What You Are? -- August 29, 2008

As I grow older I have discovered that I have changed. No, not just the extra weight and the gray hair (I actually like to think I'm going back to the blond I was when I first entered this world) but in a number of areas.

I used to accept anything that anyone told me as "gospel"; I had a very narrow view of life; and work was something you had to do to get the money you needed to pay the bills you had to have in order to have the things that made for life...in other words work was a necessary evil.

For a number of years I have been putting a lot of thought into what kind of job I would like to do and how could I find this mythical "Nirvana". I have discussed this with a number of close friends and I have spent a good amount of time in prayer, seeking God's council.

One tool I have been using is quite interesting.

To start I have to bring to the foreground, once and again, Kim and my friends from the little hamlet of Heston, KS., Greg and Kelly. These two people have become a sounding board for my inner man. They fired my heart to write, they challenge my walk with the Lord, and they introduce me to the most wonderful books!

One such book is "Do What You Are", a book written by Paul Tieger and Barbara Barron.

This book expands the age old receipt for finding that elusive "perfect" career form just what are you good at and what do you want to do? to include your personality type or type.

How you are wired can also affect what career would be best for you. Are you a person who loves excitement and thrills? You probably would not be happy being a number crunching accountant. Are you shy and retiring? Perhaps the accounting job would be quite appealing to you.

To determine this they help you to take the Briggs Meyer personality test. The amazing thing about this process, if you are honest in answering the questions, is that it is remarkably accurate! It pegged me, if not 100%, 90% for sure. It's sort of freeing when you stop for a moment and take a look at yourself, who you are as a person.

We can mold ourselves into being who we have to be for the sake of our careers and that can have an impact on how you answer the questions, but if you follow the authors' advice you can get remarkably close to who you are personality-wise.

The authors brilliantly but gently guide you through the process of finding your personality type. They are most accurate! I was surprised.

This is as far as I have come so far. I will update you with more later.

Oh, in case your wondering about my personality type: I am an INFJ...

:-)

Sail on with the Lord fighting the good fight as you travel the path He has placed you on.

Post Post -- August 18, 2008

 

I want to update you on a couple of items.

1)  Alyssa did get her license and has been driving (oddly enough) and due to her being a girl AND getting good grades, our insurance will only go up $20\month. THat is good news indeed!

2) The kids are registered for school and they start Wednesday.

3) I read Kelly's blog the other day and I was SHOCKED to learn they started school LAST Tuesday! WOW!

I am almost done with the study in the book of James for Sunday School. It has been a good class but challenging for me (I hope for the others as well, but it has been for me for sure!)

Now that I will be off the teaching schedule for a while I am doing a study in John and I am trying to get my hands firmly around doctrine. I want to understand doctrine better.

What I really want to achieve is to become a better thinker.  But I am not doing this just to gain knowledge. Knowledge by itself can puff up and make one arrogant. My desire is to understand God's word better, apply it to my life so I can better server those around me.

Keep fighting the good fight, know God and obey the Word.

Evermore Update -- August 1, 2008

Wow! I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around a few realities lately.

1) My little girl will turn sixteen in two weeks and, along with that distinction, will join the ranks of licensed drivers! Now there are a few benefits with having another driver in the family and they are: a) My wife and I don't have to drive her all over the globe to get her to all the activities she is or will be involved in; b) We have another driver to run to the store for us when my wife forgets items on her grocery list that she absolutely needs for the new recipe she's experimenting with (Maybe this is NOT a bonus feature! :-)); d) She will be able to take her brother to his events as well! All in all there will be more freedom for one and all in the Larson household very soon.

2) I can't believe it's already August. This year has gone by so fast! Where does the time go and why do I perceive time going faster the older I get? I know I'm not the only one because others in my age bracket, and older, tell me the same thing. Does this phenomena mean that as we get older we have less time to get things done???

3) Logan will want to turn away at this point because I will be using the "s" word. School is about to begin again! This does not directly affect me but it certainly seems the summer break just started and now we're gathering supplies for the upcoming school year.

4) Logan will be in 8th grade ( a senior in Junior high) and Alyssa will be...a JUNIOR in high school! WOW! This relates to No. 2 above.

Now to Evermore. The last couple of days I have been revamping the story idea I had been working on a month or so back, you know BF (Before Flood) but I had set it aside in light of other new story ideas that came to my attention.

During our little vacation this year I purchased a book called "The First Draft in 30 Days". It's a guide to getting the first draft of your novel out in a thirty day period. I am not naive enough to believe you can do a novel in thirty days, and indeed the author soothes my anxiety by telling me that I am not a failure if it takes 60 or 90 days. (I guess if it takes 91+ days I am a failure?? :-)) But what this book has helped me to do is to get better organized and move me to keep working on one project at a time. When new ideas pop up, write down the idea(s) and then get back to your original work.

For the most part Evermore has not changed a great deal but the changes that I have started incorporating require some rewriting of what I already had written.  Since I only had about eighteen pages done I am just considering starting over with the new changes in place. There are a number of paths I was taking with the characters that I am now reevaluating with these new ideas.

That's all there is right now. See you all later and have a Godly weekend.

