More than Writers

    Christ is risen.   He is risen indeed. Alleluia.   Nowhere did I feel this so intensely as - not on an Easter Day - but during October 2016 at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem.   Husband Bret and I had been in Israel for seven days and this was our last before flying home.   Our holiday, which included many Biblical locations, had been intense, and, although it was not an official pilgrimage, almost all members of our tour group were committed Christians. The Garden Tomb is where, according to General Gordon of Khartoum, the Resurrection took place.   General Gordon, of course, was a controversial character and there is some doubt as to whether he got this right, but I wanted to see The Garden Tomb.   We saw the signpost but we couldn’t find the place itself.   We walked round and round and eventually ended up at the bus station.   There, above the buses and the modern buildings, that I spotted a sheer sandstone cliff with shallow caves.   ‘It’s there,’ I said.   ‘We’ve got to wa

Image Credits: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. The Easter story is the greatest of all time but, within it, I have favourites. One is that of Mary mistaking Jesus for the gardener. You can picture it. Blinded by her grief, she literally couldn’t see who the man was. It was only when He spoke, she knew Him. We understand her here.   Little details in our stories will help convince a reader our characters could be real. There are plenty of little details in the Biblical stories which, for me, cement their truthfulness.  Someone would have queried the resurrection. It was and is an incredible story. It was unexpected for the disciples despite Jesus telling them about it repeatedly! They hadn’t taken it in. Mind you, I know I would’ve been the same. The story of Doubting Thomas makes the resurrection more real to me. I like to think of that as his ministry in a way. I always wonder if Jesus visited His mother after the resurrection. The Bible doesn’t say but I would hope

  Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. John 8:36   Happy Easter to you all!   In advance...   Now, it is dark, gloomy and hopeless. The silence is poignant, eerie and reeks of evil presence. All the minions from hell are on guard. Yet... It seems all is lost. The saints weep. Angels are stunned in shock. But…    Morning comes after the night . Weeping may endure at night but joy comes in the morning !   Huge congrats for resurrecting with our Lord Jesus into a new life this coming Sunday!     We write devotions, mantras, poetry, songs and stories to celebrate this majestic historical incidence of the Easter story of freedom from our enslavement to sin, physical death and salvation.     This Friday, there are two main characters: the Protagonist and the Antagonist hero in a battle to win the soul of mankind. The first setting is Calvary in Jerusalem. There is a shift. The setting moves to the spiritual realm. There is a twist in the tale. The defea

One of my favourite films is ‘Field of Dreams’ starring Kevin Costner as Ray Kinsella. Ray, an Iowa farmer hears a voice that tells him, “If you build it, he will come.” He eventually does as the voice instructs and ploughs up his cornfield, turning it into a baseball field. He is compelled to be obedient to the voice, so that a dead baseball player, ‘Shoeless Joe Jackson’ has a chance to play again.   Ray Kinsella is a fictional character but Joe, on the other hand, was a true legend of a player who was banned from the game, due to a game-fixing scandal. It is partly the combination of fact and fiction that makes this story work and almost believable. The other reason why this film was a box office smash was that we all naturally want to pursue our dreams. Joel 28:2 says – ‘Your old men will dream and your young men will see visions.’ So, what do you dream of? What is your vision? What is stopping you from achieving your goals and writing that book? Shoeless Joe Jackson wa

Last week I celebrated a birthday. (Not my real birthday - that comes much later in the year and I’ve stopped counting those!) On the 19 th March 2021 I held a new arrival in my arms, and beamed with joy, and thanked God for His gift. And I got to call myself an author for the first time. Three years later I am still pinching myself. Around the same time that I signed the contract for The Healing , my daughter informed us that she was pregnant for the first time. So in 2021 I not only got one new title, ‘author’, but a second new title, ‘Nana’ (We already had a granny and a grandma in the family). We had two joy-filled reasons to celebrate that spring. Anyone who knows the background of how my first book came about will know that my story is not typical. I understand that for many writers, it takes years of perseverance and practice, and re-writes, and failed submissions to bring a book to birth. The labour period can seem long and painful. I can imagine how hearing how someone, w

'Starting a novel is opening a door on a misty landscape; you can still see very little but you can smell the earth and feel the wind blowing.' Iris Murdoch I find this a really encouraging quotation. While Iris Murdoch is not very popular at the minute, she was a fine, prolific writer. And she started her novels with as little sense of direction as I do. An online quiz once asked, ‘Are you a planner or a pantser’? I hate the phrase, but I understand the sentiment. While in life I’m a very organised person, in my writing I do ‘fly by the seat of my pants’. I have to. When I try to plan a story in advance, my characters simply refuse to co-operate. For me, stories start with the characters, and they seem determined to remain in control! I generally write a plan after a first draft, and then desperately try and keep the second draft faithful to the plan. It’s not a great way of working. But it’s the only way I can do it. And I’m in good company. Gustav Flaubert

  New Life by Rebecca Seaton Approaching Easter, we have a chance to think about new life. This can be a new thing or the fanning into flame of an existing thing. How can we apply this concept to our writing? Maybe you haven’t written for a while of your writing is stuck in a rut. It can happen to the best of us. Before you give up, maybe there’s a way to bring life to it again. Change the Point of View If like me, you love your characters, ‘killing your darlings’ is hard. However, it can free up story time for other characters who have been restricted up until now. Even keeping the same characters but changing whose view is predominant can create a new angle. Maybe first person would work better than third or vice-versa. Just beware head-hopping! Change Genre This could seem wild but could also be about looking at your work more clearly and seeing better where it fits. If your paranormal romance is more about the romance than a supernatural element, maybe it would work jus

Tom Wright is one of my favourite authors.  I like the way he writes. I like what he writes. I like his knowledge of original Biblical text, which he so generously shares.  I like his humour.   Every book of his I’ve read has been challenging and informative, teaching me new things.  His latest book (written with Michael F. Bird), Jesus and the Powers , was released yesterday, and it’s on my TBR list. I understand there will be some podcasts on it soon, too - Tom is recording them as we speak. I recently read Wright’s Into the Heart of Romans . On the cover, Tom Wright is referred to as ‘Paul’s greatest living interpreter’.  I have no reason to disagree.  The book is, in my opinion, excellent.  Wright takes us behind the Biblical text, exploring the places and people within. More from Tom here: https://www.admirato.org/courses/heart-of-romans   But what about the man behind the text of Into the Heart of Romans ?   What about him, and his approach to writing?  Tom kindly gave us some g