How You, Too, Can Become Judgmental and Legalistic

The writer in yesterday’s post said to me, “using profanity is not a sin but being judgmental is.” She says this like a doctrinal statement, like she knows it to be a fact. But I don’t find a statement like that anywhere in the Scriptures. It sounds to me like a personal opinion. The Apostle Paul starts 2 Corinthians Chapter 11 with these words: “Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly.” Like Paul, it might sound as if I’m joking in the title of this post, or perhaps as if I’ve gone crazy, but pay attention anyway.

Take a look at Romans Chapter 12. Take a good, hard look. The message of how to be legalistic and judgmental is very subtle there. You might not see it from this passage alone. In fact, root through the whole Bible. That’s what that scary title of Fundamentalism really means. It’s basing your belief on the “fundamentals,” thorough knowledge of the Scriptures, rather than men’s added-on thoughts and opinions. Fundamentalists are often accused of being narrow-minded haters. So try this Bible study thing out for yourself. See if intense, open-hearted, disciplined examination of the Scriptures doesn’t make you narrow-minded and hate-filled. (Hint: No, it won’t.)

Verse one: Purify and practice self-denial upon your living body through God’s mercy, thereby becoming holy and fit for service. It’s the least you can do.

Verse two: Be changed completely, take your mind out of the world, so that you will be able to understand God’s perfect will.

Verse three: God gives grace to everybody freely, the Apostle Paul and you and me included. Because of that, there can be no justification for pride. Be serious about using the faith you’ve been given, whether it seems to be a teaspoonful or a bushel basketful.

Verses four and five: The body has lots of parts with lots of different jobs. This analogy applies to us as people who are part of the Church. Still, numerous as we are, we are one body in Christ as well as part of each other.

Verses six, seven and eight: Gifts come by grace. We don’t deserve them. We have different ones. We should use them. Proclaim the Word, minister, teach, encourage, give, be in charge, and/or show mercy, with your teaspoonful or your bushel basketful of faith.

Verses nine and ten: Love honestly and wholehertedly. Hate, hate, hate evil. Hang on to what’s good. Operate with kindness, affection and family love and respect, and say, “after you,” or “no, after you,” a lot.

Verses eleven and twelve: You have work to do for God? Get busy, get excited to be serving the Lord! This is no dead-end job! You have eternal prospects. Yes, maybe it’s really, really hard, but hang in there, and pray, pray, pray.

Verses thirteen through sixteen: People who serve God have needs. Give missionaries a meal or a place to sleep, or both. God knows about the people who attack you. It’s not up to you to attack back. When someone has good news, shout hooray! When it’s bad news, cry with them. In other words, be able to pay attention to and understand somebody besides yourself. Don’t pay attention to riches and power and influence. Be kind to those who are ordinary, or below ordinary. Don’t think you have all the answers, or any of the answers, in yourself.

Verses seventeen through nineteen: Okay, so he did you wrong. No, you don’t get to do him wrong back. And your obligations to truth go far beyond “honesty is the best policy.” It’s the only policy. Try to be at peace with all men, but it may not always be possible. Even Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, said in Matthew 10:34, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” But don’t take revenge, don’t lose your temper, and remember that judgment belongs to God. He’ll settle accounts.

Verses twenty and twenty-one: Hungry or thirsty enemy? Feed him. Give him a drink. To “heap coals of fire on his head” could possibly mean that you make him miserable by feeding him and giving him drink, by being nice to him. He could be made miserable with guilt or he could just be made angry. You have a choice of about letting evil overcome you. If you make the right choices, you overcome evil with good.

What I just wrote isn’t a translation or a commentary or an official statement. It’s just one person’s (mine) understanding of one chapter out of the whole Bible. On the other hand, it isn’t just something out of my head. As you noticed, I added Scriptures from other parts of the Bible. Studying the Bible as a whole over, in my case, a period of forty years, can result in a better understanding of it parts. 1 Corinthians 2:13 says, “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” You have the Scriptures, the spiritual writings God gave us, compared with the teaching of the Holy Ghost within you, and you can compare them. I don’t say I’ve studied the Bible forty years to be proud, just to make a point. That’s a lot of water running through my sieve. That’s a lot of washing my dish, a lot of soap and water. It’s bound to have an effect.

But if you keep on looking at Christianity as a matter of opinion and rarely open up that Book to see what it says about what you think or feel or want, well, what does that say about your sieve, your dirty dish? Still dirty, huh? Start working on getting it clean, right now!

Judgmental Sinner … Yep, I Guess That’s Me

Recently I offered to review a book for another author. She warned me that it contained some sex and language. I said I could objectively review a book that wasn’t intended for Christians. But then she told me it was intended for Christians, so I wondered what I was getting myself into.

I read the book, and the author pointedly asked me what I thought about the sex and language. It’s a story about a woman struggling with a combination of past abuse, bad choices and addiction. Her husband became a minister after their marriage. She felt trapped in a life she didn’t choose. The author uses graphic language and sex descriptions in the first part of the book, but it is the story of her trying to submit to God’s will and change, so the explicit references fade as the book goes on.

I answered the author’s direct question by saying I was uncomfortable with the degree of explicitness and I did not believe it was necessary or appropriate to go into that much detail. She countered by saying she had been turned off about church by very conservative people who judged her for her standards. She considered those people to be sinning.

“Actually you responded exactly like I thought you would,” she said. “Some people are very conservative and judgmental and they don’t realize that’s a sin. The ironic part is using profanity is not a sin but being judgmental is.” We went back and forth about this but she was not looking for my advice or even my honest opinion. She had already made up her mind.

So I guess I am a judgmental sinner. That attack has been leveled against me more than once. Another example comes from a relative who tried to give me advice on an ongoing rift we have with our atheist son. This advice has been ongoing for many years, and comes from a mature Christian. Family troubles about churchgoing led these relatives to join a “less legalistic” church so that their children would not cease to attend. “The legalisms in my family by the three minister relatives,” she told me, “drove their kids away.” At the time she seemed to think all she was giving up was a requirement for females to wear dresses as opposed to pants. She still repeats that rationale as if she has sacrificed nothing else in the 30+ years I have known her. Her family’s problems over church have not only not lessened, they have grown, exponentially, into indifference, departure from the family faith, and apparent lack of any faith at all.

When I point out the dangers of giving in, and giving in, and giving in, in the hopes of nurturing faith and Christian growth by not being legalistic and judgmental I come under attack. Love is the answer, I am told, in essence. Love them, don’t judge them, and they will come around to right thinking, right belief, right behavior. I see, as a result of this philosophy, generations (it’s been going on longer than I’ve been alive) of irradiated Christians. I don’t mean healthy and germ-free like the vegetables. I mean mutated and unrecognizable like the 50s Sci-Fi movies.

So here I go with my judgmental, legalistic standards for what I think comprise the bare minimum in standards I need to see to recognize someone as a Christian. I really, really, really want to see a whole lot more.

1. I need to hear that you read the Bible faithfully. That doesn’t mean you read my preferred version, or read it at an exact time of day, or an exact amount every day, or even read it every day. Faithful means it’s important to you, a priority to you, and you do it a LOT. Don’t just tell me you do it. Make it show in your conversation, in your attitude, in the changes it makes in you over time. You might just be a sieve, letting it pour through you, thinking at first it’s all running out and none staying in your head or heart.

Some of those genealogies and long repetitive lists of offerings might tire you out. You might feel like you don’t understand a lot of it. It might seem impractical to your daily experience. But treat it as if you are a dish and it’s soap and water. It might run off you, but you’ll get cleaner every time you use it. Don’t tell me you don’t get dirty. All us dishes do. “That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.” (Ephesians 5:26, 27)

2. I need to hear that you go to church faithfully. There’s an old saying to the effect that if you find the perfect church, don’t join it, because you’ll ruin it. But you need to go to church faithfully. Your “right” church might not be my “right” church, but I’ve got legalistic standards for that, too. It should preach the Word of God. It should support foreign missions. It should expect more of members than it does of visitors. It should not necessarily make you feel good or comfortable, but should challenge you and make you grow. It should not emphasize social activities and outreaches that are no different from what the world has to offer. Each activity must emphasize respect for, study of and growth in the principles taught in the Word of God. Feed the poor, clothe the naked, love the sinner, hate the sin. Those are just a few. “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:25)

3. Like the church you attend, I need to hear that you hate sin. You can say it makes you uncomfortable if you’re trying to be nice, but you have to take a stand somewhere along the line. For example, I’m sick and tired of being called a homophobe. I am not afraid of homosexuality or the people who practice it. I hate calling sin an alternative, a liberty, a choice. Yes, some of us are born into a behavior. It’s called original sin. It just takes different forms in different people. But you must understand that Christianity is not a cafeteria. We don’t get to pick what we want. Don’t demand that I accept opinions, thoughts and feelings as standards for belief. And if you think my standards consist entirely of “to don’ts” Here’s a “to do” list for you. “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

4. I do have one don’t. Don’t be a ham-fisted, insulting jerk when presenting your belief. We participate in a group focused on “loving discussions” between people of different Christian beliefs — Roman Catholics, Syriac Orthodox, Anglican, and others. We are a decided minority in representing our church background of Baptists and Fundamentalists. But we have been complimented for being unlike many Baptist Fundamentalists. Someone brought up an example of church members who literally tried to stuff pages of an “unapproved” Bible translation into the mouths of those who dared read from it to make them “choke on the words.”

This doesn’t mean we compromise, promote ecumenicalism, or agree with heresies. People bring up topics and we discuss them, ask questions about them, and present what we each believe. We have been labeled as “Sola Scriptura,” meaning someone who only recognizes the authority of the Scriptures and no other. But we all have physical and spiritual authorities in our lives outside of the Scriptures. The key is that only the Scriptures are without error. The others are authoritative, but not without error.

We have also had people try to lump all Protestants (they included Baptists in that group) into one set of beliefs. We don’t go neatly into a box like that. We generally follow Baptist beliefs. We agree with Martin Luther’s basics (Absolute authority of the Scriptures, Priesthood of every believer, Justification by faith alone). We don’t fit into a denominational compartment because we follow our convictions based on our understanding of the Scriptures. This sometimes causes us to differ even with others in churches we have been members of. But these have rarely been serious disagreements. They have been minor matters of interpretation.

Coming next: How You, Too, Can Become Judgmental and Legalistic

3D Animation Work

When a person begins work as a 3D animator, he has to keep in mind that he will be expected to work as part of a team and be productive. There are different methods of determining productivity, but usually he will be expected to come “up to speed” quickly. A military background, for example, should give a person an edge in understanding the need for being disciplined and prepared to contribute to the team from day one.

Two basic aspects come into play. One is that an employer will expect certain skills with a fair degree of mastery. The other is that additional skills which are not necessarily a spelled-out requirement will be a big help in increasing productivity.

Suppose you were hired by Pixar to work on the movie Monsters, Inc. While it would be nice to choose the storyline, the types of monsters, etc., in reality those decisions are made by people far above you. Since you are a new hire you will be on a team of 2-4 people doing something tedious, difficult, mundane but absolutely essential. When I make 3D animations and movies, they sometimes do not turn out as expected. But as a “solo act” I can say, “That’s still cool. I will change the story to fit it.” As part of a team you will not have that luxury. You must perform your assigned task and make it fit in with the team’s and with the project as presented.

Suppose your assignment is to make hair for Sully. In the real world this might not have been a separate assignment but this is an illustration. This will require a fairly thorough understanding of Pixar’s Renderman Software. Is the hair a plug-in module? How thick do they want it? How long should it be? How should it move in relation to the overall model? Stiff like a bristle brush? Like a horse’s mane? Will a special program be needed for collision prevention? Co-operation with other teams might be required if your project integrates with theirs. Some decisions must be made very quickly. Other things such as color might not even have been decided yet, but will need to be acted upon as soon as they are made.

Is it fur or hair? A 3D animator is expected to be able to distinguish certain things as soon as he starts a job, to bring certain specific abilities with him and understand certain things the first day.

