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Bend the Knee and Be Small

Posted on November 10, 2014November 9, 2014 by Katie Ganshert

I have a treat for my blog readers today–author guest, Joanne Bischof, who is releasing her novella, This Quiet Sky, very soon! I devoured it in a single sitting, it was so good. And today she’s here. I don’t know about you, but her topic strikes such a chord in my heart. I hope it ministers to you as much as it’s ministered to me. Without further ado, here’s Joanne. . .

Bend the knee and be small.

How I love those words. They’re Ann Voskamp’s from a quote of hers that I’m eager to share, but first I have a question for you: Do you ever feel unsteady?

Like your feet can’t quite carry you through the task, trial, or journey you’re facing? You need a hand to hold. Something to brace yourself against. Or you just need to sink down to the ground and be small for a moment. I’ve had this time rather recently. Because I often find that it’s in the face of my very doubts and insecurities that the Lord challenges me to press onward… right through the depths. Have you had times like these? Maybe you’re in the midst of one.

As a writer, it seems that the very things I struggle with, God uses story to speak to me on them. He asks me to draw closer…allowing me to put words onto the page that will have me facing my very own doubts. Recently, I wrote a novella titled This Quiet Sky. It’s about a young woman who falls in love with a boy who isn’t expected to live a lot longer. His name is Tucker, and he has cancer. The concept immediately felt too daunting and I was considering throwing in the towel before I even typed the first word. But as I considered turning away from the project, I saw those around me who had real hurts and trials. Their own kind of just-too-big-for-me journeys. The part of me that believed that a story like this didn’t belong in Christian romance began to fade and that still small voice asked—why not?

There’s a scene in the story that struck close to home on this. Its right after the heroine has recently met the hero. She knows he’s ill and because of peoples’ superstitions surrounding it, he doesn’t really have friends. She finds herself at a crossroads: be his friend—and risk her heart—or turn away and ignore any what-ifs. The pressing to do the right thing came strong for her.

Suddenly I knew what I had to do. Still trembling with the task at hand, I found myself settling down at the keyboard, whispering, “Alright, God. Show me…”

Even as I quaked at the notion of getting closer to these characters that had been taking shape in my heart, I couldn’t let my fears get the best of me. If the desire was there to write a heroine who was brave enough to settle down beside this young man and be his friend, and give him her heart, despite it all…I had to be brave enough to follow along with pen and paper. I began to pray that there would be readers out there who would feel the same.

In her book, One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp says:

“Humbly let go. Let go of trying to do, let go of trying to control, let go of my own way, let go of my own fears. Let God blow His wind, His trials, oxygen for joy’s fire. Leave the hand open and be. Be at peace. Bend the knee and be small and let God give what God chooses to give because He only gives love and whisper a surprised thanks. This is the fuel for joy’s flame. Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will. And I can empty. I can empty because counting His graces has awakened me to how He cherishes me, holds me, passionately values me. I can empty because I am full of His love. I can trust.”

So I did that, I let go of my fears. And I held on to Him.

I felt his strength around my hands with each word typed on a story that felt beyond me. I felt His presence in the nights I woke, unable to sleep because the words were coming now. They were slamming forward, needing to get out and the more this happened, the clearer this love story became. The clearer the roots beneath this purpose became. And I remember feeling very small. And thanking God for being so, so big.

I realize now that it’s not about my fears or insecurities of what will come of this story. It’s about facing the call when it comes. It’s about the world that we live in. Like Sarah when she chose to be Tucker’s friend, it’s about others. Humanity and the trials that each of us face. It’s about the ones we ache to hold. The ones we dream about. Whether our hearts live several thousand miles away in the faces of our future children, lay curled up in a hammock beside our beloved, or pound with anticipation as we lace up our shoes—determined to run toward a cure—it’s for those who we will soon hold close. And those who we hold close only in our hearts, knowing that one day we will meet again.

