2014 ACFW Pre-Conference Mix & Mingle

It’s almost here–the annual American Christian Fiction Writers national conference is only two weeks away! Author Laurie Tomlinson had the brilliant idea to host a virtual ACFW pre-conference Mix & Mingle. I love it! Here are my answers . . . and then go check out the others, too. Thanks, Laurie!

Name: Brandy Heineman

Location: Atlanta, GA

What you write/tagline/trademark: Christian Women’s Fiction / “Timeslip Fiction, Eternal Truth”

Place in the book world: Contracted! My book comes out . . . soon. Not sure when. LOL! And I’m represented by Jim Hart of Hartline Literary Agency.

On a scale of hugger to 10-foot-pole, please rate your personal space: I mean, I don’t want to be rude . . . *crosses arms awkwardly*

The unique talking point that will get you going for hours: Books (of course!), Bible study, genealogy, and fur-babies, although I will try not to tell stories about my intelligent cats in response to your stories about your intelligent children. No promises. (Kidding! . . . mostly.)

Loved ones at home you’ll be missing: My pitty-pats will be headed to the spa (i.e., the kennel) while I’m conferencing this year!

Conference goals we can pray for? This year, I’m going to learn and to network . . . which, since I’m unquestionably an introvert (see above re: personal space), small talk, party chatter, and social niceties just don’t come easy for me. Prayers are much appreciated!

Anything we can celebrate with you? I’m excited to be a finalist in the Contemporary category of the Genesis contest!

One or two ways we can help you build your platform? I do enjoy Twitter, and if you like, you can join my Street Team for my upcoming debut novel.

Going to the ACFW conference this year? Then I hope you’ll meet me in St. Louis!  (Sorry, couldn’t resist!)

Help this introvert warm up by saying hello in the comments!

Applying Literary Archetypes to Ancestors, and Why You Shouldn’t Do It

Are you assuming too much
about the people in your family tree?
(Image courtesy of Vlado / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

If family history is about storytelling, then our ancestors are the characters. Each and every one is a blank, a mystery. Sometimes one small scrap of information forms the basis of my entire understanding of who that ancestor was as a person. My fiction-writer’s mind makes the call: protagonist or antagonist? Hero or villain? Major or minor player?

The trouble is, genealogy ain’t fiction, and while an ancestor might be “a real character” as the saying goes, the truth is that s/he was a real person, with idiosyncrasies, conflicts and quirks. Just like me and you, they lived contradictions and didn’t always stand on their convictions. Their lives were complex, and most likely they did not choose the detail for which they are most remembered.

It’s possible that the typecasting fact is the one thing they most wished would stay buried.

Learn From My Mistakes

In view of this, let me share a few examples of how literary archetypes have colored my view of certain ancestors. (There are many lists of literary archetypes on the web. I’m using Tami Cowden’s with gratitude.)

The Chief — N. W. Heinemann built an empire in Colegrove, PA through hard work and honest dealings. That’s why it threw me for a loop when a rumor surfaced that he had cheated my great-grandmother out of his brother’s share of the fortune. Upon careful examination of the facts, this story does not appear to be true, but something fueled the rumor, suggesting unknowns that may not ever be uncovered.

The Swashbuckler — Hamilton Cornell spent 40 years making his way west from Troupsburg NY to Anaheim CA. Whether driven by the thrill of adventure or a touch of gold-fever, I have to guess by his three wives that he was a Charmer, as well. A fun character–until you contemplate the seventeen (or so) children he fathered, many of whom predeceased him. At least a few of his surviving kids never knew him at all.

The Matriarch — Sophia Tremaine Loop was a former schoolteacher when she became Dr. A. M. Loop‘s second wife. Her own sons–both of them–went on to become doctors, but her stepson (and my g-g-g-grandfather) William Loop couldn’t even read as an adult. Then again, maybe it’s wrong to accuse her of favoritism. Will had a few run-ins with the law as a young man, so it’s possible he wasn’t an apt pupil.

The Free Spirit — In one census, my g-g-g-grandaunt Irena Smith indicated “Capitalist” as her occupation. Can you imagine how quirky and fun she had to have been to say such a thing?! Never mind that she was an elderly spinster living with (probably) charitable relatives. My impulse to laugh at her occupation glossed over a life that was, at the very least, outside of societal norms, which couldn’t have been easy for her.

The Nurturer — Close birth dates suggest that one or both of Fanny Short Cornell‘s youngest sons were adopted. Perhaps she took in an illegitimate grandchild as her own? She’d already stewarded a large family for many years by then. She also died the same year as her husband, which immediately puts me in the mind of those sadly romantic stories of couples who can’t live without each other. While I’ve found nothing that suggests Fanny wasn’t a devoted wife and mother, I’ve still sketched her whole personality from dates etched into gravestones.

Question for You

Is there a relative you’ve typecast as a hero or villain? I want to hear your stories in the comments!

