Tag: Memoir

Devotional: A Personal Writing Mission Statement

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I am currently attending the East Texas Christian Writer’s Conference at East Texas Baptist University in Marshall, Texas. Yesterday at the conference we received a two-part challenge. First, “as Christian writers” write a “personal writing mission statement”. Second, share it with someone to get their response. Well, I always do my homework on time. I’m sharing what I wrote with you …

My personal writing mission statement:

• sharing Jesus Christ and his teachings with an emphasis on the application of His lessons to everyday life,
• encouraging the development of poets and writers, and
• promoting appreciation of the liberal arts.

Writer’s Life : My Writing Report Card

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My writing report card for July: I was rejected by: Poetry Magazine, The New Yorker, and Asimov’s Science Fiction. I was accepted by: vox poetica. The poem Urban Pigeons will be in their August 26, 2012 issue. I had a book review in this month’s Front Row Lit magazine. I have four submissions currently pending with other publications. Note – you will never get rejected … or accepted if you don’t write and submit.

Poem: Starting High School

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Starting High School

In San Francisco it’s the summer of love,
Long haired hippies, peace signs and doves.
In Viet-Nam the soldiers are dying,
Back home their families are crying,
And Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play.

Jim wants to “Light My Fire”,
While Grace’s rabbit only flies higher.
The evening news shows the war isn’t cool,
This week I started high school,
And “All You Need Is Love” is what The Beatles say.

Written by Jimmie A. Kepler
Schertz, Texas, August 1967

The photo is Grace Slick. She is an accomplished artist. The artwork is hers.

Note: This is the oldest poem I have written by me. It was in notebooks and papers my mother recently gave me. Aren’t mothers good and keeping things and then later in life returning them?

I wrote this poem as a freshman at Samuel Clemens High School in Schertz, Texas. Impressing my English teacher was challenging. The assignment was to write a paper on “What I did on my summer vacation”. Instead, I wrote about what was happening in popular culture. She called me a “beatnik poet weirdo”. It was a compliment! I gave in writing five pages of drivel avoiding a grade of “F” on the job.

Poem: By the Big Creek

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By the Big Creek

I was hiking
By the big creek
On an summer day
In the bright sun
It was so hot
And I was all alone

Lost in my thoughts
My foot struck the pathway
To the cadence
Of the music
I was listening to
On my iPod

By the big creek
There were people
Reading signs saying keep right
And a concrete path
With city dwellers walking
To and fro

Lovers hand in hand
And it all made sense
Except for the litter
On the big creek’s banks
While across the way
Was a broken down barbed-wired fence

In the bright sun
Not a cloud in the sky
There was sweat on my brow
Running down my temples
As an old lady walked by
And she smiled at me showing her dimples

It was so hot
I drank some water
Lots of cool water
And the temperature
Was 110 degrees
And that was in the shade

Lost in my thoughts
My foot struck the pathway
To the cadence
Of the music
I was listening to
On my iPod

While I was hiking
By the big creek
On an summer day
In the bright sun
It was so hot
And I was all alone

© 2011
Jimmie A. Kepler

Review: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

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First published in 1995, Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott is as relevant today as the day it was published. The book has become the definitive how-to guide for new and aspiring writers. The book has been a national best seller and continues to have excellent sales. As of today (5/30/2012), seventeen years after publication it still ranks #512 on Amazon.com’s overall best sellers rank. More amazingly it ranks:

#1 in Books > Education & Reference > Words, Language & Grammar > Speech
#1 in Books > Education & Reference > Writing, Research & Publishing Guides > Writing > Journalism & Nonfiction
#5 in Books > Education & Reference > Writing, Research & Publishing Guides > Writing > Writing Skills

An entertaining and helpful guidebook that covers every step of the writing process, the reading of Bird By Bird has become something of an initiation for hopeful writers. Anne drives home the point of the need for regular writing and facing the fact that getting published will almost certainly not make you more contented, wealthier or good-looking.

Her book’s genesis comes from the notes of the lectures Lamott delivers to her writing classes. The book begins the way all writing classes do – sit down and write. Write, write, and write and the revise and rewrite before you worry about agents, book titles, etc. She reminds us to sit at our computer, bring up our word processing program, stare at the screen and write. She gives practical advice of not looking at the size of the task, but viewing it as a series of small assignments.

