Earlier this week I mentioned an author friend,  Kristen Lamb. Three years ago she came out with this vlog and it is still relevant today.-(DB)

Donna Brown is pastor at Faith in God Church  1 1/2 miles south of Brandsville, Missouri on Hwy 63. Sunday services are at 10 am and Wednesday night Bible Study at 6:30 pm.

As Author Cygnet Brown, she  has recently published her first nonfiction book: Simply Vegetable Gardening: Simple Organic Gardening Tips for the Beginning Gardener

She is also the author of historical fiction series The Locket Saga. which includes When God Turned His Head and Soldiers Don’t Cry, the Locket Saga Continues, and most recently, A Coward’s Solace, Book III of the Locket Saga

Her most recent publication were two booklets Help From Kelp and Using Diatomaceous Earth Around the House and Yard. Available in paperback.

.For more information about Cygnet Brown and her book, check out her website at http://www.cygnetbrow.com .

James 3:17 says, “If you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, don’t think that is a smart. That kind of thinking goes against the truth. This wisdom descendes not from above but is earthly sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.”
Gentleness is an outgrowth of God’s wisdom. Several Greek words are translated gentleness and all of them mean about the same. They mean kind, affiable, moderation, appropriate. Gentleness is closely related to patience.
In Titus 3:2, the Apostle Paul tells us that we should speak kindly of everyone and be gentle. According to
I Peter 2:18, the Apostle Peter tells us that we are to be gentle even with people in authority who are stubborn and crooked. If the boss wastes your time, he/she will have to answer for it.
In Galatians 5:19-2r says “now the works of the flesh are manifest which are these adultery fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, reveling, and such like of which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness temperance, against such there is not law. They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.”
According to these verses, gentleness is a fruit of the Spirit, but it is also a gift from God. It doesn’t come from trying to follow a bunch of laws, but comes in the package with God’s gift of love.

The Power of Gentleness

Proverbs 15:1 says A soft answer turns away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger. The tongue of the wise uses knowledge aright, but the mouth of fools pours out foolishness.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “If you want to get someone’s attention, just whisper?”

In a world where loud, animated, opinionated, often ignorant individuals are fighting for the limelight, the quiet gentle spirit stands out as someone who is different. As Christians, our duty is not to argue with those people. Instead our responsibility is to show others that type of behavior is not necessary. Far more strength exists in an individual who can walk quietly into a terse situation and gently remove the fuse.
Gentleness is most effective when we rid ourselves of our defensive armor. It’s like taking off our guns and throwing them on the ground. The paradox of gentleness is that by making ourselves vulnerable, we strengthen our position.
Here’s an example. Back when I was in the Navy, I was a hospital Corpsman who specialized in working with psychiatric patients. I primarily worked on the wards. At that time, military patients who were prescribed psychotropic drugs (anti-psychotics and mood stablizers) were required to take those medications while still in the military. If they refused, we could “force” them to take them.
There was team of big burly guys who would restrain the individual and force them to take the medication in the buttocks if they refused to take it by mouth. The job that I was best at, and much preferred was calming the (usually irate) individual down and gently convince the individual that he or she really wanted to take the medication after all.
You see, in my gentleness, I had more power over the patients than that goon squad. I was able, not only to get them to do what I wanted them to do, but by the time I was done talking with them, I had built trust with them. They knew that I had their best interests at heart because I really didn’t want them to be restrained and they knew it.
The most powerful displays of gentleness were displayed by Christ. He gently laid aside his rights as deity his first time on this earth so that we could know his gentle character. He showed us this time and again as he was met by broken sinners who begged for his mercy. He demonstrated this gentleness when as in Matthew 18:2-7 when he took a child into his arms. He spoke of his gentleness when he talked of himself as the Good Shepherd. He also displayed this gentleness when he didn’t say a word, but willingly went to the cross for us. That is gentleness to a degree that I cannot fathom therefore I cannot imagine ever reaching.

Donna Brown is pastor at Faith in God Church  1 1/2 miles south of Brandsville, Missouri on Hwy 63. Sunday services are at 10 am and Wednesday night Bible Study at 6:30 pm.   As Author Cygnet Brown, she  has recently published her first nonfiction book: Simply Vegetable Gardening: Simple Organic Gardening Tips for the Beginning Gardener

She is also the author of historical fiction series The Locket Saga. which includes When God Turned His Head and Soldiers Don’t Cry, the Locket Saga Continues, and most recently, A Coward’s Solace, Book III of the Locket Saga

Her most recent publication were two booklets Help From Kelp and Using Diatomaceous Earth Around the House and Yard. Available in paperback.

.For more information about Cygnet Brown and her book, check out her website at http://www.cygnetbrow.com .

Why  Little Women became a Classic

In the movie Little Women, the second sister Josephine March was a writer who wrote unbelievable stories about knights, and kings, and rogues, and damsels in distress. Over and over again she tried to get them published. It wasn’t until she wrote about her own family that she was successful. In some ways, this paralleled the original author’s life. Louisa May Alcott was quite autobiographical when she wrote that piece of fiction. She wrote what she knew and it brought her success. The book has been a classic for over a hundred years now and has been retold in numerous movie adaptations. What makes this book a classic is that every day life  was written from a woman’s point of view.

