More Mysteries Than We Can Imagine

Keona Tann | @ICFWriters

I used to get so frustrated when someone would start to tell me something but then stops and say: ‘oh I better not tell you’. But then I realised that it was probably a prompting from the Lord for them to NOT say any more. Some people listen to that prompting and others ignore it and tell me stuff that I wished I hadn’t heard. I then have to spend hours praying to try and rid those words from my mind. I’m trying to not engage in these types of discussions but sometimes it is hard to stop people from ‘spilling’ all.

I came across a verse that reminded me very much of the ‘oh I better not tell you’ line. In John‬ ‭20:30 (NKJV) it states: “And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book.”‬.‬

‭‭I read that and wondered why it was put there, is it there as a statement that Jesus did more mysteries than we can imagine? Is it there so that we press in to search for more mysteries? Or is it there so that we can know that the Bible cannot contain ALL of the wonderful things of God?‬‬‬‬
I’m not sure what the answer is, but it has sparked in me a great excitement to search for more mysteries than I can possibly imagine.

The very next verse goes on to assure us that the things that have been written are so that we may believe, with a deep abiding trust, that Jesus is the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed) and the Son of God. We can know that by believing; trusting in; and relying upon Him we may have life in His name. (John 20:31 Amplified version paraphrased)

As I ponder on those wonderful words I’m so encouraged that my future will unfold, one wonderful mystery after the other. I cling tight to the process of preparation that is taking place right now and ask for Jesus to reveal what I need right for this moment. As I faithfully serve in the seemingly small things, things that are within my ability right now, I trust in and rely upon Jesus to unfold more opportunities to serve Him AND the ability to do it.

Right now my future is simply a dream, a desire and sometimes seems a long way off from becoming. BUT I believe in the miraculous Jesus and I trust that my future will unfold at just the right time. I surrender yet again to the process of preparation, trying hard to wait patiently.
As I think about the mysteries yet to be revealed, I’m reminded of the promise in Jeremiah 33:3 where God invites us to call to Him. He promises that if we ask He will answer! He longs to tell us remarkable secrets; marvellous and wondrous things; and show us great and mighty things. He promises to reveal the things that are fenced in and hidden; things we do not yet know; the things we haven’t yet distinguished and recognized; things that we don’t presently have knowledge of or understand about; the things to come; and things that we could never figure out on your own. We’re urged to call to Him because He promises to answer and tell us of all that is to come! (AMPC, NLT and MSG paraphrased).

How truly amazing that is! I pray that you’re encouraged today to press in and ask for more mysteries, more than you can possibly imagine.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, I thank You so much for the wonderful promises contained in Scripture. I ask that You would grow within me a deep abiding trust in You my Saviour. I believe that You are the Messiah, the Anointed One, the precious Son of God who died to set me free. As I trust in You and rely upon You, I am promised to have life and life to the abundance.

Almighty God, You invite me to call out to You and You Promise that if I ask You will answer. I ask right now that You would reveal what I need for this moment. I ask that You would reveal to me remarkable secrets; marvellous and wondrous things; more mysteries than I can possibly imagine; and please show me great and mighty things. By Your Holy Spirit reveal the things that are fenced in and hidden, things I do not yet know. Reveal to me the things I haven’t yet distinguished and recognized; things that I don’t presently have knowledge of or understand about; the things to come; and things that I could never figure out on my own. I thank You so much Lord that I can call to You and for the glorious promise that You will answer and tell me of all that is to come!

Inspired by John 20:31, John 10:10 and Jeremiah 33:3

Many Blessings, Keona

About Keona:
I’ve lived most of my life in Tasmania, which is one of the beautiful Australian states. Deliriously happily married to my college sweetheart for over 20 years, we consider ourselves extremely blessed to be raising 2 wonderful teenagers. Hubby and I have also been long time child sponsors with Compassion so we have overseas kids!
I struggled with illness and disease for most of my life. The biggest battles were: endometriosis for 28 years and adrenal/chronic fatigue which was severe for 28 months. In September 2016 healing was declared over my life, praise God, this set me on a path of deep inner healing, restoration and transformation. My passion to write was reignited and I wrote out a mission statement:
“He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the LORD.” Psalm 40:3 (NLT)
I desire to impact the world through the words I share. I long to enrich, empower and encourage others whilst delivering my stories with empathy and understanding.
In my new-found boldness I’ve started a weekly blog which you can find at: https://keonajtann.wordpress.com/
Many Blessings, Keona

Plumbing the Depths for a Great Story

Hello, Sandra Orchard here to talk about my latest research adventure.

