A Character Interview from "Never Forsaken" a Novel by Jennifer Slattery - and How YOU Can Help 2 Important Orphan Ministries

Today we’re visiting with Pastor T, the mission team leader from Jennifer Slattery’s novel, Never Forsaken. He’s here with one of his youth kids, Aubrey Dicky, and a couple who run an orphanage in El Salvador. After our little chat, make sure to listen for how you can help two important orphan ministries. Aubrey will tell you all about that, I’m sure.

Good morning, Pastor T. Thanks for stopping by.

Pastor T: Hi, thanks for having me.

God’s really drawn your church members to El Salvador orphans, hasn’t He?

Pastor T: Yes, He has. Not just orphans in El Salvador, but orphans in general. God would rather us live out our faith than act it out on Sunday mornings, and according to James 1:27, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” So that’s what we’ve been trying to do.

Aubrey, was this your first mission trip?

Aubrey: Uh … I’m not sure if I can answer that. Pastor T, will that give away the story?

Pastor T: I don’t think so.

Aubrey: Maybe we should call Jennifer. I’d hate to breach our contract or anything. It could get us sued, you know.

Pastor T: (frustrated) We didn’t sign a contract, Aubrey, and Jennifer’s not going to sue us.

Aubrey: You sure?

Pastor T: I’m sure.

Aubrey: Still … I’d rather not risk it.

That’s okay. We can talk about something else. Like what you’re doing now.

Pastor T: Looks like we’ll be talking lip gloss.

Aubrey: Yay! My favorite subject! Well, my second favorite subject. Maybe third favorite.

Pastor T: (clears his throat)

Can you tell me about this Mary Kay Make-over contest you’re part of?

Aubrey: Actually, I’m not part of it, per say, although I did receive some awesome samples. But I never got my photo taken or anything. That was Jennifer. And I think I’m largely the reason she did it. Well, she did it for the orphans, but I think my jewelry making sort of motivated her, along with all her research. I guess she read some pretty sad human rights reports about child labor, articles on sex trafficking, that sort of stuff.

Such a sad realty! So many children suffering from such unspeakable evil!

Aubrey: Yeah, it’s pretty overwhelming. I mean, when I first learned about child labor and sex trafficking, I was like, “What can I do??? I’m just a kid!” But then I learned about Fair Trade, and this Mary Kay contest, and I realized there’s a lot I can do!

Amen, Aubrey! By ourselves, it can seem like we’re not making much of an impact, but we must remember God has many others working alongside us. Combined, we can help bring about great, long term change! So tell us about this charity make-over event.

Aubrey: Sure! It was a blast, and it’s for a really great cause. We’ve coined it the “Beauty for the Broken” campaign. One of Jennifer’s friends is a Mary Kay beauty consultant. Apparently, Mary Kay does a lot of charity type stuff. This month they’re doing this make-over thing where people get to vote for their favorite before and after shot. The person with the most votes receives $5,000 for the charity of their choice, and their consultant receives $500.

So, that’s $5,500 going to charity, just for wearing lip gloss and blush?

Aubrey: And for flashing a winning smile. Or a really, really bad before shot. Which I think was Jennifer’s aim. Whew! Have you seen her photos?

Pretty bad, huh?

Aubrey: (laughing) To put it mildly.

So, how does this event help orphans?

Aubrey: If Jennifer and her beauty consultant win, they’ll give their donation to two orphan ministries: Gothreads and the Raining Season. But you all have to vote. Like a lot. (You can vote up to five times a day.)

That’s a lot of money.

Aubrey: Yeah, and Sharyline, the beauty consultant has a chance to win another $5,000 for participation, too. So really, this could lead to a $10,500 donation.

How can we help?

Aubrey: That’s the easy part! All you’ve got to do is vote, and tell your friends to vote, too. Five times each day. Maybe set a reminder on your phone or something.

Okay, so how do they vote?

Aubrey: Oh! Duh! Go to https://www.mkmakeovercontest.com/gallery.jsp?id=163379 and vote for Jennifer! Make sure to share the link on FB, tweet it, blast it out through Youtube. Don’t forget, you can vote up to five times. Every day.  Oh, and one more thing. Please don’t say anything about the cheesy before and after pictures. At least, nothing negative. Although you don’t want to lie, either. It’d probably be best if you just didn’t mention them, except to say you voted. Make sure to do that, otherwise you won’t get your gift certificate.

Tell us about that.

Aubrey: Oh, that’s the fun part! To encourage all you lovely-lipstick wearers to vote, Sharyline Cochran’s http://www.marykay.com/sharilyne  giving away a $10 gift certificate and a free make-over (in person or through Skype) to every voter who votes then tells us they did so in the comments here.

Sounds like a win-win. Friends, make sure to vote, and check out these great ministries:

(taken from their website) The Raining Season (http://www.therainingseason.org/): a ministry meeting the educational, spiritual, emotional, and physical needs of orphans in Sierra Leone

(taken from their website) Go Threads (http://gothreads.org/): a ministry started by The Global Orphan Project started by GO Threads to: (a) generate revenue to sustain the costs of orphan care; (b) provide quality clothing, including school uniforms, for children in care and other hurting children; and (c) create local jobs in some of the poorest communities in the world. GO Threads represents a new and creative partnership to address poverty devastating children at the end of humanity’s line.

***

Jennifer Slattery lives in the Midwest with her husband and daughter. She writes for Christ to the World Ministries, the ACFW Journal, Internet Café Devotions, and Jewels of Encouragement. You can connect with her online at her devotional blog at http://jenniferslatterylivesoutloud.com or via Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/JenSlatte

Summer's Here - Time to Re-establish a Writing Routine

Let's talk about routine. Today is the last day of my part time day job at a local elementary school. That means it's the kick off to my full time writing job. Like most of you, I do a lot of juggling to squeeze writing around the need to keep house, make a steady paycheck, raise a family, stay involved in my church, and so on. So when summer comes, I get pretty excited for a change in routine.

