Author Archives: Janet Sketchley

About Janet Sketchley

Janet Sketchley is an Atlantic Canadian writer whose Redemption’s Edge Christian suspense novels have each been finalists in The Word Awards. She's also the author of the devotional collection, A Year of Tenacity. Janet blogs about faith and books. She loves Jesus and her family, and enjoys reading, worship music, and tea. Fans of Christian suspense are invited to join her writing journey through her monthly newsletter: bit.ly/JanetSketchleyNews.

Remembering God’s Promises. Again.

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The Lord will work out his plans for my life—
for your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever.
Psalm 138:8, NLT*

Don’t we forget this, sometimes?

Bad news piles up. Globally. Locally. Personally. Even if we’re physically untouched, the sheer weight of what goes on around us can be soul-crushing.

And let’s face it, even when life is really good, there are elements that we don’t like. That could be better.

If we’re not careful, fear, discouragement, discontent and others can pull our focus away from our Lord’s sufficiency. We know the truth of God’s promises, but we forget. (Click to tweet this.)

I find that embarrassing. Every time.

These days, we have “stuff” going on at church. I don’t understand it, I don’t like it, and I do not want to go around this tree again. Been there, done that a long time ago.

Yet where is God speaking to me? In church. First, He told me to be quiet. Hmm. Then He challenged me to accept His timing when I think it’s too slow.

He reminded me that adversity is part of life. It’s often the part that makes for the best growth. And it’ll happen whether I want it to or not.

My attitude needs to reflect hope and trust. Not an unrealistic hope that He will make everything pretty, but assurance that God is good, He is in control, and He will work all things out for good for those who trust Him.

For me, it’s meant repenting of an attitude of discontent. Reminding myself that it’s not about what I want. Recommitting myself to live in a way that honours and trusts in God.

God our Maker and Sustainer, somehow You will work all the messes of life into something beautiful. Forgive our grumbling and our discontent—and our fear—when we don’t like what we see. You don’t like it either, but You can work with it. Help us trust You. Help us work with You to be part of Your solution instead of being part of the negativity.

∞

I love this song from Robin Mark: “All is Well.” Take a few minutes to let it bless you.

*New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Review: Out of the Blue, by Jan Wong

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Out of the Blue, by Jan Wong (Jan Wong, 2012)

This book’s subtitle says it all: “A memoir of workplace depression, recovery, redemption, and, yes, happiness.”

Jan Wong was an award-winning journalist and best-selling author, on staff at the Toronto Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s largest newspapers. She was tough, focused, and unstoppable. Until national backlash to one of her articles triggered death threats and caused the paper to withdraw its support (despite having approved the story in the first place).

I love the title of this book, with its double meaning. The crisis hit “out of the blue” but also the book is Ms. Wong’s story of coming through and out of the “blue” of depression. In the preface she says, “I want to tell you that there is day after night, and hope on the other side.” [p. 10]

Oddly enough, I heard about the book in a conversation about independently-published works. Since I’m now an indie author myself, I listened closer, only to recognize the author from her syndicated columns in my local newspaper. I like her columns, and her story caught my interest.

Out of the Blue is a transparent look back at one person’s major depressive episode. Jan Wong is a gifted writer, and the text flows like a novel except where she adds portions of relevant research. Those never feel like info dumps, but they do remind us we’re reading non-fiction. The author has reconstructed this period in her life from detailed notes and conversations with family and friends, and she offers the disclaimer that her perception of events may not have always been accurate. (For example, was the doctor’s receptionist shrill and impatient or merely efficient? Hypersensitivity affects the interpretation.)

Although every person’s experience with depression is different, I learned a lot from the information she shared. Perhaps my chief take-away was that talk therapy is at least as important as medication, and that the sooner a person can admit they need help, the sooner they can begin to heal. I was startled to learn that one reason we don’t hear more about workplace-induced stress and depression is that employer/employee settlements routinely involve a gag clause forbidding the employee to speak of what happened. Imagine what that does for your healing! Fortunately for us, Ms. Wong held her ground against that clause in her own settlement.

As a Christian, I didn’t necessarily embrace the evolutionary theories in the book, but overall it gave me a much better awareness of the effects of depression. It was also an interesting read, and I was glad to see a positive ending. Because I normally review faith-based writing, I do want to include a language warning. Chapter 3 begins with a burst of profanity. If that’s an issue for you, just skip the first few paragraphs. These words are snippets of quotes from the overwhelming amount of hate mail Ms. Wong received in response to her news article. Their inclusion is to give us a sense of her circumstances.

Canadian author Jan Wong teaches journalism in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and is a columnist for Toronto Life. For more about the author and her work, visit her website: janwong.ca. If you visit, take note of the image showing that Out of the Blue made the bestseller list (despite being independently published) of the very newspaper that failed to support her as an employee in distress.

