Journal Jots – Blog

 One Woman. Two Men.

One stirs her pulse and the other her faith.

But who will win her heart?

—A Light in the Window: An Irish Christmas Love Story

By Julie Lessman

WOW, what a week!! First … I finished book 1 of The Cousins McClare, Dare to Dream, and am now awaiting feedback from my husband and a dear friend. So far, Keith loves it and says every time he opens the binder, he feels like he freefalls into 1902 San Francisco with the salty smell of the sea and the clang of trolleys, so that’s a good thing, right?

Secondly, I have been able to sit downstairs on my lower deck and write for FOUR days this week—in the middle of January, no less!!! I’m not sure if you know anything about St. Louis weather, but the average low temperature for January is 21 and the average high, 37. Of course, I am bundled to the teeth in a jacket and cozy-warm blanket (thank you, Gabe!!) and drinking my beloved cinnamon hazelnut coffee (thank you, Joetta!!), but just to be outside with blindingly blue skies and my laptop is sheer heaven.

And, speaking of heaven … yep, that’s where I’ve been all week long! You see, I started writing Marcy and Patrick O’Connor’s prequel this week, A Light in the Window, and let me tell you—I haven’t been this giddy or excited about a book since I wrote A Passion Redeemed. Because I have a soft spot for Charity and Mitch, that book SO enthralled me that it literally wrote itself in two months, and that’s with me working part-time at my day job! But this story—the love triangle between Patrick, Marcy and San O’Rourke—has stolen my heart completely … not unlike Sam with Marcy’s! So my goal is to write this book in three months, which I honestly do not think will be a problem since I can’t seem to pull myself away from the computer … 🙂 

Anyway, because I am SO excited about this venture, I thought I’d give you a sneak peek at it too, along with these images I have in mind for Marcy and Patrick. Here’s the story in a nutshell:

A Light in the Window is the prequel love story of Marcy and Patrick O’Connor whose discovery of each other is as turbulent as the era in which it takes place. The year is 1894, and following a decade of explosive industrial growth and immigration that Mark Twain called America’s “Gilded Age,” the nation plummets into the worst economic depression up to that time.

Marceline Murphy and her best friend Julie O’Rourke have been selected to assist Sister Mary Frances with the Christmas play fundraiser for the St. Mary’s parish soup kitchen. The play is called A Light in the Window, based on the Irish custom of placing a candle in the window on Christmas Eve through Epiphany (Jan. 6) to welcome strangers as if welcoming the Holy Family. The novel itself ends on January 6^th when Marcy has an “epiphany” of her own.

Patrick O’Connor and Sam O’Rourke are best friends who enjoy competing for the hearts of starry-eyed Southie lasses. When they’re caught drinking the unconsecrated sacristy wine in the confessional, Father Fitzsimmons metes out a punishment of endless hours devoted to building scenery for the Christmas play and working in the soup kitchen. It’s here where both men vie for Marcy’s affection, and although it’s Sam who wins her heart, it’s Patrick who loses his to the soft-spoken beauty who clearly only wants to be friends.

When Marcy’s grandmother Mima arrives for Christmas, Marcy tells her about The Light in the Window play as well as the charming Sam O’Rourke who has put a light in her eyes. Mima cautions her to guard her heart for the type of man who will respond to the “light in the window,” meaning the message of Christ in her heart. Marcy is troubled because although Sam professes his love, his actions often speak otherwise. When a transient from the soup kitchen steals the play funds entrusted to Marcy, Marcy is devastated and racked with guilt. But in an O’Henry-style “Gift of the Magi” twist, she soon discovers that although two men have professed their undying love for her, only one has responded to “the light in the window.”

SOOOO … what do you think? And because today’s Journal Jot wouldn’t be complete without a glimpse at a scene or two, here is a peek at the opening page:

I will not throw up … I will not throw up … Seventeen-year-old Marceline Murphy set her overnight case on the O’Rourke’s wraparound porch and pressed a quivering finger to the brass doorbell, a battalion of butterflies barnstorming in her stomach. The last time she’d been this nervous was when she’d frozen on the top limb of a massive pine tree in the backyard of her best friend Julie O’Rourke at the age of eleven. The memory of Julie’s older brother, Sam, climbing up to rescue her made her hands sweat even now, his body close behind as he helped her down, limb by limb. At the bottom he’d tugged on her pigtail with that dimpled grin that had always fluttered her pulse. “Best keep your feet on the ground and your nose in a book, Marceline Murphy,” he’d whispered in her ear. “You’ll want to stay far away from danger.”