Lamott investigates the depths of both the formal elements of writing such as plot, character development, dialogue, setting, point of view and the less concrete but infinitely more injurious obstacles facing a writer, that is acceptance the “shitty first draft” and killing the perfectionist inside you standing between you and your shitty first draft. She talks in practical terms about defeating writer’s block and what to do when you have crises of faith. She talks about finding a sturdy soul to read your “shitty” draft and not being devastated when the reader has more than a few suggestions. She also touches on the subject of learning to deal with professional jealousy, a bound to happen fate “because some wonderful, dazzling successes are going to happen for some of the most awful, angry, undeserving writers you know — people, who are, in other words, not you.”

Bird By Bird isn’t all that ground-breaking a book. I have read similar works providing insights on the writing life by authors Annie Dillard and Natalie Goldberg. Yet, ask anyone in the position to make a comparison and more likely than not they’ll say Bird By Bird surpasses all. “What, then, is it about Bird By Bird that strikes a chord with so many readers and writers?” to quote a question asked by reviewer Sarah Brennan.

Anne Lamott’s advice is all harvested from personal experience. Her guidance is so caring and keen and so good-naturedly explained it’s easily employable. I agree again with Sarah Brennan that “ultimately, it’s her uncanny and self-effacing humor, natural, unaffected tone and anecdote-as-life-lesson adeptness that make Bird By Bird such an effective teaching device. Hers is a refreshingly conversational, approachable, enjoyable didacticism that leaves you with the feeling that 1) if you were to meet Lamott, you’re pretty sure you would be instantaneous best friends 2) however far you descend into the pits of frustration, self-loathing and despair, the writing life is worth it.”

Anne Lamott gives us all hope as she shares, “Even if you only show the people in your writing group your memoirs or stories or novels, even if you only wrote your story so that one day your children would know what life was like when you were a child and you knew the name of every dog in town — still, to have written your version is an honorable thing.” It would be fun to sit down for a day and talk and laugh with Anne Lamott.

Rule Number Two – Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital

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Tales of the fearsome camel spider are told throughout Iraq. In truth, it is about the size of a human hand, and it is quite fast. It runs at five miles an hour, sometimes even more, determined to stay in a newfound shadow – a slow-moving Humvee, for example, or a clinical psychologist on her way back to her barracks from the shower.

Rule Number Two: Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital is a first-hand account of seven months with a Marine Corps surgical company, immersed in Iraq, earth-shaking artillery rounds, and the all-encompassing desert. Dr. Heidi Squier Kraft chronicles the “good-egg days” and “bad-egg days”, orange sunsets and red sunrises, and the feeling of long-sleeved combat fatigues in 132 degree heat. She deployed to Iraq with less than two weeks notice, leaving fifteen month old twins at home. Rule Number Two conveys the agonizing experience of a mother separated from her children – and the ways that people help each other through unimaginable situations.

More than anything else, though, Kraft’s story is about a sense of awe at the soldiers who were brought to her combat hospital – some with severe injuries from battle, and others bearing wounds no surgeon could uncover – and the painful truth of the two rules of war, as told in the television show M*A*S*H: rule number one is that young men die, and rule number two is that doctors can’’t change rule number one.

Heidi Squier Kraft received her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of California-San Diego School of Medicine in 1996. She joined the Navy during her internship and served as both a flight and a clinical psychologist. She left active duty in 2005 after nine years in the Navy and now serves as the deputy coordinator for the U.S. Navy Combat Stress Control Program. She lives in San Diego with her husband and children.

My Father’s Secret War: A Memoir

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My Father’s Secret War: A Memoir is the best book I’ve read in a long time. This is no surprise being written by Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Lucinda Franks. It reads more like a novel, than a memoir.

The book is both an intellectual search for an understanding of her father’s secret past as a spy in World War II as well as a heart-wrenching story of the complexities of the author’s relationship with him. What makes this book so very compelling is the honesty and poetic telling of naked truths in a truly real family drama. Everything is here: burning hatred and welcome forgiveness, love’s disappointments, parent’s failings, alcoholism, psychological torture, adultery, rebellion, revelation and resolution.

We care deeply as the author so desperately searches to understand why her relationship with her father had changed from childhood adoration to hatred, because of his alcoholic withdrawal. This is a universal story of every daughter’s struggle to know and forgive her father as he ages and declines. This author’s telling is unbelievably poignant. A must read!

Source: http://www.keplersmilitaryhistorybookreviews.com/2008/06/my-fathers-secret-war-memoir-by-lucinda.html

Love My Rifle More Than You

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Love My Rifle More Than You by Kayla Williams is about being a young female in the US Army and her deployment to Iraq for a year with the 101st Airborne.

Kayla Williams was an Arabic linguist. Thirty-four years ago, I came off active duty as an US Army officer. Ms. Williams’s book made me reflect back to all the women soldiers I worked with, lead, and knew.