1. Really boring stuff you have to know

High end 3D animation software operates on multiple computers at the same time. UNIX is a system designed to operate on multiple computers. Linux is a free (open source) version with many similarities. You must learn UNIX to be productive in this field. The book UNIX in a Nutshell is a good beginning for learning the commands. You will need a computer with UNIX or Linux installed in order to get familiar with the systems. There are differences between the two, especially the fact that Linux works with smaller systems and UNIX works with much larger, sometimes worldwide ones.

Most 3D animation programs are written in a high-end language called C++. While understanding C++ is not essential, since there will be others on the team who specialize in that, you need a basic understanding. Take at least a semester of a programming language, such as Pascal, and avoid programs such as Basic which rely on Spaghetti Logic.

While you don’t need to know Calculus all of this is based on higher math and you need a solid background in non-linear Algebra. All the talk about model placements in a scene are done through Cartesian co-ordinates and is the basic language you will use every day. While you don’t usually talk about vectors per se, every model, every light ray, every scene or set, and every motion is using vectors. You need a very thorough understanding of what they are and how they work. If you have no concept of vectors or Cartesian coordinates a good introduction is Albert Einstein’s Evolution of Physics.

Stephen Hawking’s book a Brief History of Time deal with vectors and similar subjects in chapters 2 and 3. The illustrated version has lots of cool pictures.

2. Really boring stuff that is helpful but may or may not be necessary

The instruction manual of whatever 3D program you are working with could be thousands of pages. At first you will be concentrating on one small section because you must begin producing before you achieve complete mastery of the program.

How the hardware works is another area where you will be unable to achieve complete mastery before becoming productive. Has the program hung up simply because it is ray-tracing? Does it need to be reset to free up the computer? Will you wipe out the work of several other teams if you hit reset at the wrong time?

Do you know how to compile the program? Usually someone on the team, or on another team altogether, specializes in that. But if you have a basic understanding you will be more productive.

Probably no one will ask how well you type or at what speed, but you will be more productive with fast and accurate typing skills than someone who lacks them.

Personal discipline means you can’t spend time on Facebook, chat or emails but take your assignment seriously. Pieces of hardware that you might be more comfortable with or familiar with will increase productivity. Trackball versus mouse, something as simple as desk height, easy ability to stand up and stretch or get some exercise. Interpersonal skills, the ability to communicate, will make everyone’s job easier, or perhaps possible in the first place.

How well do you get information out of other people? No torture techniques, but the ability to obtain needed information rapidly by asking the right questions, making only a minor interruption in the other person’s productivity.

Do you understand the goals and objectives of the company you work for? Do you enjoy your work? It’s possible to be productive and good at what you do without enjoying it, but enjoyment helps you and the people around you create a better work environment.

3. How 3D software operates or works

All 3-D Software programs have certain ways of operating, certain divisions of labor. Different programs use different names for the same thing. The first thing that needs to be done is to build a model. It could be something as simple as a ball, as complex as a person, or a spaceship. Most programs use a system of connecting polygons where the program will render the polygons. Hash Animation Master uses splines and patches. Others use nurbs and metanurbs.

If you are making a chocolate donut with sprinkles on top, you will begin with a primitive called a torus, deform it and add to it. You can add each individual sprinkle, made of polygons or patches. You could also apply a decal of sprinkles to it if it need not be as detailed.

Once the model is made, it is placed in some type of scene. Hash calls this scene a choreography. Bryce makes the scene separate from the model. Setting up a scene can be simple or difficult. Scenes are often a flat panel with a video background. Shadows of objects that cast on the scene give a realistic cue to the eye to make people see the object as part of the scene.

Determining motion is the next consideration. The donut might only move if someone picks it up and throws it. The camera might move around it. In the example of hair for Sully in Monsters Inc., it must be attached and move when he moves, when the wind blows, when others brush up against it, all in realistic, believable fashion. A particular patch of skin might need 10 hairs. Or would four be enough? Will you need 100? All of this must take place with the least amount of rendering time and computer processing power.

After putting the models in the scene, figuring out the motions, completing it as a scene, the computer must be told how the light should fall and what it will look like to the camera. Usually the largest team working on a 3D animated movie will be the team responsible for lighting.

Once all this is done, rendering of each individual frame takes place.  Many quick renders will be done along the way to make sure all the parts work together properly and the details are correct. The final render should be a large scale version of the quick renders.

4. Putting It All Together

A movie director will have many things going on at the same time which must be coordinated. 3D rendering is the same way. The leader of the team or teams has to put them all together. The scenes with the simplest sets and the fewest number of actors or models will be finished and set to render first, since rendering takes the longest time. Meanwhile more intensive projects taking more “people power” will be allocated and coordinated after those are set up and running.

Staying with the Monsters, Inc. example, Mike has no hair, only one eye, and he is sometimes seen talking in a relatively bare scene with no one else present. Such simple scenes can be set up and rendering while more difficult characters like Sully are being worked on. This also applies to more difficult scenes like many doors running on tracks in all directions.

Many skills operating all at once must come into play with 3D animation. The desire for this career might begin with learning to play video games. But loving video games, even being good at them, will not make you a 3D game designer.

Some people want to be automotive engineers when they don’t yet even know how to drive a car. There are drivers, there are mechanics, and there are engineers. It’s a process, an acquisition of various levels of skills. These skills have to be learned and used together or nothing is accomplished. To progress to a higher level in a career, you must take the first step to acquire the first skill. But you may not be able to do anything with it until you master the second skill. If you can get these skills down and make them work together, 3D animation can be very rewarding.

By the Numbers

The popular vote in 2008 was [Barack Obama] 69,456,897 to [John McCain] 59,934,814, respectively, according to Wikipedia. As we travel back and forth, up and down, we have talked to thousands who testify that they voted for Barack Obama in 2008 but will not vote for him again. This time around they just will not vote for anyone. Some of them will change their minds and vote for him in 2012. The issue is how many is “some.” The 2008 election saw a record turnout, which will not happen in 2012 unless something drastic happens. Since the out of power party usually makes a small gain, slightly over 60 million Republican votes are likely. It is very doubtful that Barack Obama will have even 55 million legitimate votes. Ron Paul is very likely correct that whoever wins the Republican nomination will win the general election.

The 2012 Republican Convention requires 1143 delegates to win the nomination. The state of Virginia has 49 delegates for this convention and only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are on the VA primary ballot. These 49 delegates are almost 5% of the total needed. With so many candidates and no candidate having even 30% this gives Mitt Romney and Ron Paul a tremendous advantage over the other candidates.

 

Christmas 2011

 South Tulsa Baptist Church

We spent Christmas in Tulsa, Ok. We spent a lot of time with our daughter, and went to Chili’s for lunch yesterday with her and my Aunt and Uncle. We went to my Aunt and Uncle’s church, South Tulsa Baptist Church for communion last night. There were well over a thousand people there. They had a brass choir for a prelude which ended about 10 minutes before the service started. That was followed by a brief video of why we need Christmas, beginning with creation and including a lot of Hubble space shots. The music was great and the Pastor announced that they had raised $10,000 for food for the local rescue mission. He publicly thanked all who volunteered so that all the money went to buy food instead of to pay overhead. We then went over to my Aunt and Uncle’s house and saw my cousin, her husband and their children. On our way back to our motel room, we looked at Christmas lights. One house with 40,000+ lights had them blink in sync with Christmas music played over a local radio station.

Tulsa Bible Church

This morning we went with our daughter to “her” church, Tulsa Bible Church. It is a smaller church, around one thousand, and the service was also very good. We actually sang the Nicene Creed to the tune of a Christmas Carol. We’ve never done that before. We are always somewhat concerned when we visit a new church, but we were greatly blessed and thankful for the preaching of the Word of God. We then ate, changed clothes, went over to my cousin’s house to say good bye and left as she was attempting to feed the mob at her house.

We are now at a Christmas buffet at a Petro. Pie!

After Christmas Sale!

All of our e-books are now marked down for our After Christmas sale. Unillustrated books are now $2.99 and illustrated books are $6.99. (The Teachers Edition of Biblical Studies remains at 99 cents, however.) If you got an e-book reader for Christmas and haven’t filled it up yet, follow the links on the right side of the page to Smashwords or Amazon! Merry Christmas to all!

And a shout-out for some bluegrass performer friends of ours. Check out their YouTube Channel!

http://www.youtube.com/user/bargwranglers/feed

Writing and Reading Science Fiction and Fantasy

Science Fiction can glorify God if the writer can keep his facts straight. It’s a haven for uniformitarianism, the perfectibility of man, in short, secularism of all kinds. But since true Science is based in the Scriptures, true Science Fiction must be based in factual information and reasonable speculation based on what may happen.

Man is still compelled to work hard, suffer failures, setbacks and fears because of sin, and will not be able to become a god and fix everything. He will not evolve beyond the need for morality, self-control, personal sacrifice, or buying and selling what he needs to make a living and to live.

Science Fiction frequently gives man extraordinary power to do without money, having unlimited materials, knowledge and resources. Who pays the bills for all these Starship Enterprises, anyway? One time someone actually mentions “buying” someone a cup of coffee, and is quickly told that one cannot buy anything on the Enterprise. A visit to the past results in the query, “What does it mean, ‘exact change?’” Economics aren’t going to evolve away.

Neither is belief in and reliance upon the True God, because He is real and the Scriptures are true. The universe is not eternal. The world is not billions of years old. Those “vastly superior aliens” out there are angels and demons. They are real, but they are not from other planets. They live in obedience or disobedience to their Creator, God, just as men do, only they are powerful and capable of influencing man for good or evil.

Man cannot solve the problem of sin. Therefore he cannot cure all diseases, end all wars, or preserve primitive cultures in pristine “innocence” according to a “prime directive.” Technology can be used to advance culture but if it goes bad or evil and attacks us it is because sinful men created it, not because we live in a universe of random chance. Plan, purpose, order, and the Designer of all things must be foremost in the mind of the Science Fiction writer.

Many people lump fantasy and Science Fiction together. Sometimes we speak of Speculative Fiction, which can include both genres. C.S. Lewis, particularly in his adult Science Fiction books Out of the Silent Planet, That Hideous Strength, and Perilandra, talked about possibilities with planets untouched by the curse of man’s fall. He speculated on the mythologies of our ancient cultures even in the Chronicles of Narnia for younger readers. J.R.R. Tolkien did the same thing in his Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Hobbit.

Fantasy fiction in modern times usually glorifies magic and human strength and cunning. It often gives man a means to control his world. Though he may still struggle, stories like the Harry Potter series show a progression not unlike the mythology of evolution. Harry’s “ancestors,” his dead parents and the elderly wizards who instruct him, are not as evolved as he is. Fantasy borrows freely from the biblical concepts of a chosen one, a messiah, but gives no credit to the God who met the need of lost man by providing Jesus Christ as atonement for His sins. Rebirth is a common theme in fantasy, the warrior going through a deathlike experience and thereby growing in power and even fighting some form of ultimate evil. All of these things are stolen from the Scriptures without mentioning the true source of power, of rebirth, of the ability to defeat the enemy.

Man is the source of the power, says modern fantasy, or the earth or its personified elemental forces. Other movies have even gone back to the concept that the Greek and Roman gods are real and still give birth to demigod children with great powers to help the world. Mutants such as the X-Men skip the necessity to make or remake gods. They are just the next step in evolution, spewing pseudoscientific gibberish about how such nonsensical powers might be possible in a materialistic context. Many video games are based on this concept, that man can and will evolve into an all-powerful being who can right wrongs and save worlds without any spiritual force behind him.

Worlds peopled with elves, centaurs, dragons and dwarfs promise adventure along with the triumph of the human spirit without the true and living God. The message is the same. Man can overcome. He doesn’t need God.

But fantasy, not so long ago, centered on allegory, the adopting of a veil of mythical settings and creatures to teach Scriptural truth and explore man’s proper relationship with God. Tolkien did not claim to write a true allegory in The Lord of the Rings but hinted at elves who stood for angels, trying to help man but disgusted with his corruption, yet sometimes intermarrying with men. Wizards, goblins and orcs are spiritual beings trying to destroy man or in some cases cooperating with him, or pretending to do so. Magical powers frequently lead to an evil corruption. This is echoed in Star Wars. The temptation to the dark side is presented to Gandalf and to Luke Skywalker. Gandalf resists, and is even reborn in a sense to become a powerful spiritual helper. The person behind the “ultimate” power of good is vague in Tolkien, especially in the movies.