Danger, yes. Marcy swallowed hard.

Heights and Sam O’Rourke—two things that made her dizzy.

FINALLY … here is a tiny glimpse at part of a scene I love between Patrick, Sam and the parish priest who catches these newly graduated “bad boys” drinking the unconsecrated sacristy wine in a confessional. Their penance? To spend all of their free time working in the soup kitchen and building scenery for the Christmas fundraiser play:

“And if we won’t do it?” Sam said, a glint of challenge to his tone.

Father Fitz studied Sam with a firm tilt of his head, a faint shift of a jaw that Patrick recognized all too well from countless hours of detention with a man few students defied. “You know, it’s a curious thing, Sam—your parents have been after me to come to dinner for months now, so perhaps I should come next week, imparting some information that just may batten your hatches a wee bit.”

Patrick’s stomach took a dive. Great. Another knock-down, drag-out with Pop …

“I think I may just chance it, Father,” Sam said, the dark stubble on his jaw as menacing as the stubborn gleam in his eye. “I can live without my parent’s approval.”

“Ah, yes, Mr. O’Rourke, but the question remains—can you live without money?”

Sam blinked. “Pardon me?”

A faint smile played at the edge of the priest’s mouth, compressed like his jaw in a battle of wills. “Money, Mr. O’Rourke. You know, remuneration for a job well done that allows you to buy a round a drinks at the corner pub, dazzle a pretty girl with an ice-cream soda or purchase the proper clothes befitting the neighborhood rogue?”

The blood drained from Patrick’s face as quickly as it did from Sam’s.

“Yes, well, you see, gentlemen,” Father Fitz continued in a tone as a matter of fact as his smile, “a priest has friends in high places over and above the Almighty, you know, at let’s say, The Boston Herald?”

Patrick’s eyes lumbered closed, the lump in his throat as tight as the noose Father Fitz was tossing around their necks. Both he and Sam needed their jobs at the Herald if Patrick was going to go to night school and Sam was going to rise to management.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever told you boys, but Arthur Hennessey and I go way back.” Father Fitz nodded with a faint smile, his eyes trailing into what apparently was a fond trip down Memory Lane. “Actually played ball together on the parish league, if you can imagine that.” He snapped out of his reverie, his smile brightening considerably. “Of course that was long before he took over as CEO of the Herald, you understand, although I have to admit, nobody tossed a meaner knuckleball.”

Patrick stifled a groan. Except you, Father Fitz …

“So … “ Patrick jolted when the priest clapped his hands. “I look forward to seeing you gentlemen at the fundraiser meeting next week, where you’ll learn all about just why absconding with the sacristy wine is not a good idea.”

“This is blackmail, Father,” Sam said with a scowl.

Father Fitz blinked, a wedge popping at the bridge of his nose. “Yes, I suppose it is, Samuel …” He quickly dismissed his concern with a wave of a hand, his smile veering into dazzling. “Well, no never mind,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, “I’m on good terms with the Man upstairs—I’ll just absolve myself.”

And there you go—what I will be working on the next few months, so say one for me, okay? Hope you enjoyed these brief glimpses as much as I enjoyed writing them. Till next week, Happy Weekend!

Hugs,

Julie

“Nothing great in the world

has been accomplished without passion.”

—Georg Wilhelm

WHEW … been a busy week, how ‘bout you?? Spent a good part of it staying with my sweet mother-in-law who is recovering from a fall, and talk about a labor of love! I LOVE this woman and quite frankly, there’s no “labor” involved whatsoever when it comes to spending time with her, God’s truth. But when I returned home again? Oh, yeah, lots of laundry, cleanup and writing tasks piled higher than the dust and the dishes! That said, I’m taking a free pass on writing a Journal Jot this week and revamping one of my old Seeker blogs below instead because honestly, it’s a subject near and dear to my heart and ALWAYS relevant.

