Thursday, October 29, 2015

Book & Campaign Update

The Gofundme campaign to help get my book out sooner is going well; thanks to all who have donated and shared it! To view it you can go to gofundme.com/letsgetthisbookout.

Here's an excerpt from the book, from a chapter called: "If You Love Me, You'll Spend Time with Me":
Somebody once said that the busier your day, the greater will be your need to pray. That is so counterintuitive for people living in a busy culture like ours. When I have a busy day, my inclination is to hit the floor running—not kneeling.

But, in reality, that is as foolish as dashing out the door to an important meeting across town, shouting over my shoulder, “I don’t have time to get in the car, strap myself in, turn it on, and all that. I’ve got to go now!” Sure, I could run down my driveway, and even get to the corner, before my husband could reach it by car. But he would very soon pass me by and leave me miles behind. (And just imagine what a sight I’d be, by the time I got there!)

Making prayer your top priority is like getting into God’s car and asking Him to take you where you need to go and get done what needs to be done—which, come to think of it, He knows better than we do.

Friday, October 9, 2015

Book Update: Oct 2015


Well, I launched a Gofundme campaign yesterday (Feast of Our Lady of Good Remedy) to help get the book out sooner. Here's the link:

https://www.gofundme.com/letsgetthisbookout

Please pray for this campaign and consider supporting and sharing it with others. 

Thanks so much!

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

What Do You Think?

Here's a question for you about my book in progress, If You Love Me:

As you may know, I have been writing a book about what it means to love God in your daily life. Here's a description:


While God’s love is a familiar topic, you don’t hear much about the flip side: how well do we love Him? Does He “feel the love”?
If You Love Me offers the motivation to grow closer to Him and guidance in that effort. It provides a deepened understanding of the faith and positive reasons to do what is right — out of love. It uses fresh, (at times quirky) perspectives, anecdotes, and spiritual analogies, backed up by Scripture, solid tradition, Church teachings, and insights of saints and early Church Fathers.
The book also promises to be easy to give almost anyone, employing a nonjudgmental, often lighthearted style, with plenty of humor, enjoyable vignettes, and lessons learned from the author’s own journey.
Presenting a new outlook on life, If You Love Me aims to inspire readers to shape their lives into a gift of love for Him. 


I've signed a book deal with Ignatius Press and, with the advance they gave me, have been able for some time to suspend my ordinary freelance work to write the book. However, that's about to run out, and though I've just about finished the first draft, I still have more work to do to produce something worthy of the subject. 

So I'm thinking about running a crowdfunding campaign, through which people can support this project and help bring it to fruition. I'd give out thank-you gifts such as a themed bookmark or autographed copy.

Thus, for the first time, I'm going to open up a comments section to this blog to see what you readers think. You have a sense of my writing from reading this blog. (Oh, and by the way, a number of essays from the blog are incorporated into the book, although there's scads of new material too.) 

Should I go back to freelancing to pay the bills, limiting my work on the book to my slim spare time? Or should I spend the time and effort to launch a crowdfunding campaign in the hopes that it will allow the book to be published much sooner? What do you think?

P.S. Adding a comment is now easier! It will pop up as a separate page. 
       If you're on the "Home" page, click on "2 comments" (or whatever number it may be) at the bottom of the post
      If you're on the page with just this post, then the comments will appear at the bottom. Click on "Post a comment."

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Recommending a Great New Book

I'm excited to see Marcus Grodi's new book Life From Our Land is now available!

I was privileged to work with him a bit on this book, and so I know it well and highly recommend it. It's very readable, interesting, funny, and inspiring. It addresses many quandaries in which modern man finds himself and gives compelling, thought-provoking answers.

The book has many other warm recommendations. For instance... 

Author Joseph Pearce writes, "Read this book and you will receive the riches Mammon cannot provide and reap the harvest of hope and wisdom." 

And Dr. Timothy O'Donnell, President of Christendom College, says: "This book is a hymn of gratitude for the wonder that is creation, which manifests the deep purpose of things."

Also makes a great gift--I'm going to go order a copy right now.





Friday, July 24, 2015

Spin as Hard as You Like--I'm Not Buying It

The president of Planned Parenthood and certain politicians are trying to salvage the company's reputation after the recent video exposés.
          Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, apologized for the "tone" that Dr. Nucatola used when speaking of harvesting body parts from unborn or partially born babies. Excuse me, but what difference does her tone make? Do you think that if instead of being matter-of-fact she had used another tone everyone would have been just fine with her words? And what tone would be appropriate? Jocular? Sad? (Oh no, that would imply that there was something regretful in her actions.)
     I don't care how solemn someone might have said what she said: it wouldn't change the fact that she was talking about crushing less valuable body parts so that she could extract the liver, the lungs, the heart, and head intact. Who knew a blob of tissue could have lungs and liver, let alone a head or heart?
     Then Hillary Clinton came out in defense of Planned Parenthood, talking about all the good PP has done over the years and the services they offer that benefit society and women in particular. She even bemoaned the fact that PP should suffer such attacks. Poor Planned Parenthood.
     That's like responding to the discovery of the Nazi death camps by pointing out the good things the Nazis had done for the German economy and national morale and what a shame it is that they weren't properly appreciated. Poor Nazis.
     These attempts are really rather insulting to the intelligence of the American people. Just how gullible do they think we are?
     Do they think that if they spin it hard enough it will just float away?

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Book-Writing Update


I've been doing a little research for the book, and I am so grateful for all that the Lord's teaching me. I've found some really beautiful quotes about prayer and about the Eucharist.

Here are some on the Eucharist from Pope Saint John Paul II:


“When the disciples on the way to Emmaus asked Jesus to stay ‘with’ them, he responded by giving them a much greater gift: through the Sacrament of the Eucharist he found a way to stay ‘in’ them.
Receiving the Eucharist means entering into a profound communion with Jesus [in which He abides in us and we in Him. This] ... profound and mutual ‘abiding’ enables us to have a certain foretaste of heaven on earth.
God has placed in human hearts a ‘hunger’ for his word..., a hunger which will be satisfied only by full union with him. Eucharistic communion was given so that we might be ‘sated’ with God here on earth, in expectation of our complete fulfillment in heaven.”
 (Remain with Us, Lord, no. 19)


Many thanks to all of those who have been praying for this work! Please keep it up--I need it. 

Please also pray that the Lord will multiply my time and, if it's His will, give me a chance to make a writer's get-away for some concentrated work time. Thanks and God bless you!

Sunday, January 25, 2015

New Book Coming!

Well, the contract has been signed: My new book If You Love Me... should be coming out, God willing, in the fall of 2015!
This is NOT the actual cover--
just something I came up with.

Quite of few of the posts from this blog will be incorporated into the book, woven into a lot of new material as well.

I'm still in the writing process, and am feeling appropriately small in the face of this daunting task. So I ask for your prayers. May the Lord help me to write what He wants me to write and grant me grace to do it well in the time I have before the deadline.

I'll post updates here along the way.

Thanks for any prayers!