This month’s winner of a copy of all four of my books is listed at the end of the post. Congrats!
* * * * *
Usually I make one resolution every year. They usually don’t go very well. I thought that maybe if I made 56 of them, at least one would stick. Here they are: Continue reading “My 56 New Year’s Resolutions”
The three-year-old boy stumbled through the field behind the horse-drawn equipment. His father drove the plow, turning up the dirt, staring straight ahead at the back of the horses as if the future of the planet depended on him never looking away. Sometimes the young boy tripped and fell in the deep, fresh furrows, muddying his hands and the knees of his tiny trousers. Sometimes his bare foot stuck in the deep gaps, but after pulling it free he stumble-ran to catch up.
His father never looked back. All the boy wanted to do was help, to be with this great masculine presence in his life, but all the father did was keep plowing. The boy followed him all day. His father never once said a word to him, never once shared his lunch, never once lifted him and, pointing off into the distance, told him stories about the forests and the fields and the place where the land and sky collided.
He just kept plowing. And the boy kept walking along behind him. Continue reading “A Reminder to Fathers for 2012”
What do you believe about yourself in regards to the coming year?
Do you believe there is no way out of your current life?
Do you believe that this could be the year when your untapped potential rises to the surface?
What do you believe?
“When we bring people to believe differently, they really do become different. One of the greatest weaknesses in our teaching and leadership today is that we spend so much time trying to get people to do things good people are supposed to do, without changing what they really believe.”
Continue reading “What Do You Believe About the Coming Year?”
The first and last important rule for the creative writer, then, is that though there may be rules (formulas) for ordinary, easily publishable fiction – imitation fiction – there are no rules for real fiction, any more than there are rules for serious visual art or musical composition…Invention, after all, is art’s main business, and one of the great joys of every artist comes with making the outrageous acceptable… John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction
Continue reading “The Only Rule: There are None”
I like to complain a lot about the commercialization of the Christmas season. Long lines at department stores. Christmas sales. Companies capitalizing on our every fear and insecurity to prod us into spending money we don’t have. The constant barrage of messages is mind-numbing.
Continue reading “What a Commercialized and Chaotic Christmas Taught Me”
Theda DeHaven and wenflower 65 are this week’s lucky winners of My Amish Roots. Please email your mailing address to shawnsmucker@yahoo.com and I’ll mail your copy to you.
Next Friday is the final drawing of the month – one subscriber will win a free copy of all four of my books. For your chance to win, simply join my email list (in the right hand sidebar). You’ll receive one to two emails per month on writing and books, and you’ll also have a chance to win various contests and prizes. Sign up now!
* * * * *
Today I’m guest-posting over at Ray Hollenbach’s blog, Students of Jesus. I love Ray’s blog because he has the seemingly rare combination of being super-smart and overwhelmingly kind. His blog posts are always thoughtful and rich.
Each Saturday he hosts a guest-post in which the visiting writer talks about one of Jesus’ parables. My post there today is a creative retelling of the parable of the man, the vineyard, and his son. It starts like this:
The old man bends over and picks up a handful of soil. Fertile soil. He runs it through his finger – it crumbles and falls heavily to the ground. The sound is like the pounding of the first raindrops.
