Versions of Christianity -- Yes, there is more than one!

Years ago, I wrote "What a Girl Wants" for two reasons. One, because I had a singles' group at my house and it wasn't fair how God says that "beauty is fleeting & charm is deceiving", yet every time some new hot girl came into the group, religion seemed to fly out the window.  The second reason was...I couldn't craft.  

That's right. Most Christian women were good at crafting and making casseroles--maybe while homeschooling on the side. I was not that type of Christian. I was never going to be this type of Christian. Trust me, my grandmother tried so hard to make me domestic when I wanted to be out in the wood shop with my cousins using the jigsaw.  I'm not "normal." I wanted to write a book for the Christians who don't fit in. Newsflash, I still raised four kids and no one is in jail.  Not that this is the standard, but they did all right for themselves. They survived their out-of-the-ordinary mom.

Fast forward 20-odd years. I'm at a Bible study last night, and we are introduced with the caveat, "This is a private, no judgment zone, no advice zone." Right before I was completely judged and told how I "should be" and given advice. I'm 57. I completely reject this type of Christianity, and if that's for you, you go do you. No judgment here. But I have been a Christian for a long time, I know my relationship with God has nothing to do with impressing others or living up to their standards. Why don't judgmental people get this? What is it in their life that makes them think they are here to fix us all?

Do those people have any idea how they make people turn from God and the church? I bought this book "Bamboozled by Jesus" recently, and I haven't read it yet, but I did read some of the reviews. Some of which say this book is "not for real Christians."  

What is a real Christian? Since only God gets to judge, maybe we don't know. Sure, we know that Christians shouldn't be out murdering and philandering, but what about judging? Why do we let this one go? Worse yet, some of the reviews said, "This author is clearly not a Christian." 

Say what? You don't know what this woman's culture is, or how she grew up. You don't know her heart, so maybe worry about your own walk. Listen, I understand saying if swearing upsets you, this isn't the book for you.  But to take it so far as to say she's not a Christian? Girl, sit down.

Do I think this book is going to be filled with quality doctrine? I'm going to say no.  But will I hear someone's journey in their faith? Yes, I will. I think Christians seem to forget that David had a whole heart for God. King David: adulterer, murderer, bigamist, manipulator...David.  He wanted to do right, but he was a very flawed human.  Luckily, it wasn't up to David to be perfect.  We have salvation for that.

I'm not perfect. Not by a long shot, but I also know that I'm saved, flaws and all. Do I want to get better? Always. Does that include being like everyone else? It does not. 

I don't know if this book has false doctrine in it, but again, I'm grown. I can decide for myself what to read. I want to know how Orji's journey has been shaped by her immigrant parents. I want to know how she survives in Hollywood as an African-American comedian. Not only survives, but thrives. 

"Where's the next book?"

If you're asking that question about my book, first off, thank you.  I appreciate that anyone cares and I love hearing from my readers that they do miss hearing my voice.  What a blessing! The easiest explanation is I've had "monkey brain" which is what I call my ADHD when there is too much going on.  I've been torn between responsibilities at home in California and at home in Arizona. Neither one of which includes writing and that needs to change. This is my resolution for 2024.  Finishing books again is my priority. (BIC -- Butt in Chair is a necessity.)  I don't like the person I am when I don't write. It's too much a part of me, and it's all right to make that a priority. 

I'm working on the next book in the Pacific Avenue series and while the third one has been the hardest for me to complete, I think it's my favorite so far.  I just love dealing with the dysfunctional family dynamics and how the same person can be different people, depending on the audience. Authentic people are my vibe. I don't understand people who change their personalities for an audience. They fascinate me and I wanted  to explore narcissistic personality traits in fiction. I know we all have narcissistic traits, but if you've ever been around a person with true narcissistic personality disorder, it will have you questioning your sanity. I wanted to explore that from the perspective of the children of narcs.  That's how the Pacific Avenue Series started. I know it sounds depressing, but to me, it's not. Children of narcs continue to thrive in this world and overcome! Thank you, Jesus!

