My Novel

Status Update

I’m ready to start sending out queries to agents, asking them to represent my novel again. I’ve read that to become proficient at something, you have to spend 10,000 hours working on it. That’s about four years, working full time. I’ve spent three and a half years writing at least eight hours a day, often more, and reading about the publishing industry and the craft of writing. I pray it pays off.

The most frustrating part of the novel for me has been the first chapter. It took a while to get the ending I think works, but I’m still second-guessing myself on the beginning. Most agents only want to see the first five, sometimes ten, pages of your manuscript, which they may read if your query letter interests them. If you don’t hook them in those few pages, they will often not bother to answer let alone ask for the rest of the manuscript. I have faith in the abilities God gave me and am willing to work hard, so we’ll see what his plans are.

Books I’m Reading

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett came in at 973 pages, but the only boring part he should have trimmed was the endless description of how to build cathedrals in the 1100’s. A few descriptive details having to do with how the characters felt would have sufficed. The characters held my interest throughout. The only other complaint I had was that the villains got their due only after they became old and too feeble to cause any more harm—anticlimactic.

Even more interesting because it wasn’t deliberate, I next read Heather Graham’s Come the Morning, which was set in the same time period and talked about the same historical people, though they were more important characters and more integral to the story in Follett’s novel. The romantic conflict wasn’t particularly plausible but the tension in the ending pages kept me turning them.

In Donald Maass’s book, The Breakout Novelist, he recommended his client, Anne Perry. She writes historical mysteries. I read Seven Dials, which is part of a prolific series. The story stands alone by itself, though I thought the characters weren’t as fully developed as I’d have liked, probably because they have been in previous stories. Set in Victorian England, the historical elements were interesting, and I like her writing style.

The Kingdom of Heaven

The Point of the Gospel

Parables con’t

{Matthew} Jesus continued to speak in parables about what the kingdom of heaven is like.

A Hidden Treasure

Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again and joyously sold all he had and bought the field.”

A Perfect Pearl

“Or the kingdom is like a merchant who searched for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he sold everything he had and bought it.”

A Catch of Fish

“Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a lake full of fish. The fishermen lower a net into it and retrieve the full-to-the-brim net. They drag it on shore, place the good fish in baskets, and throw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them in the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Have you understood all this?”

“Yes,” they replied.

Jesus said, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has been taught about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings new treasures as well as old from his storeroom.”

Personal Thought: this goes again to Jesus being the fulfillment of the law. Everything he taught was to be added to the old laws and sometimes replace them. The old laws by themselves would no longer suffice. The new treasures, Jesus’ teachings, were worth giving everything you owned to possess them.

Sick and Alone

Sick and Alone

Dealt with a horrible flu this past week that really wiped me out. Still not one hundred percent but on the mend. I had no energy to cook or clean or even take a shower. But I have a husband and son still at home who took up some of the slack. They waited on me when they could, made sure I didn’t starve or get dehydrated and no doubt would have called the doctor had I gotten worse.

I have a friend I’ve known over thirty years who lost her husband to cancer several years ago and is disabled with a congenital immune system problem that causes rheumatoid arthritis and widespread neuropathy. She also has COPD. She was very sick with one thing after another this winter, some of her own making simply because she didn’t follow through with a doctor. Dealing with everything herself, she becomes overwhelmed and shuts down.

You offer to help and she usually refuses. After a while, you give up and let her do what she wants. You certainly can’t make anyone do what they don’t want. I must admit that sometimes letting go was a case of losing patience with her and not wanting to be bothered. Being sick myself and feeling helpless to alleviate the situation brought me a better understanding of how lonely it must be to have to deal with life on your own.

Ways to Help

You still can’t take over other people’s lives but you can encourage, badger a bit, and hope they choose to get the help they need to take care of themselves. Cook some soup and bring it over, call and make sure the person is functioning okay, offer to drive them to the doctor. I couldn’t have driven myself during my worse symptoms. Call an ambulance if you believe the person’s health is at risk. They won’t necessarily thank you at the time, but when feeling better and able to think more clearly, they will.

