booksbylyncote.com

RWA® Online Presents THE CONFLICT GRID, TOOL FOR SUCCESS

Instructor: Lyn Cote
Dates: May 4 -15, 2009 (Registration April 20 – May 3, 2009)
CLASS DESCRIPTION:

If you don’t have conflict, you don’t have a story. With Kathy Jacobson’s CONFLICT GRID, you will learn to uncover every possible conflict inherent that keep your hero and heroine apart. No more sagging middle. No more trouble crafting a true black moment. No more trouble finding the unifying theme that gives your romance power, no matter what subgenre you write. The CONFLICT GRID also clarifies the basic elements of your romance so that you can pitch it to an editor and give her exactly the info she needs to assess whether it’s a winner or not. The CONFLICT GRID, filled out in full, also provides you all you need to write a proposal. It can be your main planning tool for character and plot. Once you learn it, you’ll wonder how you did without it!

About the Presenter:

In 1996, Lyn Cote’s first inspirational historical manuscript was a finalist in the inspirational category in the RWA’s Golden Heart Contest. This became her first historical novel, Whispers of Love, in her “Blessed Assurance” series, which was reissued October 2007 by the new Avon Inspire line. Most recently, Chloe, the first novel in Lyn’s “Women of Ivy Manor” historical series was a 2006 RWA Rita Award finalist for Best Inspirational, as well as a finalist for the Holt Medallion and the National Readers Choice Contest. Lyn also writes contemporary romance and romantic suspense for Love Inspired. Author of over twenty novels, Lyn lives in the lovely northwoods of Wisconsin with her husband and three cats. But she is quick to point out that she loves dogs, too. Visit her online at www.LynCote.net.

Registration Opens: April 20, 2009
Registration Deadline: May 3, 2009
Fee: $15 Non-Chapter members. RWAOL Chapter #136 members; free.
Payment method: PAYPAL is recommended! It’s safe and easy! Check/Money Orders are also accepted, but payment must be received prior to class start date for guaranteed entrance!
NOTE: -Use your real First and Last Name & Choose Pay Option. Chapter Members DO NOT need to submit a registration form. Only non-RWAOL chapter members need to complete registration. FORMAT: Course is conducted via online discussion (bulletin) board on the RWA® Online website. Non-chapter members MUST complete both the workshop registration AND the discussion board login registration for access. Instructions for login are presented after the registration pages (or to return to the login instructions, go to http://www.rwaonlinechapter.org/WorkshopAppTY.html. The workshop is available for up to one week after the end date and a downloadable archive of the workshop will be available the week following the workshop.
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Today my guest is another Love Inspired author Linda Goodnight, a RITA award-winning author (I sat beside her last year when she won it and heard her scream.) Linda pays tribute to her mother in law. Here’s Linda:
“I’ve had so many strong women in my life-Women who influenced, encouraged and just plain blessed me. Since my current book is Mothers and Daughters I thought I’d talk about a mom. Not my own mom, but my mother-in-law, Lorene. By the world’s standards, Lorene was not a particularly successful woman. She was poorly educated, having gone only to about the 5th or 6th grade. Most of her life, she worked as an aide in nursing homes—and did it with great love and caring, I might add. She suffered many hardships from being abandoned by her father to living in a dirt-floor tent to losing a child. And yet this woman was a fortress of quiet, uncomplaining strength.

A gentle, Christ-like nature just flowed out of her. Material possessions meant little, but people meant everything. No matter their issues, their mistakes, their illness or how ‘unlovely’ they might be, Lorene accepted them, prayed for them and tried to help them. Even when someone wronged her, Lorene never reacted in anger. Never. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. I loved her, and thank God that I was blessed to be her daughter-in-law. So it is not surprising that I dedicated my Mother’s Day anthology to Lorene.

Mothers and Daughters includes two novellas. One is by bestselling author, Deborah Bedford, a beautiful story, by the way. My contribution, “Unforgettable,” tells of two strong women, though the daughter does not recognize her own strength until the flamboyant, sometimes embarrassingly outrageous mother, Granny Frannie, is faced with an uncertain and frightening future. I hope you’ll pick up a copy of Mothers and Daughters and let me know what you think. It’s a perfect Mothers’ Day gift, too!

Today, my good friend Lois Richer shares her thoughts on Ruth, the grandmother of King David and her latest Love Inspired. Here’s Lois:

“Thanks for inviting me to blog, Lyn.

A very strong woman in the Bible whom I’ve always admired is Ruth. Losing a husband would be decimating, scary and painful. The future would be terrifying. But still Ruth refused Naomi’s admonition to stay where she was. Imagine leaving home with your mother-in-law!
Naomi must have been some kind of a mother-in-law because Ruth was determined to stick by her side. I’ve always loved Ruth’s famous response. ‘Don’t ask me to go back anymore. Wherever you’re going, I’m going. Whoever you call family, I will, too. Your God is mine. I’ll stick so close that when you die, I’ll be buried beside you.’ (Paraphrase mine.) After those amazing statements, Ruth even invokes God to help her keep her vow, a God she only knew through her husband’s family! What a powerful faith she must have had to trust this new God.

But Ruth’s strength survived more than the long journey to a foreign place, or the people Naomi had once called family. Once they were ‘home’, Ruth had strength enough to plan for their daily needs. She didn’t hesitate or avoid the rough and heavy job, but went out into the fields to gather the bits that were left for the poor and hungry. Humiliating? Embarrassing? I’m sure Ruth felt that and more, but she kept going every day, picking up as much as she could so the only family she had left wouldn’t go hungry. How hard it must have been for Ruth to accept that this was her life now, that she wasn’t a protected wife any longer, but alone and responsible for another mouth. And yet she accepted her life with grace, dignity and strength.