Tolkien was inspired by an earlier work, as was John Bunyan in Pilgrim’s Progress. That work was the Faerie Queene, an epic poem by Edmund Spenser, contemporary to Queen Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh. Few people even know of it today. It centers on the English hero Saint George and his quest to slay the dragon. Spencer envisioned both a patriotic and spiritual meaning in his work, but especially he meant to glorify God. The fairy queen Gloriana represents God’s glory, the young man chosen for the quest wears the armor of Ephesians 6, magic is condemned as corrupting and wicked, and life is a series of victories and setbacks in the process of Christian growth. Spenser rose to a height few other fantasy writers have even attempted, but he is the standard to reach for in Christian fantasy.

Watch the YouTube (Channel ffvp5657) videos of the Faerie Queene commentary to better understand this timeless epic.

The Space Empire Saga is a collection of stories around a common theme. Here is the future of persecution. Here is the tale, beginning in “City on a Hill,” of ordinary family man John Winthrop and a group of believers literally driven out of this world by government persecution. Their only hope for freedom is to restore and make prosperous a sabotaged Lunar Mining Colony.

In “Sojourner,” the Space Empire expands throughout the Solar System, but its godly foundations have eroded into government corruption. Michelle and Mark, pioneers to the outer planets, fear their leaders will steal the possible fruits of their giant, gas-collecting “balloon ship.”

In “Humiliation,” internal rebellion and forbidden romance complicate the godly but hamstrung King of the Space Empire’s plans to control his son Michael. “Repentance” sees Michael conflicted over his duty to his father and to his empire in an encounter with a mysterious “fourth Empire” on Earth. His adopted brother and best friend Randoph struggles with understanding how to have godly character while planning, against everyone’s advice, marriage to Aidan, an Earth woman. The King still sees hope for peace but the old specter of persecution rises again in “Sanctification.”

“Bonus features” for this book include YouTube videos of the complete 3D novella Sojourner. Check out the ten-minute segments on YouTube Channel ffvp5657. We also have a gallery called “Stills from Sojourner and the Space Empire Saga” linked at the top of the blog.

Here is a link to a video with background on Findley Family Video and the Science Fiction books.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnqKrJe05V4&feature=plcp&context=C3be7f63UDOEgsToPDskJ_sgWtDWK1QkY-hf_aNB1i

The Sojourner 3D video links, in five 10-minute segments, are as follows:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-pAngIkV1w&feature=plcp&context=C3d8b432UDOEgsToPDskIhRt3-xw-5NlsRlv4Gz-M9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__oPqb967Bg&feature=plcp&context=C310399cUDOEgsToPDskIN1bWGORY_qJcCO5Z4WlgW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIZuEKQ8qhM&feature=plcp&context=C3f841b9UDOEgsToPDskJrgfdJZGEFpHy_CdEiynih

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mNq21wioJ4&feature=plcp&context=C3f0c518UDOEgsToPDskIiZMEsvRukfXoCpcpRZYMq

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFqntYpSQuk&feature=plcp&context=C3bf0e61UDOEgsToPDskI5AYswoxF_–rey8_RkBsX

 

Here is a teaser for the Faerie Queene Teaching materials:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxdPx2XhFps&feature=plcp&context=C325bbfdUDOEgsToPDskIlefym7RFerXZ3T10Kjlme

You may also wish to watch the Faerie Queene summary and teaching video by following the links below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYIyM5TvE9E&feature=plcp&context=C31188b4UDOEgsToPDskKsufH-2BSF9d2_jdxN4Va7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaF2WEXwduY&feature=plcp&context=C31002e0UDOEgsToPDskLwyT-1Xl4IbWpx0PYH3lNG

This is a link to our website, Findley Family Video Publications, with the Faerie Queene summary materials, more pictures like the one above, and even a game you can play if you wish. Let us know if you can put the pictures in the correct order!

http://findleyfamilyvideopublications.com/FaerieQueeneLinksandsummary1.html

Put a Little Adult Historical Romantic Suspense on Your EReader

Our books don’t quite pigeonhole easily into one genre, so we try to give them descriptions like the one above. The three books featured today are Send a White Rose, The Baron of Larcondale, and Vienta. In the spirit of romance, we include here some excerpts from these three books on the subject of true love. Most people think love is impossible to define but the Scriptures have many examples of people who exemplify true love and serve as examples to fiction writers. Adam called his wife Eve “bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh.” She was a helper suitable for him.

Isaac’s wife was also picked out and brought to him. He had never seen Rebecca before, yet it was love at first sight when they met. Jacob served, in spite of the deception practiced on him, to get his Rachel, and even learned to respect and seek counsel from Leah and his other wives. Solomon wrote of the ultimate love story with his Shulamite, his snapshots full of scents and sounds and images of intimacy within marriage.

From Send a White Rose comes New Mexico Federal Judge Bartholomew Durant’s musings on what a wife should be.

“You’ve always been so unselfish, only wanting to draw me closer to the Lord and see me become more like Him.”

“Judge, I—”

“Let me finish. I have been so blind all these years that I couldn’t see what I needed most. You know I was thinking of choosing a wife before all this happened. After it came I thought I couldn’t burden anyone with caring for me. Now I can do most things for myself, or, at least, Asa thinks I’ll learn to soon. It’s still a lot to ask of someone to take a cripple like myself, but I can’t help but see that I need a woman to be with me, help me, be my guide and friend and lover.”

……………………………………………………………

“I have sent you this rose in the hope that you will remember another, sent as an urgent summons to save my physical life. This one I send in the hope of completing my life. My spirit, my soul, my whole being are incomplete, and I believe you alone can complete them. I have learned a little about being patient, but I hope I have been patient long enough.”

…………………………………………………………..

“I have grown up among a lot of men, and though my mother tried to make a gentleman of me I fear I have forgotten too much of her teaching. I was hoping I could rely on your help to mend my manners, and in general. I think that’s what a wife is for, to be a help where a man most needs help.”

The Baron of Larcondale is set in two neighboring fictional countries, but it still fits the pattern of a historical novel. Tristan of Parangor finds a most unexpected kind of love in the neighboring country of Tarraskida, and is a little reluctant to embrace it, and his future wife.

“Mayra, I would have worked and saved to pay for your freedom, and I would have made you my wife,” Tristan cried, “but now I can’t –”

“You would’ve wed me before you learned what I was,” Mayra said in a flat voice, her dress rustling and her voice retreating upward. “But now you understand that it’s impossible.”

“No, no, you misunderstand! Mayra, What your mistress forced you to do doesn’t matter to me. But I can’t force you to marry me knowing that I will always be helpless and useless and –”

“Oh, my prince, such a thing could never be!” Mayra laughed out loud, startling Tristan and confusing him utterly. ” … She had knelt before him again, and taken his hand in hers, twirling the ring on his finger as she had done that other time.

“I –I did –” Tristan faltered, feeling the softness of her fingers, the warmth of her touch, smelling her fragrance, and seeing in an instant her beautiful face before his mind’s eye, clear and luminous in the overwhelming darkness.

Mayra’s hand touched the hollow of his throat, pushed his hair aside, smoothed her fingers over his shoulder.

“You and I together, we will see, my prince,” Mayra said in a low, earnest voice. “I didn’t dare to speak until I knew you loved me – “

“I’ve always loved you, Mayra,” Tristan groaned. “That’s why I didn’t want to –”

“Shh,” Mayra whispered. She put her hand on his lips. “Master Thomas,” she called. Tristan heard someone come into the room. “My prince is ready to make me his princess, now. I’ve helped him see, just as I promised. Just as I always will.”

 

Vienta is set in Texas between the time of the battles at the Alamo and at Monterrey. Hamilton Jessup enters into an empty marriage contract but before long finds himself not only falling in love with his sham wife, but daring to hope she has done the same.

“My boy, there is nothing more important than the right woman,” Ham said fervently. “God made Eve for Adam. Abraham’s Sarah was still turning the heads of kings at ninety. Rebecca just hopped off a camel and Isaac loved her. Solomon’s wives turned his heart from the Lord and brought down the wisest king the world ever had. The right woman can give you something to do your job for. The wrong one can destroy you. Women are so powerful. Women are so wonderful. Sure, they’re dangerous, but only if they’re bad ones. It’s up to you to keep your eyes on the prize – the job to be done and the woman just past the end of it who is your very great reward. I’m not saying your woman is Angelita. I just don’t want you to be so sure you don’t need one.”

……………………………………………………………

“Mrs. Jessup,” Ham said finally, finding that the words stuck in his throat and he felt most unworthy to say them, “I was wondering if we could talk about something. I was telling Zachary I’m keeping my eyes on the prize but the truth is I don’t know if there really is one for me. You being the prize I mean. You’ve said you only have eyes for me but that sounded like a joke. I want you to understand this is the one thing I don’t want to joke about. I love you. I want to marry you, especially now that you’re a believer.”

……………………………………………………………

“I don’t know much about astronomy, but I hear there are supposed to be twin stars that always keep together in the same orbit. Maybe we can be content to be like that, always remembering how we’re not worthy of that other bright star sailing over there through Heaven, but knowing God made us to go on together. Think we can do that?”

Maeve sprang out of her chair and threw herself into Ham’s arms. He embraced her also, breathed her in, kissed her, and then set her carefully back down in the chair.

“There, now,” he said with a sigh. “Zachary was right. Sometimes a woman can keep you from thinking about the job.”

 

Let God show you a little true love this Christmas with one, two, or even all three, of these non-formula romances.

Here’s another author’s book and trailer links:

Allen Schatz

• Here’s my trailer on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbUVOGR6ZfI&context=C3938875ADOEgsToPDskI9Rielj8msKWoPnQTeUBFK

• Here’s my “Where to Buy” link from my website:http://www.allenschatz.com/wherebuy.html

Review of Karis by R.M. Strong

We all need heroes, and some of us even need to be heroes. The vigilante seeking justice is certainly not a new or original idea, but R.M. Strong has put, for me, a highly desirable twist on it with the story teenaged Tamara Weatherby. I’ll talk about the twist shortly. Tamara’s family and scores of others fall victim to a deranged bad-guy, Nothos, who uses gasses to force his victims to fear him but normally does not kill. He takes hostages, makes demands, and releases them. This time, however, when costumed crimefighters Krino and Krisis do not make an appearance (the police commissioner forbids them), Nothos uncharacteristically shoots everyone in the art museum. Tamara ends up being the only survivor.

I have to state that I believe this story is handled clumsily and the whys and wherefores of the plot elements are sometimes not explained at all. Sometimes the explanations just don’t satisfy. The book includes a lot of social commentary, about the rich and how people treat (but should not treat) them, but it doesn’t give the right answers for change. It also gives its heroine too much power and “attitude” for my taste.

Several times the point is made that Tamara should have a “female figure” in her life but it’s made weakly and shouted down. It shouldn’t have been. Questions about her new living arrangements and threats against her purity are dealt with too lightly for my taste. I wish the character Kuria had been developed more and put into that “female figure” role. I think that would have been a great help. Even her “disability” would have been an intriguing plot element.

The book ends at an odd place, even understanding that it begins a series. There was a potentially great climax point and though it wasn’t handled as well as it could have, it would have made a better ending.

The twist Strong puts on this is to add Christianity into the mix. Karis, the title character, goes through the same struggles all budding crimefighters do: the sense of loss, the realization that her ordinary friends can’t offer her the sympathy and understanding she wants, the rage and thirst for revenge. But over and over she is forced to examine her feelings, her actions, her decisions, and those of others, in the light of God’s Word and her upbringing in a Christian home with active church involvement. Christian readers need to know that there is some profanity, but a pleasing evangelistic and Christian growth emphasis balanced that out for me. There are also two pretty strong instances of attempted rape, clearly presented as evil and wrong.

R.M. Strong as an author and Karis as a character don’t always make the right decisions in this book. We all fail, and can learn from our failures to turn them into opportunities for growth. I am certainly not saying this book is a complete failure. It is an opportunity for growth, and a hopeful sign in a world, and a writing genre, where Christianity is so marginalized. The author seems to have promise of growth as a writer, and here’s hoping Karis will grow along with her.

