Interview with Creative Madness Mama!

I'm glad to have met Christian book reviewer Margaret, also known as Creative Madness Mama. Though she's a busy mom, she loves Christian books enough that she puts time and effort into helping authors get the word out. I'm thankful and blessed to have "Where We Belong" featured today on her blog!

Check it out at creativemadnessmama.com

Five-Minute Peppermint Mocha (Optional sugar/dairy free)

Recently a Starbucks moved in to the parking lot of the Meijer where I get my groceries. Then my sister tells me you can get almost any drink decaf. Needless to say, I've had a few run-ins with temptation. And my new favorite thing in the world is a Peppermint Mocha.

After paying $5 for a tall (aka small) a few times, I decided it was time to try it on my own. And I was surprised how good the result was! Not to mention I made it without sugar or dairy, since I am sensitive to both. The flavor didn't suffer a bit, but you could make it with regular milk and sugar and I'm sure it would be just as good. So without further adieu, here is my recipe for a quick and easy peppermint mocha at home, sugar and dairy optional:

Ingredients you'll need:

6-8 oz regular or decaf coffee, brewed to your taste

2 tsp powdered cocoa

pinch of sea salt

dash of cinnamon

splash of vanilla (forgot vanilla in the picture)

5-6 tsp maple syrup (insert equivalent of any other sweetener)

1/8 to 1/4 cup unsweetened Silk cashew milk (or milk of your preference)

1/2 to 1 drop peppermint essential oil

All you need is your teaspoon to measure, and a large coffee mug. If you're especially daring, you can eyeball it. But I just use the teaspoon to measure and stir it. Put the cocoa in the coffee cup. Add the salt, cinnamon and vanilla. Throw in the maple syrup and give everything a good stir until you have the smooth consistency of chocolate syrup. 

This is the part you have to be careful with. You don't want more than 1 single drop of peppermint oil. If you don't want your peppermint taste to be anything more than a hint, you want a half drop, which you can get by putting a single drop in your teaspoon and using a paper towel to soak up some of it. Trust me, I've gotten a couple extra drops in there, and it was not as enjoyable. It was eye-opening, but not enjoyable so much.

Next add your milk to taste. Stir it up and then fill the rest of your cup with coffee. Give it one more stir.

It's as simple as that! If you're feeling naughty, add a touch of whipped cream and some shaved chocolate, and enjoy your much, much cheaper but delightful peppermint mocha!

Let me know what you think in the comments!

It's amazing to me how long an author can work on a story, get to know her characters, spend quiet but exhilarating moments with them until a story has been crafted . . . but still not know that story the way they come to know it when others join with the story and make it their own.

I don't know if there's a more artistic way to say it, but this new process of taking something that was private and making it something that belongs to the world has been both terrifying and one of the best experiences of my life. (Terrifying in that I've received threats promising to egg my house if the story did not end up the way the reader hoped!)

This book was released a month ago, but it needed a few tweaks. I can now say, with relative confidence, that it is free of typos, that the cover art is what we envisioned, and that I am ready to continue in the wonderful and amazing process of discovering the readers for whom God intended this story be written.

Check it out. You don't need to worry that it's one of "those" self-published books. You're dealing with a perfectionist who found a perfectionist editor, who spent plenty of time researching the art of publishing and with much time on her knees in preparation. If you like Christian historical romance, and if you like interesting protagonists that tend to fall in love with flawed, but equally interesting men, and if you like that love story to point to a deeper love story that every one of us is in the process of either avoiding or building with our Savior, then this book is for you. If you like twists and turns and not exactly knowing what might happen on the next page, this book is for you. If you like all of this with a reminder of the beauty of the Gospel, it's for you.

So check it out. And spread the word. And let me know what you think.

Find it here!

Advanced Quick Tips for Writers

If you know that glorious moment when you write THE END on the final page of your novel, you know that after the high wears off, you have more work to do.

Writing the rough draft is an act of complete creativity. All of your soul should be poured into those 70,000 - 100,000 words you've typed into your computer. Now it's time to take a surgical knife to your soul.

This isn't as scary as it sounds. You're not trimming the parts that will someday make you an example of genius in literature. You're cutting the stuff that distracts people from really experiencing your unique voice.

