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Word of the Week – Journal

by Roseanna | Oct 3, 2022 | Word of the Week

I admit it–I’m a little bit obsessed with anything that belongs on a desk. Notebooks, pens, journals, even paperclips and staplers make me grin. When I walk into an office supply store, it takes great restraint to look only for what I need and not every pretty shade of ink, fun notebook, or shiny new desk accessory. And journals in particular I find so tempting.

All those pretty blank pages. A beautiful cover. Sometimes even a ribbon marker! YES, PLEASE!

Do I have “too many” journals sitting on my desk as I type this? Some would say so. But they gave me the idea for today’s post, so let’s just call them inspiration. 😉

Journal comes from the Latin diurnalis, which means “daily.” If you’re like me, you may be looking at that jou and the diu and be scratching your head at the different sounds, but we have the French to thank/blame for that change. 😉 Keeping in mind that j in French makes a kind of soft d sound, it becomes easier to understand. Apparently this shift happens especially when the d is followed by an iu combo. So the French became jurnal, used for a book of daily accounts of work or travel.

Interestingly, when the word jumped from French to English in the 1300s, it was used solely as “a book of church services,” no doubt to track daily mass. By the late 1400s, it began to be used for any “book used to track daily accounts.” By about 1600, it took on the “personal diary” meaning. And finally, by 1728, it could be used for “a daily publication.”

I use mine for keeping track of prayer requests; organizing before and after trips; occasionally writing prayerful or faith musings; writing down dreams and goals; and most frequently for keeping track of my running to-do lists, so very much in that “daily accounts” sense. Are you a journal lover? What do you use yours for most often?

Throwback Thursday – New But Eternal

by Roseanna | Sep 29, 2022 | Throwback Thursdays

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22-23 (ESV)

Original post published 10/10/2019

One of the most amazing things about our God is that He’s eternal. He exists somehow outside of our understanding of time, beyond the line of it that we perceive. We can understand the “unchanging” aspect of His nature best when we realize that change requires time, and He is not subject to it. Now, our perception of Him can change. Our understanding. That can evolve and grow over time, as we experience more and contemplate more. But God Himself remains unhindered by time. Eternal.

Perhaps this is also how His love can be unceasing. How His mercies can be new every morning. They are new…and yet older than anyone. As is everything else about our Lord.

Several months ago I came across a discussion about a current movement among women in the church, women whose message seems bound up in the idea that they’ve discovered something their mothers and grandmothers didn’t know about God. Okay…understanding can certainly evolve over time, so maybe. Until you ask those mothers and grandmothers, who look at these young women like they’re crazy and say, “Well of course. We’ve always known that. Weren’t you listening?”

On the one hand, this sort of example makes me shake my head in dismay–why can’t we just learn from those who come before without thinking we’ve grown beyond them, that we’re better, more faithful, closer to Him than they could have been? It’s really kind of strange–we look to the first century church for so much wisdom and so many examples…but many people also just dismiss those early church fathers out of hand, unless their words were canonized in the Bible. Not named Paul, James, John, or Peter? Sorry, dude. Not interested.

And there’s still something relevant to this idea of “new knowledge.” It is new. New every morning, like His mercies. It’s new to us. We get to discover it every day, every year, every generation. More, we must discover it anew, for ourselves. We have to find that thing that makes us go “Aha!” and internalize it. That thing that makes the faith ours, not just theirs.

There’s truth there. But there’s opportunity for deception too. Because we need to understand what that possessive pronoun means. It’s ours, not just theirs…but NOT “ours, so not theirs.”

See the distinction?

Faith, Christianity, Truth itself is not like a shoe. One person owning it doesn’t mean another can’t. It’s more like…a planet. We can all live here. There’s room. We can occupy different parts, we can travel around, seeking to understand. One person can study one aspect, another a different one. It’s big enough, mysterious enough to accommodate all our curiosity.

But let’s not fall into the trap of saying, “Oh, no, you’re so wrong to describe it as mountains. Clearly it’s plains. God wouldn’t have done that.” Or, to go back to my original example, “Look at this waterfall I’ve discovered, that’s been completely unknown until now!” (And it turns out to be Niagara Falls.)

