Jan Cline's Blog

The Power of the Pen

When was the last time you received a hand-written letter or note in the mail?

Once in a while I get a thank you note or invitation. But I think for the most part the world is all about emails and texts. They don’t even teach or encourage cursive in schools anymore. How sad.

I miss the art of using pen and paper and I appreciate when someone takes the time to use them. I received a wonderful hand-written note the other day from an unexpected source. It meant more than any email or text could.

(Dear Mr & Mrs Cline, My name is Jane Ellen, an RN with WAMC. This past week I had the honor of serving your daughter, Laura. Know that she has a knowledgeable compassionate physician, and a loving nursing staff. She has been prayed for and will continue to be throughout her treatment.)

What a blessing it was to know this cancer care nurse took the time to do this for us as Laura’s parents.

Makes me want to go out and buy some stationery and see if my hand will be able to hold up for a whole letter!

I hope you will make a point to get out your address book and jot someone a line or two this week.

A more intimate encouragement is just a few words away with the power of the pen.

Keep reaching,

Jan

Failure…friend or foe?

by Jan Cline Leave a Comment

Sometimes there are hurdles you can’t jump over. Sometimes the cracked doors are not going to open all the way. And it’s a certainty that man’s plans will never trump God’s.

Facing failure is not usually an enjoyable experience. I’ve never met anyone who said, “I like this feeling of falling flat on my face.” I have known some who pick themselves up more quickly than others, or are able to use failure to a bigger advantage. But for the most part, failure is an enemy to us humans.

I’ve always been a risk taker. Having taken a leap into many ventures, there have been some colossal failures. I find that the older I get, the less likely I am to jump into the boiling pot of risk. I am a bit more leery of being scalded than I used to be. I find myself growing lazy at jumping those hurdles and spend more time wishing for a measure of success. Just being honest.

But I know that success is not in my ultimate control – at least in the way I personally define success for the venture of being an author. I can learn the craft, pour my heart and life onto the page, market myself into bankruptcy, and do all the social media I can find time for. But when even marginal success eludes me, I have to do what we all do in the face of what we consider failure. Fight or fly. Lie down or stand firm. Be discouraged or be diligent.

I don’t always make the right choice. Life has a way of stepping in front of you and holding out its arms – trying to block you from making any decision at all. But we wake up the next day and at some point decide to decide again.

I don’t like failure. So I must redefine success, or make up my mind that it doesn’t matter as much as I think it does. The best outcome will be when I can lean on the One who lights my path, knows the plans He has for me, and opens doors in His time. There are worse things than failure. Like never having tried at all.

So what do you do in the face of failure? Do you struggle to define success?

Keep reaching, she said to herself.

Pain…the good it can do

by Jan Cline 4 Comments

Been thinking a lot about pain the last few weeks. I recently finished a wonderful book by Jamie Ford titled Songs of Willow Frost. At the end of the book he said this:

“I was an aspiring writer, fumbling for years with this thing called fiction, but too often I had nothing of substance to write about. It was only after I’d collected enough scars that I found the expository canvas on which to paint my stories…”

Considering my recent, and ongoing, pain of my daughter’s cancer diagnosis, this quote hit home for me as a writer.

Some people seem to go through life with very little strife, or tragedy, or pain. I have had people in my life who appeared to have avoided a lot of the pain I have experienced. I often wondered why some are “spared” while some are apparently “doomed” to excruciating difficulties with health, family, finances, friends, or other things from the long list of earthly troubles.

It doesn’t really make sense in the short-sightedness of our humanity. It’s so easy to ask why, why me, and look to God and exclaim, can we not do this again?! But when we step back and see the bigger picture of life here and then eternity, it’s clear pain has less to do with selection than is does with direction.

Where do we direct our reaction to pain? Pull it inward? Lash out at others? Be angry at God? Or could we possibly turn it into good?

A good author will help the reader connect on a personal level, sometimes reaching deep into their hearts. It’s a good use of pain. As a fiction writer, I hope I will capture the essence of my character’s pain more clearly because of what I have gone through. I hope my readers will find solace, comfort, insight, inspiration, and encouragement in what I write. After all, I want to glean all those things when I read a book.

So we can be changed by our pain, and in turn change others – for the better.

Once we get over the sting of it all, and the gaping wounds begin to heal, we would miss the best part of the process if we neglected to use it for a higher purpose. My friend Mick Silva wrote this:

“With a little pain God brings relief. With a little darkness eventually he brings light. He ordains the contrasts of life to make it rich and meaningful.”

Relief is something we all long for, and I would imagine it comes more readily when we resist the urge to contain our pain in a jar to be taken out in doses when we have a need for pity, justification, or attention.

Are you able to see your pain as a tool of prosperity for someone else?

Keep reaching!

