Events That Shape Our Lives by Michele Ashman Bell

The other evening my daughter and I were watching TV and as I scrolled through the channels I came across an old episode of "I Love Lucy." I felt as though old friends had entered my family room. There was Lucy, Ricky, Ethel and Fred, caught up in one of Lucy's crazy schemes, and I felt as though all the years melted away and I was a young girl again. My daughter, 11 years old, enjoyed the show with me and I told her how I had seen every episode at least a dozen times. Lucy was part of my childhood.

As I pondered this fact, I began to think of many of the events and moments throughout my life that have shaped me and had some sort of impact on who I am and what I store in my memory bank. Many of them are moments that are important enough that I want to make sure my children know about them.

I remember watching the Beattles on the "Ed Sullivan Show" and feeling special that they had a song with my name, "Michelle, my Belle..." and thinking Paul was as dreamy as they come.

I remember in 1969 when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. I stood in awe and watched the news footage and heard the famous words, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

I remember the Vietnam War and how scary and confusing it was to me. I never fully understood that war and why our soldiers were treated so despicably until I did research for my Vietnam War series, "Timeless Moments" and "Forget Me Not." There have been other conflicts that have had a profound effect upon me and my family. As upsetting as some are to remember, there are things about them I hope I never forget and want to make sure my children remember.

I remember when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, an event I thought would never happen in my lifetime. Truly a miracle.

And more recently, I remember 9-11 and the horror I felt as I watched the twin towers engulfed in flames.

Events like these and others, contribute to who we are and what we become. Even though it shocks my children that I grew up with 5 channels on a black and white TV, no dishwasher, no microwave and no cell phones, it's all part of who I am. These memorable moments, good and bad, define us and help us grow.

What are moments and events in your life that stand out?

Favorite Quote for Today

Here's a quote from A.W. Tozer I came across recently and I share it in hopes that it will comfort those who are feeling the pain of loss today:

If God sets out to make you an unusual Christian He is not likely to be as gentle as He is usually pictured by the popular teachers. A sculptor does not use a manicure set to reduce the rude, unshapely marble to a thing of beauty. The saw, the hammer and the chisel are cruel tools, but without them the rough stone must remain forever formless and unbeautiful.

To do His supreme work of grace within you He will take from your heart everything you love most. Everything you trust in will go from you. Piles of ashes will lie where your most precious treasures used to be.

Thus you will learn what faith is; you will find out the hard way, but the only way open to you, that true faith lies in the will, that the joy unspeakable of which the apostle speaks is not itself faith but a slow-ripening fruit of faith.You will learn, too, that present spiritual joys may come and go as they will without altering your spiritual status or in any way affecting your position as a true child of the heavenly Father.

Then you will also learn, probably to your astonishment, that it is possible to live in all good conscience before God and men and still feel nothing of the "peace and joy" you hear talked about...

My Duty to God

Life can be so hectic that you can feel like you are swimming in circles accomplishing nothing.

It’s pretty much how I was feeling when my husband came to me and said, “Bryan needs to catch up on his goals if he’s going to earn his Duty to God award. Why don’t we start working on that this Monday night during Family Home Evening?”

I glared at him.

What I heard him say was, “What you are doing in a twenty four hour period of time that you actually need thirty six hours to accomplish isn’t enough and you need to do more.”

Okay, I admit I needed an attitude adjustment and at that precise moment, I was having a few issues.

So I smiled, not very sincerely I admit. I gritted my teeth and said, “Sure, honey, let’s do that,” and I walked away.

Come that Monday night, we all sat together as a family. My husband opened my son’s “Duty to God” hand book. As we reviewed the program, memories came flooding back to me of a couple of months ago when we sat as parents with our son’s at our Church house learning about the new program that has been set forth for the young men of the church to help them fulfill their Duty to God. I was touched by the program then, just as I was this past Monday night while my husband reviewed it for us again.

You may wonder why I would pick this topic to blog about since maybe most of the readers are perhaps women. There is indeed a program set forth for the young women as well, but since I have boys, I just wanted to mention how impressed I am that there is a program that gives the youth of today such high standards and morals to live by and if these boys will do these things, then as they fulfill their responsibilities, they will “greatly bless the lives of those around them” --that would be ALL those around them.

(I do plan to wrap up this blog with how this applies to women as well. So hang in there with me.)

The idea of the Duty to God program is to learn, act, and share. They young men learn about their duties, make plans how to fulfill them by setting goals that can be challenging but fun and of service, and share with others about the growth they have gained from it. Sounds simple? The idea is, the goals are not. These young men are setting goals that will help to shape them for their future. They are setting goals now that will help them develop lifelong habits.