Last week, a writing friend treated me to a four-day Bahamas cruise she'd been awarded and since I finished my last manuscript the week before, my plan was to brainstorm my next book with her. I find traveling is always a great time to flesh out characters, because I there is so much more time to people watch--while waiting for planes, boats, and meals or simply while sitting on the beach.

I even thought visiting a few islands might inspire ideas for the Serena Jones follow-up novel fans have been asking me to write about her honeymoon mystery in the Greek Isles.

But I didn't anticipate the inspiring sights I'd find BENEATH the water, while snorkeling!

Sure I knew there'd be a few fish eager for their fifteen minutes of fame on my next blog. 😉

Although who would've thought they'd literally line up to take turns posing for my camera. Honestly, they did! It was hilarious.

And this downed airplane was a surprise. It definitely got the creative juices churning.

Then there were these sea mines.

Thankfully the ones we found were already detonated, but my friend Lisa Belcastro told me 18,000 were recently cleared from around Martha's Vineyard (the location of Serena's last adventure) and several thousand were still live! Oh, the fun I could've had with that while writing Over Maya Dead Body.

There's always next time, of course. 😀

The best source for the contracted mystery I needed to brainstorm turned out to be a retired Navy man who was seated at our breakfast table with his wife. My friend and I had already plotted the bones of the mystery set on Orcas Island and knew we wanted "something" to be stolen from "someone high up in government", but we couldn't decide what or from whom.

Our source, who'd actually worked security in the navy, shared some amazing ideas and even scared us a little with how true-to-life many or our "fictional" ideas actually are!

We had another couple at the table who'd been in the airforce for a few years and a real estate agent and everyone soon started tossing out ideas.

And would you believe, I'd gone to breakfast without a notebook and pen?! 😧

What was I thinking?

My wise friend asked the waiter if he could bring us pen and paper, which he did, and I was soon madly jotting down all the ideas. By lunchtime, I had them culled into a timeline for the first third of the book. It was awesome!

Sadly, you'll have to wait awhile, before you can read how it turns out. The mystery will be #20 in Annie's Attic Victorian Mansion Flower Shop Mysteries, but Digging Up Secrets comes out in a few months and next time I visit, I'll share the not-so-fun way I dreamed up the idea for that mystery, based on real life . . . mine.

Until then, please visit me on Facebook and my blog for more anecdotes from the trenches.

Sandra Orchard—winner of several Canadian Christian writing awards, the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award, and the National Readers’ Choice Award, among others—leaps off the garden trails of her herbal-medicine-researcher-turned-amateur-sleuth (Port Aster Secrets) series, to the museum corridors of her plucky FBI art crime agent Serena Jones, in A Fool and His Monet, Another Day Another Dali and Over Maya Dead Body. When not plotting crimes, Sandra plays make-believe with her young grandchildren or hikes with her hubby and husky near their home in Ontario, Canada. 

The Moment I Realized Setting Can Make or Break a Story

Guest Post by N.J. Lindquist

I’m one of those people who skip over descriptions. Honest. I do it all the time. The author starts going on and on about what the weather is like, or how the house looks, or the beautiful painting, and I completely zone out. Well, unless it’s a whodunit and I suspect the author has a clue hidden somewhere in the verbiage. But even then, I’ll likely skim if the description goes on too long. So when I began writing I have to confess that I focused almost solely on the characters and then the plot.

Oh, I included a setting—you have to locate the story someplace—but it was vague at best.

For my first book, which was originally published by Moody Press, I used a mythical, very vague small town I called Wallace. Since I was raised in small prairie towns, it was easy to envision a small town somewhere in the US or Canada.

When I wrote the second book in the series, With Friends in Need, I realized that I needed a bit more information—like how many blocks did Glen have to walk to get to school, to his best friend’s house, or to the bank his dad managed? And what did he pass on the way? So I created this Bristol board map of Wallace. And I used this beauty for the next two in the series, too. For me, that was what setting was—the locations, large or small, I used in the story.