[Review copy from the public library.]

So What’s the Fuss About Indie Authors?

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Independent Authors What’s an indie author, anyway? Independent. Self-published, but also self-directed and self-marketed.

As has always been the case, many authors self-publish because they’re not offered a traditional contract. That might mean their work isn’t high-quality, but it might also mean they have a great book for a small market. Publishers have to have high sales volume to cover their overhead. Or it could mean any number of other things. Maybe they defy genres. Or they just don’t fit in the marketing “box.”

Others are confident, tech-savvy, and would have to think long and hard about accepting a traditional publishing contract. They like their freedom and the higher rate of return per book sale.

As technology makes this option more accessible to writers and as the publishing houses are clinging more to known sellers and avoiding risk-taking, independent publishing can only rise.

For Readers:

Best bet? If you’re interested in any book, especially an independently-published one, use Amazon.com’s “look inside” feature (even if you plan to buy elsewhere–shhh). See what you think of the writing. Read some of the reviews, alert for clues about the quality.

Like Christian fiction? If you’re on Facebook, check out the Christian Indie Books group. You can scroll through the posts or click the “photos” tab to see galleries of participating authors’ books.

Or find Christian Indie Authors on Pinterest.

For Writers:

Here are some resources I’ve found very helpful:

Going Indie Internationally, by Valerie Comer, posted at International Christian Fiction Writers: part 1 & part 2.

India Drummond has an excellent Tutorial Walkthrough: Formatting Documents for Createspace. (Thank you to Steve Vernon for sharing this link with me.)

Online writers’ groups, especially those with a section for indie authors. Also, Createspace, Kindle Direct, Kobo’s Writing Life and others have user forums.

Why Me?

I was happily published with a traditional house, and I loved it. Choose NOW Publishing is small enough that they invited and accepted my input. I felt like part of the team. I learned a lot from the marketing director, and had flexibility in setting dates and price points for sales. When Choose NOW decided to discontinue its fiction line, I was disappointed, but I saw the potential. I’d already been learning what I needed to know for the indie route, and it was either finish the Redemption’s Edge series on my own or kiss it goodbye.

This summer I reacquired my rights to Heaven’s Prey (and bought the cover because I loved it too much to commission a different one). The series will stay together, even though there’s a definite downshift in the intensity level after book 1.

Heaven’s Prey, second edition with Canadian spellings and with the majorly embarrassing mistake corrected, is now available for Kindle, Kobo, Nook, iBooks and Scribd. The print book will be out shortly.

Redemption’s Edge #2, Secrets and Lies, is in the final editing stages and the cover will be ready sometime in September. I hope to release it November 1. Stay tuned for more information, and remember that my newsletter subscribers get the first look at the new cover!

Idols Aren’t Wooden Anymore

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An idol is nothing but a tree chopped down,
then shaped by a woodsman’s ax.
Jeremiah 10:3b, MSG*

In 21^st century North America, the idea of calling an inanimate object “god” sounds foolish. We’re so far advanced from that primitive idea. We know a statue has no power.

We’d never worship something like that. Not in the sense of offering sacrifices to it, or of praying for its help.

But what if an idol is anything that takes first place in our lives, anything that replaces or reduces our adoration of our Saviour?

Maybe we’ve just build more sophisticated ones. Not out of wood or metal, but out of our wants and needs. Cars, houses, technology. Mates, children, pets.

Everyone has wants and needs. God knows that. But He wants us to “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33, NIV**)

We can’t claim “He will give us all things” literally—as evidenced by the lack of a red Corvette in my driveway—and more seriously as evidenced by the many hungry and oppressed Christians around the world.

But God deserves first place in our hearts, minds and spirits. When we align under His authority, we can rest in His sufficiency and His presence. With Him, we can pass through the hard times and come out the other side, even if that other side isn’t until we die.

It all comes back to trusting God. Putting him first. Checking our other affections to be sure they haven’t begun to crowd Him out. Restoring our perspective wherever it’s needed.

Holy God, You alone are worthy of our worship, praise and adoration. You’re the giver of all good things. Forgive us for the times we’ve allowed good things to usurp Your place in our hearts. Help us to appreciate Your gifts but to worship the Giver.

∞

Matt Redman‘s song, “One Name Alone,” reminds us where to focus our adoration.

Review: The Taste of Many Mountains, by Bruce Wydick

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The Taste of Many Mountains, by Bruce Wydick (Thomas Nelson, 2014)

A team of graduate students from California travel to Guatemala to trace coffee beans from site of origin to final destination, identifying the profit at each stage. Their questions: Does globalization make things better or worse? Does Fair Trade actually help the farmers? What about organic certification? And if the coffee industry is booming, why are the farmers living at subsistence level—or below it?

