"God Will Smile on You" Reflections on the 4th Annual Writers' Conference

By Linda L. Scisson

            Seven months, nine days before this year’s conference, our writers’ club held its monthly meeting at the ministry headquarters of FamilyLife. On that Tuesday afternoon in October, we were encouraged to “use your talents, use your skills, use your God-given ability” and “God will smile, yes, God will smile on you.” 

            Having attended Saturday’s conference at The Summit Church in Maumelle, I believe God smiles upon writers who use their talents, skills, and God-given ability to write for His glory (1 Corinthians 10:31). And God smiles on writers who share what they have learned. Three keen examples: Darcy Pattison, Shannon Taylor Vannatter, and Deborah Howard.

            DARCY PATTISON:  As a hobby, Darcy Pattison quilts. She pieces things together to form a uniform design. This could be said of her writing, too. And that is an understatement when we consider the number of awards Darcy has received — in writing and quilting.

            Books having received awards or starred reviews include (among others): Wisdom, the Midway Albatross; Desert Baths; and The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman. Two recently published books (among others) are: Saucy and Bubba: A Hansel and Gretel Tale and Abayomi, the Brazilian Puma.

            On the home page of Darcy’s website, she is quick to let readers know that she does two things: “I write, or I teach writing.” Books and blogs are her specialties. “Fiction Notes,” Darcy’s blog for fiction writers, was one of the Top Ten Blogs for Writers in 2013.

            Add to that achievement, these two: In 2007, Darcy received the Arkansas Governor’s Arts Award for Individual Artist for her work in children’s literature. In 2009, she founded an Indie-publishing house, Mims House.   

            As our keynote speaker, Darcy addressed blogs, social media, and writing for children.

            SHANNON TAYLOR VANNATTER:  Shannon Taylor Vannatter views her books as “paper missionaries.” And that is not just a cute and clever expression for this stay-at-home mom, pastor’s wife, and author. On Shannon’s “Inkslinger Blog,” her no-nonsense guidelines for contributing guest writers are “send something nice and tame.” And she says why: “It goes without saying, this is a Christian blog. No off-color, cursing, or crude content.”

            It must be conventional wisdom that books in a series repeat words in their titles. For instance, three of Shannon’s books contain the word “white”: White Pearls, White Roses, and White Doves. And cowboys and cowgirls may take your pick among Rodeo Ashes, Rodeo Dust, Rodeo Hero, Rodeo Queen, Rodeo Regrets, and Rodeo Song. (I’d go with Rodeo Queen, having been one in 1967, age 17, in Farmerville, Louisiana.)

            Shannon’s presentation was “Cut the Fluff: How to Write a Great Read.” Shannon knows her topic, evidenced by her receiving several writing awards and being interviewed several times. 

            DEBORAH HOWARD:  Deborah Howard is no stranger to our chapter. She spoke at our monthly meeting in March. A review of her talk, titled “Perseverance Pays Off,” is posted March 25, 2014 at our “Writing on the Rock” blog-site, which address is: http://lracw.blogspot.com/

            At Deborah’s website — http://www.deborahhoward.net/ — her first paragraph tells us that she is “an avid tennis player.” Deborah also serves smashing shots in the writing department with these four books (among others): Sunsets: Reflections for Life’s Final Journey; Where is God in All of This?: Finding God’s Purpose in Our Suffering; HELP! Someone I Love Has Cancer; and HELP! Someone I Love Has Alzheimer’s.

            At Saturday’s conference, Deborah focused her remarks on Query Letters, Proposals, and Synopsis — to help us move from rejection to acceptance.

            I thank God for our May 17, 2014 conference speakers, as well as donors and sponsors of the writing contests, and all who made our conference a sweet reality.

            And I honor the memory of author, musician, and songwriter Peg Roach Loyd, who took life’s final journey on January 6, 2014, three months after speaking at our October 8, 2013 meeting. While playing the guitar, Peg shared one of her songs that included the lyrics: “To use your talents, skills, and God-given ability” and “God will smile on you.”

            While I imagine Peg standing with angels on “a street of pure gold” (Revelation 21:21), as she sings an Irish lilt, I also picture her agreeing with a phrase that we find at the end of Dorothy Hill’s posts on our club’s blog-site:

            “Keep reading. Keep writing.”

            May we hear an “Amen” to that advice from all of creation, including a hospice nurse caring for the terminally ill, a Texas Ranger helping a rodeo queen, and an albatross named Wisdom flying above the storm.

Perseverance Pays Off

By Linda L. Scisson

Author Deborah Howard spoke at our March meeting on Monday, the 17th, rather than the original scheduled date of March 11, 2014 (the 2nd Tuesday of the month) because of hazardous road conditions caused by ice and snow.

It was worth the wait.

For one thing, this lady knows a lot about another kind of delay: the delay in being published. Deborah said she literally wall-papered a wall in a room in her house with rejection slips she received upon first trying to get published. Yet through a lot of hard work and perseverance, her Wall of Rejection transformed into a Wall of Perseverance.

Her 2005 book Sunsets: Reflections for Life’s Final Journey is relevant to everyone, because death touches everyone’s life. As a certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse, Deborah writes what she knows about.  Sunsets is a composite of different patients with a fictional character introducing each chapter.

Deborah’s book Where is God in All of This?: Finding God’s Purpose in Our Suffering (2009) is like a first cousin to Sunsets. It dives into a question many of us ask ourselves at one season or another.

Another book by Deborah is much shorter; it’s only four chapters in length. The title is: HELP! Someone I Love Has Cancer (2010). And HELP! Someone I Love Has Alzheimer’s (2012) also comes in a compact size.

And we look forward to the release later this year of HELP! I’m So Lonely. While Deborah shared that she has never been plagued with loneliness, she interviewed a lot of people who have.

Besides nursing and writing, Deborah (Mrs. Theron) Howard divides her time with editing, ghost writing, and lecturing. She mentioned a book that she ghost-wrote and emphasized the importance of being like-minded with the author. But she was not an unseen ghost, as Deborah’s name appears on the book’s front cover: It’s Not Fair! Finding Hope When Times Are Tough by Wayne A. Mack with Deborah Howard (published in 2008).

Deborah gave us advice on getting published. First and foremost, we are to read and keep reading. Writers love to read; that’s a given.

Secondly, buy an updated edition of Writer’s Market. Check the submission guidelines carefully. Use the editor’s name in your correspondence, rather than simply writing “Dear Editor.”

Third: Enter writing contests. Fourth: Attend writers’ conferences and ghost-writing conferences, as Deborah specified some of the “How To’s” one learns at these conferences.

Her final points of advice were to get an agent, and to keep marketing your own books, as generally a publishing company markets their authors’ books for only the first six months, and that’s it.

Hopefully, with Deborah’s appearance at our writers’ club, she will see an increase in sales of her books, as they are worth our time to read. And whether we look up from our reading and see snow and ice or Bradford pears and forsythia, let’s keep reading and writing.