This is a good military memoir. While grit and rough language are on almost every page, what shines through is an intelligent young woman serving her country and putting up with all a woman experiences in the military. It appears little has change since back in my day.

We learn of her role as an Arabic linguist. She tells us how she feels her skills could have been used better with direct contact with the population as oppose to routine intelligence gathering. Particularly interesting are her experiences with leadership while in Iraq as well as her questioning the war in Iraq’s day-to-day conduct without looking at the logic and underlying rationale.

On the light side – her tale of the birth control glasses is funny, but true. Put those military black framed Drew Carey or Woody Allen styled glasses on any man or woman and instantly they are effective birth control. Why? They make people unattractive thus scaring off members of the opposite sex. It is a book worth reading.

Source: http://www.keplersmilitaryhistorybookreviews.com/2008/06/love-my-rifle-more-than-you-by-kayla.html

Writer’s Life: Thinking and Liberal Arts Curriculum

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Albert Einstein said, “The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks.

“My undergraduate education is a liberal arts education. My major was history and my minors were English and military science. My Master of Arts degree is in Religious Education. My broad-based liberal arts education did more than prepare me for a job. It allows me to compete in the marketplace of ideas.

It has been thirty-seven years since I heard then university president Dr. Wendell Nedderman say I had met the requirements for my bachelor’s degree. Within minutes of his pronouncement, I raised my right hand and received my commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Army through the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC).

I did not make the military a career. Three years of active duty followed then I headed to graduate school. I was amazed at how ready I was for graduate work. I knew how to read, write, study, do research and research papers, and how to think.

My University of Texas at Arlington liberal arts education taught me how to think independently and make sound judgments. I learned how to expand my horizons, discover new perspectives, and acquire the tools to defend my point of view. My education helped me learn to reflect on life, have a moral and historic compass where I can distinguish good from evil, justice from injustice, and what is noble and beautiful from what is simply useful.

How have I paid the bills? Working as a commissioned officer in the US Army, a minister, corporate trainer, Internet Coordinator, IT Support Analyst, and IT Systems Administrator have been my day jobs supporting my thirty-one plus years of freelance writing.

Employed in Information Technology I find it interesting to see how many persons have an undergraduate degree in the liberal art disciplines. These people know how to think outside the box. They have excellent critical thinking skills. They have great oral and written communication skills. They accept, embrace change and know how to successfully deal with it.

What else have I done with my history degree? All the above plus I have published over two dozen magazine and trade journal articles in over a dozen publications though the years. I have published poetry through the years. I have written over one-hundred book reviews. I have a website “Kepler’s Military History Book Reviews”. The site is a 100 best websites for history buffs. I read and review military history books published under more than a dozen different imprints. I have a publisher/editor reading the first five chapters of the historical fiction novel I am working on.

Younger coworkers often ask how I know so much about a variety of disciplines. They say I am a modern renaissance man. My answer: I have a liberal arts education from UT Arlington.

How committed am I to liberal arts education? I have three grown children and a son-in-law – all have liberal arts degrees. One is employed in a senior business management position, a second is a teacher, and the third has worked in customer service and information technology fields.

Interview: Author Susan Elaine Jenkins (Scandalon: Running From Shame and Finding God’s Scandalous Love)

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I recently conducted an interview with author Susan Elaine Jenkins.

Susan grew up in California as a PK, (“Preacher’s Kid.”) The eldest of three children in a parsonage gave her an early passion for knowing the Lord and studying the Scriptures. She was also given a unique view into what goes into church life behind the scenes.

She began to travel the globe in 1980, as a part of a Study Quest, where she – along with forty-nine other young graduate students – spent three months traveling to twenty-eight countries, studying leadership styles of people making a spiritual impact in the world. In fact, it was on this trip that her love affair with China began.

Susan moved to Asia in 1997, where she taught performing arts, first at the International School of Tianjin and then in the southern region of the country at The American International School of Guangzhou. She is now beginning her twelfth year of teaching in China, at a school not far from Shanghai.

Prior to moving to Asia, she taught for nineteen years, mostly at The Dorris-Eaton School in Walnut Creek and the San Ramon Valley Christian Academy in Danville, near San Francisco. She also served a public school district as a Resource Specialist and coordinator of a Gifted and Talented Program for public school district in northern California.

Susan recently spent one year back in America, living, teaching and writing in the ski resort community of Park City, nestled in the Wasatch Mountains. She taught music in a mountain school where classes ended every Friday just after lunch so that students could hit the slopes.
(From her biography)

You can buy Scandalon by clicking HERE. A review of the book is HERE as well as until 3/9/2012 get a free Kindle download by clicking HERE .

