Seekerville: The Journey Continues

Welcome to the last week before Christmas!!!

As a child, I counted down the days until Christmas...how could there be so many??? Could we survive the wait?

And then suddenly it arrived. Somewhere between visiting Santa at Rike's Department Store downtown, baking cookies with my mom, an evening of decorating those cookies with my brother (and maybe a few cousins,) and wrapping presents, Christmas came!

The Christmas Eve service, candles glowing, Silver Bells playing on the radio, the excitement of finally hanging our stockings, and reluctantly heading to bed...it was magic.

Do you remember that same magic? That same Christmas feeling?

But things changed when I became an adult. I realized that Christmas isn't just ribbons and bows and toys and Christmas cookies...Christmas came to mean A LOT MORE. 

That Christmas giddiness of my childhood was as sweet as sugar, and just as fragile. But as an adult, that sugary sweetness was slowly replaced by lasting, pure AWE.

This Jesus whose birth we celebrate at Christmas was born to glorify the Father, and born to wear the thorns for me...

Another thing that has changed in these grown-up Christmases is that I'm eating a LOT less sugar these days, and I've slowly been adjusting my favorite Christmas treats to sugar-free treats.

It isn't as horrible as it sounds!

My go-to fudge recipes these days come from a website called "My Montana Kitchen," and they are no-guilt delicious!

They all start with a basic recipe - Sugar-Free Sweetened Condensed Milk.

Yes, sugar-free condensed milk. The recipe uses cream, butter, and a stevia/erythritol sweetener blend (aka "Gentle Sweet" from Trim Healthy Mama, or you can use the recipe found on the My Montana Kitchen website.) The recipe takes time, but it's worth it. I have to keep myself from making it too often...it's that delicious!

Here's the link to that recipe: Sugar-Free Keto Sweetened Condensed Milk

Once you have that basic recipe, you can use the sweetened condensed milk in all sort of recipes, and my favorite is chocolate fudge. Here's the link to the fudge recipes: 5 Sugar-Free Fudge Recipes

Eating mostly sugar-free has been an easy transition with recipes like these. I still make the regular fudge for family and friends...but that's okay. I get the sugar-free version all to myself!

Wishing you a blessed Christmas from our family to yours!

May your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be white.

by Jan Drexler 

Of all the holidays we celebrate, Thanksgiving is one of my top three! I love everything about the day - food, fellowship, PIE! - but most of all,                                                           I love the REASON for this SEASON. 

We might think that the celebration of Thanksgiving started with the Pilgrims, but actually, believers have been setting aside days of Thanksgiving since Old Testament times.

The Pilgrims carried this tradition with them to the Plymouth colony in 1620, celebrating the first Thanksgiving in America in 1621 or 1622.

(For those of you with a calendar, that was 400 years ago!)

Here's one participant's description of that first Thanksgiving feast:

Far from being the joyless, dour folks that some people often portray the Puritans, their lives were full of joy and thanksgiving. Not only one day a year, but every day was filled with thanksgiving. 

The tradition continued with George Washington in 1789:

And with Abraham Lincoln in 1863:

One thing that I noticed about all three of these times of Thanksgiving is that they took place during or just after times of great hardship - the horribly difficult time of starvation and death during the first year after the Pilgrims landed, the war for independence that Americans fought against the British, and the American Civil War. Lincoln's Thanksgiving proclamation was given during the third wearying year of that bloody war.

How could they even think to give thanks during times like those? 

How can we even think to give thanks during times like these?

The secret is joy.

Several years ago I read Ann Voskamp's book, One Thousand Gifts. I was thinking about it recently and was reminded of the year I spent following her advice to find joy.

The exercise was simple. Every day, I was to write down three things that brought me joy. I started in 2014. I created a little diary and I was faithful - through January, February, March...

...and then March 30th came. The day my mother passed away.

This was a challenge - how could I find joy in this circumstance of my life?

The habit to find joy had been ingrained through the previous three months of that year, and I found joy in my thankfulness for the mother God had given me. Day after day I poured out my grief in counting the endless moments of joy I had known with her.

Moments I captured in Thanksgiving and Praise.

Hi, everyone!

We call today a "Blue Moon Monday" - the fifth Monday, when none of the Seekers are scheduled to post! Ruthy often hosts on these "Blue Moon" days, but she's been super busy with her other job.