PASSION. Don’t you just LOVE that word?? I have to say, it’s one of my all-time faves and apparently God thinks so too, because two years ago at an ACFW Conference, I attended a seminar of about 50-75 authors where at the end of it, the teachers — Allen Arnold from Thomas Nelson and Karen Ball from B & H Publishing — invited the authors up to the front to receive a diploma and a pretty cloth bag containing a polished stone with a word engraved on it. Each author got to select a bag, stone unseen, and you want to go ahead and guess what my stone said? Yep, you got it—PASSION!! I was so blown away, that I went up and asked Allen Arnold how many stones in the pile contained the word “passion.” “Only one or two,” he said. Coincidence? Yeah, probably … but I prefer to think of it as a smile from God. 🙂 So, without further ado, here is a blog I wrote a long time ago about my favorite word entitled “A Passion for Passion”:

Okay, yeah, big surprise—I’m writing about “Passion.” Why, you ask, other than the fact that I’m a hormonal Baby Boomer? Well, because it’s important—in our relationship with God, with our family AND in our writing.

Okay, I’ll admit it—there are times when my passion for my husband may wane a bit. Especially over his inability to sink a dirty T-shirt in the hamper when the man can swoosh a basketball through a hoop with his eyes closed. I mean, come on! What’s that all about?

But there are two areas where I unequivocally do NOT waver in my quest for passion: with God and in my writing. And, quite frankly, as Christian fiction writers or readers, that’s the way it should be. Because to me, nothing is better than the merge of passion for God with passion for romance. Kind of like hot fudge glazing vanilla-bean ice cream—God’s anointing makes our writing (or reading) all the sweeter, all the more “moan good.”

Now I wish I could claim the distinction of being the one who first pressed the limits of passion in Christian romance, but that honor belongs to God. Have you ever read “Song of Solomon”? YIKES! Keep a fan handy. That is one passionate account—of God’s love for Israel, His love for the Church, and in its pulse-pounding sensuality, a metaphor of just how crazy He is about each of us. Which got me to thinking. Why is passion so all-fire important to Him?

Good question. And one He makes no bones about in His Word. You see, I have this weird habit of writing favorite Scriptures (or ones that apply to current problems of mine) on index cards and carrying them around or tucking them as bookmarks into my Bible. And you know what I realized just the other day? Most of my index cards talk about passion and fervor for God! Check it out:

They sought God EAGERLY, and he was found by them. So the Lord gave them rest on every side. 2 Chronicles 15:15

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe he exists and that he rewards those who EARNESTLY seek him. Hebrews ll:6

For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are FULLY COMMITTED to him. 2 Chronicles 16:9

The effectual FERVENT prayer of a righteous man availeth much. James 5:16

Eagerly. Earnestly. Fully committed. Fervent. Passion in all its glory. And it’s important to God, so it should be important to us. In Him … and in our lives.

So what does that mean? Well, for me, it means that before my fingers even shadow the keyboard, they need to shadow the pages of my Bible. And before one single, solitary e-mail is answered, I need to answer my God when He asks “Do you love me? Will you spend time with me?” And it means that before I lose myself in writing a love scene that will make me swoon, I need to first swoon over the Love of my life. Because without “passion” for Him, my passion is flat. So I pray—DAILY—for passion and fervor for God.

I truly believe that then—and only then—will my passion flow … for writing … for my family … and for the people in our lives who need to experience the passion of God rather than the polluted passion of the world. Because let’s face it—true passion in writing or living for Him comes, first and foremost, from passion FOR Him. It’s the hot fudge on the ice cream, the icing on the cake … and, without question, the joy in our heart! So as a lover of God, whatever you do — dig in and do it with passion!

LAST-MINUTE GIVEAWAY!!

As many of you know, come January I batten down the hatches and write, packing away all blog interviews/giveaways until the next book comes out. BUT one of my dearest reader friends AND the 2^nd place winner of my “Have a Character Named After You” review contest, Michelle Tuller, is wrapping up her 1-year blogaversary this next week, so I just couldn’t pass that up. Michelle is giving away A Passion Most Pure (with a signed book plate) and I am giving the same winner their choice of any of my other books, including Steven’s story next year, A Love Surrendered, PLUS winner’s choice of a top CBA book from my library. So if that appeals, stop by and say hey with a comment at:

http://sweettreatsandinspiration.blogspot.com/2012/01/happy-1-year-blogiversary-julie-lessman.html

Hope to see you there, and here’s to a PASSIONATE weekend in whatever you do!!

Hugs,

Julie

“Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them,

for it is the LORD your God who goes with you.

He will not leave you or forsake you.” 

—Deuteronomy 31:6

One of my older sisters once told me something my mom told her, but since my mom died when I was sixteen, I can’t confirm it, so I am getting this second hand. But apparently when I was a baby, my mom took me to a convent to see a friend of hers right after I was born. While Mom was holding me in the chapel area, an old nun walks up to her and peeks at the baby in her arms (me) and asks to hold me. Cradling me in her arms, she said something to the effect of: “Oh my, this child will lift up the Lord’s name one day.”