The faith is new every morning. Every generation. But it is also–MUST also be eternal. Otherwise, why would it have survived this long? The Truth we discover today is the same Truth Jesus preached. The same Truth that founded the Church. The same Truth that led Christians onward before there was even a Bible compiled. The same Truth people have been contemplating and writing about and preaching about all these centuries.

We need to learn anew each day what those before us have already learned. We can follow their examples, we can build on their work. We can discover new facets…but chances are, if you pick up a few ancient works, you’ll find those same facets already explored. Because He is new every morning–always relevant, always discoverable, so vast we’ll never comprehend all of Him–but He is also eternal. Unchanging. The same today as at the dawn of time.

He is new every day for us. But let’s remember He was new every day, in the same way, for them. For all who have come before, and for all who come after. Our faith is ours, but we don’t own it. If anything, it ought to own us.

Word of the Week Revisit – Fall, Autumn, and Harvest

by Roseanna | Sep 26, 2022 | Word of the Week

Original post published October 23, 2017

Saturday as the kids and I were driving Rowyn to a birthday party, they were observing that it was way too warm for fall, and all the trees were still green . . . and Xoë

then said, “I don’t like that we call it fall. It should be autumn. Why did we ever start doing that?”

I knew the basics, but they didn’t begin to satisfy my word-picky daughter (girl after my own heart! LOL), so since today is her birthday and this amazing girl is now 12 (should NOT be possible!), I figured I would do the word of her choice. =)

Not surprising, the primary meaning of fall–“a falling to the ground”–is as old as English itself, dating to Old English in the 1200s. The sense of “autumn” came along in the 1600s, a shortened version of the poetic “fall of the leaf,” a saying that originated round about 1540. In the 1600s, fall was used for the season in England quite often–I assume those English speakers who came to America used it, and it stayed in use here while it fell out of it in England, because these days only the US uses it.

Though let it be noted that autumn isn’t all that much older. Though a word in English from the late 1300s (from the French and the Latin, though its origins are a bit obscure), harvest was actually the word for the season until the 1500s, when autumn began to take over. So it appears that autumn only reigned for about a hundred years before fall entered the scene, and now both are used.

Interestingly, though words for the other seasons all seem to come from a common root across the Indo-European languages, autumn does not. There are a wide variety of words for it that have nothing in common–some that take their roots from “end, end of summer” ideas, and others from the colors that dominate the season, like red, still others with a meaning that hints at the beginning of winter.

Whatever you call the season, I hope you’re enjoying it as much as my autumn-born daughter does! Happy birthday, Xoë!

Xoë at her party yesterday, in Ancient Greek style–complete with a gold laurel crown.

Gone Writing!

by Roseanna | Sep 22, 2022 | Thoughtful Thursdays

It’s that time of year again! The time that I and my best friend/crit partner head out of our towns (1,000 miles apart), meet up at a cute little AirBnB somewhere or another, and do nothing but WRITE for a long weekend! That’s write, it’s Writing Retreat time!

What is a writing retreat?

I’ve shared about quite a few of our retreats over the years, but if you’re new to my world, you may be asking, “What in the world are you talking about? What’s a writing retreat?”

A writing retreat will look different depending on the people. Some people host large groups for a retreat, where there are dedicated times for fellowship, brainstorming, and writing. Sometimes writers will also set up a reader-interaction event to piggyback on their writing time. Others will spend some hours writing but also schedule time for reading, watching movies, or other creative endeavors.

But when Stephanie and I say “Writing Retreat,” what we mean is a long weekend in which we do NOTHING but write. We have no music, no television. When one of us has to take or make a phone call, we go outside so as not to disturb the other. We do brainstorm some, yes, and take daily walks. We chat over meals and at the end of each day. But the main goal of our retreat is to focus on the thing that is often so hard to get done in our everyday lives, with kids and families and community responsibilities all vying for our time: WRITING.

