Timothy's Thoughts

W hy did God choose men to lead? Actually, that is probably the wrong question. As I’m sure you will recall, Paul’s basis for saying that men are the head of the family is based on the fact that God created Adam first and then Eve. Though some people may see that as rather arbitrary because it seems like the luck of the draw whether a person will be either male or female, consider that what God did is not unlike what you would do if you were picking a team of workers. The first person you would pick would the team leader. You would decide what you need in a leader, look for a person who meets those qualifications, and once you found that person, you would pick a team who complimented that person’s style of leadership. God had an advantage over us. He was able to decide what he wanted in a leader and then build the guy to exacting standards. In choosing a helper, he looked first at the creatures that were already there, but when Adam didn’t find anything he liked, God made a helper who ...

A recent discussion of Romance novels caused me to reexamine the Greek love words. These are storge , phileo , eros , and agape . There’s little question what some of these mean. storge appears to be a fondness for the people we know. You might have this for your co-workers. phileo goes farther than that. It is more like the love that David and Jonathan had for each other and apparently, it is the love Peter had for Jesus. It reminds me of old family friends that you may not see for months, but when you get together it is like you’ve never been apart. Then there is eros which is that natural sexual desire that we all have. It is good when a man has it for his wife, but he could also have it for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. We don’t have much control over it, but we do have the choice not to act on it. Lastly, there is agape , which I suspect is misunderstood by many people. The reason I think this word is misunderstood is because people have equated agape with the unconditio...

I paid off my mortgage the other day. I’ve got to admit that it made me a little nervous. I’d been saving up the money for some time and it made me nervous because my bank account suddenly dropped by a significant amount. But I talked myself into hitting the button. The mortgage is gone. I am officially debt free! It will take me a while to build up my savings to what it was before, but it is very freeing to know that there isn’t a bank out there who has a right to foreclose on my house or to repossess my car. And though life always has expenses, it is nice to know that if I were to suddenly lose my job that I would have a roof over my head for as long as it took to find a new one. Ultimately, it is God who provides and in this case, I believe it is he who has given me the ability to pay off my house. He has blessed me well, though I frequently wonder why. I certainly don’t deserve all he has given me. As I think about this, I can only say that the wealthiest people in the world...

A company I own stock in sent out an announcement about a new contract they had been awarded. In their statement they said, “we are humbled by this selection.” Suspect that companies say that as a way of recognizing the efforts of those who put effort into making the decision and it sounds better than singing We Are the Champions , no matter how much you might want to do that. One also doesn’t want to offend the selection committee while the paperwork is still being signed. But it made me wonder. Is the statement correct? “We are humbled by this selection.” Is anyone ever humbled by winning? I suspect not. We can be humble when we win, but it is not winning that humbles us. Losses can humble us. If we’re expecting to win, but if someone we didn’t expect to win beats us, it will humble us. But what can humble us when we win? To be humbled when we win requires that we look at the competition and see what they are capable of. We’re glad when we win that we came out on top, but the hu...

P eople say that a writer should imagine he is writing to one person, much like he would if he were writing a letter. The idea is that by doing so he will avoid the problems caused by trying to say too many things to too many people. But I see something wrong with this idea. Imagine, if you will, that you have a mother-in-law that you can’t stand and you have chosen to write to her. So, in your story you begin to point out what is wrong with everything she does. When she reads the story, if the theme is obvious, she will take offense. That is probably why some people have the idea that we shouldn’t have an obvious theme. Sometimes, we intend for people to be offended, and that’s okay, but just because we don’t want people offended doesn’t mean we must not have an obvious theme. Instead of writing your story to her, write it to we. Find a way to include yourself in your audience. Instead of venturing into areas you know nothing about, look for common ground. Don’t tell your mother-in-...

M erry Christmas. I hope you are attending church somewhere this Christmas, whether with your home church or at a church where you are vacationing. If you live in Fort Worth and are looking for a church with its doors open today, South Park Baptist Church will have preaching at ten o’clock this morning. Now, on to other things. I thought the video below very fitting for a Christmas post: Flash mobs like this interest me because they take art to the world. People who might not visit a concert hall, a church, or even the center court of a mall while a choir is singing, will stop and listen. Still more will pass these videos around on the Internet. In spite of what some church music directors believe, people still like choirs. So why aren’t people flocking to churches with talented choirs? Largely, I think it has to do with keeping up appearances or event the fear of death. Some people are afraid to say that they like choir music because they think their friends will think they are s...