I give it three stars

Also, here is a link to a blogger interview for our writing:

http://vickiejohnstone.blogspot.com/2011/12/words-with-mary-campagna-findley.html

Historical Fiction for the Young and the Young Adult

Writing fiction for and/or about children (roughly eight to fifteen years of age) is a tricky business. It is easy to appeal to their vivid imaginations, their need to be “special,” accepted by peers, to become independent of adults, and to explore relationships with the opposite sex. None of these popular topics for children’s books is really appropriate or necessary, however, in the way they are usually treated, and sometimes they shouldn’t be a topic for this age level at all.

Books and movies that give children unusual powers are extremely popular. Harry Potter is a wizard. The Animorphs series had children changing into animals. In a recent movie young people are the children of ancient gods. These children are definitely “special,” but in most cases these powers give them a license to avoid adult control, to get revenge on people they perceive as enemies, and give them an arbitrary superiority over others. They do not learn obedience, submission, or reliance upon the true God. They learn self-centeredness, contempt for adults who aren’t as powerful as they are, and are convinced that the world is full of arbitrary happenings with no purpose or design.

Being accepted by peers seems essential for happiness, but the reality is that your peers are immature, sinful, change their minds about what they want from you frequently, and rarely understand or care about the essential concepts of self-control, self-sacrifice or especially reliance upon the true God. Only people with experience in life can teach these things, and they are adults. Children must respect and take advice from adults, not despise them and think they are old-fashioned, out of touch or too narrow-minded.

Becoming independent from adults is something of a myth. Yes, children grow to adulthood, leave home, get jobs, and live lives apart from their parents, but they don’t do that successfully without reliance on wise and godly counsel. In most children’s books today the main character finds the adults he deals with outright stupid, disgusting, indecisive, or too far away (sometimes dead) to do any good. Mark Twain popularized the philosophy that children need to get away from the adults in their lives. Aunt Polly is dictatorial. Tom Sawyer deserves his freedom. Huckleberry Finn thinks of his abduction by his father as an escape of sorts from the confining life he finds with the Widow Douglas, but his father is an abusive drunk from whom he also ends up escaping.

Are there any really good adults in Mark Twain’s books for children? Jim, the Negro slave with whom Huck takes his raft trip, is hardly a conventional adult, and this is the key to understanding the “right” kind of adult in modern children’s books. There is no issue with his being black, as far as his fitness as an adult is concerned. But he is a being apart in the children’s perception Jim knows magic, like charms to get rid of warts and how to divine the future from a hairball. He is childlike in his approach to life, and he wants to be free as much as the children do. Of course slaves needed to be freed, but this is almost irrelevant in the treatment of Jim in Mark Twain’s books.

Huck’s decision to go to Hell rather than return Jim to slavery sounds noble on the surface, but he is wrong in the foundation of his thinking. He has no conception of what the Scriptures teach or do not teach about slavery. In fact his whole perception of Christianity is based on willful ignorance. Church is a plague of boredom and a prison. Reading or studying anything is punishment to these free spirits, so reading the Bible to find out true and right thinking is out of the question. Huck and Tom reason things out in their heads and they are “right.” There is no perfect standard, just whatever they think.

Most modern fiction has relationships with the opposite sex starting very early, and they are not friendships. Some are quite innocent, but sexuality is no foundation for a children’s book. No child is “wise beyond his years” enough to make his own decisions about having sex, getting abortions, or dressing to attract the opposite sex. This is selfishness and self-deception. If you have to sneak around and hide a relationship from parents because they wouldn’t approve, it’s wrong. Sometimes a distracting device is used, like making the issue of parental disapproval one of race or social position so that it seems justified to hide it. But the issue is sex without maturity or marriage or responsibility, not whatever smokescreen the author tries to throw up in front of the reader’s face.

These are just some of the issues to consider in writing for children. Paramount is to make sure readers receive solid training in the Scriptures. They will end up like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn if given their “freedom,” ignorant of everything that really matters and reliant on flawed human reason to survive.

Benny and the Bank Robber begins a Youth and Young Adult Historical Adventure. Benny Richardson loses his father at the age of ten and travels from Philadelphia to frontier Missouri in the 1800′s. Though his story includes riverboats and rafts, it is a very different one from Tom Sawyer’s. Both Tom and Huck would have scoffed at the verse that keeps bringing Benny back to remember what all of us must take to heart, God’s promise, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

Young Adult Fiction is roughly aimed at people in their late teens to late twenties. This is a time when they are essentially adults, but may still be under the authority of parents or other adults. Stories for this age group frequently focus on independence, the freedom to make choices about the future, and especially love relationships. Too often these immensely popular books only reinforce the secularist idea that human reason can provide answers to these critical issues of entering adulthood.

Many young people in books want a complete break from parents, to “Shake off the dust of this crummy little town,” as George Bailey wished to do in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. They want “adventure in the great wide somewhere,” like Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. They have dreams and wishes for a future doing what makes them happy. Unfortunately, secularist society has ill-prepared them to face the reality that you can’t always do what you dream, that you have to get a job that makes money, that college is often bankruptingly expensive, and that true love is not easy to recognize and true lust is all too common.

The Twilight series of books and movies focuses on the dilemma of a young woman. She’s in love with a vampire. Vampires are epidemic in young adult fiction and it’s simply shameful how often they are portrayed as the “forbidden fruit,” the lover a young woman can’t resist. Dracula in the Bram Stoker novel (not any of the movie or spinoff reinventions) was irresistible to women, but he was portrayed as evil and it was clear that a relationship with him didn’t end well.

How dare writers say that damnation is worth it to have the ultimate love? They don’t even know what damnation is. They think it’s a sad state that can be altered. Vampires (aka demons) can regain their souls. It’s the gospel according to Buffy. People can make deals with the devil and then weasel out of them. There is no knowledge of the Scriptures in any of these twisted fairy tales. They tell lies about the nature of the soul, man’s ability to save himself or others, and say that true love fulfilled is worth any risk.

Homosexuality is also a popular subject for this age group. Even if you don’t practice it, you must be tolerant of it, embrace it. Girls must make a gay guy their shopping buddy. But you should at least experiment with it. Really mature adults have at least tried “swinging both ways,” and people like “Captain Jack” in the Dr. Who/Torchwood SciFi series are so cool. Note that there’s more than a hint of bestiality when Twilight turns to the subject of werewolves as boyfriends. Positive portrayals of sexual perversions are becoming so pervasive in young adult fiction that no one can say this is pure entertainment. It is indoctrination in sexual wickedness no young person should subject himself to. It should not be the mission of this group to break down every traditional barrier possible before the age of thirty.

The corporate world is a place young college graduates dream of entering. Rich, powerful, successful people ooze out of boardrooms and why wouldn’t we want to be just like them? Yet that culture is openly portrayed as being selfish, utterly materialistic, living in debt to impress, counting on the next big deal and willing to lie, cheat, steal or sleep with anyone to get it.

There are, however, simple principles to guide what you should write about for young adults and also to help them choose what they should read. Self-control, self-sacrifice, never believing that things happen without a Designer behind them, even things that seem bad. Get these new adults out of themselves and into a work ethic. No more shopping for thousand dollar purses and five hundred dollar shoes (or shoplifting them because you’ve got to have them.) No more joining a gang or becoming a prostitute because it’s the only way you can live. No more “attitude.” Practice humility, purity, hard work, and love your family and your God. No obsessions with death, the supernatural and the occult. Demons are real, but we fight them through God’s Word, not with sharpened sticks. And we don’t fall in love with them. We fall in love with the Lord, with people of like precious faith, and with reality in serving God and not ourselves.

Benny and the Bank Robber Two: Doctor Dad takes Benny through the troubles and delays of his mother’s remarriage, a boarding school with a deadly secret society, and a Christmas ending where Benny has to remind friends and family, even at the cost of losing them, that Christ came into the world with nothing to be the Prince of Peace.

Hope and the Knight of the Black Lion has no vampires, werewolves, or budding sorcerers. It does have a mysterious returned crusader who alone believes Hope’s tale of a scheming kidnapper and pledges his life and honor to the cause of getting her justice. This book is also available with illustrations in the style of a medieval manuscript. Click on the page link “Illuminated Hope and the Knight of the Black Lion” above to see a gallery of images from the book. Your Kindle Fire or other color e-reader is waiting for this one!

P.S. — Giving a shout-out to some great folks from the Indie Writers Unite Facebook page who graciously encouraged, offered space for interviews, gave links and excerpt space. I can’t necessarily endorse all their books or content, but I  so much appreciated their “uppers” when I was down!

http://www.shewrites.com/profile/ChristineDeMaioRice

http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/?page_id=3923

vickiejohnstone.blogspot.com/

http://jm-harrison.com/2011/12/19/a-story-for-the-holidays/

http://thereforyoumelissa.blogspot.com/

http://freebookreviews.blogspot.com/

http://www.indiedesignz.com/blog/

www.mad-gods.com

http://www.liafairchild.com/?p=472

 

 

 

Kindle Keyboard Compared to Kindle Fire

Michael’s further observations on the two devices:

In May 2011 our son bought me a Kindle. Though we own hundreds of paperbound print books, this one device has almost completely replaced our entire library. Print books are just too large and bulky. All but a handful are now in storage. We use our laptops for study because we can multitask, use a full size keyboard with keyboard commands to quickly look at multiple open books, surf the web and use the larger color screen.

But for simply reading a book, a laptop is too large and bulky. The Kindle is the size of a small print book and just as easy to read. As with any new device, the navigation menu and buttons take some getting used to. We have taken our Keyboard Kindle with us into restaurants, on walks, to read in bed, and just about anywhere else you can think of.

We bought our Kindle Fire about three weeks ago. The Fire is Mary’s Christmas present. The first problem we had with the Fire was finding a WiFi to which we could connect so that we could register it. We bought the Fire just South of Madison, Wisconsin, and were unable to find a WiFi until a McDonalds in Fargo, ND. We have rarely even tried to use the Fire for apps, video, surfing the web or music. All we use the Fire for is reading books. The touch keypad is slow and awkward, but unimportant. If you want a Galaxy or iPad, then spend three times as much money for a Galaxy or iPad.

Compared to an iPad, the touch features are awkward and slow. Compared to the keys on a keyboard Kindle, the touch features are a wonderful blessing. The size of the screen is almost perfect. The larger reading area compared to the keyboard Kindle is an improvement and the lighted screen is great. It makes reading in the dark easy. The reduced battery life is not so great. Once we had the registration issues straightened out, which took weeks, ordering books off the laptop’s aircard and transferring them to the Kindle is easy.

What I like most about the Kindle Fire is the lighted color screen, the cost, the ease of use and the number of books it stores. What I dislike is the “fat finger” problem, the working icons that are too small; the short battery life and difficulty finding a WiFi connection.

In addition:

We have actually learned more about how the Kindles work since getting the Fire, since the controls are easier to use in touch-mode. Our disappointingly small illustrations in or books jump to full-screen with a couple of touches on the Fire, and this feature is also available with buttons on the keyboard model.  The dictionary function we knew about, but there is actually a dictionary for Greek words in Michael’s Interlinear Septuagint and Koine Greek New Testament books.

Books for All Kinds of Readers (Devices and People) Part One: Non-Fiction

Recently I joined my first forum claiming to be especially for Christians. I won’t name it, but I will say in my brief experience poking around over the last few days I am amazed at the wide variety of people who post on a Christian forum, and what they post. There are Pro-Choice Christians on there. There are Harry Potter fans on there. There are skeptics on there. There are people lamenting the death of Christopher Hitchens, an avowed atheist and and author of, among many other things, the book “God Is Not Great.”

I posted on my Facebook page the following status on the day I heard that news. “Christopher Hitchens, author of the book ‘God Is Not Great,’ has died. He knows better now, I think.” A pastor friend said how sad it was that he had died without Christ. I responded, “It is not as if he was misled or deceived in the way that some are, worthy of pity. I wish no one had to go to Hell, but such as he send themselves there. No one makes them go.”

The pastor took me to task, basically, for being unloving and apparently not having the heart of God. I am not unloving. It is sad, and saddens God, I am certain, when the unsaved die unrepentant, but once they actually are where they do “know better,” my tears cannot bring them back. Let me spend them on the still-living unsaved, please, and my prayers as well, rather than browbeating me over the ones who now know better but are past doing anything about it.

