Writing for magazines

As a freelance writer, I write for several publications, including Discipleship Journal and Today’s Christian Woman. Knowing this, reader Dianne had this question: ”How do you do research for ‘practical Christian living’ type articles? If you are not an ‘expert’ how do you put that ‘expert voice’ into your articles?”

This is a great question. A lot of people want to write. But in order to write, you need to have something to say. So often, the idea of being a writer is so appealing, until you have to actually gather your thoughts into something coherent, and then sit down and actually write, which is so much dang work.
Perhaps you do write, and you have lots of ideas. If you want to write for magazines, the first step is to read the magazines you’re like to write for. Study several back issues to determine the magazine’s style, format, topics. Figure out which magazines line up with the topics you want to write about. A magazine such as, oh, say, Practical Horseman, is not going to buy an article on resolving conflict in your marriage, no matter how well researched and written. An article that is perfect for People Magazine would likely be rejected by the Journal of the American Medical Association, no matter how intriguing or well-written. Research the magazines you are targeting.
An invaluable resource, if you are trying to write for the Christian market, is The Christian Writers Market Guide by Sally Stuart. Published annually, this book lists magazines, publishers, etc., and gives details ranging from whether they work with freelancers, how much they typically pay, what type of articles they are looking for, editors names, etc. There are tips on writing queries and articles. this year's edition also includes a CD-ROM which makes it easy to search.
Each magazine also will have its editorial guidelines, and an editorial calendar. (Often posted on their website or available by request). The guidelines give you rules for format and style and content. The calendar tells the topics or themes for each issue.
Magazine articles are not about you—they are about the reader. Your musings on a topic are not interesting, frankly, to anyone besides you (and perhaps readers of your blog, which is where that type of thing belongs—or in your own private journal—but that’s another topic). However, some articles begins with a story about you, and how you solved a problem in your own life. But they must move on to offer help to the reader to improve their life or solve a problem.

There are links on this blog to several other great sites that have more tips on writing. Or feel free to post a comment or questions by clicking on the word "comments" below.

Experience Africa

Just got back from a visit to Africa.

Well, actually, Naperville, IL, an affluent suburb about as different from Africa as you can imagine. But World Vision's traveling exhibit about Africa and AIDS was at a church there. What an amazing experience.

You can read more about it at www.boomerbabesrock.com/blog so click over and check it out.

then, visit World Vision's website and find out when this amazing interactive exhibit will be in your town. Make plans to go--you will not regret it.

book review

My book Listen was reviewed on a great blog, Unfinished Work, today. Click over and read the review, then leave a comment.

Postmodern parenting

Perhaps one of the most misunderstood words of our day is "postmodern." There are plenty of explanations of this term, and you can google it to your heart's content and find all kinds of different ideas.

But at the surface, break it down. "Post" as a prefix means "after."

The "modern" era was the machine age, an age of rationalism, when people basically believed that our knowlege and powers of rational thought would take us to, as that icon of modernity, Buzz Lightyear, proclaimed, "to infinity and beyond."

So postmodern means "after the modern era." Well, and a whole lot more.

Many conservative people tend to wring their hands a lot about postmodernism, as if it were a religion people sign up for, or a force of evil, like terrorism or oh, say, legalism.

Anyway, the fact is, because we live in the 21st Century, we live in the postmodern era. It is simply an observation about where we find ourselves on the timeline of human history. We live after the modern era, so it is now the post-modern era. Now, the term also encompasses the prevailing thinking of our day. And we can agree or disagree with some of the tenets of post-modernism, or not.

All to say, we have to live in this culture, where people around us often unwittingly ascribe to postmodern ideas. It is still very fluid and changing, which is indeed part of post-modernism--our desire to define things before they have even fully happened.

If we don't want our kids to simply absorb post-modern values by osmosis, we need to understand what those ideas are, and even to discuss them. To be informed and intentional as parents and as people.