You DO know Ruthy's family has a pumpkin farm, right? She's been super busy with that for the past couple months!

So today I'm sharing a post I wrote a year ago...and it's just as appropriate this year as it was last year.

Enjoy!

What Will Spill Onto Your Page?

 

Hey, y'all. Jan here with a thinking-type post.

(Yes, I can talk Southern. My years in West Texas and in Kentucky taught me how!)

I've been convicted of something lately, and I'd like to share my thoughts with you.

Let's start here - 

I'm teaching school-age children at Bible Study Fellowship this year, and we're studying Matthew. The immersion into this study (not only my own study, but in preparing to teach) reminds me that what we put into our hearts is what is going to come out.

In this section of Matthew, Jesus is talking to the Pharisees. You know, those religious leaders who were all about religion...but not so much about God. Like many of us, they thought they knew God. They thought they were obeying God with all their laws to "help" people follow God's Law.

But Jesus had a special name for them: brood of vipers. He uses that term more than once! Like I told the students in my BSF class, that means that He considered them to be a nest of venomous snakes.

I don't know about you, but I don't want the Lord of the Universe to consider me to be no better than a venomous snake.

I don't want my heart to spew out poison - untruths, slander, and even "mistakes" when I'm trying communicate to my readers about Jesus and His world...which covers 100% of what I write about.

But as writers, we are constantly filling our heads and hearts with knowledge - research for our latest novel. Sales statistics. The best price points. Reading blogs and listening to podcasts about writing and marketing.

As we watch the news or read the newspapers, we fill our minds and hearts with the noise of the World.

As we go about our non-writerly lives, we deal with family issues, church issues, and what in the world to fix for dinner.

When our heads and hearts become filled with the things of this world, what will overflow into our writing? 

"For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."

What's the answer?

We must balance all of that - over-balance all of that - with God's Word.

Not just reading scripture, but delving deep into it.

Not just reading someone else's teaching on scripture, but studying it for ourselves.

Even if my daily word count suffers...

The time spent in God's Word - just me, my Bible, and the Holy Spirit - is never wasted. That's treasure to fill our hearts.

My prayer for all of us is that our heads and our hearts will overflow with Jesus, and that is who our readers will encounter in our books.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

When I told her my dad had recently given me my own hidden treasure, she urged me insisted that I share it on my Seekerville post this month. "Sure!" I said. "That would be fun." (That may not be an exact quote.)

A full plate is better than an empty one, right?

 
Do I hear any “Amens!?”

We all know that there is no way even a small spoonful of each one of those dishes is going to fit on our plates, but we fill them up anyway.

After all, a full plate is better than an empty one.

Except when the plate starts tipping and a bit of the jello fluff slides onto the floor…or the dinner roll perched on top takes a nosedive for someone else’s plate…or the tuna noodle casserole’s sauce insists on mingling with the oil and vinegar dressing on your lettuce….

Maybe there can be too much of a good thing!

My life is a bit like that. I know I’ve said “yes” to too many responsibilities, and when fall comes I’ll be adding another huge one back onto my plate. And then there is the possibility of a grandchild (or two) arriving in the next year or so. Each of those important things needs a spot on my plate.

How do I give all those responsibilities the attention they need? How do I keep any of them from falling off the plate? How do I make sure I accomplish what needs to be done WHEN it needs to be done?

Time management.

My favorite tool for time management is a planner. And my favorite planner is my Bullet Journal.

Why a planner?

Because our lives are full of details that need our full attention.

I used to just list the things I needed to do on my planner page in no particular order and without a lot of thought, but that could be so disheartening. My list was just too long, and what about the things I didn’t really want to do? Well, it’s easy to just move them to the next day’s list, and the next one, and the next one…

Then I discovered a new strategy: Divide and conquer!

Here’s a picture of my Bullet Journal page for last Friday. It takes me less than five minutes to put this page together in the evening and finish it up the next morning.

 
Do you see how I listed my priorities at the top? There are three of them. Keeping that list to three items is my #1 rule.

Then I divide my tasks into three areas: personal, home, and writing.

I try to list no more than three things in each of those areas, but sometimes the day is extra busy.

The colorful column on the right is where I divide my day into blocks. (I use color-coding to make everything easy to keep in order.) The numbers in that column correspond to the time of day.