We have known so many people who were not atheists, who professed Christianity, but of a very different brand from mine. We know God will sort it out. We have to take them at face value, yet be a “Fruit Inspector,” and try to discern from God’s Word what We should be before Christ. We also have to try to minister to Christians. The talents with which we believe God has led us to minister include our writing and our ability to create our website, our e-books and blog, and to try to make people aware of them.

Back to the posters on the Christian forum. Most importantly to us, regarding the different kinds of Christians we have encountered, there are people on that site, quite a number of people, asking where they can find Christian fiction and non-fiction on there. Many people recommended classic authors of Christian fiction and non-fiction, like C.S. Lewis, who wrote both, but we have a more modern recommendation to make.

Since it’s the week before Christmas, we hope you’re giving or getting an e-reader, and we hope you’ll consider some of our books to help fill it up. Our posts this week will, we hope, give you a push in the right direction.

First of all we have non-fiction. Included on this blog are posts that are excerpts from Antidisestablishmentarianism, our non-fiction book about Secular Humanism, its history, and our future if we don’t disestablish it as our established religion in America and most of the rest of the world.

http://elkjerkyforthesoul.wordpress.com/images-from-illustrated-antidisestablishmentarianism/ is a photo gallery of images from the illustrated version of the book.

http://elkjerkyforthesoul.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/introduction-to-antidisestablishmentarianism/ is the preface to the book.

http://elkjerkyforthesoul.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/introduction-to-antidisestablishmentarianism-2/ is the introduction to the book.

http://elkjerkyforthesoul.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/chapter-fourteen-from-antidisestablishmentarianism-what-does-the-scientific-evidence-prove/ is an abbreviated version of Chapter Fourteen of the book,

http://elkjerkyforthesoul.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/secular-humanism-americas-establishment-of-religion/ is from Chapter Six.

The unillustrated version of Antidisestablishmentarianism  is 4.99, and the Illustrated version (200 full-color, full-page illustrations of major points) is 9.99.

Our second non-fiction title is Biblical Studies, student and teacher editions, designed especially for homeschoolers. Homeschooling curriculum can be expensive and our curriculum is designed to help with that problem. Both versions are over 600 pages long, with illustrated portions, materials for all ages, Old Testament, New Testament, background historical studies, and more.

Our YouTube Channel, ffvp5657, has free videos correlated with many of the studies, including full 3D animated Jonah and Ruth video studies with digital puppets giving commentary. The Revelation video set alone has more than 30 ten-minute segments. The student manual is 4.99. The Teacher’s Manual has the full Student Text, answer keys, and extra projects. It is 99 cents. A new photo gallery in the blog, “Images from Biblical Studies,” linked at the top with the blog’s pages, has pictures from this curriculum.

The links on the right side of the page go to Smashwords and Amazon, where you can read more details about all our books, and see more samples. We hope this season you will consider adding to your library of Christian reading.

Part Three: Your Book, Where It Should Go, How It Will Look

Our e-publishing journey now comes to the formats and how your book will look in each one. Smashwords has great information on this topic from a mechanics standpoint. As a previous post we made on the subject said, http://elkjerkyforthesoul.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/the-hows-and-whys-of-e-books/ , although almost all devices can read the pdf format, consider that people might get your books on anything from a full-screen laptop to a pretty small smart phone. A pdf will look wonderful on that laptop screen. It’ll seem a lot like a real book, except for not being able to turn the pages. But if you try to cram that pdf image into your iPhone, the latest model brags about having a 3.5″ diagonal display, and it seems unlikely that it will look just right. Even in a traditional Kindle, pdfs do not really work all that well.

It is possible to convert a pdf into a format that the smaller machines can display. Calibre is one progam that makes file conversions. It is even free. If you have an HTML version of your document, the conversion is even easier. The question is, will a reader go to the trouble of doing that? Some will, but most will want a document that they can just open up and begin reading. So it is a good idea to make your document available in multiple formats, so that all the trouble your prospective customer has to go to is to get the right one off the internet and into his device.

This is what makes Smashwords such a great e-book creation site. You upload a simple Microsoft Word document. Smashwords runs it through the Meatgrinder and produces HTML (good for computer reading), JavaScript, mobi (Kindle format) EPub, which as Smashwords says on its site, works on “Apple iPad/iBooks, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo, and most e-reading apps including Stanza, Aldiko, Adobe Digital Editions, others.” The Meatgrinder also churns out RTF, PDF, LRF for older Sony readers, PDB (Palm Document files), and two versions of plain text.

Please bear in mind that although you as the author can download any format of your book for free, you cannot redistribute these files on other sites where you can upload and sell your works. Smashwords creates them, doesn’t charge you anything, puts you into premium distribution, and asks in return only that you don’t re-use the files the Meatgrinder creates. You might say, “But it’s my book.” That’s kind of like an architect making plans to build one house and someone stealing and using those plans to build a bunch more houses. And you didn’t even pay Smashwords like you paid the architect. Nope. Can’t do it. Sorry.

Smashwords also gives you coupon codes so you can give copies away for free. This is useful for reviewers and for contests or promotionals. Instead of just pricing your book at free, which you can do on Smashwords, just offer a coupon, so that you know who’s getting your book. Amazon makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to get your book priced “free,” and they don’t give any copies away otherwise. You have to buy your own book yourself if you want to be sure it was formatted correctly.

Smashwords premium distribution gets you into Barnes and Noble and the iBookstore, among others. Customers can buy the mobi format from them to read on a Kindle. Even so, Amazon clearly has the largest and most successful marketing apparatus, and your best chance to be noticed and purchased is on Amazon. Many authors have chosen to pull their books from general distribution and make them exclusive under Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing Select plan. Indie authors in all the forums and discussion sites I belong to are extremely polarized about this. It is a personal decision, but the author must be sure to read and understand the agreement thoroughly. It’s not a boilerplate terms of use like we all unthinkingly agree to get on many sites to promote our books.

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?ie=UTF8&topicId=APILE934L348N#Select

Please read the entire agreement carefully, and especially pay attention to these two points.

1 Exclusivity. When you include a Digital Book in KDP Select, you give us the exclusive right to sell and distribute your Digital Book in digital format while your book is in KDP Select. During this period of exclusivity, you cannot sell or distribute, or give anyone else the right to sell or distribute, your Digital Book (or content that is reasonably likely to compete commercially with your Digital Book, diminish its value, or be confused with it), in digital format in any territory where you have rights.

 

5 Your Commitment. Your commitment to these terms and conditions is important, and the benefits we provide to you as part of this option are conditioned on your following through on your commitments. If you un-publish your Digital Book, we will remove it from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, but you must continue to comply with these commitments, including exclusivity, through the remainder of the Digital Book’s then-current 90-day period of participation in KDP Select. If you don’t comply with these KDP Select terms and conditions, we will not owe you Royalties for that Digital Book earned through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Program, and we may offset any of those Royalties that were previously paid against future Royalties, or require you to remit them to us. We may also withhold your Royalty payments on all your Digital Books for a period of up to 90 days while we investigate. This doesn’t limit other remedies we have, such as prohibiting your future participation in KDP Select or KDP generally.

Remember, all you’re getting is inclusion in the lending program for Amazon Prime Members. In return, it seems to me that you’re giving up a lot, and taking a big risk that Amazon can deny you royalties and revenue if you don’t do exactly what they say.

But there’s nothing wrong with having your books in the KDP program generally. In fact, the Kindle is a great reader, and your books will look fantastic on it. We have both the Kindle Keyboard model and the Kindle Fire. Both are great readers and both are easy to use and look wonderful. I prefer the Kindle Fire display because it allows the full screen illustrations we have created for our two illustrated books to show in full color and full size. And the ease of buying (or getting free) the bunches and bunches of books Amazon has for Kindle is hard to beat.

http://reviews.cnet.com/2300-3126_7-10010211.html

Here is a link to CNET’s Kindle Fire review and the screenshots they show. It really does look that good. Fun to read in bed, and, though the battery only lasts about 4 hours, compared to the keyboard model’s lifespan of a month or more, it’s the perfect in-bed reader.

The Camel’s Complaint: A Christmas Puppet Play

Our Christmas gift to all: A puppet play I wrote some years ago. Merry Christmas!

The Camel’s Complaint

Characters:
Caliph the Camel
Hannah the Horse
Daniel the Donkey
Lucius the Lion
Ollie the Ox
Sarah the Sheep

Scene One|
Setting: Desert oasis. Palm trees, green plants such as aloe, yucca, water hole off to side. Tents visible in background.
Lighting: Outdoor sunset.
At Rise: Hannah enters left, whinnies loudly. Caliph stumbles on behind her, sinks down, begins to snore.

Hannah: Caliph! Caliph! Wake up, great ship of the desert!

Caliph (Grumbling, not looking up): May a thousand fleas make their nests in your tail. Can’t you be quiet?

(Daniel enters right.)

Daniel: Ah, the most beautiful flower of the desert. What’s the matter, Hannah?

Hannah: Caliph won’t get up again, Daniel. The caravan’s going to leave without him.

Daniel: They won’t leave without that sorry excuse for a camel.  Remember what he’s carrying?

Hannah: but he’s got to get up. He’s making us lose time every day. What if we’re too late?

Daniel: Get up, son of a sand-slug. Caliph! You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Caliph: It’s fine if you want to keep walking all night, every night. This load of mine is much too heavy.

Daniel: It should be heavy. That’s gold you’re carrying, O grandfather of grouches.

Caliph: Sand for breakfast, dust for lunch, cactus spines for supper. What a life! I’ve had enough.

Daniel: You haven’t got any choice. Our masters are headed for Judea. I know that much.

Caliph: Why Judea? The whole place smells like Caesar’s armpits.

Hannah: They follow the Star.

Caliph: The sky is full of stars! Can’t they pick one going to the Caspian Sea Resort? I need a vacation!

Daniel: I’ve heard them talk about a new King.

Hannah: This King is greater than Herod or Caesar, the masters say. They call Him the King of kings.

Caliph: Humph! All I know is, my load’s too heavy and I’m tired of walking. I don’t care about any king of kings. See you at the waterhole. (Caliph exits left.)

Hannah: What if we miss the King of kings, Daniel?

Daniel: We’ll have to think of a way to hurry Caliph up. Hmmm … I have an idea. Follow me. (Both exit left.)

Scene Two
Lighting: Desert sunrise.
Setting: Similar to scene one, but plants, etc., rearranged to show it is a different location.
At Rise: Caliph runs onstage from left.

Caliph: We can make another few miles before it gets too hot. Come on, come on!

(Hannah and Daniel stagger onstage behind Caliph, panting, exhausted.)

Daniel: Caliph, stop! We’ve got to rest! You mangy, flea-bitten son of a jackal, stop! (collapses)

Caliph: Is that lion still following us?

Hannah: Oh, Caliph, there isn’t any lion! Daniel made up that story to scare you so we could go faster!

(Caliph stops dead, turns, butts heads with Daniel.)

Caliph: No lion?

Daniel: No lion, Caliph.

Caliph: I ran all night long, and now you tell me there’s no lion? Why I should –

Daniel: Go ahead. I’m so tired I don’t care what you do.

Caliph: Fortunately for you, my long-eared friend, I am also too tired. But I’ll have my revenge. (Caliph lies down heavily, and begins to snore.)

Hannah: We certainly made up for lost time today, Daniel. It was a good idea.

Daniel: We’ll be in Jerusalem tomorrow night. Get some sleep, fairest Hannah. King of kings, here we come.

(He gives her a peck on the nose. She nuzzles him, and they go to sleep. Lucius the Lion enters quietly from right and looks at the three sleeping animals, walks all around them, sniffing, and stops over Caliph. Caliph suddenly snorts, shaking his head with a loud jingle of bells. Lucius runs off right. A distant roar is heard offstage. Caliph jumps up.)

Caliph (Whispering): What was that? It couldn’t be. Could it? (He looks around fearfully, then drops off to sleep again. After a pause, lighting dims to signify sunset, and animals get up and exit.)