As a parent, I want to be relevant and authentic. Writer Mary Demuth has provided a guide to help me achieve both with her new book Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture. I'm honored to be a part of her blog tour this week.

INTERVIEW WITH MARY
Welcome to Deep Breathing for the Soul, Mary. Let's start with an important question: How would you define the term "postmodern"?

Postmodernism is the waiting room between what used to be a modern worldview and what will be. According to several postmodern scholars, we’re in a shift right now, leaving modern ideas behind, but what we are shifting to is not yet fully defined. Postmoderns believe that rationalism and/or more education doesn’t necessarily create a better society. They typically don’t embrace the notion of absolute truth, though they reach for the transcendent. They are skeptical, and often question whether science is something to be embraced or feared.

Okay, how does this intersect with my parenting?

The question for parents is how will we mine the current worldview, even as it shifts? What in it can we embrace as biblical? What is not biblical? What I’ve seen in the church is a fearful adherence to what is familiar. So we cling to modern ideas, even though they may not be biblical and shun postmodern ideas even when they might be biblical. Our children will meet this shifting worldview no matter what our opinion of it is.

So as a mom, what can I do to help my kids?

Become a conversational parent. Talk to your kids. Listen. Share your story.Dare to believe that God has much to teach you through your kids. Be humble enough to learn from them.Create a haven for your kids, an oasis in your home that protects, supports, and gives kids space to be themselves. Take seriously the mandate that you are responsible for the soul-nurturing of your children.Teach your children to joyfully engage their world, while holding tightly to Jesus’ hand. Teaching this comes primarily from modeling it in your own life. Do you engage your neighbors? Are you more interested in God’s kingdom than your own? Admit your failures openly with your children, showing how much you need Jesus to live your daily life. You are the first to admit that being authentic might require a parent to apologize after an angry outburst.

So, authentic parents are real--they don’t always have it all together? We're allowed to make mistakes?

Yep! We are all frail, needy humans. If we present ourselves as perfect parents, never failing, always doing this correctly, we show our children we have no need of Jesus. We also set up a standard of perfection—that to be a Christian, one has to be perfect. This can lead to our children creating elaborate facades or hiding behind masks. I’d rather have my children see that even mommies make mistakes, and we all need Jesus every single day.You talk about the twin values of engagement and purity.

Well, that makes me feel good because my kids are highly aware that their mom is anything but perfect! But tell me more about these ideas of engagement and purity.

Many parents subconsciously believe that true parenting means protection at any cost. when we lived in France, we received a lot of flak for putting our children in French schools because the atmosphere there wasn’t exactly nurturing. Believe me, the decision was excruciating. But through it all, I realized that Jesus calls us all to be engaged in the culture we live in, yet not to be stained by it. That’s the beauty of engagement and purity. Abraham understood this. After God told him to leave everything and venture to a new place, he obeyed: “From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD” (Genesis 12:8). Oswald Chambers elaborates: “Bethel is the symbol of communion with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abraham pitched his tent between the two.” As parents journeying alongside our children through a postmodern world, this concept of pitching our tent between communion with God and engagement in the world should encourage us.

The book we've been discussing, Authentic Parenting in a Post-Modern Culture, by Mary DeMuth is available now. You can purchase your autographed copy directly from Mary at the link above. I highly recommend that you order it today!

speaking podcast

Back in May, on Mother's Day weekend, I had the privilege of traveling to Utica, NY, where I was the guest speaker at all three weekend services of Mount Zion Ministries chuch.
What a great community of people who love God.
My talk was about what moms need. I won't give it away, but validation and a sense of purpose were among the things I talked about.
Mount Zion podcasts most of their sermons, so mine is on their site. here's the link.
http://www.podshow.com/shows/index.php?mode=ext_detail&episode_hash=5a064391d865a30dfd80b8853718784a


If you're considering me as a speaker and want to hear a sample, listen in for a bit.

Reader questions

Thanks to MOPS International mailing out 110,000 copies of my book Breathe in May, lots of folks are reading it over the summer. And many of them have written to me with questions, observations, critiques. I really do appreciate hearing from everyone.

