How Journaling Helps Me Jump-Start My Imagination

By Elizabeth Musser @EMusserAuthor 

 

 

A few years ago, I was asked by my Dutch publisher to write a novella for the Dutch ‘Week of the Christian Book’. (I wrote it in English—someone else translated it=). Christian bookstores throughout Holland put on this annual event where, for a week, any customer who purchases over 10 euros of merchandise in the store receives a free novella. The theme of animals was chosen for the year I was asked to write the novella.

I had never written a novella before and, being a rather long-winded novelist, felt the task a little daunting.

But as soon as I learned of the theme, I knew my story. It had been hidden in my journals for years, just waiting to find the light. 

I would write about our wonderful, neurotic mutt, Beau.

And so I did.

I told the story of an emotionally and physically scarred teen, Peter, who finds healing through his relationship with a rescue dog. Although the story was about Peter, I decided to tell it from both the mother’s and dog’s points of view.

In many ways, that story, Waiting for Peter, ‘wrote itself’ as I simply turned to the many journal entries I had penned throughout the years about our lovable mutt 

and all the lessons I had learned from life with Beau, especially lessons about how I should view my Master with the same love and devotion as Beau viewed me.

Keeping a journal is a great way to find inspiration for future stories. 

With Waiting for Peter, some of my journal entries found their way almost verbatim into the novella. Beau helped me through many hard times, and especially empty-nesting. So of course, the mother in Waiting for Peter finds solace during that season of her life too.

When writing The Dwelling Place, part of which takes place in Scotland, I reread all that I had written in my journal years earlier about the bustling, energetic city of Edinburgh and the rolling hills around Sir Walter Scott’s birthplace. As I reread my words, the emotions I felt while traveling through “the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Loman” came back in all their beauty.

Most recently, I returned from walking the first few legs of The Way, what’s known in French as Le Chemin de Saint Jacques de Compostelle. It’s a centuries-old pilgrimage that runs through France and Spain, ending in the city of Santiago in northwest Spain.

I hiked about thirty kilometers of hills and valleys all alone, partly as a spiritual journey, and partly as research for a new novel. Even though I was bone-tired after each day's hike, I faithfully recorded my experiences in the evenings. Now I am going back to those journal entries daily as I create scenes in the novel. You can be sure that some will reflect what I actually encountered along The Way.

On days like today, my journal helps me jump-start my imagination. 

It is also the place where my soul spills out, a recording of my personal psalms to the Lord with my joys and fears, my frustrations, and the excitement of something in Scripture jumping off the page and into my heart. I journal about life. Events, circumstances, soul talk. It’s all there.

So the next time you need a little nudge of inspiration, turn to your trusty journal. You do keep one, don’t you? 

PS As a bonus to the joys of writing Waiting for Peter, Beau’s photo appeared on the front cover (yep, that’s him above). And when I went to Holland for book signings, we took a hundred of Beau’s paw prints, stamped by Beau (with much difficulty) onto little stickers. Beau 'signed' his story which, by the way, is now available in English, too. I can almost hear his ‘woof’ of approval from where he is frolicking in doggie heaven.

About Elizabeth: 

ELIZABETH MUSSER writes ‘entertainment with a soul’ from her writing chalet—tool shed—outside Lyon, France. For over twenty-five years, Elizabeth and her husband, Paul, have been involved in missions work with One Collective, formerly International Teams. The Mussers have two sons, a daughter-in-law and three grandchildren.

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The Tree That Bore Too Much Fruit

By Elizabeth Musser @EMusserAuthor 

When I was writing The Long Highway Home, one of my very favorite Persian proverbs was this:

Oh, how that proverb made my heart sing, and I found it profoundly true.

Usually. Hopefully.

In our lives as Christ followers, we long to ‘bear fruit’, by doing the ‘good works’ He’s chosen for us before time to bring Him glory. But sometimes it takes a long time—maybe even a lifetime—to be humble enough to ‘bend ourselves thankfully to the ground.’

Sometimes it takes months or years or decades to get over ourselves and realize to Whom we owe our gratitude. 

