of ulcer-inducing anxiety and almost constant prayer--and after two friends in the industry advised me to pull the book from that particular publisher--I repaid the advance, voided the contract, and filed the book away with a very unpleasant taste in my mouth.

Later, after I'd published two other books (with a different publisher, as you might have guessed) I took that first manuscript from my file cabinet, read it--and decided not to publish it at all. I'd learned a few things by then (hopefully, you learn at least something with every book you write), and I realized that, despite the first publisher's interest, it wasn't worthy of publication. So I shredded it.

Have I ever regretted the decision not to publish it? No, not for a moment.

Q. Of all the things you've done to further your writing career and develop your craft, what do you believe has been the most important and most helpful? 

A. Reading. Reading excellent books by excellent authors. I'm a life-long reader, and although I've employed any number of helps and resources along the way, hands-down, the most important of them all can be attributed to the books I've read. 

Q. What's your favorite version of the Bible?

A. I tend to use the ESV most often. I also like the NLT a lot for readability, though not necessarily study. And I also use the NKJV regularly.

Q. You admitted in an interview I read that you're a "gadget person." What's your favorite gadget?

A. My iPhone. Definitely. I'd be lost without it. I mean, I'd literally be lost without it. My contacts, address and phone book, maps, to-do and other lists, a few recipes, my music, calendar, weather forecasts--everything that keeps me functioning inhabits this wonderful gadget. You understand that I don't include the Mac computers in the same category as "gadgets." Gadgets are just that: the Mac is ... a work of art.

Well--almost.

Q. Who are some of your favorite characters in the books you've read?

A. Oh, way too many to name! A few include: Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird), Jane Eyre (Jane Eyre), Francie Nolan (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), Jonathan Ferrier (Testimony of Two Men), Abraham Lincoln (William Safire's Freedom), Conor Larkin (Trinity), Jean Valjean (Les Miserables), Huw Morgan (How Green Was My Valley)--and, yes, I'll admit it: Rhett Butler from Gone With the Wind). And many, many more!

BJ

Beautiful Marietta

We had a wonderful day for my research trip yesterday (still gathering information for the Riverhaven books). Beautiful weather and unhurried hours. I've always loved the city of Marietta. In fact, if I were to live anywhere else but where I do, my choice would be Marietta. It simply oozes history, charm, and grace. The view of the Ohio River is breathtaking, and I don't know that there's a street in the city without those gracious old Victorian homes--many that can be toured. The past seems to walk with you anywhere you go. And we walked a lot, of course, especially along the River.

Had a late lunch at the scenic, historic Lafayette Hotel, looking out on the Ohio, then took a couple of side trips around the rural farm community. The fall colors are still much in evidence in southern Ohio, more so than anywhere else in the state, so it was a beautiful drive. (These aren't my photos, by the way ... mine are still on the memory card. I'll get them onto the Mac eventually!)

We also managed a trip to nearby Belpre, Ohio--also filled with history, especially of the Underground Railroad ... and home to the Lee Middleton Doll factory. No, the latter stop wasn't part of my research--but it's definitely a fun place to visit! I'm a big fan of the LM dolls, and a tour of the "nursery" and "gathering place," and shops that feature hundreds of their little people finished off the day for me in such a fun way. Bless my ever-patient husband: not so much as a sigh or a groan from him during the doll expedition!

And, yes, I brought home a new little one to add to my collection. Named her Josette.

(What? You didn't know I'm a doll-lover? That seems to surprise some folks, though I can't think why. Don't you have a place, deep inside you, where you never grew up? Dolls are mine.)

BJ

The Day After

I'll be out of my office the day after all the election brouhaha has ended, making a brief research trip down to the Ohio River. I thought I'd just post something of which I've been reminding myself throughout the day. I imagine many of you have also thought of this. 

No matter what happens with the outcome of this election, I've promised myself not to be disturbed or worried--even though I've done my share of hand-wringing about it before now.

But Christians all over our nation have been praying for God's will to be accomplished in the voting, and while we all know that doesn't necessarily mean that our choice will be victorious, it does mean that His purpose will prevail. Whether the "best man" for the presidency is elected or not, God is still sovereign and in contol. He will use the results of this election as He wills, and we can be content with knowing that and praying accordingly.

Isn't this a good time to recall His promise that " ... if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14)

So be at peace.

BJ