Obviously you don’t want to get sick yourself, so take precautions—hand washing, a mask if necessary. The elderly are especially vulnerable and likely to lose cognitive function when sick. If you have family or neighbors on their own, take care of each other.

Abolishing vs. Fulfilling the Law

The Point of the Gospel

Abolishing the Law vs. Fulfilling It

Personal Thought: I’ll get back to parables next week. This just has been coming up a lot lately on Facebook posts that I’ve read. Completely my own opinion—reminder I’m not a theologian or Bible scholar.

I think the passage where Jesus says he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it is quite often a stumbling block for Christians. It’s used to justify popular beliefs even when they no longer make sense. I wonder if people forget the point. Jesus did fulfill the law whose whole purpose was to help people atone for their sins in order to have a relationship with God. Jesus was the final sacrifice and atonement for sin and enabled us to receive the Holy Spirit. Catholicism notwithstanding, we no longer need a priest to intercede for us to God or to sacrifice animals and harvest products. That’s a major change by itself.

After Jesus’ death, he came to Peter in a vision and showed him unclean foods Jews weren’t supposed to eat. He said that it wasn’t what went into a man’s mouth that made him unclean but what came out of it—obviously ungodly words. Without that concession, bringing Christianity to the gentiles would have been near to impossible. The law was abolished. Early Christians quite often compromised, something fundamentalists have forgotten.

Even before his death, Jesus said not to follow the Levitical law regarding an eye for an eye, rather if someone strikes you, turn your other cheek to him as well. Moses gave the law allowing a man to divorce his wife, but Jesus said he did so because of the Jews’ hard headedness and not to divorce except for unfaithfulness because that caused the woman to become an adulteress and anyone who married her, an adulterer. Few mention this teaching when talking about rules we should obey. On a side note, it really bothers me that no provision was made for women to divorce their husbands when they became abusive or refused to stop addictive behavior.

So Jesus did abolish—or if that seems too harsh—change some laws to better reflect the spirit of the Old Testament laws.

Other Treatments for Alcohol Abuse

History of AA

The organization began in 1935 before much was known about brain functioning. A faith-based program, one admits his helplessness against alcohol (other drugs were added later), agrees to stop drinking—period—with the help of a higher power, admits to any harm done to the self and others, and makes amends if possible. Some think Prohibition in the twenties started Americans on a path of drinking in secret and binge drinking.

 

Other Treatment Options

I read in our local paper that AA is offering a combined twelve-step program for addiction and mental health disorders.  I’d like to know what credentials the counselors have. Traditionally, AA has been against using drugs in helping to stop the abuse of alcohol. Mental disorders generally cannot be managed without both behavioral therapy and drugs to offset the chemicals going wonky in the brain. Alcohol and other drugs are used to self-medicate. Taking away the alcohol by itself will not solve the problem.

For alcohol abuse, behavioral therapies combined with drugs proven to reduce alcohol cravings and improve sleep patterns and energy have been successful. Naltrexone, approved by the FDA in 1994, is one. Yet less than one percent of people seeking treatment, according to Glaser, are informed of this option. I know of people in at least one rehab who were offered this option and did very well, no longer drinking and eventually not needing the drug.

Another option, Antabuse, causes nausea, dizziness, and other objectionable symptoms when combined with alcohol. Now that naltrexone has an inexpensive generic, pharmaceutical companies have little incentive to promote it and there is little interest in researching other possibly effective drugs—varenicline, a smoking cessation medication that has shown promise in reducing alcohol consumption; topirimate, a seizure medication; and baclofen, a muscle relaxant.

One Size Does Not Fit All

No one treatment option works for every individual. AA tends to relate failure to the individual’s inability or unwillingness to follow the program. No study has been done by AA to determine whether the failure is the individual’s or the program’s. Naltrexone at least has been around some time. I wonder if studies have been done on possible side effects of long-term use. Alcohol abuse is such a widespread, insidious problem that destroys lives and undermines families, it would truly be a shame not to explore and advertise every avenue to solve the problem and lessen its repercussions.