Their findings might surprise you.

This book is fiction, but it’s based on an actual assignment given by the author to some of his students. Many of their experiences made it into the novel. The author’s stated purpose is to share the findings of this study in a more engaging manner than a dry report. To that end, he succeeds.

It’s very fact-heavy, and although those facts come out in the sort of natural dialogue that graduate students would have about such things, this average reader confesses to skimming some of those sections. There’s far more information than a casual reader is ready to process. As such, the novel might be best suited to entry-level students in the areas of international trade and development, economics or global studies.

Angela and Alex and their teammates are engaging, original characters, although somewhat overshadowed by the novel’s focus. The reading level is often higher than fiction readers expect, for example, “Governments at peace with their people are much alike, but genocidal governments are each maleficent in their own way.” [p. 1] Personally, this language level is a pleasing stretch for me until it hits the details of areas of study.

There’s some fine description, though: “The sun rose in the sky and as the shadows grew shorter, the line of sweat down the middle of Fernando’s back grew longer, reaching down toward his belt.” [p. 49] And the author includes just enough Spanish to flavour the dialogue without losing non-Spanish speakers like me.

A few of the characters are Christian, and faith occasionally comes into their discussions, but in a natural, non-preachy way.

I love the cover of this book. It suits the story perfectly, down to the burlap background reminiscent of the bags that transport so many coffee beans. I learned from my reading that high-end beans are now shipped in vacuum-sealed plastic, but that wouldn’t make for such a good visual. Plus, the beans likely still leave the coffee farmer in the traditional burlap.

The Author’s Note proves that Bruce Wydick is a fine and engaging writer of non-fiction. He has created interesting characters and a plot with nicely-interwoven subplots. As many novelists do, he wrestles with complex truths that the wider world needs to hear. I think this book was a great idea, but what it needed was a co-writer to make the fiction shine (and a willingness to go much lighter on the facts so that readers could absorb the ones highlighted).

Author Bruce Wydick is a professor at the University of San Francisco (economics and international studies).

[A review copy was received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I was in no way compensated for this review.]

A Proverbs Prayer

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In the comments to my Continual Praise post, Jennifer Slattery encouraged me to find the verse(s) of Scripture that would make a personal, daily prayer. The ones I chose are sort of my life verses, and here they are:

If you’d like to print this for your own use, just right-click on it and “save image” to your computer.

It’s really easy to design images like this on Picmonkey. I used “frost” edging, added the text, then lightened the photo exposure so the words would show up. Why not try it with your favourite verse and a photo you like? Or just start with their blank screen and use colours and textures?

Gratitude. And Hope.

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I’ll make a list of God’s gracious dealings,
all the things God has done that need praising.
Isaiah 63:7a, MSG*

I confess I’ve lost track of counting God’s blessings. Even if I hadn’t, it would only touch a small sample of what He does and has done.

My gratitude journal has mostly entries of things that blessed me personally, like seeing a pheasant or a sparkly ceiling. Or bubbles. Small gifts from God to make me smile.

He gives so much more.

He gave His Son to save us. He gave us life and breath. He designed this beautiful planet and the cosmos. Gave us imagination. Invited us to work with Him in growing His Kingdom.

He draws us into relationship with Him, to worship and to flourish.

These days, world and local news makes it look like God is silent. Or absent. I think He’s waiting. Which means my job is to wait with Him, but to wait in trust. That can only happen when I remind myself of His ways and His unchanging nature.

I need to pick up that journal again. Record those evidences of His care. I need to keep reading the Bible. See the evidences of His intervention in the lives of His people. Remind myself that He’s got this.

Sovereign Lord of creation, we see so much pain and devastation. We confess that human choice has caused much of it. We confess how easily we can get discouraged or frightened by the circumstances. Remind us of Your love and power. Of Your justice. Help our unbelief, and help us to anchor our spirits in who You are. Open our eyes and help us to see what You have done and what You’re doing now. Help us trust what You’ll do in the future.

∞

Our song is from worship leader Kathryn Scott: “How Could I Ever Say Thank You?”

Review: My Brother’s Keeper, by N. J. Lindquist

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My Brother’s Keeper, by N. J. Lindquist (That’s Life! Communications, revised edition, 2014 — formerly titled In Time of Trouble)

Shane Donahue is 18 years old and he hates his life. And his super-perfect twin brother, Scott. They’re identical twins, but they’ve turned into polar opposites. Scott excels at everything, while Shane… well he’s ordinary at best.

He’s been dumped from the basketball team, fired from his job, he’s failing at school, and even in the party crowd he can’t rise to the top. Oh, and his dad took his car away after the latest speeding ticket.