Jan

May 19, 2016

When Your Child Gets Cancer

by Jan Cline 8 Comments

April 27, 2016

The call no parent wants to get. The imaginings that every mother lives through. The question to God that always follows devastating news.

Those things filled my world last week.

Waiting a week for test results was hard for my daughter. She tends to hold things in. Like me. She worried about her own daughters, wondering what might happen in a worst-case scenario. Even though she is a strong woman, I knew she would have a hard time with news I felt in my gut would come.

So what now? More waiting for more test results, more questions, more asking why. Then the day will come when she must go under the surgeon’s knife, and her life will forever change.

No, not forever.

There is the praise. In the forever part of our lives, we will be perfect. No disease, no scars, no fears. This is the promise we dig into with our fingernails when we feel we’re losing our grip. I wish I could boil that truth down to an elixir we could inject into our veins – to make it part of our very being, so much a part that we don’t waver one centimeter to the left or to the right. So much a part that fear and doubt are unable to penetrate our faith and peace.

This is what I wish for my daughter now and always. This is what I wish for all mothers out there who have felt their stomach hit their feet, who have clutched their head in their hands as they cried. This is what I wish for me.

It’s bound to happen in this sickly world. Someone we love will get bad news, and their life will be in danger. But this is not our home. This is temporary insanity that evil created. We don’t live here really – it’s just where we are for a while. Nothing here on this earth defines us – especially not cancer. Not if we are His.

I have a brand new filter for looking at life’s troubles, large and small, and I hope I’m able to respond to another’s sorrows more appropriately in the future than I have in the past. I think we all tend to be disappointed when those we want a comforting and understanding response from aren’t able or willing to give it. I’ve discovered that expectations in that regard seem to grow when we’re hurting. It’s something I’ll have to settle in my mind when this chapter is closed.

I’ve already been changed by this turn of events. As I read on Facebook the complaints and disparaging of those who are having a bad day, or stressed by their new high-paying job, or bummed that it’s raining on their tropical vacation, I have to bite my “tongue”. I want to gently comment and tell them I would gladly trade sorrows with them. But at the same time, I must extend the grace I hope to receive when I slip into my blinders on bad days. It’s just life.

So, what now? I let my daughter take one day at a time, let her teach me as I hope I have taught her. She is a survivor, she will be a survivor. I will try to be what she needs in a parent. I will warn every young woman who thinks she is too young to get breast cancer to start doing self-exams. It’s how my daughter was diagnosed – she found it herself. This terrible disease is reaching women at a younger age than ever before.

It’s hard not to fear the worst. But we are blessed to have a God who is in control of everything, even if it’s just having a bad day.

Be grateful, compassionate, understanding, and keep reaching…

Jan

Do You Work Without A Net?

by Jan Cline 2 Comments

April 14, 2016

Even trapeze artists occasionally fly without a net. They risk their lives, trusting their skills and training to keep them from falling. I’ve often wondered at what point did they roll up the net and fly free without something to catch them if they miss the bar.

How good do they have to be before they trust their instincts and talents?

I’ve been learning some news things through my recent book launch and subsequent planning of another book. One is that I learned more about writing than I thought I had. All I have absorbed during the studying of the craft, the coaching, and the workshops and classes, is finally starting to show in my writing.

The foundation has been laid, and the house of prose I’m building is on pretty steady ground. But I also stand ready to add another strengthening layer to it when I can.

Sure, I will still make mistakes, and I have a way to go before I write a GREAT book. But I’m ready to take down the net.

What is my net? It’s a tightly woven fabric made of several things.

Rules of structure and method.

While plotting, structuring, and planning are good things, trying to conform too much to them only kept me constrained and a bit frustrated. I had to find a happy medium of joy riding and sticking to the map of novel writing. My nature is to write by the seat of my pants. Tempering that with some structure allows me to fly free.

Fear of never being good enough.

Repeat after me: I will get better.

I’m a work in progress and so is my writing. It’s okay to not be a best-selling author. I do the best I can, knowing I will improve with practice – just like anything else I do. What is important is that I am NOT afraid to learn something about myself in my stories and then pass that along to my readers. Then it doesn’t matter if my writing is perfect, it’s usable, and I am usable.

Self-imposed unrealistic writing schedules.

I have a busy life. Yeah, yeah, so does everyone. I’m no spring chicken (sorry for the cliche) and I have an auto-immune disease that cuts into my productivity. I have to give myself permission to be less productive than the prolific writer I really want to be like. It is what it is, and by expecting too much of myself, my creativity takes a hit.

So, while I know that I need to rely on a safety net from time to time, I am hoping to drop it often enough to discover my best voice, hone my natural talents, and feel the freedom of the breeze in my hair as I fly through the air of writing my next novel.

What is your safety net? Do you feel you’re ready to let go of it?

Like the trapeze flyer….