If you look at the column, you can see that I’ve scheduled my writing tasks in three separate time blocks. 6:00 am to 7:30 am, 9:00 am to 11:30 am, and 12:30 pm to 3:00 pm. That’s a total of 6 ½ hours spent on writing and writing related tasks.

Now look at the items I’ve listed under “writing” on the left. I usually spend my first writing block putting words down in my WIP. My goal is 1000-1500 words during that block.

The second block is for more writing or tackling a sticky technical problem with my website or publishing.

The third block is for a variety of things. Sometimes I use that time for research. Sometimes for listening to podcasts or reading craft books. Sometimes for writing my newsletter content. Sometimes for writing a blog post.

The key? I know I’m more creative in the morning after my first cup of tea, so I use that to my advantage and do the most important thing first. I also know I tend to be a bit draggy in the afternoons – so that’s when I take care of tasks that require less concentration.

I do the same for the “personal” category and “home” category. I do those planned tasks during the times with the matching colors in my schedule.

Is this method perfect?

No, but it’s as close to perfect as I can get for me. You might find that a different kind of planner suits you better, or that a bunch of sticky notes on your computer screen’s frame is the perfect solution. The idea is to plan our time so that it doesn’t get frittered away.

 

My husband and I (along with our youngest son) just returned yesterday afternoon from a trip east to visit family. From South Dakota to Iowa, to Indiana, to Michigan, to Minnesota, and then home. Nine days, 3000 miles. We're glad to be home again!

But in spite of all my planning, I had no internet access for the entire trip. The wi-fi card in my little traveling computer didn't work and my phone isn't set up to be my #1 computer. So my vacation was a true vacation, right? Except for the work I had been planning to do while we traveled, including writing today's Seekerville post. 

No worries! Welcome to Jan Drexler's blog from March 2015! I hope you enjoy it!

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

Last year I joined our local writers group. It’s a secular group with a broad range of writing experiences and goals among the members. And like any group of writers, there are a lot of aspiring authors who come to learn and grow. Several of the members have had some success in the indie publishing field, but I’m the only regular attender who is traditionally published.

That, plus the fact that I’m new means that they really aren’t sure about me yet. (That’s okay. Sometimes I’m not sure about them, either!)

Some authors hold on to their stories too tightly. They keep their writing snagged within their prideful grasp, thinking no one else understands their story like they do. They refuse to accept help to make it better, and they refuse to change anything to make it fit someone else’s standards.


If you want to be published, you won’t be that kind of author.
You’ll be the kind of author who understands that once you hit “send,” your story is now a business. Rather than keeping it close to your heart, you humbly open your hands and let it grow.

If an agent suggests that your story will sell better told in third person rather than first person, you start planning how to make that change and still keep the meat of your story intact.

When an editor sends you a list of revisions that need to be made and invites you to resubmit your story, you put everything else aside and make those changes.

When you get a request for a partial or full manuscript, you comply in a timely manner because that’s good business practice.

Soon you’ll find that those changes and revisions make your story stronger. More complete. Saleable.

Hannah's Choice

Published by Revell 2016

order HERE

And when you see your book for the first time, you’ll cry. You really will. Because that’s what parents do when they see their babies all grown up.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

Welcome back to 2022!

I'm still treating my writing as a business. Next week, on May 25, my first indie published book will be released! You can preorder it NOW!!! 

Ebook is available for preorder now!

Preorder HERE!

Emma Blackwood’s favorite pastime is solving literary murder mysteries…until the body in her living room makes everything a little too real.

When Emma comes to the Black Hills to work at her Aunt Rose’s B&B, the Sweetbrier Inn, she is hoping for a quiet break from the corporate treadmill. But she hadn’t expected murder and intrigue to mar this peaceful setting.

As she wades through too many clues to identify the murderer, she soon finds that the culprit isn’t stopping at only one homicide and may even have placed Emma herself on the list of targets. With the help of her friend Becky, and a deputy sheriff who grudgingly lets them join in on the investigation, Emma tracks down the killer. But will it be in time to save the next victim?

Which kind of author will you be? What do you need to do to move your writing from art to business? #NoLimits!

One commenter will win an ebook copy of "The Sign of the Calico Quartz!"