Question One: Tell us about yourself, your family growing up, and your interests in life.
Answer One: I grew up in a family of preachers and teachers. I used to play school as a child and always knew I’d become a teacher when I grew up, just like my imaginative, story-telling Mother. I was encouraged and surrounded with books, and I grew up loving to read and write stories. My favorite toy was an old, heavy, black typewriter and I lugged it around with me everywhere I went, typing stories like mad to share with schoolmates and patient grandparents.

My family was also a very musical group – creating music was something my parents did all the time and my brothers and I sang together from the time we were small children – in three-part harmony.

My father was a preacher and my two brothers and I loved going to church three times a week (or more). Church was fun! We enjoyed the atmosphere of loving support and spiritual joy, never dreaming that all would be changed dramatically someday.

I naturally followed in my Mother’s footsteps and became a teacher after graduating from Point Loma Nazarene University in 1977. My career has taken me into the hearts and lives of many unforgettable students. Much of my time is occupied with continuing education and professional development opportunities, which opens up new areas of thinking and learning as I go.

After teaching in California private schools for 19 years, I moved to China, where I have focused on teaching performing arts in 3 different international schools. I am a seasoned foreign expatriate these days and yet, the daily adventures of living in Asia continue to surprise me.

Question Two: What motivated you to write your book?
Answer Two: A friend from the UK convinced me to begin a blog. The idea of sharing my stories was inconceivable, at first, but as time went by, I got to know my readers. Little by little, I opened up the pages of my journals with them, interspersed with a few of the details of daily life in Asia. To my surprise, my online friends began commenting and sending me private letters filled with their own pain. I wanted to let them know that there really is healing and light ahead, that God’s promise really is authentic: He is a God who heals.

Question Three: Do you journal? When I read your book some sections seemed like I was getting an intimate look into your private thoughts. Did you use your journals as a primary source?
Answer Three: Yes, I have always journaled, for as long as I can remember. And, yes, much of my book was taken directly from those journals – especially the conversations between Dr. Travis and me. Those three difficult months were mind-numbing days. Writing everything that happened at the end of every confusing day helped me make more sense of it all.

Later, once I was in China, the conversations with Ouyang were important to me, as well, and I also kept detailed accounts. I knew I needed to have those talks recorded somewhere where I could retrieve them – they were too special to forget. The experiences I was having with my Chinese friends were very precious; China was rapidly developing and nothing would be the same again. I recently visited Tianjin and was stunned to see the progress made – the sleek commercial buildings and tall apartments that have replaced the ancient hutongs near the streets where I once lived and worked.

Question Four: In your book did you change any of the person’s names to protect their privacy?
Answer Four: I did change most of the names, yes. The only names I did not change were Ouyang’s and Mrs. Hua’s. I gave Ouyang a list of three possible names I wanted him to choose from, and he said he preferred I use his real name. My brothers each selected their names for the book, as well. It was important to me to allow for as much anonymity as possible, as the issues in this book are very intimate and potentially embarrassing.

Question Five: Your mother has passed away since you wrote the book. Was she supportive and/or understanding of you writing such a personal memoir?
Answer Five: My Mother was extremely supportive of this book, absolutely. She always encouraged my dream to become a writer, ever since I was a child at play. Later, when I mused about writing a book someday about the changes our family life encountered, I’d express hesitancy at discussing my Father’s issues in such a public way and she used to dismiss that, saying, “I don’t think you should worry too much about that, Susan.” When I was finally busy compiling all my journal notes into the actual book, I did much of the work while visiting her that last summer. She lay very ill in bed and encouraged me throughout the process. I left a copy of the manuscript with her when I returned to China and she told me a week before she died that she had read it. She gave her blessing to me, expressing that she hoped its message would find its way to the hearts of those who needed encouragement.

Question Six: The obvious follow up question is how did your two brothers and father respond/react to the book?
Answer Six: Do you know if your ex-husband has read the book or had any comments concerning the book? I sent both of my brothers copies of the manuscript and asked them to make any editorial changes before it went to print. I really desired their input and suggestions, because I knew that my point of view might differ from their recollections. ‘Steve’ who teaches in China, chose not to read it at all and says he probably won’t ever read it. He has been very positive, however, and has told me many times, “Whenever someone writes a book about their family, someone is bound to have hurt feelings.” Steve is not just a brother; he’s probably my best “male” friend and confidante. He has been so supportive.

