By Succeeding . . . Not so Much

I have a sister-in-law that is a writer. She writes Christian Science Fiction, which is an incredibly difficult market to break into.

She recently self-published a book that meant a great deal to her and her belief system. The book, A Reason To Hope, can be purchased from her website http://www.almarquardt.com/ -- at least I think it can. If not, it is available at Amazon.com.

I read her book and I'll be honest and say I found it surprisingly interesting and hard to put down. I was surprised only in the fact that I am not a science fiction nor a Christian stories fan. I started reading it because I knew her and finished it because I had to know what happened.

She has a blog I belong to, http://almarquardt.com/blog/, where I can keep taps on what she is doing. You see, she is my lead dog (for lack of a better phrase). Years ago we both confessed an interest in writing to each other. We also started writing about the same time. But I became discouraged and quit. She completed a three-year online writing program and continued to write. She's participated in the book-in-a-month program every November, attended several conferences, talked to editors and writers, self-published a book, written several others . . . she's me if I was an energizer bunny. Well, and if someone was standing behind me with a whip and a chair to keep me on the straight and narrow . . . I tend to wander.

Anyway . . .

The point of this post is that every time I get a notice she has put up a new post on her blog I have to go read it. One thing I notice over and over is that she has really deep thoughts. She "thinks" about things. It makes me feel like I'm not paying enough attention to life.

For instance:

A quote she just posted on her blog is shown below:

Karen Kingsbury described how someone watched
a butterfly struggle out of its cocoon.
The person felt sorry for the butterfly,
and gently cut the opening larger.
The butterfly soon dropped down,
its body bloated and its wings small and wrinkled.

The butterfly lived only a few minutes.
The man then researched into butterflies
to determine what he did wrong.
Turns out the butterfly needed to
struggle through that tiny opening,
because it pushed life into the wings.

"Don't avoid struggle," she said.
"for it's in the struggle we learn how to fly."

This is the kind of stuff going through her head.

While I on the other hand, have had the following going through my head for weeks now. A direct quote from "Meet the Robinsons"

It is by failure that we learn.

By succeeding?
Not so much.