I have the cover for the new book and I'm going to debut it here soon. But I love Quinn's story because she's been raised to be a carbon copy of her narcissistic mother. Figuring out she's been on the wrong journey was fun for me. How I love a redemption arc!  I took a break writing Quinn because of a request from my agent for a bigger publisher. It will help me to go back to traditional publishing. When you've been doing things a certain way for 30 years, it's not easy to do it differently. Self-publishing is a lot when you're an old dog constantly learning new tricks -- especially with monkey brain. But if that's what God has for me, I'll keep doing it. 

I've been at my parents' house in California for about a month -- and I bought a new laptop here because my old one is missing keys. Let me just say you have no idea how much you use the letter "A" until you can't anymore. So check back here for the new cover. My word for 2024 is CONSISTENCY! How about you? Any resolutions you want to make public? 

P.S. As a testimony to my dedication to "consistency" I am sitting at my parents' dining room table with David Crowder blasting in my noise canceling EarPods to drown out my brother's CONSISTENT talking. : )

When in Sedona...

Yesterday, as we were driving through Sedona, we saw a "Salt Energy Healing Room" and a "Soul Spa" just to name a few alternative therapies. As a multiple sclerosis lifer (had it since I was 19) I am big on alternative therapies. The traditional meds they gave me  in the 90's actually made me crazy. (Trust me, I don't need any help!) Anyway, it always bugs me that Christians have separated the mind/body/soul aspect of healing. Apparently, that comes Roman history because doctors weren't allowed to dissect a human body (the soul now belonged to God) so it was considered desecration. Don't quote me on the history aspect, but my point is, if your soul isn't healthy, your body will tell you in some way. Symptoms are trying to get your attention.

While I'm not a New Ager, I love the mind/body/spirit connection to faith and healing. The biggest advances I made in my health are from alternative practitioners.  And while I will never belittle the magic that IS prednisone when you need it, there is a lot I've done to stay healthy through strange theories. Example? I had all the metal removed from my teeth in the early 90's and I never allowed a dentist to put metal in my kids' mouths. Luckily, they got their dad's teeth and not mine.

I also did NAET early on and learned what I was allergic to, and how to fix that with a chiropractor/practitioner. There was also a "Swank Diet" that I adopted early in my journey and stayed away from hydrogenated oils. I bought my kids' natural potato chips and then, they couldn't eat the regular ones. Granted, I never got my kids off McDonald's. That happy meal had the goods, you know? This was well before they cut those fries short for an apple.  (The Audacity!)

I did therapies that didn't work for me as well. LDN (low-dose naltrexone) did not work for me, but it has worked amazingly well for others. The same is true for most supplements for me. They never seem to agree with me.  But did it hurt anything? It didn't, so I don't know why the medical establishment is so against alternative therapies. For example, LDN has helped a lot of people, but it's cheap. No money, no healing according to the powers that be. This is why I wrote the third book in my "Spa Girls" series "Calm, Cool & Adjusted" about a Christian chiropractor who loved the alternative therapies. Find what works for you to get healthy. Fear is not from God, so don't be afraid of things that big pharma tells you is dangerous. It might be a waste of money. It might. But it also might work. Listen to your instincts. 

I love to be in Sedona and around all the earthy folks. I think it would be such an amazing place to write a book.

Organization for ADDers

My name is Kristin and I have ADD. I had it when girls didn't have it basically. (Ahem!)  You were just called talkative, distracted and worse. We didn't have ADD meds -- not for girls anyway. My boy cousin was given Ritalin. I was just made to stay after school.  

Luckily for me, I come from a long line of perfectly organized German/English folk who put everything in its place. (My Italian father's side, not so much -- clearly where my genetic make-up comes from.) I have always worked in offices, so I've had to be organized and know how to find paperwork. I am a big believer in the label maker. If I see what's supposed to be in that file, I will put it there.