My first two mysteries (which are published under my alter ego, J.A. Menzies) weren’t much different. The ideas for the books actually began with settings: a Japanese garden in Vancouver and the Rogers Centre in Toronto. But I continued to write in what I call the “Talking Heads” style. Lots of dialogue and action, but very little description of any kind. After the second draft was complete, I’d go through and add bits of description here and there to help my readers see what I saw in my mind: both the characters and their setting.

Then one day I started on a fantasy chapter book for my eight-year-old granddaughter, who had requested a book for “her age.” As usual, I began with a vague “some other world “setting, and focused on the characters, the action, and the dialogue. I’d fill in the details later.

About a third of a way into the book, while writing a scene with my talking horse, who was going on a journey, I shook my head and stopped writing. This felt wrong. The talking horse thing has been done before, and I didn’t want to compete with C.S. Lewis. After due diligence, I decided I should have a camel.

Since I don’t edit while I’m writing the first draft, I exchanged the word “camel” for “horse” in the sentence I was on and kept writing as if the animal had always been a camel. Except—I couldn’t just keep writing. In my mind, my horse had been trotting through a green valley with trees and grass and a river, but my camel was plodding through a hot desert, with an ocean of sand in every direction, and just a vague glimpse of distant hills.

And at that moment, it hit me how important the setting is to the story.

I still prefer to use only essential details, but although much of what I “know” about the setting never appears in my stories, I spend a lot of time creating my settings and determining how they relate to my characters before I outline my plot.

They say write “what you know” and I’ve always tried to start my writing with something I know about, and let my creativity flow from there. Now I’m also likely to begin with “where I know.”
I just finished writing a mystery novella called The Case of the Homeless Pup. The plot for this book begins on a path in Toronto’s Don Valley where I’ve walked a number of times.

In my book, a jogger spots a puppy on the path ahead and follows it deep into the woods where he finds a human skull. The plot moves from there to a downtown area whose streets I’ve also walked. Readers who are familiar with my locations have told me they feel one of my characters might come around the next corner. I feel the same way. And I love that feeling!

N.J. Lindquist is an award-winning author, speaker, and writing teacher who loves helping people become everything God created them to be. Her published work includes five YA coming-of-age novels, the Hot Apple Cider anthologies, and the Paul Manziuk and Jacquie Ryan Mysteries (as J.A. Menzies).

A former high school teacher and homeschooling pioneer, N.J. has been mentoring writers in both Canada and the United States since 1992.

The mother of four and grandmother of eight lives in Toronto, Ontario.

http://www.njlindquist.com
http://jamenzies.com

Mining Ideas for that Golden Nugget

I'm immersed in that heady, sky-is-the-limit, anything-is-possible brainstorming stage for my next two books. 

I love this stage of writing. 

Sure when I shoot emails about stolen data on microchips or terrorist plots or crooked agents to my brainstorming partner, I have this niggling worry that I'm setting off all kinds of alarms on NSA's computers, but...hey, that's part of the rush, right? ;) 

And yes, there are those odd little clicks over the phone when I call her to discuss the newest twist we've dreamed up, but...they could just be from those pesky mice chewing the lines again. 

Maybe. 

I'm not worried. 

Really. 

The FBI knows all about the series. Several of their staff have actually spent hours answering my questions. 

Okay, yes, there were some questions they declined to answer. After all, they don't want to give away their secrets to any bad guys that might read my stories. 

Hmm, it's kind of unnerving to think that I might be giving bad guys ideas. Hopefully they read to the end to glean the redemptive message as well. ;)

Of course, brainstorming happens everywhere at this stage. Over dinner with my hubby at a restaurant...I'm sure no one overheard us talking about how we'd tap someone's phone. Then again, we were sitting in a booth, so...who knows? Perhaps we should've paid cash for the meal instead of credit card, so we couldn't be tracked. 

Since I write mysteries and romantic suspense, causing innocent eavesdropping bystanders a bit of concern is a hazard of the process. Such as the day my girlfriend and I were grocery shopping while discussing which kind of poison would be best to use to kill someone. 

Okay, I'll admit to being a tad concerned myself, when a police cruiser pulled to the curb as we walked out of the grocery store. 

Or there was the time, I had the privilege of sharing a cab to the airport with a forensics pathologist, who also happened to be a novelist, and I asked him if I killed so and so using such and such if he would be able to tell in the autopsy if it was murder. The cabby kept eyeballing us in the rear-view mirror. But we made it to the airport in what I'm sure was record time. 