This Week in My History -- July 23, 2008

 

It has been a most unusual week. To start with Kim's grandfather passed away last Tuesday and we did quite a bit of traveling for the funeral and the burial. Though it was a sad time it was refreshing to spend time with the family.

We have also been struggling mightily with financial problems and I had resigned myself to the fact that God was going to let us flounder because we have brought most of it on ourselves anyway. This is not a knock on God's love or His care for us but I simply thought I was paying the consequences for poor decisions.

But the last couple weeks I have seen His hand in tangible ways. For instance as we were heading to the burial site on Sunday our van broke down about one mile from Belle Plain, Ia at about 11:30 am.

We were caravanning so there were people with us but it was Sunday.

We discovered there was a gas station that could come help us. The man had a battery pack that we hooked onto the van and I was able to get to the station. He looked at the battery and discovered the alternator was not charging and he could not get one until the next day.

We had to have my in-laws come to Cedar rapids with us because we did not have enough space to fit all our luggage and ourselves.

I figured it would be around $200-$250 for the repair and I had just enough to cover the cost actually in my wallet. When I called to get the price I was was stunned to find out it was $365.00! I did not have that much, or so I thought.

A black cloud formed in my heart as I also discovered we also had an unexpected $500 bill. things were not looking good at all. I turned to the Lord in a very Davidic way asking why He was letting us get farther into trouble when we had been working so hard to get out this mess! I was a mess and we had company! I couldn't hide I had to be a good host though I thought my heart was going to burst form anxiety!

I went to find out what we had in savings and low and behold we had $400! Praise the Lord! That would cover the cost fully!

I came home yesterday, Tuesday,  to discover I had a "Thank you" from my company for the role I played in the flood efforts and that "thank you" has helped us pay off a couple of bills that were taking their toll on our finances. What a great and unexpected praise! I never doubted the Lord was good but I did not think He would intervene in this way! He is so good!

The reason I added the times into my story above is to show God's timing:

It was Sunday. Rarely will you find a service station open at all let alone on Sundays.

The station closed at noon on Sundays. We broke down one mile from the station at 11:30.

I thought we were out of money but we had enough to cover the cost of the repairs!

And finally the "thank you" from work! Like a cool rain after a hot sticky day...SO refreshing!

It has not solved all of our woes but it so very helpful in a tough time! So cool! God's timing is perfect! I maintain that money will not solve all of your problems but when you can get control of it the stress levels in your life are so much less! Praise the Lord for His steadfast goodness!

Never fail to trust the Lord! He will always be with you whatever the circumstances!

A Big Step for A Little Writer --July 15, 2008

Well, I did it! Another big step for this little writer.

I submitted an article to a publisher, Tranquil Living.

The article was an instructional piece on how to journal. If my article is chosen, I will a whole lot closer to my retirement goal. In fact, I will be $24.00 closer. That's right! You read it correctly! $24.00! I look at it this way: If I were $24.00 away from making my first million, if chosen, I would, sniff, have obtained my goal of making my first million dollars.

the biggest problem with this line of thinking is that I have never had a goal to make my first million so it really doesn't matter but if it did matter I would be that much closer!

My real goal is to get better at writing so that submitting articles for publication and being accepted by the publisher will become a regular source of income. that would be cool and is a goal I am shooting for, even if it's just part time.

Since I submitted it to a publisher I am not sure if it's available at the usual Helium.com or not but go a head and check it out and let me know what you think. I need good constructive criticism if I'm to grow so feel free to "criticize"!

Bye for now.

Preening in Pride -- July 11, 2008

I finished my second article today, finally. It took me longer than I expected because I want to make each new article better than the last. So I went to work rewriting and rewriting. I wondered if I was being too picky but I was not happy with the article when I finished the first copy but I did like my idea so I went paragraph by paragraph, yes even sentence by sentence and rewrote the whole thing.

I don't say it's award winning but I enjoyed writing it so much and I think I did alright.  I will have to see how good a rating it gets.

Though I still struggle with stretching out plot lines beyond the first twenty pages, I still can not get the excitement of building a world, a character, a plot...a story that stirs my heart! But as my article indicates, I have one enemy that I must face and defeat...Complacency.

I let complacency rule and it is squashing my work. It's time to draw the sword of discipline!

TO BATTLE!--

Fare thee well, fellow warriors!

Not Much for Updates

It has been a surreal time in my life with everything that has happened around here and that is my excuse for lack of writing. In my opinion there is never a good excuse for not writing. I find that I regret the times that I don't write.

I have started an article about the craft of writing that I still need to get published on Helium.com but it is not ready yet.

I felt...awkward writing about writing having never been published but the more I thought about it the more I was convinced that even though I have not been published ( yet! :-) ) I still have enough experience to add my two cents' worth so I wrote and am now rewriting and hopefully will post it soon.  You will note a powerful weapon to beat back the monsters that attack a writer during the creative process but you will need to read the article to get the answer! (Pretty good marketing, huh?!)

I have another idea for a story that I am toying with and it has been fun but I have not have not put much time into it yet. Lots of ideas and so much procrastination!

This is it for now, see you later!

Bye!