I’m grateful that God has been taking me on this journey because it gave me the chance, once again, to witness how amazing He is when I trust. It’s still a journey and I still have ups and downs, but I’m thankful that He’ll be with me each step of the way.

How about you? Who or what in your life do you bend the knee and be small for?

Christy Award-finalist and author of Be Still My Soul and Though My Heart is Torn, Joanne Bischof has a deep passion for Appalachian culture and writing stories that shine light on God’s grace and goodness. She lives in the mountains of Southern California with her husband and their three children. When she’s not weaving Appalachian romance, she’s blogging about faith, folk music, and the adventures of country living that bring her stories to life. You can learn more about her upcoming novella and more about Joanne by visiting her website: http://www.joannebischof.com/

Write Like No One’s Watching

Posted on October 27, 2014October 26, 2014 by Katie Ganshert

I’m pleased to have fellow writing friend, Rachel McMillan, here today! And I love her topic, too. Sometimes we writers can become paralyzed when we sit down in front of our computers. Today, Rachel gives us freedom to write like nobody is watching! The floor is yours, Rachel. . .

I love writing. When it is flowing and my finger pads are tip tapping their rhythm, almost as if propelled by a mind of their own, there is no greater euphoria in the world. When it’s going badly, there is no void that aches so deeply.

I started writing when I was a little kid and have boxes and boxes of long-hand drafts of stories that will never see daylight– hidden in a Rubbermaid container. I also have stories upon stories of typed words, snippets and novels-in-embryo stored in computer files and on USB drives. It was not until about a year ago that I first showed someone a novel I had written, signed with an agent and finally plunged into a world of scariness.

You see, to this point, I had only written and edited and revised for myself. Then, frighteningly, my writing, my world, my delightful book people would be appropriated by other eyes, other readers, other interpretations.

Dickens famously knew more about his characters, their broad, over-bearing and perfect personalities, their picaresque journeys and their comical and tragic turns than ever went into the final product. Dickens wrote his best friends, his community and his passions and pursuits and fears and triumphs seamlessly sewn into his elaborate prosaic puppet play.

There is romance in writing. Let it flow.

Famously, F Scott Fitzgerald wrote by the sentence whittling everything down and revising and revising while his contemporary and erstwhile friend and competitor Ernest Hemingway wanted to strip everything to the sparest form. He was a manly writer. Alternatively, the flourished and flowery purple prose of a writer like LM Montgomery (who straddled the Victorian and the Modern period in terms of her writing career) was raked over the coals by male critics for writing pretty nonsense.

However you write, dear friend, write for the romance and for the love affair. If your love affair is pitting a man against a beast with a gun in one hand and balancing a whiskey in the other a la Hemingway, then, do it, but do it for you and not because you want to consciously strip your prose to skeletal —especially in a first draft. If you, dear friend, love to practice words that may not conjoin well, that may be dissonant chains of intermingling nonsense or forced similes or anecdotes that trail and fall off with far too many adjectives, then do it— if it gives you joy. Write first for you.

My facebook and blog followers know that I am still feeling the persistent ache of losing my characters to submission. The moment I sent the book to my agent, a small gnawing cavern began growing in my heart. I miss my friends. I miss them all the time. I think about them all of the time. I wonder what they’re doing. I wonder how to impart them in some next adventure. I vowed, still uncontracted, that I would set forth on a new novel and not think about the next sequential story that features my dear book people. Easier said than done. So I made a deal with myself. I could visit them. I could practice and play with them while simultaneously trying something new.

At this point, I am writing for me. For the grand romance that waltzes me with the words, that joins me with my imaginative (and by this point, very fleshed out) book family, to play and prod them further, to re-set them and shove them into grandiose adventures, here and abroad.

Writers, cherish your imaginations. Not everything that you type on the page necessarily has to be of publishable quality. Not every try and start and mixed attempt needs to have a planned endgame.

