For those of you who would like to print Seeking Treasureland, it is now available for easy printing in a .PDF file. If you don’t have Adobe Acrobat Reader, simply click on the link under the title of the story to download it. Then you will be able to click on the link to print.
I hope this makes things easier for all, and I hope that you like the story.
Happy reading!
I’m just jazzed about all of the people who have already been enjoying Seeking Treasureland. Thank you to all of you who have responded to me! I love hearing what you think.
Just a note to those of you who would like to print out copies of the story. Right now it looks like the best way for you to do that is to copy and paste the story into a word processing program and then print it from there. I’m sorry for the trouble some have had trying to print from the webpage. My graphics seem to be cutting off some of the words.
My webmaster son is looking into converting the story to a .PDF file for easy printing from the website. I’ll announce it when it’s up, but for now, I’d hate for anyone to feel like they can’t print it. Copying and pasting shouldn’t be too difficult, I hope.
If for some reason you are unable to do that, however, please contact me. I can send you the story in a Word attachment, if nothing else works.
In His Grace,
In the top right hand corner of this page is a link to my story Seeking Treasureland. This is the story I wrote in 1992 for our church’s kid’s club. In 1998, I gave the story to my youngest son Ryan to read, to help better explain the gospel. He came to me afterward and told me that he’d given his heart to Jesus Christ.
I have grown as an author since I wrote this piece, but I still liked the story and I wanted to share it with others. So I pulled it out and rewrote it. I am now offering it free to all who care to use it.
Eventually, I hope to put it up in a PDF file for easier printing. For now, however, you may copy and paste it or print it directly from the page for your personal or public use. Feel free to share this story as an evangelistic tool with your loved ones, your churches, your neighbors, your friends – with whomever or wherever God leads you to use it. It is my gift to you. You may also link to it if you prefer.
If you enjoy the story, I hope you will drop me a line through my contact page. But either way, may God use Seeking Treasureland for His glory. This is all for Him.
In His Grace,
My office is in a cubby hole just off of our family room, with a clear view of our backyard through a glass doorwall. Snow blankets the ground and clings to the base of the sleeping apple trees. We received about six inches of snow yesterday; hopefully, one of our last storms of winter. But in Michigan, one never knows.
This new week begins with hope, as do most weeks. Two of my kids were pretty sick last week, but they are slowly on the mend. I’m up and down with little aches and pains, fighting something one minute, feeling good the next. I think my allergies are still troubling me.
But I’ve got great plans in store for this week. I finished up a book proposal yesterday for a story I’m rewriting in a different era. I sent it off to my critique partners, so now I wait to see what they think of it. It’s time to dust off another story and rework it for a different proposal. Fortunately, both stories are written in the same time period, so the research isn’t in two different directions.
I’m also hoping to set up an area where I can work on a Creative Memories album for my youngest son. He will graduate from high school next year and I want to get a head start on the project. I had planned to work on it every Sunday afternoon, but Sundays around here tend to be busy, with a house full of people, so I need to find another solution.
Tomorrow my mom and I plan to go shopping, so that should be fun. It promises to be a pretty full week.
For now, I’m off to figure out what meals I’m going to prepare for tonight and the rest of the week. I get stuck in a rut sometimes, where cooking becomes drudgery unless I decide it’s time to get creative. (Though sometimes my family doesn’t like creative.) :) I think creative sounds like fun, as long as I can make it creative and quick!
My Seeking Treasureland story is finally finished and should be available later this week, Lord willing. There have been some glitches holding it up. Hopefully, those will be remedied soon.
Hope you all have a wonderful week!
On one of the writer’s loops I’m on, they discussed “voice” as it pertains to fiction. I find the topic educational and intriguing. How does an author create characters that sound like real people and that don’t all sound alike – or just like the author?
I’ve read some books where there is little distinction between the characters. What’s worse is when a series is only different because the names and occupations change, but the “people”, who the characters really are, doesn’t. As a reader, this annoys me and I will stop reading the series because they all start to sound alike.
But as a writer, it is SO easy to do the same thing! I find myself infusing my own “voice” into the voices of my characters. Until recently, I spent little time pondering how each character is unique or asking myself who they might be like in real life. What actor or singer or neighbor or friend is my character most like? What inflections differ in their voices, what are their idiocyncricies?
One of my critique partners has a book coming out in which all of the characters only communicate via email. She didn’t have descriptions to work with. They couldn’t “see” each other through the computer screen, so she spent a lot of time listening to them, trying to hear the way they talked so that she could capture that in each email. She’s done a fantastic job! I can’t wait to read her first book, because her second one is already looking great. :)
Still, I wonder how she did that – how each author comes up with unique qualities for each character. If all of my characters are from similar backgrounds, how do I give them differences that will come through in the way they talk?
One thing I’ve learned is that I need to listen a lot. Only this time, instead of just listening to what people say, actually listen to how they say it. Study voices. Close my eyes to block out all but what I can hear.
Music is another way to hear “voice”. One of Michael W. Smith’s songs gave me the perfect motivation for my hero in my current wip, and I could “hear” my hero’s voice coming through in the words to Michael’s song.