---

P. S. — Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing, liking, linking, or subscribing.

ACFW 2013 Conference Debrief (i.e., my head explodes)

I attended my first American Christian Fiction Writers National Conference last weekend.

Information overload.
(Image courtesy of wandee007 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

This isn’t meant to be a post-conference agenda recap, so I’ll just say this: I squeezed in as much as I could–workshops and worship, connecting and networking, meals and yes, even rest. Still I missed a few things. I did not visit the hotel gym as I had intended. I paid an exorbitant price per page for on-site printing. (It’s all good.)

Awesome God-things stacked up while I was there, but I had a specific expectation. Not that I would gain an agent or a publishing deal at my first outing–I knew better than that. This is a long-road business, and I knew that when I signed up.

Publishing is a journey. (Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

No, I expected to leave with a well-defined and freshly-renewed sense of purpose, and I had reasons to expect as much: veteran attendees speaking of their experiences and an amazing Sunday before I left, when Jesus assured me in multiple ways that He had His thumbprint on this trip. I expected, quite simply, an A-HA! moment, the kind where everything pulls together into one head-exploding epiphany.

Something like this.
(Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

But that moment never came.

I was (and am!) still in decompress mode, so I tried not to let it bother me. The entire trip (even the not-so-awesome parts, like getting lost in downtown Indianapolis on my first day) had tremendous value, and I know I’m incredibly blessed that I got to go at all.

And then last night, back in the normal routine of Wednesday night Bible study, there came a pair of thoughts (courtesy of Deanna Davis), both of which made me sit up and listen a little harder.

Sometimes, He gives us information for later;

and

A spiritually dry time is the perfect time to lay kindling.

And actually, this is a spiritually rich time, full of assurances of God’s presence. Nonetheless, if I experienced the ACFW conference differently than I thought I would, then what’s the takeaway?

What if the everything-blows-apart-and-comes-together-at-once moment is yet future? What if this trip was less about one moment and more about future preparation for that long road I mentioned earlier? What if the purpose was to participate in moments, so there would be a lot of kindling to catch a spark when God chooses to ignite one of them?

Moments are made for sparking. (Image courtesy of Fireflyphoto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

In view of all this, I have to smile looking back on my notes from Thursday (a hard day, the day I got lost downtown). I found this: “It’s possible (i.e., likely) that God’s purpose for my being here is not what I expect.”

Amen to that.

Brandy’s Kitchen Fails: Broken Aioli

For the first order of business, congrats to book drawing winner…

*drumroll*

Yangsze Choo

Congratulations and thank you to all who entered!

Secondly, since it is now technically tomorrow and I’ve got nothin’, I’m going wildly off-topic of books, genealogy and faith to talk about my latest kitchen fail. If well received, we’ll make it a feature. It’ll keep me humble.

Image courtesy of Simon Howden/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

Introduction: “And it was all yellow…”*

I didn’t think about blogging it right then, so I didn’t take any pictures … and you wouldn’t have either. However, what you will find at Food 52: How to Fix Broken Aioli is pretty close to what you would have seen in my kitchen, except that practically every surface (all of which are white, or are supposed to be anyway) was covered with yellow. So. Much. Yellow.

*With apologies to Coldplay, because I don’t even like that song.

Saffron and Garlic Aioli

Did you know that it takes 75,000 flowers to produce one pound of saffron threads? I estimate around 8,000 flowers sacrificed themselves into the literal teaspoon of saffron I purchased, along with seven of my dollars. For a teaspoon.

I also bought a whole bottle of grapeseed oil, which I have never needed before. There went another six of my dollars.

Also Dijon mustard … a whole lemon … And I was out of eggs, so that was a whole carton … you see where I’m taking this. Saffron and Garlic Aioli was supposed to be a gloriously delicious condiment. Expensive. But delicious.

The cookbook, Plates to Share by Jennifer Joyce, has never steered me wrong before, and in general I recommend it, as it’s helped me plan parties and aided me as a research tool in a foodie story I wrote a while back (the pepper story, for those who might wonder). However, in retrospect, the recipe as written gave me approximately a zero percent chance of success. Allow me to explain.

In Which I Complain About the Food Writer’s Word Choice

As I wittily mentioned to Facebook already, if the recipe had actually used the word “emulsify,” I might have concluded it was above my pay grade. However, it didn’t, I didn’t, and for a moment, it looked like my husband and I would be having some very expensive yellow dye with our dinner tonight. (Saffron is a gorgeous color, by the way. Or at least, gorgeous when it’s not composing highly yellow stains on white countertops.)

Also, while the recipe calls for adding the oil slowly, internet foodies indicated that should have been “very slowly,” or to use a stronger verb as we writer-types are wont to do, “dribble.” Except I just looked it up and the actual verbiage is “slowly drizzle.” Whatever, “dribble” would have been a lot more specific. And “emulsify.” That would have helped, too. A lot.

