Rebekah Lyn

The Light Comes On

Over the past few months, while I’ve been working on my novels, for the Florida Springs Trilogy, I’ve had many questions. Along the way, I pondered what makes a good path for excellent writing, and how to use my word processing program to help me along that path. I offer three of my musing for your delectation.

What trigger can alert me that I’m writing myself into a passive voice?
How can I disable spell/grammar checker’s correction about a single rule, one that I wish to ignore maybe forever?
Is my spell/ grammar checker always right? I already knew the answer to that one. A friend sent me a funny list of things the computer thinks are right, but are not, and vice-versa. Today, however, I experienced a delightful example, so I want to share it with you.

A writer’s blog on polishing your own work helped with the first question. Look for the ings, it said, when you have an ing you may have a was or an is making the sentence passive. Suddenly I moved ahead. (Not suddenly, I was moving ahead.)

The next answer came from one of my mistakes. I polished away blithely clicking on the Ignore Rule unaware that I had shut off some of the suggestions for that document permanently. That works. If you don’t want contractions click on Ignore Rule. Novelists, who want their writing to sound casual, and to move the reader along, often go ahead and use contractions.

My example for the spell checker’s sometime frivolous pronouncements follows: in my poem, Woodrat the title had a red line under it. The top choice for a correction was woo drat. Since I don’t know what a woo drat is and don’t much care, I kept woodrat, even though it wasn’t strictly correct. After all, it is my poem.

When I was almost home, the sun shone suddenly in my eyes. As I slipped my sunglasses from my pocket, I realized that the Holy Spirit who lives in me knows all about writing and everything else. He answers when I ask for His help with the smallest, seemingly most unimportant matters. In other words, the light always goes on, sometimes immediately, sometimes later. I rejoice.

I also take suggestion from people. Do you have any? Please be gentle. Please, don’t tell me about commas. I have an exterior editor for that.

Arise; shine, for your light has come. Isaiah 60:1

My Once a Year Neighbor

About once a year, I walk past Annie’s house on my way home from my walk when she’s out. We like each other a lot and always have a delightful conversation. This has been going on for about twenty-five years.

Every year we look different, older, of course. We’ve talked about our kids and our lives. Mostly Annie talks, I listen… fascinated. Today we compared our ages. She says she’s going to be eighty this year and she’s glad of it. When she turned 79 she felt like kids do on their 16, 18, or 21^st birthdays. “I’ve made it, she says.”

I feel the same way. I’ve made it too, with no major tragedies and my health intact. I was even more interested than usual to hear what Annie had to say. Listening to her was like taking a ride on a cloud. “People are looking to politics and the church to make them happy,” she says. “Those don’t work. Only God can get us through. He loves us unconditionally!”

I heartily agreed. I agreed with everything she said. “If I can help somebody, I do. These kids these days are so smart. I’m going down, but I still have my mind. That’s the most important thing. All of us are going to die. I don’t have any complaints about that, but I’m doing okay while I’m still here. (She has diabetes and kidney failure.)

There we were two neighbors who see each other rarely, but who were in perfect accord on the things that mean the most in life. We could talk on for a long time and never get upset with each other , though we have different opinions on surface matters. When it was time to part we hugged each other gently. We know life is short. We know the last time we saw each other could well be the last time we’ll ever see each other. If she goes, first I’m going to miss her a lot. She has always just been there on the corner. Funny too, when you think about it. She’s black, I’m white, she’s left I’m right, she’s Jehovah’s Witness, I’m interdenominational. I guess it proves that love and respect on a personal level is what really counts. If we can’t sort anything else out, at least we know that much…

Matthew 22:36-40

New International Version (NIV)

³⁶“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

³⁷Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

God, Research and Facebook

God has a way of putting the right people in our lives at the right times and I never cease to be amazed when I experience this. Last Wednesday I stopped in at the historical society to look up some businesses in the old city directories. As I walked in, there were four ladies and a man already sitting around a table chatting. I found the directory I needed, sat down and started flipping through it. My ears perked up when I heard one of the ladies ask the man about a meeting she thought he had attended. They went back and forth for a minute, my interest growing until she mentioned she was trying to get the information for someone who had asked on Facebook. (You know the page You grew up in…. ) I smiled and spoke up. “That was me,” I said. The lady turned around and the man came over and asked what exactly I was trying to find out. I explained I was trying to determine what year the last family left the area on North Merritt Island that was bought by the government for the space program. This led to a wonderful conversation about a few of the families they knew of from the old days.

I’ve also been looking for Vietnam veterans to get feedback on a battle a scene in Jessie and a friend saw me mention this, again on Facebook, and offered to ask his dad some questions. We shared a couple of emails and he arranged for me to meet his dad over the weekend to get a real sense of what it was like to be on the ground in Vietnam. Meeting Bill, hearing his stories and his feedback on the scene I had written was a humbling experience. I was nervous about interviewing him and asking him to relive a painful time, but he was so kind and easy to talk to the time flew by. Not only was my need supplied, Bill was actually involved in battle the same time as my fictional character.

The One and Only Bookstore in Town

The Book Rack is Titusville’s only real bookstore. It sits on a corner in historical, down town. Businesses come and go here, but Lynne, the proprietor, has been tending to book needs for ten years and counting. The store draws customers from the nearby marina; and since they arrive in their boats, they have no other means of transportation, except walking or biking. Lynne’s place is a godsend to them. Street parties bring people in, as have spacecraft launches for many years. Now the Titusville Book Rack is the bookstore of choice for nearby small towns such as Christmas, on the other side of the St. John’s River and Mims to the North. Day-trippers drop in too.

When asked why she decided to open a brick and mortar bookstore, Lynne said it had always been her dream. The fulfillment of that dream was in the timing. First, she grew up in small town Titusville and couldn’t wait to see the larger world beyond. During a building boom, she lived in Houston, and later, Clearwater, a part of the St. Petersburg sprawl. Twenty-five years after she left, family drew her home again. By that time, the Space Coast was all right with her. As her husband said, “It doesn’t matter where you live as long as you’re with the one you love.” To Lynne that was exactly right, so she and the one she loved started looking around for a way to make a living. At that time, there was not a single bookstore in Titusville. Oh, you could drive an hour to a big-box store in another town, but Titusville had nothing except the small selection of new books at Wal-Mart. Lynne wanted to carry used books as well. She loved them all.

The Book Rack is housed in a vintage downtown building at 346 Washington Avenue. If you happen to be on I-95 near Titusville, and an irresistible urge for a book comes over you, take the I-95 Garden Street exit, drive east to Highway One, turn south and keep going until you come to a restored Victorian mansion in the historic downtown area. The Book Rack is on the same side of the street, and you may pull into the municipal parking lot between them and park free.

Lynne carries a variety of books, both new and used. If she’s not too busy, she loves to chat with customers.

Before she bought the store, people she talked to thought she might get time to read on the job, but that didn’t happen. She’s interested in people’s reading habits, though. She’s impressed with our own Onisha who has a want-to-read list of over four hundred books, and Lynne has customers who read a book a day.

Lynne still has bookstore dreams. For one thing, she’d like to have invitation only readings by some of her local authors. Soon she’ll be heading to the big city to stock up on books she knows her customers will like.

Excuse me for mentioning this, I know the story is about Lynne and The Titusville Book Rack, but in case you’re looking for them, Lynne stocks Rebekah Lyn’s Julianne, Winter’s End, and Summer Storms. She also has my Florida Springs Trilogy: Sacred Spring, Living Spring, and Clear Spring. Who knows, maybe we’ll get to have readings in the Book Rack one of these days. We’ll let you know if we do.

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