Movies are another good way to study people. Some movies are obviously better than others, but the good ones can be a great study in character. Actors learn to “become” their characters. Authors need to do the same thing.
Lastly, what helps me to “hear” my characters’ voices, are visual images of them. I recently started creating collages to give me the visual aid I need as I write the book. Great resource tool!
Whatever tools are necessary, an author should use them to help her get the feel for each character. I used to think, “Just write the book”. But now I believe all of these pre-writing exercises can be most beneficial. Then when I sit down to write a scene, I better know how to write it based on how my character would react.
One thing is certain. Writing is a craft that takes years to master. And even the masters never stop learning.
Today is my birthday. And yes, it is a good day, but I’ve had a few melancholy moments, which I suppose is normal for middle-aged moms. I actually had a nice weekend, and have eaten out so many times that I’m ready to burst! I just returned from lunch with my parents, a tradition that has been in the family for years. Old as I get, I still enjoy that special lunch and hope God grants us many more.
Yesterday, my family (husband and kids) took me out to dinner at Red Lobster and then we went to see Aviator. Now there is a melancholy movie! Howard Hughes, eccentric that he was, and a brilliant engineer, was plagued by mental trials that got the better of him from time to time. Fascinating to see as far as characterization goes, but sad in the sense of how it relates to a human life.
But anyway, we came home and Randy and the boys showered me with presents. I am truly blessed and am very grateful. And backtracking a few days, my brother and sister-in-law surprised me with a spur-of-the-moment suggestion for dinner out on Friday evening. My birthday celebrations have involved a lot of food. :)
But today, the actual day, is damp and rainy and a gray mist hangs over the area. Usually, I receive a number of emails and phone calls with celebratory greetings. This year they’ve been few. And that shouldn’t bother me really. In fact, it probably just reveals my selfishness that it bothers me at all. Or maybe it’s a girl thing, but it’s been tradition over the past few years, and I miss it. Maybe middle-aged mamas need it more than some.
On the bright side, I was reminded today of how much God loves me and that a number of years ago (not telling how many) He was there at my birth. His hand formed me in my mother’s womb and His hand has guided me every year since. His love passes knowledge, will never leave me, is always with me. His love quiets me, comforts me, supports me, encourages me. When I am troubled, His love surrounds me, carries me, and fills me. His thoughts are ever on me, His right hand upholds me, His gentleness makes me great.
Even in my melancholy moments on my Valentine birthday, where hearts and flowers and dark chocolate abound, God’s love is what I cling to. His grace is my portion. In a world where people are searching for love, trying to buy it with candy or portray it in mushy Valentines, my God is there, loving me even in the midst of my melancholy musings.
The sky is still gloomy, but the sun is shining in my heart. I am loved by the great Lover of my Soul (and my family too). All is well.
The other night, after it became obvious that my stay in the Valley of Rejection would be longer than I’d hoped, I was thinking about what direction God wanted to take me. I had to admit, I didn’t know. Should I continue down the fiction writing path? Had I misread God? Has my focus been in all the wrong places all of these years?
One of my favorite verses came to mind as I lay in bed mulling things over. Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.”
It struck me that I do a lot of leaning on what I can understand. And since I rarely understand God’s ways, I’m often frustrated. I decided that I need to do more leaning on Him and less assuming that I know what God is up to. I also began to pray, “Lord direct my path.”
In the process, I’ve continued my reading in Genesis, and last night I came to the place where Jacob is going to Egypt to see his son Joseph, whom he hasn’t seen in about twenty-two years. In all that time, Jacob thought Joseph was dead.
As I was reading, I came to a place where it says that God met with Jacob and told him not to be afraid to go to Egypt, that he would indeed see Joseph again. And I thought, why, in twenty-two years, didn’t God tell Jacob that his son Joseph was still alive? Why did he allow that man to grieve needlessly?
If God had told Jacob of Joseph’s whereabouts, I could envision the man saddling his donkeys and sending out a search party to rescue the lad from whomever had taken him. He would not have been content to let Joseph sit in a foreign land for twenty-two years, when he could have brought him home and made him heir to all that Jacob had. But if he had done that, God’s plan to keep Israel alive throughout the coming famine by bringing them to Egypt would have been thwarted. And God’s plans are never thwarted. His will always prevails.
I can see now why God kept quiet about Joseph’s whereabouts. He had a greater purpose in mind that only He could see. Is that why He doesn’t reveal similar news to other grieving parents? I don’t know. There are things God chooses to tell us and things He chooses to keep from us. We can’t always understand His ways.
In a smaller sense, I don’t always understand why He keeps quiet when I ask Him what plans He has for my writing. What purpose could there possibly be in keeping me in the Valley of Rejection for so long? Especially when He allows others to climb the mountain ahead of me, or to climb higher than I imagined was possible.
But I see now that if I knew ahead of time, like Jacob, I might be tempted to take off in search of something before God’s time, ruining the greater purpose, the better plans He’s prepared for me.
No, I don’t understand the reason for waiting, but after seeing how God dealt with Jacob, I think I can accept it with a little more grace. And stop leaning so hard on my limited understanding.
