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