I recently attended my 40th high school reunion. Since I live out of the country, I don’t have the opportunity to attend many reunions, but I’ve been to a few, enough to have been able to say after this one, “Well, we’ve finally gotten over ourselves. As we approach sixty, we are, for the most part, more self-aware and less out to impress.”

This has been true of my experience in ministry and in writing.

Early on, I tried so very hard to produce fruit. 

These were the two things I could do, and I had to prove that I could do them well. For the Lord, of course. I literally wore myself out, trying on my own strength, and failing, until I learned to come humbly before the Lord and trust Him for the results.

So now, when there is fruit, I know, I KNOW, Who to thank, and it isn’t myself. I love that visual of a branch, laden with fruit, hanging toward the ground, so that even the little fingers of children could pluck a piece of the tree’s juicy fruit.

But something that happened in our yard recently forced me to ask this question: Can we at times bear too much fruit? 

My husband and I returned to our home outside Lyon, France after having been in the States for over ten months. We had a wonderful young couple renting our home. They kept the house in great shape, and they mowed the yard when necessary, but we didn’t ask them to prune our fruit trees. We figured, with three young children, both the husband and wife had enough to do without worrying about our trees. So we came back to an immaculate house and an overgrown yard.

Last week as I was blithely typing in my little writing chalet, a tool shed that sits in our front yard, I heard a strange noise. I stepped outside the chalet to listen. It sounded like a squirrel or some other animal was frolicking in one of our little apple trees.

But we don’t have squirrels in this part of France. And the only things that tend to frolic are birds and bees. But this noise was of leaves rustling and apples jingling and then a crunch. I walked over to the tree, careful not to step under it. Upon closer inspection, no animal or insect was bothering our dear little tree. She had another problem that was, unfortunately, much worse. One of her biggest branches was breaking off because it was overladen with apples, hundreds of apples on this one branch. Little by little it groaned and gave way, the branch bending ever more towards the ground, although I do not believe the tree felt thankful. She was literally having a limb ripped off because of too much fruit.

We hadn’t been here to prune her back in the right season and she, bless her sweet soul, had just done her job as best she could: producing apples. Now it looked like she had done her job too well. Indeed, my husband sadly had to come and cut off the branch where it was irreparably broken.

I wonder if sometimes, as we strive to serve our Lord, we are in danger of producing too much fruit?

We serve and we give and we bear the burdens of others and we keep on going, ignoring our bodies’ plea for Sabbath rest. We become overworked, but often we tend to ignore self-care which in time leads to broken branches and burn out. We dodge our Master’s pruning shears, avoiding them at all costs.

Until…

The bough breaks.

We need the Lord to cut us back and often that involves calling us to slow down. While wearing myself out in ministry and writing, I became very ill. I felt the Lord’s pruning shears as I was forced to rest. But I learned invaluable lessons about life rhythms and seasons and Sabbath.

May we take heed and allow our dear and perfect Gardener to cut us back. May we abide in Him and soak up the perfect rest for our souls that He offers. So we will bend, but not break. 

 “I am the true vine and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit…” John 15: 1-2

About Elizabeth 

ELIZABETH MUSSER writes ‘entertainment with a soul’ from her writing chalet—tool shed—outside Lyon, France. Her new novel, The Long Highway Home, has already been a bestseller in Europe and is a finalist for the Carol Awards.

For over twenty-five years, Elizabeth and her husband, Paul, have been involved in missions’ work in Europe with International Teams, now called One Collective. The Mussers have two sons, a daughter-in-law and three grandchildren. Find more about Elizabeth’s novels at www.elizabethmusser.com and on Facebook, Twitter, and her blog.

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Bookish Tuesday | 2018 CAROL Award Finalist | The Long Highway Home

Review by Iola Goulton @iolagoulton

Elizabeth Musser is one of the regular International Christian Fiction Writers bloggers who has been named a finalist in the 2018 CAROL Awards from American Christian Fiction Writers. She is a finalist in the Contemporary category.

Congratulations, Elizabeth!

The three finalists for the Contemporary category are:

• Maybe It’s You by Candace Calvert, Tyndale House, editors Sarah Rische and Jan Stob
• The Long Highway Home by Elizabeth Musser, ACFW Qualified Independently Published, editor LB Norton
• A Fragile Hope by Cynthia Ruchti, Abingdon Press, editors Jamie Chavez and Ramona Richards

Click here to check out the rest of the finalists.