They have interviews with their progress, their goals and duties must reflect them taking the initiative to be responsible and hardworking, being of service to others. They must be spiritually minded, and keep themselves morally and physically clean, young men. They must do their duty with diligence.

A book of standards that helps them set their goals is the book, “For the strength of Youth”

This is a very brief summary about the new program. For more information you can read more at www.lds.org

Back to Monday night—as we sat as a family—we turned to the first section in the handbook. We did the required reading and slowly my issues of the day before started to fade away. A renewed hope began to set in as we talked about goals that Bryan wanted to set for himself. I asked him if I could join him with the goal setting and he thought it would be good for all of us to work on goals at the same time. We all agreed.

I set my goals. The first goal is my relationship with family and friends. To break that down a little, I wrote: I need to be more pleasant and have a better “attitude."

Now, I don’t think we can gain a better attitude just because we say, “I’m going to have a better attitude.” At least for me, it’s not that easy. I had to have a plan in motion to achieve that goal so, I wrote down how I intended to do a few things so that I can work towards achieving a better attitude and so on.

After we worked on a couple of areas in my son’s book, it was time to call an end to that part of our Family Home Evening. It had been a good night for all of us, but especially for me. I needed a change of attitude and I could feel within my heart a desire to make that happen.

Life can be overwhelming. There are some days you reach the end of the day feeling completely exhausted and wonder about all you have not yet finished. You wonder if all you have done is ever enough. Surely we know within our hearts that it is, but I think we tend to be hard on ourselves and there are times we feel like we are bearly treading water.

There is so much I want to do and I feel there is hardly enough hours in a day to accomplish that which I need to do.

Maybe it begins with attitude.

We all have a "Duty to God." The young men of the Church have a formal program set up to give them direction. The young women do as well. We as adults have the Gospel Plan to give us direction. We all have a loving Father in Heaven to turn to. He will help us fulfill all of our duties if we will put forth our best effort and then have faith and trust in him. He’ll help us stay afloat. With that in mind, what’s not to have a good attitude about?

Rain at Pine Meadows, Utah

It rained yesterday, and I thought of my sister.

When we were growing up in Lake Tahoe, California, autumn rain was one of our favorite things. The dark clouds would tumble over the high peaks of Mt. Talac, the wind would pick up, whipping white caps onto the lake's steel blue surface, and the thunder would shake the windows of our small house. Teri and I would scramble around our bedroom gathering paper, pencils, books, and crayons. After our successful foray, we'd run outside to the car just as the first cold drops of rain splooshed onto the dirt road. It never rained gently in Lake Tahoe. As the rain thudded onto the roof of the car, Teri would draw and color pictures, and I would write stories. Teri was four years older than me, and the usual patterns of our day did not find us spending much time together, or even acknowledging each other's existence, but on those days when the thunder boomed, a magical connection formed.

So, it wasn't surprising when I felt those first cold drops of autumn rain, that I thought of her. The many miles separating Pine Meadows, Utah, and Lake Tahoe, California melted away, and we were back in the old grey Ford coloring, giggling, and creating a bond that would last a lifetime...and longer.

The Rest of the Story

Continuing with the dialogue that I've been having with a prospective author, here are the remainder of his questions, thus far, and my answers:

Q. Do you ever borrow ideas, plots, locations, characters, and such from other authors and use them in your novels?

A. Borrowing ideas is acceptable if you disguise them in your own story; borrow plots - mmm - someone said there are only about a dozen plots in literature. Everything is a variation of one of them. I guess it depends upon how much you borrow and how much you make out of it your own story. I saw a TV show the other night that gave me a great idea for my ghost story - a lost love. Nothing original there, but it will add to my story. I just needed to be reminded of the opportunity, and I'm not using it in the way they did in their story. But you get into iffy territory here, so be very careful what you are "borrowing" and how you use it.

Q. You mentioned reading a lot of other books from other authors and I wonder if a person has the ability to borrow ideas from other books much as we do when giving a talk in church.

A. People do have the ability, but not the right. :) Ideas are not copyrighted, but borrowing portions of the book, as we do when giving a talk, is called plagiarism. It is illegal and unethical.

Q. What is the official church position on writing about magic, sorcery, witchcraft, and all of these other areas that the public wants to read about but may conflict with LDS values?

A. The Church does not have an official position on writing about areas that may conflict with LDS values. That is entirely up to you. We do have free agency, after all. :)

Q. Do we have to worry about being true to our values, principles and morals when writing?

A. Again, that is entirely up to you. I am true to my values when I write. There are others who have made an incredible amount of money by giving the public what they want to read. The choice is yours. I want my grandchildren to be able to read everything I've written without being ashamed or embarrassed by my stories - or me being embarrassed or ashamed when they read them.