I'm also a big believer in color-coding. For example, my kids all had a color: Trey was yellow, Jonah was red, Seth was green and Elle was pink. They had a laundry basket in that color, so their clothes went into their basket. Their school folders were each in their corresponding color. Every year, I made an accordion file of all the bills/kids' needs. So if I need to find out what Jonah did in 2016, I go to the 2016 file and pull out his folder. Is it time-consuming? Yes, but if you ask me for the PG&E bill from 2019, I'll get it for you. (I also keep a spreadsheet of monthly expenses.)

I say all this because it's truly a pain in the bum to be like this. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. When most people put something away, they can go find it and that's that. I, however, need a system. And it's so hard to watch people organize whole events for thousands of people when I need a system to do the laundry.

When I'm in a novel, I'm in my element. I understand instinctively how the characters will react and I write them accordingly.  I've written 50 novels just fine. So why do I have to attach my keys to my purse so that I don't leave without both? Why can't life work like the books? 

When my daughter started her business selling clothes on TikTok/Instagram, I watched her do her finances the same way I do. Write it out in a fancy notebook, have rows for costs, rows for profit and the math showing her bottom line. When her husband told her she couldn't do it like that, I showed him my own notebook. Incidentally, I did NOT teach her to do this. It was natural.  It's the way our brains work. Or don't work as the world might say. 

As I plan my escape back to California, I'm overwhelmed by how to get the house organized and only take what I need.  I normally don't care for organizing "experts" because their brains don't work like mine. They can put something in a cabinet and they'll remember it's there. If I can't see it, it's gone. So I have a filing system that is visible. Do I like looking at all that crap? I do not, but I don't want to put it away and forget the taxes need to be paid, so my bookshelf houses these files. (In pretty file folders naturally.)

The one book that I really think gets it for organization and should be called, "Organization for Dummies" is by Martha Stewart. While I'm willing to bet Martha Stewart's brain is wired the exact opposite way as mine, her book has a checklist for everything that makes it easy to understand.

As a side note, I'm glad I had to learn how to do all this without the help of meds. I have nothing against meds, but I would've never remembered to take them anyway. 

I know we're not all created equal and we all have our strengths, but I also think creatives were not meant to live in a money-loving world. Seems like for every artist, there is a left-brainer out there who understands how to make money off of them. Now, back to Martha. 

 

 

 

Author Photos -- it's time to update...

Yes, my author photos are ancient. I have never taken good photos. When I was 103 pounds, my pics would make me look 300. So when I get a photo, I keep them. But it's time to stop hemming and hawing and get my author photo retaken. Or, when people see me, they're going to be like, "Are you that girl's mother?" Or worse yet, "You look like that Barbie realtor meme."

So I've updated my photos on most of my social media, but I cannot figure out how to get my pic out of that circle on the blog's banner. Yesterday, my son took me out to breakfast. When I wasn't looking, he took a photo, sent it to me and said, "Update your author photo."

Ouch. Why do my kids have to do me like that?

This is why I'm a writer, I'm not a model. I didn't grow up taking selfies, so I don't have a new shot every day. The entirety of my children's youth, I took all the pictures so I'm not in anything. And this is the road I have taken. And even if I was a supermodel, do you care what your author looks like? I mean, does anyone care if Thomas Hardy or Dickens was a looker? What about Dean Koontz?

Where are Glamorshots when you need them?  I mean, I wouldn't have to worry about a double chin if I had a perfectly good feather boa wrapped around my neck. But the point it taken, I'll get a new author photo. Sigh.

 

 

Great Expectations that promptly fell flat...

I love a costume drama. Pretty much any costume drama. In fact, I'm not the person who says, "Only the Colin Firth Mr. Darcy" is relevant. Even though, I love the 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice more than any other, I want them to make more Austen. (As long as it doesn't have Keira Knightley in it.)