Every word has a purpose. Every word is a piece to a greater puzzle, a stitch in a patch that will sew up a quilt. Its practice, its perseverance and its romance, a tapestry threaded with triumph and failure, good words and bad, over-writing and underdevelopment…

Every word you read and every word you write should be a transcendent experience.

Read to the point of book drunkary. Write to the point of cross-eyed bliss. Whereupon, you wake up and you think of it, you drift to sleep with its scenes stained behind your fluttering eyelids.

Write like no one’s watching. It might turn out to be the personal best and most unreadable thing you’ll ever write. But, oh the gloriously, giddy adventure you’ll have when in its word throes.

Rachel McMillan blogs at A Fair Substitute for Heaven. You can find her on twitter at @rachkmc. She is also a frequent contributor to Novel Crossing.

Sunflowers from Iowa

Posted on October 13, 2014October 13, 2014 by Katie Ganshert

Before I turn the microphone over to my friend, I feel prompted to say that she was not bribed, blackmailed, or coerced in any way to say such kind things. 🙂 Take it away, Jennifer…

Thank you Katie, for the opportunity to guest post here. I promise not to use this space to ask people for money. Like. More than once.

Kidding!

How about twice?

Ha. I know, you’re all rolling in the aisles…

Let me introduce myself. My name is Jennifer Major, I’m Canadian, a wife and mom, an avid reader, a thrift store junkie, an antique restorer and a mini-van opera singer. I love to garden, I know how to say “God bless you” in Bolivian Quechua, Spanish and English…I love Merrell shoes and Jones New York clothes. I have blue eyes red hair, and a deep, unending fear of somehow ending up in jail.

Like, for real.

And yes, that was an actual fact.

Here’s another one.

At a time when I was truly floundering, Katie Ganshert was my life line. But, she probably didn’t know that. What? And you thought I was all perky bunnies and double rainbows?

Nah…but even if you did, thanks.

You see, I cannot remember how I met Katie, but it was through a writer blog, somewhere, although I’m not sure which one.

But this isn’t about that whole writer thing. It’s about that whole friendship thing. You see, sometimes when we 50-somethings try to grab our dreams so they don’t become regrets, we get lost, and we feel the need to act like we have it together, even when we don’t. Because we don’t want to freak out our kids or husbands. And our friends. And just about everyone. So we hide behind what we know to be safe, and curl up as best we can to wait out the storms. Because a dream can get out of hand and sometimes jumping for it ain’t the way out.

Katie thought I was a newb writer asking questions. But God had other plans. He knew I was a middle aged woman feeling like I was back in middle school, getting lost in the halls, day after day. He knew I needed a friend, someone with a big, beautiful smile, and an even bigger heart.

Once again, this is not about the writer thing it’s about finding a friend in a whirlwind.

I’d opened a door to a world I didn’t understand and Katie was there, in the back ground, at first. But I watched. I read her blog, and I realized she’s the real deal. We got to know each other through emails and Facebook, I even sent her chocolate. Tip? Don’t send chocolate in the mail in July. Just. Don’t.

As I went from simply asking her questions, to becoming a Facebook friend, to actually becoming an actual ‘I love you enough to tell you candy corn is disgusting’ kind of friend, our Katie has taught me a lot about friendship. That I can be friends with someone I’ve never met. That there are friends who willingly downplay their “woo-hoo” moments and achievements, then break my ribs when I have good news that really doesn’t even compare.

I’m SO thankful that God nudged me to step out and dream, and that He sent me so far out of my comfort zone…because that’s how I made another friend, a sunflower to add to my garden. A sunflower named Katie.

When’s the last time you stepped out of your comfort zone? Any fun byproducts result in the stepping?

Jennifer Major has been married to her husband John for 25 years, they have four children and live in New Brunswick, Canada. Jennifer grew up in the big, beautiful city of Vancouver, BC, but prefers life in her small town. Mostly because none of the houses cost 3 million dollars. She’s done mission work in Bolivia and is proud to say she can ask for lettuce in Spanish. You can follow her writing journey by visiting her blog and Facebook page.

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