To honour Elizabeth, today we're resharing a review of her fabulous book, The Long Highway Home. This review originally appeared at www.iolagoulton.comhttp://www.iolagoulton.com/tbt-long-highway-home/.

An Outstanding Story of Christian Faith

The Long Highway Home is the story of Bobbie, an ex-missionary who has been diagnosed with inoperable cancer at the age of 39. It’s the story of Tracie, Bobbie’s niece, who accompanies her to Europe, to visit the missionaries she used to serve with before tragedy sent her back to the US. It’s the story of Hamid, a devout Muslim who is forced to flee Iran after a well-meaning missionary gives his six-year-old daughter a New Testament.

But my favourite character is Rasa, the child with a faith that puts mine to shame.

The structure of The Long Highway Home is more like a thriller novel than the women’s fiction and romance I’m more used to reading. There are a lot of viewpoint characters spanning the US, Holland, France, Austria, and Iran. Unlike most thrillers, it’s always obvious who the characters are and how they are related, which kept me turning pages to find out how they’d eventually be brought together.

The author has drawn on her own missionary experiences in writing this excellent novel.

This shines through in both the story of Hamid and his family, and in the advice from some of the minor characters (e.g. Peggy, the elderly prayer warrior who supports Bobbie). These sound like real conversations Ms Musser has had in her years as a missionary—stories of the refugees who survived the refugee highway and made it to The Oasis in Austria.

It’s a story of human courage in the face of adversity, persecution, and possible death.

It’s a story of hope, of perfect love driving out fear. It challenges our views of refugees by introducing us to real refugees—we know Hamid and Rasheed and Rasa and Omid aren’t real people, but at the same time their stories have that ring of truth, of authenticity. They could be real stories. They may well be.

After all, significant elements of the story are real.

The Oasis is a real place, and welcomes volunteers and short-term missionaries (and long-term missionaries!) to support its outreach to refugees in Austria. Elizabeth Musser is a missionary with International Teams, an organisation dedicated to helping those who survive the refugee highway. World Wide Radio was inspired by the real-life work of Trans World Radio, which broadcasts in 230 languages to reach listeners in 160 countries.

It’s inspiring and humbling to read about people like this—missionaries who are risking their lives to bring the gospel to others. Refugees who are risking their lives to escape a government that wants them dead. Normal, everyday people who are doing extraordinary things every day.

Recommended.

Thanks to Elizabeth Musser for providing a free ebook for review.

About Elizabeth Musser

Elizabeth Musser writes ‘entertainment with a soul’ from her writing chalet—tool shed—outside Lyon, France. Elizabeth’s highly acclaimed, best-selling novel, The Swan House, was named one of Amazon’s Top Christian Books of the Year and one of Georgia’s Top Ten Novels of the Past 100 Years (Georgia Backroads, 2009). All of Elizabeth’s novels have been translated into multiple languages.

From an interview with Publisher’s Weekly, “Elizabeth Musser likes to say she has two part-time jobs. Not only is she an award-winning novelist, but she and her husband serve as missionaries at a small Protestant church in Lyon, France. In both lines of work, she avoids preaching and simplistic answers, choosing instead to portray a God who cares in the midst of life's complexity...”

Elizabeth adds, “My desire is to offer the best literature I can write, drawing the reader into a story that is compelling, believable and sprinkled with historical detail. I seek to give a realistic picture of what faith lived out in this world looks like, and, as always, I hope that my stories can be appreciated by all audiences, not just those readers who hold my same religious beliefs. It is a delight to receive confirmation of this through reader letters.”

For over twenty-five years, Elizabeth and her husband, Paul, have been involved in missions’ work in Europe with International Teams. The Mussers have two sons, a daughter-in-law and three grandchildren who all live way too far away in America.

You can find Elizabeth online at:

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About The Long Highway Home

When the doctor pronounces "incurable cancer" and gives Bobbie Blake one year to live, she agrees to accompany her niece, Tracie, on a trip back to Austria, back to The Oasis, a ministry center for refugees that Bobbie helped start twenty years earlier. Back to where there are so many memories of love and loss.