 

Scene Three
Setting: Bethlehem. Stable with hay in manger, buildings visible at sides.
Lighting: Night outdoor in town.
At Rise: Ollie and Sarah enter, munching.

Ollie: By all the boils on Job’s back, I’m glad it’s calmed down around here, Sarah.

Sarah: It was a madhouse during that census, wasn’t it, Ollie? So many strange animals and  people.

Ollie: Even people staying in the stables with us! And giving birth to babies, by every pair of unclean animals on the ark!

Sarah: What a strange place for the Lamb of God to be born. But I’m glad we got to see Him.

Ollie: Yes, indeed, but it’s better for Him to be living in a house, by all the salt in Elisha’s cruise.

Sarah: Ollie, I heard a lion last night.

Ollie: By the four hundred prophets of Baal, Sarah, this is Bethlehem — civilization. A lion! Don’t be silly.

Sarah: I know I heard it. It was scary. Ollie! There it is!

(Caliph runs onstage right, pushes between Sarah and Ollie, tries to hide.)

Ollie: By all the water in the Red Sea, I’ll have my horns in you, you — CAMEL?

Caliph: Hide me! Hide me, quick! I’ll be dead and lying in a sand-swept grave if I go back to that caravan!

Sarah: You scared us half to death! Who are you, and what are you doing here?

Caliph: I am Caliph, son of Casbah, son of Cashmir, heir to the royal line of blue-blooded Bactrian —

Ollie: Spare us the pedigree. By all the soldiers in David’s army, what are you doing in our stable?

Caliph (munching a mouthful of hay): Enjoying your fabulous fodder. I’ve run away from a caravan. They were bound for Jerusalem, but I gave them the slip in Jericho. I’m a free camel! Ha – ha – ha – ha – ha! Eh — by the way, where am I?

Ollie: Out in the cold, by all the Philistines Samson killed! (He shoves Caliph with his horns.) We’re done feeding strangers, thank you very much.

Caliph: Ouch! Those horns are sharp! Am I bleeding? You’ll be hearing from my attorneys!

Sarah: We work for our food, you silly camel. If you want our master to feed you, maybe you could help him at his inn.

Caliph: Work! I’m through working! But I do have something that will make your master take care of me for the rest of my life. My packs are full of gold!

Sarah: Gold! You ran away with your master’s gold? Stay out of our stable. This is where the Lamb of God was born.

Caliph: Well … it wasn’t really my master’s gold. It was for some King … the King … uh … the King of … a king of … some sort.

Ollie: That’s all we need — someone who steals a king’s gold. You get out of here, or by all the spices of Sheba’s queen, you’ll need more than an attorney when I get through with you! Go on, get out!

(Ollie jabs Caliph again. Caliph runs off right. Ollie and Sarah exit left.)

Scene Four
Setting: Barren desert. No plants of any kind except dead brush. Jagged rocks.
Lighting: bright daylight.
At Rise: Caliph stumbles on from left, falls exhausted.

Caliph (gasping): No food … no water … this pack … still on my back. How could things get worse?

(Lucius enters right, stands directly over Caliph, sniffs him. Caliph slowly looks up, then jumps away.)

Caliph: Aaaah! Now I’m going to be lion lunch! I knew it could get worse!

Lucius: You must get back to the caravan at once.

Caliph: Oh, O get it. I’m hallucinating. You’re just a mirage of a lion, right?

Lucius: The Lion of Judah is in great danger. You must get the gold to Him.  He will need it to escape.  Do not let the Enemy win! Go! Go!

(Lucius roars and chases Caliph offstage left. Roaring continues, then fades away.)

Scene Five
Setting: Bethlehem stable as before.
Lighting: Night in town.
At Rise: Ollie and Sarah enter left, heads nod, they fall asleep. Lucius enters quietly from right, comes up to Ollie.

Lucius: Where is the Lion of Judah?

Ollie (Startled awake, he snorts and waves his horns.): What? Keep away! By all the straw in Pharaoh’s bricks, there’ll be no mutton or porterhouse for you tonight, lion!

Lucius: The Lion of Judah! Quickly! Where is He?

Sarah (cringing): You’re the only lion we’ve seen.

Lucius: He was born in this very place not long ago. A baby — the travelers from Nazareth. Where is He?

Ollie: By every grain of feed in Joseph’s brothers’ sacks, He’s well-guarded from hungry lions.

Lucius: I do not want to eat Him, my foolish friends. I only want –

Lighting: Star appears in sky above set, fills scene with bright light.

Lucius: Ah! It is the sign. They will find Him now.

Ollie: Who are you?

Lucius: My name is Lucius. The Star and I are both sent to lighten that which is dark. You and your fleecy friend have helped the One Who has come. Others will help Him too.  Even stubborn old Caliph. We will see Him safely all the way. I must go now and make sure my reluctant friend has returned to his duty. Farewell, Ollie and Sarah.

(Lucius exits right.)

Ollie: The Lion of Judah? Didn’t you call Him the Lamb of God, Sarah — that baby, I mean?  By all the stones in Solomon’s temple, I –

(Ollie and Sarah exit left, talking. Daniel and Hannah enter right.)

Daniel: I can’t believe Caliph would really run away.  We came all this way to find the King of Kings, and Caliph ran off with the most important gift of all.

Hannah: Our masters are so sad.  This may be the town where we will find Him — the star stopped right here, but without the gold –

(Faint sound of roaring. Caliph runs in left, panting.)

Caliph: The lion! Is it still after me? I’ve been running and running, but I couldn’t get away! I — Daniel! Hannah!  Look out! There’s a lion! It chased me all the way across the desert! Run!

Hannah: Caliph! You’re back! Is the gold safe?

Caliph: Gold! How can you think of gold at a time like this?  Our lives are in danger! Didn’t you hear me say there’s a lion chasing me?

Daniel: I told you that story wasn’t true, Caliph. How could you run away with the gold? It was a gift for the King of kings!

Caliph: The gold is perfectly safe, strapped to my back, weighing at least ten thousand pounds — it would have been safe if that lion had eaten me, not that either of you care.  Say, a minute ago it was dark. Where’d that bright light come from?

Hannah: It’s the Star, silly! See it up there? This is where the King of kings is.

Caliph: The King of kings? That was it! But that lion — he said something about the Lion of Judah — and there was a sheep talking about the Lamb of God — I am so confused!

(Lucius enters left. Daniel and Hannah run off right.)

Caliph: I’m too tired to run anymore. Go ahead and eat me. The gold is here. You can give it to the King of kings, or the Lion of Judah, or the Lamb of God, or whoever’s supposed to get it. Bon appetit!

Lucius: Your masters will be here in a moment, and you will live to serve them a long time, silly, stubborn Caliph. Thanks to you, the Bright and Morning Star will be safe.

Caliph: Don’t tell me, let me guess. This Bright and Morning Star — He’s the same as the King of kings, and the Lion of Judah, and the Lamb of God — Have I got it all straight now?

Lucius: He is all those things, and many more. Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace …

Caliph: You mean He’s — He’s the One? THAT One?  I ran off with His gold? Oh, you’ve just got to eat me. I can’t live knowing what I almost did.

Lucius: What you almost did is not as important as what you really did, Caliph. You brought the gold that will get Him safely to Egypt, away from Herod. All is well.

Caliph: What can I do? I can never make up for all the trouble I’ve caused.

Lucius: Be faithful to your masters from now on. Be faithful, Caliph, and you will be faithful to Him.

(Caliph turns and looks up at the star. Lucius exits left.)

Caliph: The Bright and Morning Star. I think I like that name best of all. I’d better go find my masters now. Faithful Caliph.  Hmmm … I like the sound of that. (Exit right.)

Production Notes for The Camel’s Complaint

Settings: Scenes One and Two are desert oasis with plants which can be changed around to show two different locations. Scenes Three and Five are Bethlehem stable with hay in manger. Scene Four is barren desert with scrub brush, jagged rocks.

Lighting: All outdoor. Scene One is sunset, Scene Two sunrise, Scene Three city at night, Scene Four bright desert day, Scene Five same as Three but add Star shining like daylight at appropriate time.

Props: Bundles or chests for Caliph’s back. Jeweled harnesses can be made from costume jewelry to decorate Caliph and Hannah. Daniel and Ollie wear plain rope halters.

Puppets: Camel, Horse, Donkey, Lion, Ox, and Sheep.

Part 2 1/2: Cover It Beautifully

I’m calling this 2 1/2, because I meant to have a 3-part series, yet this post about covers took on a life of its own. So it is 2 1/2, and the third, about Kindles, is still to come.

Editing and proofreading’s done, but you’re still not ready unless you have a fantastic, eye-catching cover. Art is so subjective, but here are some basics I won’t allow any dispute about. Make the background and foreground contrast from each other. Okay, it’s a dark, gloomy, shadowy story, but don’t make your scary lurker on the cover an annoying blob, especially when the cover shows up as a thumbnail an inch or so tall. And please, please, please, make your title and written words on the cover clear, clean, simple, contrasting, and as big as possible. Use boldface, forget the swirlies that look great on wedding invitations, and make it light when the background is dark, or vice-versa. If that isn’t stated clearly enough, MAKE IT EASY TO SEE, TO READ, AND TO FIGURE OUT.

Don’t clutter up the cover with really detailed designs or all the characters or things that are in your story. One of the most beautiful covers I have ever seen was a luminous, metallic-or watered-silk-looking royal blue background. It had an image of a photo-realistic sword which made up part of the text of the title. The title and the author’s name were in an elegant, only slightly ornate, highly readable and contrasting font, and a muted but clear, embossed-style design. Both the sword and the embossed design tied in with the book’s theme and setting. If you want people or other solid objects, pick the top two or three and stop. Guy, girl, horse. Stop. Streetlight, lurker, alley. Stop.

My first cover design that I’m even willing to talk about had a girl, a helmet, a castle, an Arab on horseback. One was a photo, and not a very crisp one. One was a black and white lineart drawing. One was a digitally altered former photo. One was a 3D image digitally altered. They didn’t match, there was no relationship of size or importance or placement on the cover except the girl was bigger. And the title covered parts of them. Euggh. Make your elements look like they go together. It will help enhance the idea that elements of your story fit properly. The revised version cover has a red silk-like background, an illuminated medieval manuscript border which incorporates the title and a castle graphic, the dim shadow of a lion in the background, and photo images of the two main characters. And I stopped.

I use photographic images whenever possible. I have a big store of stock images, plus pictures of family and friends I have permission to use. I am blessed with an absurdly handsome eldest son and he graces several of my covers at different ages. I also used a WWII era picture of my father on one of my covers. A friend’s beautiful daughter became a pair of twins. Sometimes that will even sell the book to someone who loves the person on the cover. It worked twice for me.

I was told to compose in a curve to draw the viewer’s eye around the cover. Keep the background simple so it doesn’t obscure the figures. Webtreats is one site that features free textures you can download: fabrics, plaster, parchment, distressed metal and “grunge” abstracts. Gamers collect and share leathers, furs, skins, metallics. Take time to search around.

I mentioned a thumbnail an inch tall. Your cover will be resized multiple times on multiple sites. Often you will have to perform that operation yourself if you want it on that site, and you have to figure out a design that will look good in all those ways. You may be asked to make it half size, quarter size, or some weird percentage of that size. You may be asked to create a banner. If you drew or painted a complete, freehand picture, text and all, for your cover, then scanned it to become the cover image, you may be able to successfully resize it, but you won’t be able to easily shove stuff around and reshape it into a banner.

Just as one example, Kindleboards has gorgeous, large author pages allowing for a full-sized e-book cover image, plus a banner image. They also let you create a signature that appears in your every post, which can consist of any image content that fits within their size parameters. You can put every image of every cover of every book you’ve written into that space, varying in size, and it will look awe-inspiring if your covers are made right in the first place, plus each links to Amazon for sales. But you have to be able to do that resizing, and if you haven’t planned ahead for the existence of covers tiny, medium, large and all sizes between (or even for an e-book cover as opposed to a print book cover), plus such a thing as a banner (like me, still being a newbie) you might break down sobbing at that point.