Here's one question that a reader posed, and since it's one that others have asked about as well, I thought I'd answer it here.

She asks: "I have a question about chapter 8... I am confused by the story of the Jewish girl named Naomi. I understand the beauty and focus of Shabbat however, I don't understand the piece about her getting a divorce. Why was this included in the book? The Jewish faith is rich in tradition but lacks the focus of Christ and divorce is the last resort in the Christian faith. I felt like I was missing something. I had to reread 3 times to see that I had not. I was left with confusion on why a Christian author and Christian organization (MOPS) would include something like this. We are doing a bible study on this book and are not sure how to explain this."

If you haven't yet read Breathe, it's about simplicity, slowing and Sabbath. It includes the true stories of real women. the chapter that includes Naomi's story is about Sabbath. Since Sabbath is a practice of both Jews and Christians (and frankly, a much richer tradition in the Jewish faith), and because Naomi has a compelling story, she agreed to be interviewed.

As a journalist, I don't get to decide the facts of people's lives. So Naomi's story is her story, not mine. I'm just conveying it, asking questions about the parts that interest me. I wanted to give a glimpse of her spiritual journey, which is in large part a Sabbath journey.

Other readers have asked why I'd include the story of a Jewish person in a Christian book. Well, the Bible is a Christian book and the overwhelming majority of its stories are about Jewish people. I'm not trying to be flippant, but it sometimes seems like we forget that the roots of the Christian faith are in Judiasm. And that Jesus was in fact Jewish. I'm not suggesting we convert to Judiasm, but only to be aware of and appreciate our faith heritage. To not be afraid of it.

I wrote back to this reader to remind her of that, and also, to try to address her question about divorce. Christians divorce at about the same rate as the general population. Perhaps we feel more guilt about it, but it does happen. And the reasons are never simple. But I included that fact in the book because it affected Naomi's life, especially her practice of Sabbath, which was the focus of the chapter. And God used that painful situation to draw her toward himself, and toward loving others. That's a step of growth in her journey.

Also, here's the thing about how I write--because I know myself to be stunningly imperfect, I prefer to tell stories of people who are real, people who don't have every little aspect of their life neatly boxed and shelved. Group leaders who've written to ask about Naomi and why she's in the book only made me question the other stories--were those people too perfect? While we need role models, we also need to know that no one, even role models, is perfect. Ife we think we can't learn from people who are in a different place spiritually, then the fact is we simply can't learn from people at all.

If you lead a group, don't worry so much about "how to explain" everything. Spiritual growth is less about figuring out the answers as figuring out which questions are even worth asking.

Think about Jesus. Did he typically "explain" things? Or did he answer people's questions with more questions?

I love Naomi, she's a friend and a treasure. She's on a spiritual journey just like the rest of us. She's asking questions, and I hope those questions resonate with readers.

Supper Swapping

Trish Berg, whose book The Great American Supper Swap I reviewed previously on this blog, will be talking about her book on TV today.
Catch her on The Harvest Show on Direct TV Channel 321 THIS TUESDAY August 7th at 9:00 am (replays 2 other times as well).

If you don’t have DirectTV, you can also watch online at www.harvest-tv.com if you wish.
Tune in if you can. Then visit Trish's website for some great tips on simplifying motherhood!

Urban adventures

I'm blogging on the Boomer Babes blog today about my urban adventures with our family this summer--rather than take a vacation, we visited Chicago numerous times.

Most recently, we were there for Venetian night, a free parade of decorated boats through Burnham Harbor, which draws about a half million spectators to Chicago's gorgeous lakefront. As we sat on the lakefront near the Shedd Aquarium that night, the moon rose, reddish in the evening sky. You can see the moon and the Shedd in the background of this photo of Scot and I. It was a night of family, friends and fun that we'll remember a long time.

Click on over to my post to see photos and read about other adventures we've enjoyed this summer--without having to travel more than an hour from our home.