Anyway, I was quite agitated, until I found help: the video linked above. At the end of that minute and thirty seconds, I totally wished that the hostess and I could be friends. Thanks Amanda!

Her technique worked. My nasty, curdled, separated, oily mess turned into a pleasant, creamy (but still very yellow) spread with the consistency of mayonnaise. Expensive but supposedly glorious-tasting mayonnaise.

“Now your failure is complete.”*

We set the table for our feast (i.e., lots of other things besides aioli: veggie crudites, shellfish and bread, mostly.) The last laugh? My saffron and garlic aioli was not gloriously delicious. Nor was it remotely delicious. No, it was actually completely, tee-totally Gross-with-a-capital-G. Still expensive though. So it had that going for it.

If I had to describe it, I’d say it was heavily like the three dollar dab of mustard, not so much like the seven dollar teaspoon of saffron. Very disappointing. Still, realizing that the original brokenness probably impacted the flavor, I’ll probably try it again. Maybe.

Why be a glutton for punishment, when you can be a glutton for aioli?

*With apologies to Darth Vader, although I’ll bet he doesn’t care at all.

Tweetables

Saffron & Garlic Aioli was supposed to be gloriously delicious… @brandyhei breaks aioli & lives to laugh about it

If they’d only said “emulsify,” I’d have known aioli was above my pay grade… Kitchen Fail via @brandyhei

With apologies to Coldplay and Darth Vader…. Broken Aioli by @brandyhei

Question for You

Got a funny foodie fail to share? Or how about tips for a perfect aioli? I love to hear from you!

What’s in a Name

Sometimes I think about how ordinary, common things tell secrets about big, invisible things. For example: I have three different unrelated “Smith” lines in my family tree.

And if I’m honest, I butt heads with my Smiths a little (a.k.a., a lot) because though I pay lip service to the idea of loving a good challenge, privately I like it to be a solvable challenge. I poke at my Smiths and feel my own intellectual laziness poking back. So many leads … If you’ve researched any Smiths — and I suspect most genealogy buffs do eventually — then you know all too well. It’s a difficult name to track.

This is hard to admit.

I felt that same intellectual laziness recently, when a friend, Bible communicator Deanna Davis, said something so profound during a recent lecture. “Can you name your biggest spiritual struggle?” she asked. “And if you can’t, how will you master it?”

The point being, there’s power in naming things.

I recognized this as important — and even told her as much later on. “I need to chew on that,” I said.

See, there’s a whole theme in my book wound up in names, particularly those of girls and women, so easily lost within a few generations. Sisters and daughters disappear into marriages; mothers’ and aunts’ maiden names fade from memory after decades of marriage. I already knew that names matter in terms of identity, but here loomed a deeper truth.

But I got lazy.

Then, last Saturday …

I was doing my normal daily Bible reading. I studied Isaiah in depth a couple years ago, and now I’m going through it again, revisiting old notes and transferring those I want to keep close to the margins of my study Bible. Prompted by the workbook for this study, I said an extra prayer first that God would show me why this text at this time.

And wouldn’t you know it, He showed up in a big way.

“I am the Lord, that is My name;
I will not give My glory to another,
Nor My praise to graven images. -Isaiah 42:8

“But now, this says the Lord, your Creator, O Jacob,
And He who formed you, O Israel,
‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are Mine!'” -Isaiah 43:1

“Do not fear, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
And gather you from the west.
I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’
And to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’
Bring My sons from afar
And My daughters from the ends of the earth,
Everyone who is called by My name,
And whom I have created for My glory,
Whom I have formed, even whom I have made.” -Isaiah 43:5-7

“This one will say, ‘I am the Lord’s’;
And that one will call on the name of Jacob;
And another will write on his hand, ‘Belonging to the Lord,’
And will name Israel’s name with honor.” -Isaiah 44:5

These verses impressed my heart with the connections between His name, His glory, and His ownership.

Weighty Matters

Now, “glory” is a funny word, often talked about and seldom defined. The Hebrew kabowd as its used in Isaiah 42:8 means honor, and it derives from the verb kabad which means to be heavy or to make heavy. Makes sense, right? When you glorify something, you give it weight, although the idea is not that you bestow weight. Rather, you recognize it.

Here is where I think that naming is a shadow and a copy of a spiritual thing. When we discover the names of our forebears, we acknowledge their lives, their intrinsic importance. When we name our spiritual struggles, we recognize them and bring them into a position of subordination, where they can be owned and mastered. When we create things, we have the right to title and name them, because they belong to us.

All the same things happen when He names us. Our “intrinsic” importance comes from Him. We come under subordination to Him because He is sovereign. He created us and we belong to Him.

It’s a big topic. Like my Smiths — so many leads. I’m sure I’ll visit it again, yet for all there is to say about what’s in a name, nothing could be so important as Peter’s summary of the Gospel:

“… let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead–by this name this man stands here before you in good health. He is the stone which was rejected by you, the builders, but which became the chief corner stone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” -Acts 4:10-12