T he saying is that you can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. To me, it seems like marketing is like bringing horses to water. The more horses you bring, the more horses will drink, but not all will. If you are trying to sell a book, your job isn’t to make people buy the book. Your readers will decide whether they want to buy the book or not. What you are trying to do is to put the book in front of as many people as possible. The more people who know about the book, the more that will buy the book. You need not be concerned with those people who don’t buy the book. They weren’t thirsty enough to drink. And who knows, maybe they’ll be thirsty sometime later. So you just keep putting it out there. Some time ago, I heard that on average, a person has to see a book seven times before he makes a decision. That implies that we should look for ways to put it in front of the same people seven times. The problem with that is that we may spend a lot of time putting it out t...

P eople don’t care if someone is good or not, as long as they are nice. That is part of the reason why people change their attitude about sin, like adultery or homosexuality, when it involves a person who is part of the family. When we think of an adulterer as a bad person, it is easy to see it as wrong, but when someone we know and like is involved in adultery, we want to dismiss it rather than think of them as bad people. The same is true of homosexuality. As long as it only involves people who hang out at gay bars, or Catholic priests who are a little too familiar with the boys, it is easy to think of homosexuality as bad, but when it involves a family member or a friend, it looks very different. The real problem is that we have the wrong idea about sin. Think of Jesus and the woman at the well. She was an outcast because of her sin. She had had many men and she had likely taken some of those away from their wives. She wasn’t a good person. I don’t know if she was a nice person or...

M arriage is on the decline. People who do get married are getting married later in life. And many couples forego the legal ceremony and simply live together. Of course, once people start living together, they don’t really see the need for a ceremony because they are “essentially married.” It sounds bleak, and indeed it is, but I don’t think it will always be this way. Life goes in cycles. Part of the reason why people don’t see a reason to get married these days is because they see marriage as something of a religious nature. It is religious people who see a problem with adultery, so when people reject God they also reject marriage. But in time, people will begin to see that marriage isn’t a matter of religion, but God instituted it for a reason. Let me give you a real life example, I’ll change the names to protect the guilty. Jason and Rachel were high school sweethearts. They were so in love. One night, maybe even many nights, things got out of hand and they found themselves in ...

I listened to the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts the other day. It is a beautiful hymn, but I really hadn’t paid attention to the words before. As I listened to the very talented singer singing those words, it struck me how much it worships simplicity. People worship so many things, but it is God that we ought to worship. People work at so many religious things. For the Shakers that thing appears to be simplicity. The claim of the hymn seems to be that if we can achieve simplicity then everything else will fall into place. But that isn’t what the Bible says. The Bible says that we are to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to us. As far as I know, God has never required anyone to be simple before they can approach him. What God does require is that we be righteous, but it isn’t righteousness that we can work at and gain. It is okay to be complicated instead of simple. It is okay to have stuff as long as we don’t worship the stuff rather ...

I t’s the week before Christmas. If you have a job that, that probably means you are extra busy at work. Perhaps you have taken the week off or you are planning on taking time off next week. If you have kids, they will be home from school and you’ll be anxious for them to go back. There are parties to plan and presents to wrap. Think of all the kids who are anxious for Christmas to come. They have no idea just how busy Christmas is. I’m just glad it only comes once a year. Of course, we’re all supposed to remember the reason for the season. I don’t think many of us forget. It is all the rest of it that is stressful. But trust me, it won’t be long and it will be over. In a couple of weeks, everything will be back to normal and our biggest concern will be whether the weather is going to shut the schools down or not.

T oday, I am pleased to announce that my latest book is available to purchase. Extending Art of Illusion is a book for people who would like to make the most of the open source tool Art of Illusion by writing their own plugins and scripts. Art of Illusion is a user-friendly 3D modeling tool developed by Peter Eastman. I believe Extending Art of Illusion is needed because the current documentation on plugin development for Art of Illusion is inadequate. As far as I know, this book is the only book that is currently available for Art of Illusion. There is much information available online about Art of Illusion, but most of that is on how to use Art of Illusion as is. The person who would like to automate some of their frequent tasks in Art of Illusion may have difficulty finding the information they need to accomplish their goal. When I began writing plugins, most of the guidance I found online was so out of date that it would not work with the latest version of Art of Illusion. I ...

A frustrated author stated the other day that it isn’t about what you write but who you know. This particular author was frustrated about someone who had gotten a book deal because he knew someone in the publishing industry, while the author was still trying to find someone to publish his book. That got me thinking. Where is it written that it should be about what we write rather than who we know? We want quality books, but consider the situation in which a publisher has a friend who has written a book. What makes us think that he should publish the book of a stranger instead of publishing the book of his friend? Maybe it is true that the stranger has written a better book than his friend, but that’s not the point. What kind of friends would we be if we weren’t willing to give our friends special consideration? Also, consider that the importance of what a person says may be dependent on who that person is. When the President speaks, whether we see him as highly intelligent of the ...

I ’ve created a personal rule of thumb for when I buy books. If the Kindle version is priced at $2.99 or lower, I don’t buy it. I realize that is the opposite of the attitude that many Kindle owners have, since many of them bought Kindles hoping to get cheap books, but I have my reasons. If I want to keep the book, I’ll probably buy the paper version. But if the book is one that is normally printed on cheap newsprint paper anyway, I’ll purchase the Kindle version, even though it will cost me $8. My thinking is that the people who are pricing their books at $2.99 and below are self-published authors who have the idea that lower prices will generate more sales. I’ve got nothing against self-published authors. In fact, I have several books in my library that I purchased for about $20 because that is what the subsidy press was charging for them. But here’s the thing, people who are willing to sell their work at very low prices don’t see their work as valuable. They price their work that...

W hy do we get upset about these things? The other day, I walked into church and someone had set out a bunch of buttons that said, “It’s okay to say Merry Christmas.” I suppose you’re suppose to wear them to the store and the clerk will know that you won’t be offended by the use of the word Christmas. For the past few years, people have been upset over the use of the phrase “Happy Holidays.” Before that, people were upset about the word, “X-mas.” The belief is that people are trying to take Christ out of Christmas. But I found the irony interesting when I watched a video on Merriam-Webster’s website. One of their editors was talking about where the word “X-mas” came from. It turns out that it is a printer’s abbreviation from back when every letter took a lot of time to produce. The X, in this case, is actually the first letter of a word that we would translate as Christ. Today, we might have written it as C-mas instead. So, people aren’t taking Christ out of Christmas, they’re just ab...

H ow much should a Kindle book cost? Some people have gotten the idea that Kindle books should cost less than print books because the publisher has lower costs. Personally, I think that books should be priced to match demand. This is because publishers work on an 80/20 rule in which 80% of the money comes from 20% of the books. It may even be a 90/10 in which 90% of the money comes from 10% of the books. The 10% are actually making up for losses in the 90%. But one person recently indicated that she didn’t like paying “high” prices for Kindle books because she thought the publishers were charging far above their expenses. She indicated she might be swayed by hard numbers. Publishers don’t reveal much, but I’ve put together as close to what she wanted as I could. Here are the publishing prices Rachelle Gardner listed some time ago for a Trade Paperback: Editorial: $5,000 Packaging (cover design & production): $3,500 Typeset & Interior layouts: $500 Printing & binding: $...

I s the story of Beauty and the Beast in the Bible? It has been said that every story that has ever been told is in the Bible. At a very high level, that may be true, but what about a lower level? In trying to find Beauty and the Beast in the Bible, I came across a website that made the claim that the story or Jephthah’s daughter is the story from which Beauty and the Beast came. I can see that in the parallel between Jephthah returning home after making a promise to sacrifice the first thing that came out of his house and his daughter coming out first, and the old man returning home after promising to give the beast the first thing that came out of his house. But Beauty and the Beast is a very different story, other than how the girl was chosen. When one reads Beauty and the Beast , the thing that stands out is that this is a story about two very different people learning to love each other. It is a classic Buddy Love story and the story of Jephthah’s daughter is not. If anythin...

O ne of the hardest things for a novelist is to put characters into a situation they can’t escape from. Think of all of the romance novels in which a woman marries a man because he needs someone to take care of his kids after he is widowed, but he we find out that he didn’t really love his first wife. I was reading one of the reviews of one of Colleen Coble’s books and the reviewer commented on how the character was about to become engaged, but her husband showed up, only it wasn’t a problem because the man she was to be engaged to was “just a friend.” Now, compare that to Cast Away . A man is stuck on an island for a long time. His wife moves on and marries another guy, so when he gets off the island, the love of his life is no longer available. We hate doing that to our characters, but it makes it so much more powerful. But much like in a romance novel, the writers of Cast Away made it okay by having the Tom Hanks character deliver a package to an attractive woman, implying that he...

S everal weeks ago, I was watching some of the episodes of the Dick Van Dyke Show on Netflix. In one particular episode, the theme was the decline of the American male. The discussion at work has to do with all of the examples of how the American male is declining, such as doing the dishes and helping with the kids’ bath, etc. Rob makes the claim that no that isn’t the case, but when he goes home, what does he do but do the dishes and help his son get ready for bed. Of course, that show was filmed in the 60’s. Now, some fifty years later, I look at where the American male stands and the things they indicated were signs of the decline back then look chauvinistic today. Back then, there was no question that Rob Petrie was the head of his home. Oh sure, there were gags where Laura appeared to have the say, but they were clearly meant to be gags. Today, the idea of a man being the head of his home is frowned upon, and yet there are still people out there pushing the idea that girls can do...

L et’s talk about church etiquette. Growing up, there were certain rules that you were expected to follow when you were in the church building. Some of those rules seem to have changed since then and I’ve picked up a few more that I wasn’t taught, but let’s look at a few. Don’t Run in the Church Building This was a big one. I’m pretty sure it had something to do with the risk of mowing some old person down. I don’t see quite as many people yelling this one down the halls these days, but it is still a good one to follow. Don’t Chew Gum This one probably got started after someone reached down and got her hand stuck gum. I just remember that Mom had trouble teaching us this one because the woman who sat behind us in church was usually chewing gum. Don’t Crawl Under the Pews I can understand it when the church service is going on, but my mother wouldn’t let me crawl under the pews even when we were the only people in the building. Sit Still The idea is that you’re supposes to listen t...

W hy would anyone want to pay hundreds of dollars for someone to publish their book? (One vanity press has said that the average their customers pay is $1250.) For that matter, why would someone choose traditional publishing over self-publishing, when they get higher royalties from self-publishing and traditional publishers don’t do much to market a book anyway. Let me tell you what happened to me recently and see if you can’t answer that question. I was nearly finished with typesetting the book when I decided that I wanted tabs on the edge so the reader could find key sections more easily. That requires the book be set up with bleed. So the ink goes to the edge of the page, the book has to be set up with the tabs extending past the trim line. When they trim the book, the knife will cut through the printed area, but since I’d set up the book without that, I had to resize the pages. The books contains both textboxes and images, so I had to go through the book page by page, repositioni...

E ditor’s Note: It’s been a couple of years since I last did this, but Michael Hyatt recently posted about some of the things novelists can blog about and it rekindled my desire to interview a character from one of my books. I decided to sit down with Amber from Mother Not Wanted Timothy Fish: Amber, some of my readers may not have read your story. What would you tell someone who may be trying to decide whether to buy the book or not. What is it about your story that you think makes it special? Amber: You really know how to make a girl nervous, don’t you? Timothy Fish: I wasn’t trying to. Just tell us how it all started. The novel starts with you an Lizi on the train from St. Louis. Maybe you can tell us what was going on before that. What was it that convinced you to get on that train? Amber: I had to do something. I was at a point in my life where I couldn’t take care of Lizi properly. We’d recently gotten into church and our pastor was doing this series on the importance of men...

I came across a verse that I don’t remember taking much notice of before. I know I’ve read it, but I don’t recall doing more than that. “Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people.” (Exodus 22:28) The last part of that verse is clear enough. For us in America, that means we should be careful about what we say about the President, the members of Congress, the judges throughout the land, the Governor, the Mayor or anyone else in such a position. We can certainly say that we disagree with them, but they are to be treated with respect and we aren’t to wish they were dead. It is the first part that got me. “Thou shalt not revile the gods…” How does that fit with the statement, “thou shalt have no other gods before me?” When you look back at the Hebrew, it doesn’t help much. The word that is translated as “gods” is often translated as “God”. The verse would mean something very different if it were stated as “Thou shalt not revile God.” And does it mean “thou shalt...