Q. It sounds like you have a natural gift for writing and ideas, themes, plots, characters, and thoughts flow to your mind magically. Sort of like an artist when he does his painting, sculpture, etc. He gets a vision of what his product will look like in his mind first before he creates it physically. I don't have a natural gift or creative imagination for writing. How do you develop that ability or gift?

A. I do think part of it is a gift or natural ability, but the other part is just plain hard work, plotting the story line, getting in all the elements of the story in the right place, rewriting, editing and rewriting some more. The more you write, the better you will become at it. At least, that is the premise. You have to learn the craft, because it is a craft and it can be learned, then just write, rewrite, and write some more.

Q. I guess my biggest question is how do you know as an author what is going to sell and be a big hit with the audiences? Does an author ever do audience market research and see what the American audiences are looking for in terms of reading and entertainment? Do the publishing companies ever poll their audiences to see what the American public wants to see more of and what sells best?

A. Knowing what the audience wants to read has not been a problem with me. I wrote what I wanted to read, the kind of stories I enjoy reading, knowing there were others out there who enjoyed the same thing. I write what I'm passionate about. An editor can tell you what is being accepted. The NY Times or Deseret Book Bestseller's lists can give you an idea of what is popular. I think the readers for the various publishing houses and the acquisition committees have a lot to do with what is accepted for publication, and they probably take their cue from what is currently selling well. Different genres are popular in cycles. If Westerns are riding high in the market when you begin your book and it takes you a year to write it, then it has to go through the acquisitions, editing, and rewriting process. It may be published too late for that particular cycle, unless it is an exceptional book. I guess the best answer to your questions is that audiences vote with their purchases - that's how publishing houses know what they want to read.

Q. How much money can a beginning author realistically expect to make in today's world?

A. That question can't be answered until the book is finished, published and on the market. Don't quit your day job, as they say, make your product the very best that you can, and work very hard to get it accepted, published, then promoted. Chances are, it will take a few years and a few books to make enough money to brag about. Most authors I know don't write for the money, though that is a nice perk. They write because they have stories to tell that are just exploding to get out and be told.

Q. Do you make a lot more when you book becomes a movie?

A. Having a movie made from a book published by an LDS author is extremely difficult, unless you make it big on the national market. Just remember to retain the movie rights when you sign your contract so that it CAN be made into a movie, on the off chance some screenwriter or producer discovers the book and wants to make it into a movie. But write the book first. And good luck!

Editing is Improving

I am currently attempting to write my first fantasy novel, a 100,000 word epic about an ordinary young man who discovers that he has been bred for a special purpose. I'm about halfway through at the moment, and recently sent the manuscript to some friends for their comments on how it could be improved.

Two of them came back and told me that several scenes from the beginning needed to be cut. These were scenes I was particularly proud of, and I resisted for as long as I could. Then a third person told me, very bluntly, that they were slowing down the action, and I realised I had to do some editing. With a heavy heart I hacked about five-thousand precious words off the beginning of my magnum opus. It hurt, I can tell you. But now that I re-read it I can see that the new, streamlined version is far, far better, and I'm excited about it again.

Editing is difficult, but it is necessary. However much you've sweated and laboured over something, once in a while you just have to metaphorically (or possibly literally) scrunch up the paper and hurl it towards the waste paper bin. I've commented here before that I believe editors are vital in the production of a good novel. An fresh pair of expert eyes can highlight problems you've overlooked, from poor punctuation to major continuity errors. They will take parts out, they will suggest other parts be expanded, but they will improve it.

I have a novel due for publication over the next few months, and my publishers suggested that it was "clean" and didn't need editing. Nervous about this decision, I paid to have it privately professionally edited, and I'm glad I did. As "clean" as that manuscript may have been, the editor picked up on many improvements which could be made.

One thing I have learned about the writing business is that you can't get precious about your work. Editors, publishers, test readers and others will want to change it. But they know what they are doing, and we would be wise to follow their advice. If you doubt me, just look at the number of writers who thank their wonderful and wise editors in the acknowledgements of their books.

An Invitation

I'm inviting you to go to Meridian Magazine and read my column there. Instead of my usual review of an LDS novel I've talked about the condition of today's LDS Fiction and where I think LDS fiction is headed in the future. I talked to quite a few people, mostly authors and editors, before writing this column. As a writer and a reviewer I can't help wondering where readers (and others) see LDS fiction in today's market place, in your homes, and in your lives. What do you think is good about LDS fiction? What would make it better? and Where do you think LDS fiction will be two years or five years down the road? Please respond on Meridian's comment trail, or here. (By the way, everyone who responds with thoughtful comments at either of these locations, will be entered in the ongoing Wish List contest on my blog.)