Olivia Hastings, the heroine in my April Love Inspired, TWICE UPON A TIME, is just such a strong woman. A psychologist for a kid’s radio talk show, Olivia devoted herself to helping children find solutions for their problems until her husband and child were murdered. Olivia clung to her faith, left home and friends behind. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t, give up her desire to help children. When an abused teen struggles to break free of her brother’s manipulations, Olivia refuses to give up, even though it means risking her new love for Reese and his adorable kids.
Ruth and Olivia–two strong women who drew on God to see them through their trials.”

Thanks, Lois and Happy Easter!

Today another Love Inspired author guests. Here’s Merrillee Whren:

“Thank you, Lyn, for inviting me to share on her blog today as I talk about one of the most influential people in my life—my mother.

My mom Gladys Luft went to be with her Lord over twenty-five years ago, but her influence lives to this day. I have many fond memories about this woman of quiet strength. Photographs, memories and the values she instilled in my life are ways that I remember her. One of my fondest memories is of the time she read to my brothers and me before we went to bed when we were small children. My favorite story was Old Bones the Wonder Horse. She gave me the love of stories that ultimately led me to write my own.

She became a wife and mother during the age of June Cleaver from the television show, Leave It To Beaver. Although she didn’t wear pearls to do housework, she often wore her “house dress.” It wasn’t until I was an adult that I would see her wearing pants on a regular basis. Although she had a career as a beautician, when she married and started raising a family, she joined the majority of women of that time who were stay-at-home moms. Home, family and her faith were her priorities.

When I was thirteen, my father had a heart attack. Because of my father’s health, my mother took a job as a receptionist for a beauty shop. When my parents moved, she found work as a clerk in the bakery of a grocery store and finally as a salesperson in ladies’ better dresses in a local department store. She did whatever she had to do in order to benefit her family, even though it may not have been her first choice. Then tragically, she became a widow before my youngest brother graduated from high school.

Although my mother was reserved and often stood in the shadow of her husband, and even her children, she had an inner strength born of her faith that carried her through the difficult times. She always opened her home to a myriad of family and friends who remember her hospitality. She is my heroine because in her quiet way she encouraged me and gave me the confidence to reach for my dreams.

Ashley Hiatt, the heroine of my April book, HOMECOMING BLESSINGS, is also a strong, quiet woman. Against her father’s wishes, she decides to become a teacher on the mission field instead of taking a job with his construction firm. The story begins when she has to return home because of unrest in the country where she works as a missionary. She has to deal with what appears to be her father’s attempt to once again manage her life when he pairs her with Peter Dalton to administer a new mission project. Although she initially resists the idea, she sees God’s calling in her father’s endeavor and signs on with an enthusiasm that makes Peter reexamine everything about his life. Her quiet faith makes him want to be a better person. She also makes him realize, despite his past hurts, that he wants to love again.

I hope you’ll pick up a copy of HOMECOMING BLESSINGS and read about a strong woman whose quiet witness is affective in a way she doesn’t anticipate. See how she has the strength to face her own faults and let God lead her in a new direction.”

Thanks for sharing your mother’s story, Merrillee. As we draw closer to Mother’s Day, I want to remind our blog readers that there is still time to request me to send a Mother’s Day card to a special woman in their lives and also to send me a story to post in May about their own mothers, grandmothers, etc.

Each story posted here gives me a lift and I hope it does the same to you all.

This is a real treat. Though authors and readers share the stories of the strong women in their lives on this blog, I haven’t had the opportunity to get the male point of view till today.

Brandt Dodson shares the story of his grandmother and of the heroine in his latest book, Daniel’s Den.

Here’s Brandt:

“At the height of the great depression, my maternal grandmother found herself and her four small children in the worst of all possible situations. They were homeless.
After her husband abandoned her – a scenario that was all too common during the great depression – she took to the streets, looking for any work she could find. Tasks such as cooking, cleaning, or doing the laundry often meant the difference between sleeping under a bridge or in a bed. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough work and there many days over the next several months when her family was as cold as it was hungry.
When the authorities heard of this they moved to take the children away. Until she could provide for them, they reasoned, her children would be wards of the state.
With no resources, no connections, and no means with which to fight, she began to pray.
The original language of the New Testament uses the same word for spirit as it does for wind. As a Christian, my grandmother knew that while she was down, she was not out. She had the Holy Spirit walking beside her. She had the wind in her sails.
While meeting with the judge and social workers in an attempt to secure her children, a young minister was passing by and entered the room to listen. Hearing her story, he began to feel the tug in his heart that he recognized as the leading of God. He asked if he could approach the bench. When the judge agreed, the young minister made a startling offer. As startling to him as to the woman he was about to help.
He told the judge he would take the woman and her four children into his home (without consulting his wife) and would provide for them until my grandmother could find work. He offered to enroll the children in school, clothe them and feed them, and would allow the courts to examine the situation as often as the judge deemed necessary. His offer so impressed the court, that her children were released that day.
My grandmother fought to keep her family alive – then together. Her strength came not from her own power, but from the God she served. It was He, after all, who sent a young minister into the courtroom that day; a Christian who chose to live his witness rather than just proclaim it.
All of us have women in our lives who were strong enough to show us the way. Sometimes it was through strength of personality. Sometimes it was through strength of faith. But in every case, we are their beneficiary. And we are the better for it.“

Brandt, thanks so much for sharing. Your grandmother knew where her strength came from, from the Lord. Sadly, my mother, another single mother, didn’t walk, trusting that the Lord would be there for her till later in life. Once after she had come to the Lord, she said to me, “If only I had walked with the Lord, depending on Him every day, how different my life would have been.”

I pray that all of you whether fathers or mothers, sons or daughters will take that sad sentence to heart.