And yeah, I did. Uh … in vain, unfortunately. Most of you know that I was a wild child of the 60’s and 70’s before I came to the Lord at the age of 23, and trust me, I did my fair share of  “lifting up the Lord’s name” in a manner I am not very proud of today. But the good news is that my past is over and done and redeemed by the precious Blood of Jesus Christ, so thank God for His mercies that are new everyday.

Why am I telling you this? Because as our verse so carefully points out today, God “goes with us” and will never “leave or forsake us,” Not even when we turn away from Him or don’t acknowledge Him in our lives like I did for so many years. God has called me to write for Him—just like He called EACH of us according to our talents—to “lift up His name” in everything we say and do. The fact that He has been “hovering” over me since I was a baby and even “knew” me in my mother’s womb (“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Jeremiah 1:5), following me through all the steps of rebellion where I didn’t even know if He existed or not, gives me goose bumps. There’s a really good reason that one of His names is “Emmanuel” or “God with us” … because He is! Always!!

So, what prompted this Journal Jot today? Well, it was one of my Scripture readings this week from Daniel 4:22-23. You know, the story about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego being thrown into the fiery furnace because they wouldn’t bow down to the King’s God? It said in that reading that “the king’s command was SO urgent and the furnace SO hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.” HOLY SMOKE — now that’s hot!! They were firmly tied up together and tossed in, and as you know, not a hair on their heads was scorched. But here are the lines that stopped me dead in my tracks:

 24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?”

   They replied, “Certainly, Your Majesty.”

 25 He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

WOW!! Now THAT gave me cold chills because it was as if God was saying, “I am with you ALWAYS, Julie, even when you go through the fire.

The fire. Ah, yes, those awful times in our lives when we are tempted to give up, the times when our lives or our relationships hang in the balance, or when we or our loved ones are suffering with sickness, or any number of other heartbreaks bringing us down. He is THERE in the midst of it with us whether we know it or not. There whether we believe in Him or not.

Like the time when I was a rebellious and agnostic teenager walking home at 2:00 AM with my girlfriend? And a carload of guys we didn’t know squealed to a stop, hurling their car doors open to run after us? Yep, He was there with me when my girlfriend darted off in the direction of her house and I ran around the house of a widow neighbor who was hard of hearing, screaming my head off while two of the guys chased me, probably to throw me in the car for sport. Heart pounding and huffing like crazy, I sprinted for the neighbor’s front door, ramming my finger to the doorbell as the guys caught up with me on the front porch. Would you believe that deaf little old lady opened her door at that exact moment? Now I ask you—if you were a little old lady living alone, would YOU open the door at 2:00 AM in the morning?? And if you were sleeping AND hard of hearing, would you really get to the door that fast?? I rest my case. God was THERE on that porch with me, I know that now. He was there when those guys hightailed it to their car and sped away, and He was there when I cried myself to sleep that night.

Emanuel. God with us. And, oh honey, He WAS with us ten years ago during that awful time when a doctor told us he thought my son had cancer and I was having nightmares wide awake, seeing him in a coffin or myself standing by his grave. Trust me, it’s murder having a wild imagination, especially if you can’t turn to the God who will never leave you or forsake you. But HE was there, steadying me with His Word during one of the worst weeks of my life, and here’s the story and the healing Scriptures that got me through. http://www.julielessman.com/from-the-heart/

So, whatever you are going through today, whatever fire is trying to consume you or your family, know this: God is with you, always, just like that fourth guy in the furnace above with our three friends, we have an awesome God Who will get you through unscathed, so TAKE ADVANTAGE!! I know I do! 🙂

GIVEAWAYS!!

I am laying low on blog interviews these days to crank on writing books, but one of my dearest reader friends AND the 2^nd place winner of my “Have a Character Named After You” review contest, Michelle Tuller, is having her 1-year blogaversary this next week, so I just couldn’t pass that up. Michelle is giving away A Passion Most Pure (with a signed book plate) and I am giving the same winner their choice of any of my other books, including Steven’s story next year, A Love Surrendered, PLUS winner’s choice of a top CBA book from my library. So if that appeals, stop by and say hey with a comment at:

http://sweettreatsandinspiration.blogspot.com/

Hope to see you there, and HAPPY WEEKEND!!

Hugs,

Julie