Virtual Road Trip + A Quick School Update

A book is meant to create a conversation between writer and reader. A good book can spark conversations that echo far beyond its pages. By nature of its form and function, a book with 40,000 or more words (Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables clocks in at over 500,000 words) is an extended meditation on a subject or theme.

The form and function of a blog post is an entirely different critter. Most blog posts are 500-1,000 words in length. They have pictures, hyperlinks, and most have comments sections. If a book has the calorie content of a banquet, in most cases, a blog post is a single bite appetizer.

I’ve been a blogger, and I’ve written books. And I’ve written about dozens of books on my blog.

Beginning next week, my two writing worlds collide in a new way. My book If Only: Letting Go Of Regret will be the focus of a blog tour. A great crop of bloggers – some I’ve read and admired, and some new friends – will be blogging about the book. Some will feature excerpts, others reviews, interviews or personal reflections. Rachel from Beacon Hill Press has done an amazing job organizing this event. I’ll have links and other information about the tour as it unfolds. I love a road trip (see the title of this here blog), and this will be a great virtual one that’ll introduce you to some new voices, and give you an opportunity to think more deeply about the way in which regret forms (and de-forms) each one of us as well as the way in which God, our Master Potter, can use our regrets to re-form us.

Watch this space. I’d love to have you join me for some or all of this road trip!

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…and a quick year-end school update:

I just finished my last course for this school year at Northern Seminary. If you would have told me a year ago that I would have completed 9 credit hours toward a Master’s degree and have written a book heading for publication, you would have gotten a massive Eyeroll Of Disbelief from me. I discovered that all the freelance study I’ve done through the years wasn’t as discombobulated and wacky as I’d always suspected it might be (thank you, Holy Spirit, for guiding and instructing me), but instead gave me a great foundation for engaging the material and classroom discussions each week. I’m still a little freaked out when I have to take a quiz or test, but I’ve cherished the reading and writing I’ve gotten to do for each class. I recently turned in a paper about the Quartodeciman Controversy and had a great time digging into the topic. That I would be energized by researching and writing about this issue probably tells you that this Evangelical Yentl is right where she should be.