I love a good remake and I always get excited to see a new version of my favorite classics. I loved the latest version of "Far from the Madding Crowd." It was excellent. Bathsheba is one of my favorite characters. If you don't know the story, she's basically a female version of the prodigal son. But here's the thing, the audience doesn't care for a female prodigal so it's not a well-loved story.  And I think it should be. Such a great story and not nearly as depressing as most Thomas Hardy novels.
But let's talk Dickens. Dickens is such an amazing storyteller. To this day, the description of Scrooge as a character is one of my favorite paragraphs in all of literature: 

"Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas." 

 

In other words, Dickens knew how to create a character. His settings are so genuine that "Dickensian" is actually an adjective in the dictionary.  But the director of the new "Great Expectations" seems to have forgotten this in their latest rendition. The powers that be thought they could improve on a story that has been around since 1861. As with all things done with hubris, it's terrible. Not just terrible. Hard to follow. Makes no sense and the characters are absolutely HATEFUL.

 

Yes, Miss Havisham should be unlikable. She is, in fact, the villain. But in this version, even Pip is a villain. In the original story, Pip looks up to his brother-in-law and wants to be a blacksmith just like Joe.  In this version, Pip goes to the great house and suddenly wants to be a great gentleman--throwing away the one good relationship he has in life. It's so incredibly unbelievable and doesn't work at all because why would you want to aspire to be a crazy old lazy who lives in squalor?  I can't root for Pip when I want to slap some sense into him.

 

The actress they got to play Estella is lacking the charm needed for that role and as a couple, they have literally no chemistry.  I don't know why this version makes me so mad, but I think it's the insane narcissism to think you can improve upon Dickens' characters and motivations. Get over yourself. Okay, I'm done ranting now. You should probably skip this one and go find an older version. Any older version. Maybe if I came into this clean, not knowing the story...nope. I don't think even then.

 

Learning you're "Depression Barbie"

There's a brief clip of Mr. Darcy's first proposal in the Barbie movie and "Depression Barbie" is referenced. My children find this hilarious as they all know this movie through osmosis. My son even had a T-shirt made for me referencing my favorite line. Oddly enough, the one used in the new movie.

The world is a rough place. Why shouldn't we retreat once in a while to our illusion? Reality can be tough. Fiction is a wonderful place to forget the troubles of the world for a few hours and spend time with interesting people. When you get lost in illusion, what's your favorite go-to fictional world? 

 

 

Is there an setting/era that you avoid in books?

For me, it's WWII.  And I can't explain that because I love all things 40's: the music, the houses, the clothes and my favorite movie star, Fred Astaire. But I hate to read any book set in WWII because I hate thinking how awful humans can be to one another. I don't need that reminder. I have the ID Channel for that. 

So that being said, I finally read "The Nightingale" by Kristin Hannah. A lot of people recommended it to me, and I didn't actually know it was a WWII book before I started it.  By then, I'd already spent my hard-earned cash, so I was going to read it. This book is older (2015) and this is my first Kristin Hannah book.  Okay, for real, all the things I said about WWII hold true here. I hate that German engineer/physics types invade this artsy little country who just want to eat, drink and be merry. (I'm part German too with no French in me, but I do not get the lust for power. What a waste of time.)

This is the story of two French sisters and their experiences as the Nazi's enter France. While I would normally avoid this subject like the plague, this was a truly amazing novel. It forces you to ask yourself who would I be in a situation of survival and resistance? Hannah makes it very clear the characters have very little choice in what is going on around them, and they're weakened by a lack of food and resources. We'd all want to do the right thing, but it's clear how sometimes in life, the choice between right/wrong is not easy. 

I'm glad I pressed through my own resistance to this book because I thought it offered one of the best endings of any novel I've ever read. The ending was thorough. It answered all my questions, and it left me satisfied. I cheered/ached for people who aren't real.  So I must say, well done to Kristin Hannah (not that I think this bestselling author needs my approval.)

My question for you, is there a setting/era that you avoid?  Has any book ever overcome your resistance?