SW:2012 Day 2

Well, another amazing day, as usual!!

Today I started my day with a student-led  Bible study, led by Daniel Beals. He read out of Mark, and was talking about how Jesus needs to be the center, and the purpose, of our writing, but how it shouldn't be a blatant message, but more of just a subtle existence.  I suppose he summarized it best when he quoted Frances of Assisi in saying, "Preach Jesus, and if you must, use words."

After that was breakfast, then another very good session by Prof. Mark Wilson, in which he was talking about how we as young people growing up in today's culture often let our curiosity die, and how that can cause so many problems in our lives as effective witnesses for Christ.

Following Prof. Wilson was Mr. Gerke again, speaking on description in your novels. He had us do several  exercises to help us learn how to effectively describe our character's surroundings without overwhelming our readers with random, meaningless information.

Then it was lunch-time again, and I joined Eli and Mr. Tony (his dad) for another enjoyable lunch, and then it was time for critique groups!  I gathered my Stingrays around me and we settled in with our sodas and our pens and began.

As usual, everyone had wonderful excerpts! I really dislike my excerpts, but so far everyone has loved them....leaves us at something of a disconnect, but we've had a great time! Eli had me nearly in tears today with his excerpt from his most recent story idea. I'm again amazed at the talent that abounds here! Every one of the stories in my group is just...incredible. We have two westerns that transport you immediately back to the 1800s, where everyone wears boots and carries a gun, and the only option other than riding a horse was walking. For those of you who don't write, and/or haven't read much for western novels - this is very tricky! Western is one of those genres that often feels 'put on,' and it's difficult to make it feel real, but these two individuals did a great job!

After critiques we had about a half hour before dinner, so I went back to the dorm and laid down for a while. I feel great, but the short nights have been catching up with me during the sessions! Then, I joined Eli and Mr. Tony (seeing a pattern!?) for dinner.  We ate quickly (a bad habit that both Eli and I have down pat) we skedaddled outside to give Eli a crash-course in photography. He just got a new, very nice, camera but doesn't know much about photography.  Hannah is very proficient, and I.......well, I get lucky sometimes!  :)  We spent almost an hour and a half out there, just snapping random pictures and chatting and having a grand old time!

We were having such a grand time, in fact, that we nearly forgot about evening sessions! We rushed back to the Bell Center at ten minutes to 7, and found our places shortly before Mrs S came out and introduced our evening speaker, the honorable Mr. Jeff Gerke! This evening he was talking to the authors of Christian Speculative Fiction (basically, Fantasy/Sci-Fi/other worlds, etc) and how to make the story world real to your authors, like Middle Earth, in Lord of the Rings, or Narnia, in The Chronicles of Narnia. Even though I'm not writing a Speculative novel, I found some very helpful tips for my story, making sure that my character's world is real to my reader.

He finished up around 8:30 or so, and then we headed down to the Tipping Lounge, as we have dubbed it, to hang out. I ended up getting to have an awesome discussion with Eli about my battle with cancer, and my journey through it. He knew the basics (Hannah was really sweet and kept everyone updated while I was in the hospital and recovering, until I could update them again myself!) but hadn't heard much, and hadn't talked with me about it at all.  To my delight, he asked me to write an article about it for his magazine, which I've contributed to several times, Kingdom Pen. So...I get to do that before July 15th...which won't be a problem.  I'm actually really excited about it!

Well, that's about it...here's some of this evening's pictures, for your viewing pleasure!

Semper Fi

Random yellow fire hydrant and trees...I just thought they looked cool!

Again..random, cool-looking stuff...trees this time

You know me, I love flags.  This one, the lighting didn't come out quite how I wanted, but it's still pretty awesome!

Same flag, this time including the Eagle statue beneath it.  I thought it was really neat!

This is the Admissions building..nothing special, except for the cool trees surrounding the entrance

Hannah and Eli just...picturing

Um...yeah. A bench. 

Sir Eli himself.  Hannah took this one

This light actually lights a really cool statue of a family praying next to a plow.  I loved the flag in the background, though, so... :)

Eli, again, with his camera. Also, this was Hannah again. I was making a run back to the dorm for fresh batteries

The chapel steeple. Again, Hannah.

Also Hannah... Well, technically, it's a leaf.  :D

Eli and I, talking about......something!

And the legendary Mrs. S!!  I took this during one of the afternoon sessions today.