So for these reasons and others, I don’t create original art covers. I am an artist, have been drawing since I was five, and doing graphic design 20+ years, and I can’t make the clean, clear, sharp images I am convinced a cover must have. I use a program called Photo Impact. It is probably one of many that will work, but it came in a bundle with our video creation software several years ago, and I ignored it for some years while using Adobe Photoshop. Then our computer upgrades left the Photoshop version we had behind, and I decided to try Photo Impact. The manual is useless, and I am a slow study, but I now love and swear by this program. Even the old version I have works on Windows 7. It has thousands of textures and more can be easily added. It has preset shapes with adjustable bumps and bevels for a 3D look, and the shapes themselves are infinitely adjustable. It also has photo-manipulation capabilities, to put it mildly. What you create can be saved as a UFO format file with every piece resizable and moveable (making the transition from print cover to banner to e-book cover simple). Only a copy of your final image needs to be JPG or TIFF or whatever is required. And the newest version costs less than $50. All our artwork is done using Photo Impact.

To create a print cover image, I started with an 11x 17 image. Dimensions vary somewhat depending on your printer’s requirements, and you should definitely follow them, but this is a standard cover. Next your printer will give you a formula based on the number of pages in your book to calculate the spine width. Our books are 5.5″x 8.5″ exact trim, which means that is the size of the height of the book if it were standing upright, and the width from left to right of the pages after the book has been trimmed down.

The size of the spine depends, once again, on the number of pages. The easiest way to allow for a print cover to fit any size book is to create your title and author texts as one line, keeping the font size as small as possible to make it still easily readable. Include your print company logo or anything that identifies you (a series imprint logo, for example). Flip the whole horizontal title (and image, if there is one) 90 degrees so that it is vertical with the heads of the words to the right. The idea is to make the text and any image centered exactly, vertically and horizontally, on your 11 x 17 cover background with plenty of room top and bottom for trimming. Don’t try to create something that has to fit the spine area exactly, horizontally or vertically, because it may not come out perfectly.

The background of your print book cover can be almost anything, but I recommend a single solid or gradient color or quiet abstract, or a single photographic image that fills the entire 11 x 17 image and preferably bleeds off the edge. Let me use the example of a book about Egypt. Your background image may be endless stretches of sandy desert and blue sky. The more featureless the better, but if you insist on having Karnak or the Pyramid of Giza or the Sphinx in the image, make sure it will not be cut short by the cropping.

Make it as unimportant as possible as to where the trim occurs. Do not even try to get close to the trim edges if you can in any way help it. Avoid putting elements in a box near the trim or spine edges because it might not square up perfectly when the cover is trimmed. Make sure the background image is quiet, muted, simple, and does not make it hard to distinguish the main elements of your cover. Make the font style consistent throughout the cover texts, unless you have a good reason for not doing so. Font size of course can vary according to spacing.

What you put on the back cover is up to you. It can be a photo of you as author, a logo of your company, your series imprint, a blurb relating to those, a teaser from the book, reviews the book has received, or a biography of the author. Just make sure none of it gets cut off in the trim and that it is a clean, simple, easy to read and understand composition. Check your printer’s specifications about how to save the file you give to them. They may require TIFF, or CMYK, or simply and BMP or JPG. Make sure you give them the right thing.

For an e-book, simply create an image that is the same size as your exact trim text would be. Mine is 5.5″ x 8.5 ” When that image is inserted into my e-book files, it is slightly reduced, because I have .75″ margins all around and the Word Document makes the image fit in the margins. Any image you upload separately should show up full size, however, as long as the site allows that size. An e-book cover image has no requirements for trimming so it can go right to the edge if you wish. Just be sure none of the sites you upload to are going to crop it instead of just reducing it. It is still a good idea to leave some open space around the main images just to avoid a cluttered or crowded look.

 

Part Two: Make It Clean, Get It Out

So many people have said writing a book is the easy part. Still, it can’t be repeated often enough. New writers are cropping up all the time, while the traditional publishing contract including a marketing machine to get your word out is fast becoming downright mythological. “Do it yourself” takes on a whole new meaning when it comes to new author/new book self-creation and promotion. Check out our previous post on the hows and whys of e-book production for more on the production end.

First step after you think your book is “finished” is to realize it’s not. You have to make your book technically clean before you can seriously try to publish it. Whatever your financial abilities, get the best vetting you can to get rid of the errors. If your editorial staff consists of you, your mom, your oldest kid, and a co-worker you bribed with lunch for a week, so be it. Many author-oriented sites have sections, often called workshops, devoted to getting help from other authors, editors, or those who will take on the task free or cheap if you help them in some way. Avail yourself of them if you can, but remember that everyone, especially unpaid volunteers or friends, will take time to get through your work. They might give up and never finish. In the end, you must get someone you can depend on. Goodreads, Kindleboards, “Indie Writers Unite” and “Indie Author Group” (the last two are facebook groups) all have editors or at least people willing to exchange a read and comment in their ranks.

Some people depend on an auto-editing program. White Smoke is one I have heard praised. I have not personally used one, but I have read three modern self-published books recently in which I found, consistently, the following types of errors. I will paraphrase to avoid picking on or identifying a particular work. One had, at the end of a piece of conversation, “said Robert quietly said.” The word “shudder” appeared where “shutter” should have been, referring to a window’s protective covering. The word “peak” appeared where “peek” or pique” should have in two different books (“I took a peak in the bag,” “this will peak your interest”) instead of, “I took a peek in the bag” or “this will pique your interest”). This is what an auto-editor will do for you. Not only will it not catch/fix everything, it will introduce new things. In the immortal words of Captain Kirk, “Spock, we’re all human.” An auto-editor is only human. It makes mistakes.

I asked the author of one of the books I read about her editing process when I found errors like these. She described shared/workshop readers, her own many years of experience, her training under a professional editor, and the fact that she used an auto-editor. She said she couldn’t afford or justify $5,000 for professional editing services. Another writer said she couldn’t afford such services either, that she had herself, one or two other people, what she could get from the workshop volunteers, and White Smoke. I noticed a pattern even in just these two authors. The auto-editor came last.

I am a former English teacher, editor and proofreader, and these things disturb me. I don’t want to read them in your works, please. So, from my tiny sample and admittedly narrow experience, I am going to dogmatically state, Survey says, the auto-editor should not come last. Reel ayes shield bee lest (Real eyes should be last), lest you put out wrong stuff. That being said, if you do use a “professional editor,” understand that there’s a limit to what you should let other people do to your work. One of the published authors I spoke to went self-published because she had bad experiences with editors. No one is saying editors are always wrong, either, but be careful when the changes become extensive and substantive.

It’s your story. Let them fix the typos, the grammar, the punctuation, maybe, but don’t let them say that they can tell your story better than you can, unless you or someone you trust actually agrees on the “improvement.” Editors can be very intimidating people. Don’t let them change what’s vital to your tale for the sake of marketability, not offending people, or because they disagree with what you’ve said and think they can bully you with their “professionalism.” But you have got to get the book clean, or you will annoy and chase off people even less picky than me, based on what I’ve seen. I read a book in which I am sure I found, conservatively, 5% of the content to be errors. That is oh so very much too much.

I am devoting another full post to covers, (yes, you have to have one, yes, it has to be stunning) but, once you feel your book is as clean as you can make it, refer to the earlier post called “The Hows and whys of E-Books” and get your book up on Smashwords, on Amazon, on whatever other sites you can. There is a program called Calibre, and there are others, that, if you can figure out how to use them, can convert your book to multiple formats. There’s no limit to the number of sites you can upload to if you can do your own conversions. But Smashwords premium distribution does get you on most of the major ones, B&N, iBooks, etc.

Once you are up, the sales do not, alas, automatically begin pouring in. This is when you start running the gamut of promotional possibilities. First some of the free ideas. Join forums and talk to people. I’ll use Goodreads as an example. Set up your author page(s) according to directions. Put up books you have read and review them intelligently and honestly, and keep doing that. Then go join some groups, say hello in the welcome areas, and join some conversations. Talk like you are paying attention to what people are saying. Address them by name. Quote from their posts so they know you actually read them. And read the entire post before speaking.

Meanwhile look around for other forums, appropriate groups, lists and subject areas where you can add your books. Try to engage the readers as well as fellow writers. Try to make the readers like you as a person, a thinker, maybe even a friend, and then they might make friends with your books. Don’t just spam your book or blog links at them. You might mention a blog topic if it fits in with the discussion and post a link, or they might ask you for it. Goodreads has the ability to insert a book cover with a link into a post. Do that with your book when you post. If you want to stick your post onto all the threads that say “Share your book (or blog) here” go ahead, but you’re likely to get lost in pages of the same.

Rarely do I go back and look through those lists. Participation is what gets me friends and followers and response. Don’t stay with groups that are obviously just a bunch of friends chatting and recommending mainline popular books and ignoring the Indie authors who try to interact. Don’t stay with dead groups. Pick small but active groups with opportunities to talk to living, breathing people who talk back. Talk to readers, not just writers. Writers are as broke and desperate as you are, and may be helpful, friendly, supportive and full of information you need to know, but readers are looking for books. Make them want to look for yours.

Kindleboards is a rather strict, well-policed but respected forum. They demand that you participate by posting and that you post in the right places about the right things. They also have beautiful author and book pages and active link signatures and banners for you to set up. I am still intimidated by Kindleboards, but I keep trying.

Amazon, Smashwords, Goodreads, StumbledUpon, Book Junkies Library, Author’s Den, Breakthrough Bookstore, and a host of blogs like Kindle Author give you free space to promote. Absolutely make use of those and any others you can find. Almost all forum sites additionally have opportunities to purchase paid advertising. The costs vary widely. Kindleboards is frequently called the most expensive. Other sites are internet-promotion oriented but not specifically for writers or writing. FeedShark, Pingomatic, Technorati and other blog search engines and other pingbacks can drive free traffic to your blog, where your book(s) better be linked.

Try to get people to write valuable reviews of your books. I have requested and been promised several, but so far only one result. That may be something you will just have to pay for. Not sure on that one. The article from the Wall Street Journal circulating about the Indie author who has sold over 400,000 copies of her e-books says she spent under $2000 advertising and that included one paid review from a company respected in the industry. She also charges only 99 cents for her book. How you price your book is something you have to decide. You might have sales or giveaways but I am still not sure people value something they can get cheap or free. Pricing is a promotional tool, but make sure you aren’t just selling to be selling, unless that’s really all you want to do.

There is a theory going around among Indie authors that if we add likes and tags to each others’ author and sales pages we will be more visible to potential customers. Getting reciprocation on this is difficult, but if you wish to do it or set up to have it done, here’s how.

People can like your Facebook author page. Beware of going around liking a bunch of fb pages if you don’t want their blood and guts horror titles (or smarmy romances) showing up in your feed. Do what you can to support other authors, but be realistic, honest and responsible. People can like most any other author pages you have. How to do that is to find a like or thumbs up sort of button and click it. Tags are a bit trickier. You should have set up tags when you first uploaded your book, but if you didn’t, your Amazon book page is set up as follows: The book’s cover near the top, next down is editorial reviews, next is product details, next is Customer Reviews, next your Shelfari extras if you have that set up, next your author page link, and ‘way down the page, “Tags Customers Associate” with this Product. I have tried hard to have at least 15 tags. I keep a text file saved with them ready for all the sites that ask for tags.

These are picked up by search engines as subjects and matched to customer searches. Just having yours set up is a good idea. Type an appropriate subject in the box and click “add.” Once you have one in place, you will see the word “edit” beside the box. Click on edit and you will be given a larger box into which you can cut and paste or type a list of all the tags you want, separated by commas. When finished click “add” and all the tags will appear at once. If you wish to participate in tagging, other people can click in the box beside the tag word and add to its number of uses. Tell them to make sure they are logged in as an Amazon customer, to be sure that the click actually increases the number beside the word, and that they click all the tags.

It’s difficult, it’s complicated. If you belong to an author group with 700+ members and you try to tag all of them, then get a dozen or so in response, that’s the way it is. I try to tag people when I see them post and put links up, but that means nobody’s even trying to tag mine because We have a round dozen now and I can’t put them up every time I post. And I don’t give likes to things I haven’t read. But if you can, and think it helps, at least try to reciprocate.

