Timothy's Thoughts

E very story must begin somewhere, but how are we to decide where we should begin? To say to begin at the beginning is not enough. The beginning is that point in the protagonist’s life at which the change that takes place during the story is most needed and yet he is not motivated to change. The original Star Wars (episode IV) begins at a point when the rebels are on the verge of defeat. This is made obvious by the small rebel ship what is out gunned and swallowed by the much larger ship. What they need is a hero. Down on the planet, our protagonist is living out the life of a farmer. He longs for something more, but he will keep doing what he is doing. What if the story began sooner, say when he first arrived on that planet? We would have been bored. What about even sooner. There are three movies set before this time, so there was plenty going on, but Luke was the protagonist in none of those. Those are the story of other people. What if the story began later, when Luke discovers his...

P roverbs 29:18 could be the verse of the Bible that is taken out of contest more than any other. This is especially true of Christian businessmen. Consider the reference Mike Hyatt made to it in 6 Steps to More Courage . What he says about it is fairly typical of how businessmen reference it or how some pastors reference it. We want our people to understand the importance of having a vision and following through, so we quote this great Bible verse that seems to say just that. “Where there is no vision, the people parish.” If you want to survive, you have to have vision and the courage to follow through, right? Yes, to a point, but in the words of Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride , “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” First, most people leave off the second half of Proverbs 29:18. The whole verse says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” When you read a verse like this, you need to re...

I found a new toy for blogging. I was looking for another piece of software when I saw Windows Live Writer . This tool is designed for editing blog posts offline and then posting them to your blog. I have only tried it with Blogger, so I don’t know how well it works with other blogs, but I’m impressed. I believe it was Michael Hyatt who recommended BlogJet. I tried it and I wasn’t impressed enough to stop writing my posts in Word and then copying the text to my blog. The main problem I had with BlogJet was that 90% of the time it wouldn’t post to the blog and I had to copy the text anyway. So far, Windows Live Writer hasn’t failed on me and I have posted to my blog several times. Windows Liver Writer also has some features that BlogJet didn’t seem to have. It pulls the template from the blog so that you can see approximately what the text will look like when you post. It handles multiple blogs. It is extensible. Is there a feature you would like to have that just isn’t there? Y...

O n Friday, June 19, 2009, Mike Hyatt post 20 Questions to Ask Other Leaders . These questions were asked of him by Michael Smith of ClearView Baptist Church in Franklin, Tennessee. I looked through these questions an I thought, It might be good to answer these myself, just to know how I as a leader would answer them. I don’t know that I will answer all of them for your benefit here, but that first question is one that I feel needs to be answered today, Father’s Day. Can you name a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader? Maybe some one who has been a mentor to you? Why and how did this person impact your life? Everything I know about leadership I learned from my Dad. Everything . I’ve read books on leadership. I have spent time with many leaders. I have been in various positions of leadership. Taking all of that into account, I still look back at my successes in leadership and think I learned that from Dad . Or I look at my failures in leadership and I think I sh...

W hen have we seen the half-man in romance novels? I used to read more romance novels than I do now. They generally don’t hold my attention, but I was trying to think if I have ever seen any. I’m sure there must be a few, but I don’t recall seeing them among the books I have read. A half-man in a romance novel would likely be a woman. She would likely be the man’s old girlfriend. “Yeah, I dated him for a while,” she would say. “I thought we were going to get married and then that rich blond came along. You know were that left me.” The problem with half-men in romance novels is that they make the male character look more like a real guy. That’s not good if the women reading these things are looking for a character to get all hot and bothered over. Another thing I’ve noticed about romances, in particular Christian Historicals, many of the secondary characters are characters from the series. If in book one, the character fell in love and got married, the character won’t work well as a ...

A s we reach the last quarter of our novel, the Death Knells are ringing in our ears. We have no hope of success. We are out of options and the half-man has testified to the strength of our opponent. What are we to do? “Never give up! Never surrender!” cries Tim Allen’s character from Galaxy Quest . “It’s a good day to die!” cry the Klingons from Star Trek . When all is lost, protagonists don’t sit down and wait for the inevitable. They are cut from a different cloth than half-men . No, protagonists fight to the end with the idea that I’m going to die with my boots on . It is typical for sci-fi writers to send their protagonists on suicide missions. They will either save the day or die trying. Can we do the same with other types of stories? The answer is yes. Suppose a man is very good friends with a woman. They are just friends, or so they tell each other, but when she decides to marry another man, the first man tries to talk her out of it. This upsets her and we reach the point ...

Y esterday, I mentioned what some people call the half-man . A half-man could be a literal half-man, either missing limbs or in sci-fi he could be part man and part machine. But he doesn’t have to be. His purpose is to be a death knell . Often, the half-man is fighting the same fight as our protagonist and has already faced the enemy. Unfortunately, the half-man failed, getting away with his life, but with the knowledge that he didn’t accomplish what he had hoped. Take a look at the video below. This is one of the most emotionally charged scenes in the movie version of The Neverending Story “They look like big, good, strong hands don’t they?” Rock Biter says and they certainly do. So, if Rock Biter is powerless to defend his friends against the Nothing, what makes us think that Atreyu has any hope of defeating it? We don’t. That’s the whole point. Atreyu is down for the count. He has lost everything and he might as well sit down next to Rock Biter and wait for the Nothing to come. ...