The characters are real, complex, and Shane will capture your heart in the opening pages even while you’ll be shaking your head at his attitude. His frustration, his sense of hopelessness to be good at anything, are feelings we know too well. He doesn’t really know who he is—just who he’s trying to project himself to be.

Favourite quote: Shane describes one of his friends, Ethan, as “kind of comfortable to be around. Like an old pair of sweat pants. He’s maybe the only person who’s never tried to change me.” [Kindle location 495]

As Shane’s world falls apart and his family life gets more turbulent, he figures he’s far enough gone that he might as well check out this God stuff Ethan’s been spouting. It’s either that or kill himself and get it over with.

Shane doesn’t expect what he hears to make so much sense, or to realize he wants God in his life. He also doesn’t expect life to then get harder! His father is more angry about God-talk than he was about Shane’s plummeting grades, and the party crowd is downright hostile about the change in him.

You don’t have to be an 18-year-old boy to appreciate My Brother’s Keeper. It’s for everyone who’s ever felt like a loser, ever felt too far gone to change, or ever felt too ordinary to be any use to God.

N.J. Lindquist is a Canadian author and speaker who has played key roles in The Word Guild and in the Hot Apple Cider anthologies. As well as writing YA fiction under her own name, she writes cozy mysteries as J.A. Menzies. For more about the author and her writing, visit her website: njlindquist.com.

[Review copy from my personal library.]

Robin Williams and Suicide: 3 links and a song

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On Saturday I finished reading Jan Wong‘s bestselling memoir, Out of the Blue, subtitled “A memoir of workplace depression, recover, redemption, and, yes, happiness.” The author didn’t attempt to take her own life, but in exploring depression and its effects the book does talk about suicide.

Monday evening we heard the news of Robin Williams’ death. I’m sad. Not from a sense of personal loss, but sad for a life tragically cut short. That’s a cliche, but you know what? A cliche is something that’s been over-used. Suicide happens too often. There’s too much pain.

I don’t know the reason Mr. Williams died, and it’s not my place to analyze. My heart breaks for the individuals holding this much pain and often wearing smiles to hide it–be they adult, teens or children.

On Tuesday, this was my prayer:

"Robin Williams. Christ, have mercy. Rest his soul. Hold his family. Thank You for his gifts. Let him 'fly, be free'."

Not surprisingly, everyone seems to have something to say about the news. Here are some posts that touched my heart–and a mainstream song that I hear echoing Jesus’ longing to reach the wounded.

At Steph’s Eclectic Interests, Steph Beth Nickel reminds us that while we can’t do anything about global or celebrity suffering, we can do something. See “What Can I Do?”

At The Daily Dad, Thomas Froese shares what he’d like to say to Robin Williams: “Grieving Robin Williams. His Bus Goes Home.”

At A Holy Experience, Ann Voskamp reveals “What the Church & Christians Need to Know About Suicide & Mental Health.”

And for our song: Nickelback‘s Lullaby (Yes, this song has made me cry in public, and no, I don’t agree that suicide is “the easy way out.” Read Ann Voskamp’s post, if you didn’t already. Suicide happens when strong people, who have already fought longer and harder than outsiders know, succumb to the lie that this is their best option. We know who the Liar is, and he will get what’s coming to him.)

The One Opinion of You that Matters

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The fear of human opinion disables;
trusting in God protects you from that.
Proverbs 29:25, MSG*

“Disable” is a strong word. Even though many levels of disability don’t incapacitate a person, they do affect and interfere in some way with that person’s ability to function. And some disabilities increase over time.

We all know how fear of others’ opinions can cause us to self-censor, to put up walls or wear masks, to hide our true thoughts and feelings. In contrast, certain people make us feel safe to be ourselves.

No matter what people say or think about us, whether they misunderstand us or see the truth, God loves us. In His eyes, we have such great value that Jesus came to rescue us from life (and death) cut off from relationship with God.

We can trust His love. We can trust the things He says in the Bible. Things like “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9, NIV**) And “I am with you always.” (Matthew 28:20, NIV**)

Even if everyone else rejects us, God delights in us. We’re His favourite part of creation. Don’t believe me? Take time to read Alisha Gratehouse’s post, “The Lord Delights in You” and Carolyn Watts’ post, “God’s Favourite Part of Creation.” You may have to pray about these truths for a while to let them sink in.

Rejection, snide remarks and misunderstanding from others will always hurt. But security in God’s love can keep us from being disabled by the fear of human opinion. Our best defence is to get closer to Him.

God our gentle Shepherd, You understand the pain of rejection. You know our fears. When others hurt us, help us to anchor in Your deep love. Help us remember—and believe—what You say about us. Help us pay more attention to Your opinion of us than to those of the people around us. Help us live confidently in Your care.

∞

A good song for this and for the other stresses we may face: Geoff Moore‘s “I Believe”