Of course, when I knuckle down and try to figure out how I'm going to pull all these ideas together, It doesn't always go so smoothly. 

But after spending the last few months locked up here: 

(my imaginative vision of my office, you understand) 

to finish my latest manuscript, I'm making the most of the play time!  

Eventually after lots of digging and sieving and polishing, and divine inspiration, 
I uncover those precious golden nuggets that give the whole story it's meaning. And what a wonderful feeling that is! 

Sandra Orchard is a multi-award-winning author of mysteries and romantic suspense with Revell Publishing and Harlequin’s Love Inspired Suspense imprint. A mother of three grown children, she lives in Niagara, Canada with her real-life-hero husband and writes full time…when not doting on her young grandchildren.  Learn more about Sandra’s books and bonus features at www.SandraOrchard.com or connect at www.Facebook.com/SandraOrchard

Golden nugget Image courtesy of smokedsalmon at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Growing Stories

I’ve been penning fiction for nearly twenty years and have learned a trio of essentials. One: don’t quit your day job. Two: Write something, anything, everyday. Don’t edit, don’t second guess, and don’t stop. Three: Back away from the computer sometimes, and experience life.

It’s the third essential that has me pondering today, as I consider the parallels between germinating stories and digging in the dirt. I think writing novels and tending gardens share some similarities. For example, both enjoy their day in the sun, both require weeding, and both endure criticisms.

You see, I’m gaga about gardening. It’s late May and my wild cottage garden is exploding with cooler and growth. Decaying spring bulbs, shooting ornamental grasses and early blossoming perennials scuffle for light and water.

It’s a gardener’s finest season. To me, the late spring garden is a like a polished third draft: the words flow, the characters pop, and the plots mature seamlessly. The writer lounges in the soft glow of the computer screen and hallucinates about success. Of course, edits and changes are inevitable, but they will be minor and effortless. Just like the snip or two, or the tug or three necessary outdoors to keep the early floral kaleidoscope flourishing.

You may think that the hot, heady days of midsummer are the pinnacle in a garden, but you would be as misplaced as a tendril of bindweed. Oh yes, summer plants are showstoppers, but they carry an air of impending loss. One blossom fades after another and another, in an inexorable, downward spiral of death. The promise of glory is spent, and with it, the anticipation of new life. Only drudgery remains for the plant lover. Hours ahead of deadheading, staking, watering and pest squashing.

A novelist’s existence echoes this slow descent into the mundane. The published final manuscript blossoms vividly, but often quickly fades, overtaken by brighter, newer titles. The writer’s fantasies of topping best-seller lists fizzle, and her spirit buckles under the dreaded humiliation and hassle of promotion.

Fortunately, all is not aphids and manure. As every day changes in the garden, there is always a glimmer of hope to catch the author’s eye. A glimpse of a fresh idea noticed on a soft autumn day. The germ of a kernel of a seed that begs perusal and hints at a novel world. It is the time to disappear into the slumbering garden, to dig and whack and transform, plotting and planting and praying for another, better season.

Followed by a trip to the computer to fertilize the seedlings of the next great novel.

Nicola Furlong pens mystery and inspirational novels, creates interactive books for the iPad, podcasts about genre writing (The Novel Experience), and teaches electronic publishing, when she's not playing Old-Timer’s hockey, growing blossoms and bamboo or eating chocolate fudge.

Her first contemporary women's series, the Sisterhood of Shepherds, debuted with HEARTSONG in May 2014 (MantleRockPublishing). Nicola's swinging whodunit, TEED OFF! (republished in February 2014 by OakTreePress), features professional golfer and coroner Riley Quinn.

Her other novels include a psychological thriller (A HEMORRHAGING OF SOULS), six novels in The Church Choir Mysteries series and a multimedia online thriller, UNNATURALSTATES.

In addition, Nicola has published two writing e-book primers, YOUDUNIT WHODUNIT! HOW TO WRITE MYSTERIES & SELF-PUBLISH YOUR E-BOOK IN MINUTES!, and a gardening guide. She's recently released her first musical interactive children's book for the iPad, SAVING GRAPE-JELLY CHEEKS.

Nicola lives in a small seaside town on southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia.