Easter Sunday 2024: When Lent changes everything.

Do I ramble here? You betcha.

Will I rant a bit, possibly vent? Probably.

Has consistency ever been my game? There was a time, yes. But we’ll see about now.

Who am I now? A Catholic Woman, working toward sainthood by following a vocation, called by God—wife and mother first, creative soul second—in a world that seems to have turned topsy-turvy.


But now to the real meat of the story. Why am I back here, blogging again? Because I believe God wants me to use my skills as a writer. I’ve known for a while that the direction of my writing wasn’t where I wanted to go, so I’ve floundered quite a bit over the last 3 years. Then a couple weeks ago, a company I’m familiar with called out for writers—Gospel reflections on Sundays. I thought, ‘throw your hat in Bethanne’, why not? If they like it, it’s a sure sign of a good direction to move. Now, as is with all things writing, I wait and see…

I spent this Lent staying off Facebook—for the most part, managing a few groups on Sundays. But I did realize by the time I’d decided to write the Gospel reflection, that social media was pissing me off, on the regular! And I didn’t like being there even though I love to be able to share my life with my family and friends from the past. And then this past week has been one harrowing escapade after another of false FB allegations of copyright infringement of accounts that don’t even belong to me…until finally Facebook disabled my accounts—both my personal and my writing. Done. (wipinghands) The funniest part is that they didn’t bother with the IG account, also a META company, so I don’t know what they will do when they finally realize they’ve made a mistake on FB. But I won’t go back now. It’s like a burden that’s been lifted. Yes, I’ll hold onto the IG, because I do like the contact (I’m an introvert. We LOVE behind the screen connections!). But Facebook can pretty much kiss mine…

And, I was able to tweak my IG account to represent the better Me.

Here’s the thing about my name; it’s Bethanne. Sometimes, on the phone in the south, I let Beth slide, because…you have NO IDEA how hard it is to get people to understand ‘bethanne’ in the somewhat northern accent I have. On the second or third, “What?” I usually say, Beth.

But names are important, and I like mine. So, even when it was suggested the I should find something simpler for my domain—in the end—I just couldn’t not use Bethanne on this round. I’ve had too many years trying to be something that didn’t fit like a glove.

From Bread and Stories to Sewing and Target Practice to growing in Faith, you’ll find all sorts of things to talk about here, and I hope if you find me, you’ll stick around or come back often to visit.

POV Frustrations

I spent the last 5 days at the beach. I had a wonderful, quiet time with my family...my parents, grandmother, sister and brother-in-law, nephews, and my own kids.

I did some reading which I'm embarrassed to say, happens less and less often. I finally finished that Christina Dodd and started a Linda Howard...in the car, I listened to a Julie Garwood. And this is where my story really starts.

In 1999 Julie Garwood's book, Ransom was published. I really liked listening to this story! She's not one of my regular reads but I'll pick one up here or there.

[a quick aside...Am I the only one who thinks of 1999 being not that long ago? I suppose we're coming onto 10 years soon but 1999 is NOT a previous generation [in books], is it?]

My reason for questioning this is Garwood's lack of proper POV usage. She was all over the place in this novel. Bouncing around like a big red ball in seventh grade gym class during a dodgeball game.

My problem has nothing to do with her use of POV! It has to do with the fact that I still enjoyed the story! I had no problem feeling the characters. I had no problems with confusion or wondering what was going on or who was doing what, saying what... Honestly, if I hadn't decided to start writing stories, I probably wouldn't have even noticed.

I've been spending months...months, I tell you!...limiting my writing. Limiting my use of ing verbs, -ly descriptions, that, was(okay, I understand the was and has been and really boring verbs...) and I'm tired of it!

I want to hone my craft but what I've done is hog-tied my creativity. It's why my stuff is flat crap. So, I'm turning a new leaf. This may not be a free for all but it will be all...

All of my skill...
All of my creativity...
All of my instinct...
and all the lessons I've learned and will learn from this day forward.