My youngest brother, ‘Paul’, also elected not to read the manuscript, giving me a verbal “go-ahead”. At the time, I questioned, “Are you absolutely certain you don’t want to check it first?” He said, “Don’t worry about my opinion. Just focus on the message of the book.” I thought that was quite generous of him at the time. Later, when he actually picked up a copy, he was very upset with me for putting so much of our family’s private story into the book. He didn’t read any of the sections about China at all – he only read the portions that referred to our family life. I have phoned and written to him many times this year in an effort to understand his thinking and to discuss his feelings, but he has been unwilling to communicate. He is really quite upset. I am praying about this and hoping our relationship can heal from this pain the book has caused him.

I emailed my former husband to tell him the book was coming out and sent an additional message to him via Facebook (that incredible social phenomenon). He has not replied to my letters. I do not know if he has read it or not, but I would doubt that he would. He remarried four years after our divorce and is, by all accounts, happy. I hope he is and I wish him well.

My Dad has been truly incredible. Very supportive and understanding. He and I have a very special closeness that I treasure and this book has only brought us closer together. I am grateful.

I was disappointed that the final version of the book had the last chapter completely omitted. In that chapter, I explained the way my Dad had been taking such amazing care of Mom during her last days. I also talked about the wonderful changes in my Dad. I am still sorry those pages were left out of the final copy. I have had to learn that publishers make decisions based on many factors, and some of those might not be to my liking…but I am still thrilled with Cladach Publishing and the spiritual approach they took towards this book.

Question Seven: While your book tells of your personal journey it is a book about China. Why a book about China?
Answer Seven: I used the double journal literary device to portray my story as it occurred both in America and in China, where I’ve lived for the past twelve years. It is really a combination of two lives: my life in California and my life in Asia; two very different worlds.

I think it seemed very natural at some point, to write of a remarkably poignant journey that met in a healing point while living in a crumbled country, broken by its own history. My life at that point seemed very much the same – broken, falling apart, and dark.

Question Eight: You moved to China. How has living away from the United States assisted in dealing with the memories of the difficult situations you have experienced?
Answer Eight: Living in Asia has been wonderfully healing for me. I am certain God would have gradually healed me wherever I was living on this earth, but life in China gave me a unique perspective. There was space, for one thing, which helped me to gain both emotional and physical distance, affording me a better look at what had happened to me in California and what God wanted to do within me. The new friends I made in China taught me all kinds of lessons that illuminated God’s truth from Scripture and caused me to see the person of Jesus Christ more clearly.

I was surprised to finally feel “at home” in China. That, for me, involved a great spiritual healing and coming back to a point of rest within God’s heart; being glad to be in His loving presence; knowing that all my sins are utterly forgiven and cast away; and, sensing His divine heart of grace. Home has literally – for me – become His own Heart.

I am so thankful that God used some humble people in this vast country to teach me so much about His love and grace.

Question Nine: Music is very important in your life. Please share what music and the piano mean to you.
Answer Nine: Yes, music is important to me! Especially the piano, which is my instrument of choice. I have found that God speaks through music, and especially so – at least for me – here in China. When I sit down by myself and play through the old gospel tunes and hymns I learned as a child, it’s as if the words that He wrote into my heart come back to mind on fresh winds of renewal. I often teach these same songs to worshipers at house or countryside gatherings of praise. It sometimes feels as if God has taken all the early interests of my childhood – teaching, music and writing – and is weaving an unexpected tapestry of ministry and beauty that I can share with many.

Question Ten: Your experiences are such that you may have questioned your faith in God and decided that men cannot be trusted. Have you given up on God or every having a meaning relationship with men?
Answer Ten: Another good question. (you ask hard questions, by the way!) As Scandalon points out, I have struggled with my faith in God, yes. But, never to the point where I stopped believing. I believed He was God, I just didn’t believe I was “welcomed” into His presence anymore. But as the book also reveals, I learned the glory of His grace in specific ways and began to enjoy a close walk with God once again.

I have known a string of men who were not trustworthy, yes. That is sadly true. My father, my former husband, and “Dr. Travis”. And there have been others along the way who have shocked me in one way or another, as well.

I am circumspect when it comes to relationships, yes, but I have not given up, by any means. I still hold dreams of a wonderfully strong and happy intimate marriage. I pray for the right man to come into my life, although it is difficult meeting people while living here in a semi-remote region of China. I pray about this and trust God. I really do.

I have hope in the future because I hope in the Lord. Without Him, I have nothing and with Him, I have everything. That brings me huge joy and great hope.