Bobbie and Tracie are moved by the plight of the refugees and in particular, the story of the Iranian Hamid, whose young daughter was caught with a New Testament in her possession back in Iran, causing Hamid to flee along the refugee Highway and putting the whole family in danger. Can a network of helpers bring the family to safety in time? And at what cost?

Filled with action, danger, heartache and romance, The Long Highway Home is a hymn to freedom in life's darkest moments.

Find The Long Highway Home online at:

Amazon | Goodreads

You can read the introduction to The Long Highway Home below:

Telling Stories

By Elizabeth Musser @EMusserAuthor 

When I was a child, parents would warn their kids not to tell stories. By that, of course, they were speaking about lying.  

Thou shalt not lie. 

I was a good little girl, the one who wanted to please, to do things right, so I tried my best not to lie. But oh, how I told stories! Story after story as they galloped through my mind, like the horses doing the same thing in the riding ring behind my house.

I loved telling stories! 

I told them to anyone who would listen to, or, more often, read them. I still have the spiral notebooks of my scribbled stories of yesteryear.

When I was blessed with two little boys, I went back to telling stories, 

nightly stories about Blackie and Angelfoot, the adored ponies, and Slimy Green and Shiny Green, the friendly snakes, and Mr. Snodgrass, the befuddled but kind neighbor. Story after story. And always, somehow, a spiritual anecdote crept into these stories, a little something to turn my sons’ imaginations toward Jesus. During their naptimes, I’d write down the morning’s disaster, turning it also into some sort of anecdotal and redemptive story.

Our ritual of story-telling continued, 

along with reading them books, up into their double-digit days. Yes, they were reading on their own, but amazingly (and delightedly for this little momma) they still loved snuggling with me in bed for a book and a story.

The habit of telling my sons stories and writing them down, along with whatever spiritual tidbit I could grab onto

kept my imagination supple 

until one day, my sons both trotted off to school, and I had the morning to create and craft fiction with the Gospel subtly embedded in the story.

We writers are meant to tell stories, and what better audience to start with than our own kids? 

I am now a grandmother of three, and I once again have the delight of reading books and telling bedtime stories to these precious little people.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day and for this one year, we’re in the States, living right down the street (figuratively, but close literally) from the grandkids. They came with our son and daughter-in-law for a cookout. And late in the evening, well past their bedtime, I snuggled with the three in bed and began my story…

When their daddy poked his head in to say, “Time to go home,” they looked up in dismay until I explained we were in the middle of a story. Then he quickly backed out of the room with, “Okay, just come downstairs when the story’s over.”

I treasure these times for many reasons, but one of the less obvious ones is simply that

making up bedtime stories is keeping my imagination going. And oh, how we writers need that! 

For all of my twenty-five years as a published author, I’ve had another job, too, of missionary, as well as the cherished roles of wife, mother, manager of the manse, etc. So often my other jobs have crowded in to steal away my writing time. Sometimes months go by without me working on a novel, as is the case with these ten months back in the States.

Caring for our aging parents, being involved in family celebrations that we usually miss out on, visiting supporters and supporting churches, speaking about my novels to all different groups of readers, working with our missionaries in our pastoral role and many other things have all but pushed aside my mornings to write.

With my grandkids, I am once again

using my imagination to exercise my creative muscles 

so that they don’t atrophy, so that they’re in good condition when the space opens up for me to sit down and tell another story.

That’s what being a novelist is all about, isn’t it? I promise I'm telling the truth.

How do you keep exercising your writing muscles when life gets in the way of your actual writing?

About Elizabeth Musser 

 ELIZABETH MUSSER usually writes ‘entertainment with a soul’ from her writing chalet—tool shed—outside Lyon, France. For over twenty-five years, Elizabeth and her husband, Paul, have been involved in missions’ work in Europe. To be closer to family, the Mussers have moved back to the Southeast for 2017-2018 school year and are living in the Chattanooga area near their son, daughter-in-law and three grandkids. Find more about Elizabeth’s novels at www.elizabethmusser.com and on Facebook, Twitter, and her blog.

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