Construction Zone - Woman at Work!

 

 

Construction Zone

            I’ve been under construction for some time now. I’m not talking about those constant minor repairs and changes that are part of every life. Rather I’m talking about major reconstruction requiring tearing out the old in order to make way for the new. This has included months of home renovation and remodeling, marriage, moving and selling the home I have lived in for the past twenty years. Lots of upheaval. Now that I’m finally done with those major changes, I’m hoping for some smooth sailing for a while, until I hit the next construction zone!

Patty's Principles

Principle #1:  The key you need is always in the pocket opposite your free hand!

Why is that?  It's like those socks that disappear in the dryer.  Somehow they are transported to sock heaven or wherever it is socks go that have lived a good life of service to those small, but oh so essential parts of our body, our feet. 

My keys morph from one side of my body to the other, eluding being caught as I shift multiple packages and bags in an effort to avoid having to put them down just to open my door.  In my trying to avoid a little extra work and save time I end up spilling the many items I am trying to balance and create more work than if I had just put them down to start with.  Such is life!

Hope everyone has a Happy Fourth of July!

Twenty Minutes of Whining

As a teacher, my policy is to never ask my students to do something I'm not willing to do myself. When I assigned a two week feelings journal to my Substance Abuse class many years ago, I figured I should do it as well. So for one summer I poured out my feelings into notebook for a couple months. At the end of the time I went back and read what I had written. What a whiner! I had never realized what a complainer I was.

The Psalms are full of complaints so I was in good company. I figured if I was going to whine, who better to complain to than God. Still, as you sow so shall you reap. Whining begat more whining. Did I really want to nurture this in me? Time for a change.

Then I read an article about Christopher Reeves, a true superman in his struggle to deal with his loss of mobility due to a spinal cord injury. When asked if he ever felt sorry for himself, he said he allowed himself twenty minutes of self-pity every morning. After that it was off limits. I had also heard about couples who allowed each other fifteen minutes to complain about their day when they get home each night and I thought, that's a good idea.

I know I don't always mange to cut out the whining, but I'm working on it. I give myself a limited amount of time to whine then I say that's enough, time to do something about what I'm wining about or let it go, move on to something more productive.

So how do you deal with whining?


Robertson, copyright June 2013

Wardrobe Picture

Picture of wardrobe from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, that I was unable to post before.  Learn something new ever day!  Picture courtesy of Tiffany Coulter.  Thank you, Tiff!

Adventures in Writing - Learning from Mistakes, part 2

Adventures in Writing - learning from mistakes, part 2


My first book, Daily Meditations (with Scripture) for Busy Moms, came out twenty years ago and was a small hit with sales exceeding my publisher's expectations. Had I known then what I know now, I would have parlayed that small success into a career in writing. However at the time I had been busy being a mom to three small children, full-time minister, and part-time student. I figured it was enough that the book had been published. I did a few small promos for the book and prepared a series of mini-retreats for moms which I did at local churches. Other than that I was much too busy to dirty my hands with marketing. After all, I was a writer not a marketer!

Book two, Daily Meditations for Busy Couples, was the book that had never been meant to be. A collaborative effort between a writer I had never met, the editor and me, its production was a tale of miscommunication and misunderstanding ending up with a book that misfired out of the gate and was discontinued after a year. Lesson learned: if you think collaborating with someone on a book will be easier than writing it yourself, think again. If you don't have time to spend in communicating clearly and consistently with those involved, then maybe you should not be collaborating.

My third and fourth books failed to reach the level of success of the first. One on the Rosary, The Rosary: Worry Beads for Anxious Parents, and the other for parents of teens, They do Grow Up: Parents and Teens Talk, they never reached a wide market, leaving me wondering, have I blown my opportunity? Have I gone from promising writer to a one hit wonder?

Add to this my book on the first five years of marriage that never made it to publication. With contract in hand I had feverishly wrote, pouring out on paper all I had learned about marriage from my years of ministry, my training in counseling and from my divorce. I finished well ahead of deadline, submitted it to my editors where it was torn apart. In my haste I had submitted what was essentially only a second draft rather than a finished product, a beginner's mistake.

Now as I prepare for yet another venture into the world of publishing I have been seeking out people to read my works before I send them out and I've enlisted the help of a copy-editor, an expense I never would have considered before. And I wonder - what new mistake am I making????

So you tell me, what have you learned from experience that might help me in my next venture?