How long do you write a day on a writing retreat?

The beautiful thing about having a retreat with one other good friend who works mostly the same way you do, is that you can do your own thing and also complement each other’s scheduled. I tend to rise a bit earlier than Stephanie, which gives me time to do my Bible reading, clear out my email inbox, and then get my brain in gear. In general, I start my writing day at about 6:30 a.m. when I’m on retreat. We don’t usually wrap up our day until about 9 p.m. So my total writing time is 14-15 hours a day!

Now, that does include breaks for meals and at least one walk or jog a day, so don’t think we’re total couch potatoes! We find that those scheduled breaks, including one really good physical activity, gives our brains time to reset, work out any knots in our plot, and also gives us a chance to update each other on how everything’s going in our fictional worlds and brainstorm.

How much do you write on a retreat?

Our goal on a writing retreat is to hit 10,000 words a day.

To put that in perspective, my usual goal for a normal workday is 2,000 words. Most of my books are between 100-120,000 words. So if I have a 5-day retreat and hit or exceed my daily word count goal, that means I get just about half a book done in that one stretch of time!

Many days I can squeak out 11-12K in a day while on retreat. Other days I’m barely pulling myself over that 10K line at 10 p.m., when my brain is tired and ready for SLEEP.

What are your goals for this retreat?

This year, I’m in a slightly different place than usual. I’m usually working on a book already or have one plotted out to get started on retreat. This year, I just finished book 1 in a series and got the notes on it, but I haven’t yet fully worked out my plot for book 2. So while I like to start my retreat with a chapter-by-chapter outline in hand so I can just sit down and start pounding out words, this year I will be spending the first day or so of the retreat working first on a sample chapter for a project, and then outlining my next Imposters book so I can begin writing it. I hope to still have 3 good days to dedicate to book 2 in the Imposters series, A Noble Scheme. I don’t usually like to play it by ear so much, but it’s been a crazy summer, man, and I’ve been playing catch-up since July! I’ve decided to make use of this dedicated time by giving myself grace to use it as I need, not hold myself to decade-old expectations that no one but me requires of me. Still, my hope is to get that sample chapter done, my outline written, and then get about 30,000 words into my new book, which will get me to about 30% finished. If I manage more than that, I won’t complain! But if I come in a little short, that’s okay too. I really hope this weekend proves to be one of refreshing and inspiration above all.

How many writing retreats have you done?

Wait, did I just say decade-old? Gracious, that’s about right! My first writing retreat with Stephanie was when I was writing Circle of Spies, which came out in 2014, so I would have been writing it in 2013. Nine years! We’ve gotten together all but one of those years when Stephanie had a newborn, so very nearly a decade, yes! I’ve also done one retreat with a group of friends in North Carolina, and several “at-home retreats” where I either go to my parents’ house while they’re out of town (just during the days) or to our office or just my own desk, but with the caveat that no other work is to be done but writing.

I’m sure I’ll check on in social media during the retreat itself, posting updates on how much I’m getting done. If you’d like to follow along and cheer me on, keep an eye out on Facebook and Instagram!

Word of the Week – Legend

by Roseanna | Sep 12, 2022 | Word of the Week

Legend.

We all know what the word means…and my character Bram spends a lot of time in Worthy of Legend pondering what really makes someone worthy to be called a hero, worthy to have stories written and sung and remembered about him or her.

But have you ever paused to wonder about the word itself?

Legend has been around in English since the 1300s, and it originally meant “a narrative dealing with a happening or event.” It’s taken directly from French, which in turn traces back to Latin legenda, which is literally “a story,” especially of the saints. Stories of the lives of saints used to be read at matins and at religious houses, so these stories were called legends…”things to be read.” The Latin root is, not surprisingly, legere, “to read.”

Because it was used in English exclusively at first for lives of saints–full of wonderful and miraculous things–the word soon began to be used to describe mythological, unbelievable, non-historical events as well. I love, though, how closely related the unbelievable and the miraculous have been even in our vocabulary for so long.

What do you think makes someone worthy of legend?

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