The greatest writer in the world will still have these problems in a rough draft. Even though I've noticed I have less to edit as the years go by, I still have plenty. And if I'm not convinced it's there, my editor is always happy to point it out! :)

These are four tips with examples that will give you a polished, professional edge with your manuscript:

1. DON'T BE PASSIVE
2. LOOK FOR "WAS"
3. NO CLICHES!
4. GIVE A POSITIVE SPIN

Look at the examples in the illustration for more info. Remember, you aren't cutting your genius moments. But you do want to edit out the parts that whisper of amateur. And you want to cut anything that doesn't change or define the plot or characters.

Happy writing!

Where We Belong is available now in print!

Where We Belong is available in print or Kindle
amazon.com

I'll let you in on a little secret, Where We Belong is available TODAY in print! (Official release is September 1, 2015.) You can order your copy today for 12.99 or preorder your Kindle version for 4.99.

Enjoy!

In the Days of Noah

I've been thinking about my ancestor today. Not only my ancestor, but your ancestor. Every person on earth, if they could trace their family tree back to it's beginning, would make an abrupt stop at an old man being tossed around on an earth of raging water and rain. I've been thinking a lot about Grandfather Noah. And I'm not sure we have him right. In fact, I'm pretty sure we don't.

Yes, I realize I'm behind the times. This movie has been out for quite some time and I've just gotten around to watching it on Netflix. 

The reason I waited so long? Christians were so disparaging of this movie. I heard scoffing and criticizing across the board.  Disappointed, I didn't feel like watching it and being frustrated with a dramatic Hollywood version of events written by someone who hadn't even bothered to open up the Bible and read the story for themselves. According to the reports, it was completely void of Scriptural truth.

Only it wasn't.

I know I might ruffle a few feathers by saying it, but this movie was not, on the whole, biblically inaccurate. It was TRADITIONALLY inaccurate. It seems to me the person who wrote this movie paid attention to the biblical account, and asked themselves how to make it seem fresh and real to a cynical and critical generation of believers.

Where did we get this image of gentle Noah with white hair faithfully preaching to the jeering onlookers as his sons busily built a neat, tidy ark with their wives watching them with smiling faces? In preparation for this blog, I read through all the passages that address Noah's story. I couldn't find that image anywhere, and it surprised me a little, because I thought I would.

So that being said, why do we hold on to our whitewashed Sunday School version of Noah so that no one can pry him out of our hands? Why do we reject a movie that presents a very dark point of history with imagination and new ways of looking at the account, that challenge our deeply held notions and beliefs about this story? 

Our world was drastically different before the flood. The Bible DOES clearly tell us about a strange angelic/human hybrid that walked the earth in those days. The ground was cursed, it seems that no one knew what rain was, and people were rotten. As rotten as they get. As completely unconcerned with righteousness as we can imagine. This is the world the Bible paints for us, and one version of what that could have been like has been recreated in this movie.

Noah was a sinner. He was an imperfect person who did one thing different than his doomed counterparts. He walked with God. He tried to follow God. He obeyed God. But he wasn't perfect, and it is not such a leap to imagine that this man who grew up (for hundreds of years) in a society of evil and hardship, would look nothing like the sanitized, shiny-faced Noah we revere. It is not such a leap to imagine him determined to finish what God started, even if it meant destroying his own family. After all, we know he very quickly developed a drinking habit after the flood. We don't like to talk about THAT Noah, but that's the Noah God told us about in the Bible.

One thing saved Noah and his family, and it definitely wasn't his own merit and obedience. It was his relationship with the Creator. It was the ark God told him to make, and the careful instructions God gave him to make it. It was the Creator who saved the story of Noah, not Noah. God saved this family IN SPITE of their shortcomings. We have to be willing to admit that. And as Christians, we need to be willing to be supportive and open to a society that loves to give artistic meaning to stories that have been around for thousands of years.

Before you judge, experience. Then research. Then pray. Don't be critical of things just because they make you uncomfortable. Don't hold on to traditional views that cheapen the rich, often dark, history of the Bible. Be willing to look between the lines, or let the artists do it for you.

You may be surprised what you find.

                                 

Where We Belong by Miranda Shisler (Book Trailer)