You can create video teasers for your books using the free moviemaker programs that come on your computer. Record a soundtrack of a reading excerpt, music, sound effects, whatever you are able to do, but make sure it’s good quality. Ever see a TV commercial where the image was fuzzy, the voices and music were almost inaudible or way out of balance, the text was hard to read? Maybe you haven’t, but they do exist and they are painful to see. Don’t do that.

Do add an author image (a good, clear, and preferably casual-appearing one) and bio. Do add book descriptions. Do add cover images, and in all this image uploading, pay attention to size requirements. They vary a lot. Create banners and whatever else you can, business cards, postcards, bookmarks (this is why you should keep an image file with the elements separate).

Twitter seems to get a response, for reasons I am still unclear about. Set up to automatically tweet your blog updates if nothing else, and update your blog often. I mean several times a week. Really. Consider posting on Google Plus. I complained to another author that we joined Google Plus in the latest wave of Facebook discontent but most of our friends weren’t there. He wisely said, “Facebook is to keep track of your old friends. Google Plus is to find new ones.”

 

Stuff Blogging Writers Need to Know: Part One

I have recently set up a blog with, at least partly, the purpose of promoting our books. I have also recently joined quite a few forums and groups including independently-publishing or self-publishing writers (I’m still a tad fuzzy on the precise distinction, but I know I’m one of them, possibly both), or in which writers and readers can interact with each other. I have learned a few things along the way which have come up as questions on many of these sites, and I would like to share some of them.

I think this will turn out to be multi-part and organized by subject, because I see three areas to talk about. One is setting up a blog and making it do what you want it to do. Two is doing things to promote your books, and to help other writers struggling to promote theirs. Three is a look at our Kindles, the traditional version and the new Fire, and how your book is going to work and look and be received on them.

So, first, the blog thing. I have used computers and technology for at least a quarter century now. I still remember typing away on my first masterpiece while our oldest son was under five (he’s now pushing 30, sorry, son), using a Coleco Adam. He walked over, said, “Play Game?” and pushed the button to activate the attached game module. My last hour’s worth of word-processed masterpiece was replaced by Subrock, I think. I learned a valuable lesson about frequent saves and backups that day.

So I am not unfamiliar with or new to technology. We have created videos, 3D animations, e-books, illustrations, a 300+ page website and all kinds of stuff, but this blog made me cry. When I first began to figure it out, I kept reading, “Just jump in and start writing!” But the vocabulary of blog elements is a whole new language, and I had to learn that before I could do what our blog needed to have done.

What’s a widget? How do I get book cover images to link to? What’s the difference between a page and a post? How do I get our logo and the desired header text into the banner? Back up. Why does WordPress call templates themes, anyway?

The last question I still don’t know the answer to. But I have learned a few things about blogs. We use the Pilcrow Theme on WordPress, one of the simplest I have looked at. I mentioned that we have a 300+ page website. It is gorgeous, if I do say so myself. Colorful, complex, and daunting. So when it came to the blog, my husband said “Keep it simple!” Still, Pilcrow has the ability to upload a custom header, so I could put up our Findley Family Video logo and a verse that states our blog’s main focus in a simple, clean graphic. WordPress give you the height and width the graphic has to be to fit and it is easy to set that size graphic up in the program I make all our artwork in, which I will talk about in a later post.

Our blog has a top panel, where the banner is, and where there are tabs with the names of the pages viewers can navigate to. Blog posts go in the center panel. It has a main or left sidebar, where I keep a list of the most important posts indexed. The right or secondary sidebar has images and links of our books to Smashwords and Amazon, our two main publishing sites. We also have archives, ways to follow the blog, and a spam filter in those sidebars.

Widgets allow you to add these features into the panels. Most of what appears on our blog is done by way of the links widget. The Blogroll widget is normally used to link to other blogs you recommend. On our blog it shows the basic posts we always want people to be able to easily find. Eventually it might include other blog links as well. A list of 10 most recent posts, the archives link, and the Akismet spam filter also appear on the left.

Akismet does a very good job of keeping out those who seek to attach themselves like leeches to a blog. On the right side, along with the book links, is a list of pages the blog contains that are visible to the public.

Our blog has three visible pages and also hidden ones. The Home page displays the posts. The second is a photo gallery of some of the images from our e-book Illustrated Antidisestablishmentarianism. The third page is a list of all the blog’s entries which automatically gets updated each time we post. Hidden pages contain graphics or links I need to make other things work but don’t need to show up as pages. A new post automatically fills the home page unless you use the sticky note feature on a post. That will keep that post “stuck” to the front page until you remove the “sticky” feature, and new posts will appear below it.

To create the linked book images, I uploaded small images of the book covers to a hidden page. Then I right-clicked on an image and hit “copy image url.” Then I pasted that link into the form to fill out for links. In that form you specify where the link will show up, what kind of link it will be, what it links to and any text you want to show up with it. You don’t have to have images show up, but you want them to. The rest of the links on the site are just text.

We wanted people to be able to comment, but the default setting on the comment filter (another widget) makes people enter an email and leave a name, so we had to disable that. Your post will appear immediately as long as Akismet doesn’t classify you as spam, but we also get an email when that happens. By the way, if you want to give people a link to a particular post, make sure you click the title of that post and copy and past that browser link, not the link on the home page. Otherwise you’ll get a link showing only the blog logo, not the post itself. The photo gallery page shows thumbnails which, when clicked on, bring up a left to right scrolling set of full-sized images. A gallery can also be set up as a slide show.

Many people have complimented us on how good our blog looks. There’s an old saying that one of the tricks to doing something well is to make it look simple and easy, especially if it’s not simple or easy. Making this blog was not simple or easy for me, but here it is.

What Is a Pig Translation?

 

Every missionary to the many tribes in Papua New Guinea has to face the translation issue. There are numerous tribes and each tribe has its own language, usually with no understanding of any outside language. There are very few missionaries for the total number of tribes. When the missionary lives in a tribe and learns the language well enough, he begins translating the Word of God into that language.

“Behold the lamb of God.” But these people have no idea what a lamb is. Some missionaries choose to stay long enough to educate these tribesmen, even paying out of their own pockets to bring a lamb in. The years or decades this takes means that other tribes will never even hear of the Word of God. There are only two alternatives. Use a word these tribesmen will probably never understand or use the closest word these tribesmen already understand. However, the only creature that these tribesmen have ever seen which is anything like a lamb is a pig. If you were the translator and were unable to stay long enough to educate this tribe would you translate John 1:36 “Behold the pig of God?”

No translation is inspired, including the King James. It was an excellent translation for its day and is still one of the best, but the meaning of many words has changed. “Suffer” no longer means “permit,” “quick” does not mean “alive,” and “conversation” does not mean “manner of life.” No modern Standard English speaker uses these words in that way. These are not errors, just obstacles to understanding. At some point, these obstacles will make understanding impossible.

The KJV is not the only translation to face this problem of changing language. All of the many translations which brought people to Christ faced this problem. The Latin Vulgate, which probably holds the “top spot” for bringing people to Christ, now requires a special course in ecclesiastical Latin to be able to read and understand. Another translation greatly blessed by God is Luther’s German (of which there are many, since he revised annually). The Reina-Valera Spanish translation has also had wide influence and been greatly used by the Holy Spirit. We can be thankful that English has no corner on the market of salvation through the Scriptures. It is sad that some people hold to the idea that more people will be in heaven because of the KJV than any other translation. This is simply not true.

The original printing of the 1611 KJV was almost immediately replaced by the 1613 because of the number of spelling mistakes and typographical errors. Most libraries and archivists have the 1613, not the 1611. Both contained the Apocrypha, notes, and significant spelling differences. Because King James never authorized the translation which bears his name, there were thousands upon thousands of changes throughout the years. One of the most famous was the 1629 edition which incorporated the newly acquired Alexandranus text.

Current KJV versions sold throughout the English speaking world come from 1769 revisions. There are actually two 1769 editions, the Cambridge and Oxford editions. They have minor but definite differences. 1. Jeremiah 34:16, the present Oxford KJV has “whom he,” while the present Cambridge KJV has “whom ye.” 2. 2 Chronicles 33:19, the present Oxford KJV has “sins,” while the present Cambridge KJV has “sin.” 3. Nahum 3:16. At this verse, the present Oxford KJV has “fleeth” while the present Cambridge KJV has “flieth.”

There are mistakes, though they are small and relatively insignificant, in the KJV. Just one example is that candlestick should be translated lampstand. Candles did not come into use until Roman times, and so could not have been used in the Tabernacle or Temple. Besides, related passages specify the use of “oil for the light,” which indicates a lamp.

The Greek New Testament produced by Erasmus formed the basis of the KJV translation. Erasmus had only one Greek manuscript for Revelation, which did not have the last six verses. He used the Latin Vulgate for these verses. Revelation 22:19 in the KJV reads: “the book of life;” while every known Greek manuscript read “the tree of life.”

In spite of the facts, many people have made a belief in the word-for-word inspiration of the KJV a test of fellowship. They reject anyone who will not agree that the KJV is the only inspired English translation. This is a heresy.

http://www.biblebb.com/files/mac/kjv.htm references a pamphlet produced by John MacArthur which provides a fairly thorough treatment of his dealings with one KJV only preacher and his perspective on the subject. It is much more detailed than this brief piece and covers the subject well.

Kids Need Friends and Heroes

This is the cover image for the book, created by Levi Whitworth. This book is copyrighted by Emmy Swain. It should not be copied or downloaded for any reason.

“Meet Franklin Bean” is a children’s fantasy chapter book by Emmy Swain, illustrated by Levi Whitworth. I reviewed this book for the
author and she provided me with a pdf copy without compensation and asked for an honest review. I am a mother of three, former
teacher, and children’s book author.

Franklin Bean deals with real, important issues that affect children and their families, everything from unemployment, moving to a new town, bullies and how a child feels about all these pressures.

John, a ten-year-old boy, meets Franklin Bean just when he needs a friend the most. Who Franklin is and how he changes John’s life is
part magic, part good advice and part timeless friendships and all they mean to us.

Levi Whitworth’s illustrations are colorful, simple enough to appeal to even very young children, but also, to me, some of them even
showed of John’s loneliness and confusion by the use of muted, sometimes almost non-existent backgrounds.

I especially like the way adults are treated in this book. They are respected and an important part of the story, unlike many books I
have recently read. I also like John’s polite, respectful character, and how he wants to help meet his family’s needs.

Pancho Frijole was a surprise, to put it mildly, but children need heroes, especially when they feel lonely and times are tough. I look
forward to seeing how the series develops and how John learns more about Franklin Bean and Pancho Frijole, and I’ll bet Emmy
Swain’s readers will, too. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Review of the Huguenot Sword by Shawn Lamb

I am interested in church history, especially regarding Protestants, and as soon as I saw this book I wanted to read it. I got the Amazon Kindle version on a 99 cent Cyber Monday sale after a heads-up from the author on Goodreads. It deals mostly with young adult characters and includes a number of well-known historical figures. For those who don’t know, Huguenots were Protestants who tried to obtain the right to live as citizens and practice their faith in Catholic France but were severely persecuted, especially under Cardinal Richelieu.

Shawn Lamb has created a great study of how ordinary people look at and practice their beliefs, and how those beliefs affect their own lives and conduct, and their interactions with others. If you like the Three Musketeers, the Scarlet Pimpernell, and Zorro, you will like this story. Adventure, disguises, intrigues, court life, expectations of family, arranged marriage, and elements of romance and temptation all enter into the plot and storyline.

Three young men try to live by their motto, “For Friendship, for Faith, and for Freedom,” while aiding the Huguenot Resistance in France. Shawn Lamb provides plenty of swordfighting, pursuits and escapes, and, most importantly, insight into how young people view faith as they mature and make decisions about what they really believe and how it will shape their conduct.

Though I enjoyed the story and characters very much, I found the book contained some technical imperfections. The author was kind enough to share her process of writing and “vetting” a book and her many years of experience with different ways of bringing a book to print. She graciously promised to take my comments about the book into consideration in her future writing.

So, take it all together, the Huguenot Sword was an exciting, satisfying read, a tribute to faith and its struggles to grow, and an opportunity for me to learn firsthand something about how an author gets a book out of her head and into print, or into my Kindle, in this case.  I gave it four out of five stars on Goodreads and Amazon.