Robertson copyright June 2013

The Wardrobe at Wheaton

The Wardrobe at Wheaton

            I browsed the crowded dining room, tray in hand, looking for someone from the conference to sit with, when I saw the speaker from the previous night sitting by himself. Ordinarily I would never have been so bold as to sit with a speaker from a conference but he had been so humble and disparaging in his comments, it almost seemed like I was doing him a favor by joining him so I sat down.  As he prepared to leave he mentioned in a casual aside.

            “By the way, the wardrobe from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is on display at the Wade Center if you are interested.”

            “The what?”

            “The wardrobe.”  Surely he didn’t mean the actual wardrobe that had inspired C.S. Lewis to write his children’s classic.  Most likely it was a facsimile, I thought, but I had to check it out.

            Sure enough, there in a room just off lobby of the Wade Center stood the wardrobe for all to see.  No entrance fee, it didn’t stand behind glass but was front and center where not only it could be touched, the door could be opened revealing fur coats.  I wanted to climb in.

            This encounter was but a sidebar during an eventful week full of new information and new people at the Write to Publish Conference at Wheaton College outside of Chicago, yet as I look back and try to digest all that happened, it stands out as a significant sidebar.  My son and I had enjoyed reading through all of the Chronicles of Narnia once my daughters were in bed.   It had been our time, a chance for Dan to have mom all to himself without the competing demands of twin sisters   As a family we had watched the PBS versions, eagerly awaiting each new movie.  In my former office and now in my living room hangs a picture inspired by the last book in the series, The Last Battle, with Aslan standing at the door which opens to a new world and the words, Don’t Look Back, imprinted on top.

            As I explore further the world of writing and my possible place in it, the wardrobe invites me to enter new worlds, to try out new adventures, to move forward and not look back, to go deeper, whatever that may mean.

            What about you?  Are you being called to something new, a new adventure or perhaps to go deeper into what you are already doing?

Copyright June 2013 Robertson

Finding and Following Your Passion???

Graduates through the nation are being told, “Follow your passion.” But what if your passion is to do God’s will? That leaves you with a broad range of possibilities. I love writing but I love God more. I love writing precisely because I experience God through writing. I feel close to God when I am creating. I love teaching and preaching and counseling, but do so only because I believe that is what God wants me to do.

Since losing my position last July I’ve yet to receive a memo from the guy in the sky in regards to what to do next. If my passion were to write, then I would pursue a course of writing, no holds barred. If it were for teaching, I’d have sent out even more applications then I have. If my passion were for counseling, I’d have put out my shingle and see what I got. If my passion were for community organizing, I’d have pursued a position at one of the many non-profits in my community where I have connections. But my passion is to do what I believe God wants me to do so I’ve pursued each of these possibilities trying to see if that is the direction God is leading me in, holding none too tightly, pursuing none with a passion, and perhaps that is why nothing has come to the surface.

Seeking to do God’s will requires an openness to wherever God may be calling; it requires confronting life with open palms, not grabbing tight to any chance dream that may surface. It requires slowing down to consult God about any course of action, going forward, pursuing possibilities, allowing the question – is this the right direction? It requires waiting for direction, but not sitting still, doing nothing for sometimes God speaks in the doing as well as the stillness.

It’s been nine months and I’m still waiting for direction. I continue to send out resumes and complete job applications. I continue to send out manuscripts hoping for that one that will catch fire and let me know that now is the time to write full time. I meet with individuals for spiritual direction and grief counseling and organize community events, all the while wondering what will show up. Meanwhile God seems to be telling me I’m doing okay, stay the course, use this time of unemployment well to prepare for whatever future life has in store for me.

So I wait.

What is your passion?



Copyright May 2013 Robertson

Writing 2012

I wrote this in January of this year but waited to post it until I felt ready to devote sufficient time to blogging.  Since then little has changed.  2013 is looking a lot like 2012.  So I thought I would go ahead and post now.

Writing 2012


In 2012 I had one article accepted for publication.

4 book proposals rejected. 4 articles rejected. May not sound like a lot but given that it takes months before you hear back on a submission and the places I sent to do not accept multiple submissions, it’s a long slow process just to get a rejection.

One query letter still waiting for a response. Two articles waiting for a response and one pamphlet.

One book manuscript still under consideration since November of 2011. Did I say it’s a long slow process?

I almost had an agent only to have him retire. However on the plus side he is helping me get to the point of getting an agent.

I didn’t know whether to be encouraged or discouraged when I read about one writer who went through three agents before getting a book published.

Such is the life of a writer.