However, We are not stuck writing about our own lives when writing we write fiction. The important element in writing fiction isn’t having personal experience per say. It is in thoroughly knowing and understanding each character intimately.

I believe that when an author writes from an autobiographical perspective, the writer almost always has to be writing from the heart of the character. There’s an integrity that has to be seen if a reader is going to believe what he or she is reading.
I have seen the reverse of this played out on the small screen. Have you ever watched a movie or television show where you could see that the actors were acting? I remember seeing that happen whenever I have seen some of the later episodes of the Waltons after the main characters played by great actors either passed away or moved on. I would see the writer of the script attempts at cuteness or wit in many of the scenes. The delivery was flat, and the actors didn’t have enough acting training to make the scene their own.
You don’t want to see the writer in an on-screen production, nor do you want to see a writer in a book manuscript either. You want to see the characters as real people. The only way for the writer to portray these characters then is for the writer to see them as real people as well. That’s what makes Jo March and her sisters and Marme so believable. Louisa saw them as real because she knew them intimately.

How Is Science Fiction or Fantasy Believable?

A writer has to draw from his or her own experience or from the experience of someone they have personally known. Every character has to be as unique as the author who creates that character. In Alcott’s Little Women, the story is believable because the four sisters were part of her own experience, but what about science fiction and fantasy? Can we view these as experiential or are they the exception?
I think they can, but the experience occurs not in real life, but in the writer’s mind. However, in order to connect with the reader, the writer must also include characters (even strange aliens) with very human and varied characteristics.
One of my favorite examples of character diversity comes from this scene from Star Trek IV-The Voyage Home. In the movie, there is a scene where the crew of the Star Ship Enterprise have stolen a Klingon vessel and planned to go back in time to save humpback whales because they were extinct in their time, but without the whales, earth and all of its inhabitants would be destroyed.
In this scene, the crew is trying to decide whether they really could go back in time. The individuality of each of the characters and the actors who played the characters were very evident in this scene. Scotty spoke as the engineer who understood how the space ship was constructed he said. In his usual Scottish brogue he said, “I don’t think this bucket of bolts can take it.” Logical Spock gave the probability of failure. Bones, always the cynic was already mourning their deaths, and the impetuous Captain Kirk, who knows that this is their only chance, says, “Let’s do it.” He then ordered the crew take the Klingon ship back in time.
Science fiction is believable, not because any of us have been on a starship, but because the characters are individuals that we recognize from real lives. This is not a scene from a time that the writer actual knows or has actually experienced, except that he created it in his own mind. Because he was able to visualize the scene with these characters’ personalities in mind, the ideas presented in this scene and the whole movie seem plausible. Science fiction as well as fantasy are both based not in reality, but in how realistic the writer believes his own story line and the elements of that story line and how well that writer can project his belief to his audience.

Historical Fiction

In my own fiction writing, I combine the elements of my own experience and the created imagery of my impressions of what life in a previous era probably was like for the people who lived it. I picture myself in the scene, in the shoes of the character. When I do that, I am no longer me, the writer, but I am the character. However, before I can do this I must do my homework. I have to get to know this person. I have to know what makes him/her tick. I must know his/her history. I have to know how this character is different from me and the rest of the characters in the scene. Only when I do this can the reader accept this character as real and writing what I know.

Donna Brown is pastor at Faith in God Church  1 1/2 miles south of Brandsville, Missouri on Hwy 63. Sunday services are at 10 am and Wednesday night Bible Study at 6:30 pm.   As Author Cygnet Brown, she  has recently published her first nonfiction book: Simply Vegetable Gardening: Simple Organic Gardening Tips for the Beginning Gardener

She is also the author of historical fiction series The Locket Saga. which includes When God Turned His Head and Soldiers Don’t Cry, the Locket Saga Continues, and most recently, A Coward’s Solace, Book III of the Locket Saga

Her most recent publication were two booklets Help From Kelp and Using Diatomaceous Earth Around the House and Yard. Available in paperback.

.For more information about Cygnet Brown and her book, check out her website at http://www.cygnetbrow.com .

Yeah! Friday is here!  Today’s video is about editing your book. Yes, I told you what I want I do on Fridays is a Youtube video. Today’s is by Ellen Brook telling how she recommends editing a novel.

Have you written a novel? Do you do make a hard copy of your story for your final edit? I would love to hear how you handle the editing process overall!

Donna Brown is pastor at Faith in God Church  1 1/2 miles south of Brandsville, Missouri on Hwy 63. Sunday services are at 10 am and Wednesday night Bible Study at 6:30 pm.   As Author Cygnet Brown, she  has recently published her first nonfiction book: Simply Vegetable Gardening: Simple Organic Gardening Tips for the Beginning Gardener

She is also the author of historical fiction series The Locket Saga. which includes When God Turned His Head and Soldiers Don’t Cry, the Locket Saga Continues, and most recently, A Coward’s Solace, Book III of the Locket Saga

Her most recent publication were two booklets Help From Kelp and Using Diatomaceous Earth Around the House and Yard. Available in paperback.

.For more information about Cygnet Brown and her book, check out her website at http://www.cygnetbrow.com .