Is your routine affected by a seasonal change? What sort of routine helps you accomplish your writing goals?

Here's my general routine:

• First thing in the morning -- prayer, coffee, devotions, email, and... Facebook. I'm addicted, and I'd just as soon start my day with a few hellos and some shared virtual coffee with my friends, that way the thought isn't lurking over my shoulder. But I try not to linger!

• Schedule tweets and status updates on Hootsuite.  This is actually fairly time-consuming for me. I keep a file of previous tweets in case there are some good ones I want to re-use. But I like to mix them up and talk about new things and find other people's interesting tweets to RT too. I didn't use a scheduling app for a long time, but now I use one and love it. It allows me to put networking out of mind for part of the day - much as I love it -  while I focus on the writing at hand.  

• Blogging is next on the list. I try to get a rough draft of something done in the morning. Sometimes in lieu of blogging, I work on an editing deadline, an article, a query letter, or whatever else is demanding immediate attention or some tweaking. During the school year I don't always get this much accomplished before I'm off to work. Instead, I wait until late afternoon or early evening to tackle the detailed projects.

• When I happen to have bigger bigger chunks of day to work with, I get to the real heavy writing and editing. But I do take frequent breaks to launder clothes, feed the critters, mop the floor, pop back in on Facebook, or just hang out with my family. A gal's gotta live.

• Sometimes new writing is done solely in the evening, when everyone in my family is otherwise engaged. But somewhere between 9 and 11 o'clock I stop making sense, so I engage with a good book to read.

That's my writing routine on most days. What's yours? Is it affected by seasonal change? In what ways does it help you accomplish your writing goals?

This summer, hang with me here on More Reason to Write to talk about things like routine and other tools we use to get our books written well. I'm hosting a number of authors this summer, who'll add to the conversation.

Write on!

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5 Times Writers Should Heed Their Inner Critic

I haven't posted in while, partly because of my own inner critic. He can be a good guy, or a bad guy. Sometimes he talks trash: This isn't any good. Throw it away. Why blog? Who cares? Tweeting is a waste of time. Set the novel aside and get a real job. I'm usually a bit too susceptible to his voice when he uses this tone.

At other times he's a helpful partner. The heroine isn't compelling. Her personality is flat, but there's a way to bring her to life, just keep digging.

  

The inner editor is, indeed, a critic. But whereas in the first example he can make us feel like losers who never should've gone into this writing game, in the second example he whispers softly, and gives us just a pinch of feeling that something isn't right. He keeps up a gentle cajoling, while we rehash, reconstruct, and rewrite several times over, until at last his voice is quieted.

Just as there are those dark moments when we need to tell him to put a cork in it, there are distinct times we need to heed the voice of our inner critic: 

 

1. When a character's actions or reactions don't ring true to who they are. When one of them does something "out of character" it causes a bump in the believability of our tale. If we sense it but ignore it, thinking that the reader will brush it off too, we'd better hold on. Listen to the critic and change the scene or the character's response. Be true to who they really are, and ask them if that's really how they would act or respond, or if there's a better way.
2. When we try to force history or factual details into a plot where they clearly don't belong. History buffs will close a novel tighter than a drum if they think we're handling facts clumsily. Readers of suspense will roll their eyes and toss it in a dumpster if a writer isn't deft with forensic details.  Sometimes we have to heed the inner critic when he's telling us to change the plot to fit facts, rather than trying to force the facts into our plot.
3. We need to listen when our inner critic scolds us about a scene being too telling, unmoving, or just plain unnecessary. Every scene is like a mini-novel, with a hook, a climax, a response. It must always serve a purpose. Yet it's easy to rely on "telling" during a lagging writing session, or to attach our emotions to scenes that serve no purpose in furthering the story. Sometimes during the early plotting stages of a book, I've visualized a scene waaaaaay before the time it is to appear. I may completely write it out, thinking that when I reach that point in the story I'll be able to drop it in. But by the time I reach that place in the story where I intended to use it, it no longer works. My inner critic has been known to raise his hand, clear his voice, and say, "Let it go." When our inner critic tells us something needs to go, we must listen. We can't be so in love with a scene, a dialogue, or anything that isn't true to the story, that we can't toss it. This includes pet words, phrases, and descriptions. You now the old saying -- kill your darlings.
4. We need to listen to the inner critic when it might be telling us something is trite, or that it's been done before. If something we write starts to ping our subconscious with the thought that this is kind of like some other novel, then we need to go back to the drawing board and figure out what will make it new and different. It seemed that after Tolkien's Lord of the Rings became the movie series, everybody wanted to write a fantasy about elves and dwarves and sorcerers. That was fine, it was inspirational even. But the trick was to write something that was not Lord of the Rings, but something different.
5. Finally, heed the inner critic when he tells you a novel is finished, or when it isn't. There's nothing more satisfying to a novelist than typing The End. But an experienced writer knows that it isn't really the end. His inner critic doesn't even need to raise a finger and point anymore, because he knows the end is merely the beginning of the next stage -- rewriting -- which is just more writing. At the same time, experience will also recognize the inner critic saying -- sometimes after a number of rewrites -- Ah, ha! Now it's ready to send out. I have been on both ends. The end that thinks I've listened to the critic long enough and sent a manuscript out hastily, only to be embarrassed later on over a piece of work that wasn't ready yet. And I have polished and shined until the inner critic was satisfied, and knew that, despite future edits, it was now as good a piece as I could make it.

So don't listen to the inner critic when he's merely being cantankerous. But do heed his wisdom, when it will bring your work to a level you can be confident of.