Adventures in blogging

I’m not much of a blogger. I’ve come into this in a back handed way. My first effort was to publish one of my novels one chapter at a time with the idea that it would go viral and result in a real publishing deal. I put out one chapter and when there was no demand to continue posting chapters I gave this up.

When years later I decided to try blogging again, I discovered the blog site pattynicnac had already been claimed. How dare they! I had forgotten about my earlier attempt. The person who had stolen my blog site was an earlier version of me.

So then, preachingthepsalms.blogspot was born. I had started a preaching series on the Psalms and thought I would share this on-line with the thought there might be other ministers who might want to try this as well and would benefit from my musings much as I had benefitted from sermons and sermon suggestions at other web-sites. I was already doing the work of writing the sermon. It wouldn’t take much effort to put them on-line, I thought.

This came to an abrupt halt when my position as chaplain was eliminated, taking with it my need to come up with weekly sermons. Time to revise and revisit what I was doing on this blog.

In the meantime, a helpful post by Meghan Ward, Networking for Introverts: 10 Blogging Tips for Authors, let me know I had been doing everything wrong. “Don’t bore people by posting long chapters of your work.” Don’t post on your blog anything you want to have published as publishers will consider it already published. Keep your posts short and engage your reader. So much for my novel and sermons. Fortunately, very few logged on to read my posts so I figured little harm had been done.

So here I am, learning from my mistakes. Is there any other way to learn? If there is please tell me. I must be the wisest of women for I have made enough mistakes.

I’m trying it again. Maybe this time I’ll get it right.

Oh, and always leave your reader with a thought provoking question to engage them in your blog.

What have you learned from your mistakes?




Copyright Robertson May 2013

What's In a Name?

What’s In a Name?

            St. Mary Grade School.  First Grade.  Sr. Rosarita sends one of her students to Sr. Stella’s third grade class.  Her mission:  to procure a pair of scissors.

            Sr. Stella, happy at the interruption, stops her class and asks the student her name.

          “My real name is Patricia but my nick nack name is Patty.”  The class broke into laughter, much to my chagrin.  I had no idea what they were laughing at.  The nick nack had come from the childhood song, This Old Man, “with a nick nack paddy whack give the dog a bone.”  Seemed right to me.   My brother sat in the back of class trying to hide from embarrassment.  From that time on I was PattyNickNack to the third grade class.

But what’s in a name?  A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, Shakespeare tells us.  I like my name.  I like that it is adaptable to my various moods and life stages, unlike others who don’t want anyone messing with their names.

“It’s one thing that is mine and can’t be taken away from me,” an elderly woman I visited explained when I dropped the Lou off her name, Abby Lou.  Life had taken so much from her over the years.  She would have no shortened version.

We have a tendency to like to give people names; it’s a way of showing affection or a bond.  It can also show you belong to a certain “in-group,” like knowing the password for a secret club.  Children routinely give each other nicknames, sometimes affectionately, other times with the meanness of childhood.     

God has no qualms about messing with our names.  God routinely changed names of those He had called.  Abram’s name was changed to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, Simon became Peter, and Saul became Paul.  A name change often marked a life change or conversion.

 As a child I was Patty.  When I went to college I wanted to put childish things behind so I changed my name to the serious, gender neutral, sexually ambiguous, Pat. Practical Pat I was.  I ventured into places my female counterparts didn’t dare.  I attended Vicariate meetings where I was the sole woman amidst a room full of priests and deacons.

            As I got older I decided to reclaim my femininity with Patricia.  Patricia--patrician, of noble birth and bearing.  I liked the sound of that.  No-one would mistake Patricia for a male based solely on the name.  No more jokes about the tele-evangelist Pat Robertson.

            “You look different on t.v.”

“Yes, the camera adds ten pounds.”

And so my name has changed as I have changed.

           When I needed an email address and found that probertson and every variation thereof had already been taken, rather than add an abundance of numbers to distinguish myself from all of the other probertsons in the world, I went back to my childhood nick name.  Sure enough, I was the only pattynicnac on yahoo.  And so I’ve come full circle.  Perhaps there shall be more name changes as I continue to grow and change, perhaps not. 

            This blog is meant to be about the odds and ends that are part of any life, the knick-knacks that decorate the edges of our life, giving it character and color.  It will include random thoughts on life and on writing.  I invite you to join me in this exploration, adding your own thoughts, the pieces that are fun as well as sad, as we pass through this journey called life.

            So tell me, what's in your name?