As I Wished!

We Meissners love to quote movies in our ordinary conversations. One of our absolute favorite lines is this one, which we employ when something really disappointing happens. We look at the family member who brought us the news of said disappointment and say, “Why don’t you just give me a paper cut and pour lemon juice on it?” Which is, of course, one of a thousand great lines from the movie, The Princess Bride.

So when I heard Cary Elwes (the actor who played the sweet and clever Farm-Boy-Turned-Unlikely-Pirate named Westley) is writing a memoir about the filming of that movie — with input from the rest of the cast — I had the opposite of a paper-cut-lemon-juice moment. I was elated.

I can’t wait for the book to be out so I can read it. I surely hope the cast had as much fun making this movie as we’ve had watching it (and watching it and watching it) over the years.

Here are a few more of our favorite lines and how you can use them in everyday dialogue:

“I doubt you will get the same offer from the eels.” (which you can say when you are offering something pretty dang good and the other party hesitates).

“Have fun stormin’ the castle!” (which you can say when someone leaves the house to go do something that will likely require some effort)

“Inconceivable!” (I don’t think you need a lesson on how to use this one)

“Won’t that be nice!” (Say it in a buffoony, situationally-unaware voice when something awful is sure to follow)

“No more rhymes now and I mean it” (Say it in my house when you really do want a rhyme because you will get it. Trust me)

“You be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted” (Say it when you want to encourage caution without sounding like a worry-wart or know-it-all)

I’d love to hear what your fave Princess Bride lines are. Tell them here. And let me know if you’re looking forward to this memoir as much as I am. Not that it’s a miracle that it’s being written, but I do hope Elwes doesn’t rush the writing. You know what happens when you rush a miracle, don’t you?

When Good Enough Isn’t

When my good friends and fellow pastors with my husband at The Church at Rancho Bernardo, Pam and Ken Ingold, told me they were going to write a marriage book, I knew they were the perfect couple to pound out words on a topic that has already been written about many times over. (Make sure you read to the end of this post because they’re giving away a copy of their new book, When Good Enough Isn’t!)

There are a lot of great marriage books out there — does the market really need another? Well, I can tell you why it needs this one. Not only is it full of great content, it’s slim! (just under a hundred pages) Let’s face it. We live in a busy world where time is precious. Not everybody loves to read outside what they need to for work (shocker, yes, but it’s true) and a lot of men just plain don’t. That’s what statistics say, not me.

But this is a book a busy couple could read together and not get bogged down in. And I would say it’s not just for couples in trouble. It’s the perfect book for couples to read before there’s trouble!

I “sat down” if you will, with Pam and Ken and interviewed them about their new book. They’ve been married 35 years and have two grown children and one grandchild. They have been in vocational ministry for the past 17 years, and together have performed over 150 weddings and provided countless hours of pre-marital and marriage counseling, and they love witnessing a broken marriage restored! Here’s what they had to say.

What was it like writing a book together?

We have very different writing styles so it was definitely a challenge. It gave us an opportunity to practice what we preach, to truly collaborate rather than compete, concede or compromise.

What was the main reason you decided to write it?

We have counseled couples in crisis for over 15 years, and we’ve seen some amazing transformations, but those are infrequent. At the same time, we’ve counseled couples experiencing “slow drift” headed toward crisis and discovered that, with the right tools, a marriage can frequently go from good to great!

What do you think is the biggest threat to keeping a marriage healthy in this day and age? Has it changed from what it was fifty years ago?

The biggest threat to marriages today is the sheer number of distractions, from social media to materialism, to kids activities, to perceptions created through marketing. The bombardment of outside influences has increased exponentially from 50 years ago, making building a great marriage harder than it has ever been.

In your book you wrote: “Expectations set marriages up for failure.” What do you mean by that, in a nutshell?

When you expect something from your spouse and they don’t meet your expectation, you’re disappointed. If they do, your feelings don’t change. When you lower your expectations, you create an opportunity for your spouse to exceed them and you are able to celebrate together.

That’s a very cool concept! Okay, so what’s wrong “with good enough”?

Do you remember the good meal or the great one, the good vacation or the great vacation, the good player or the great one? Why should marriage, the greatest institution on the planet, settle for anything less?

Touché. Did you learn anything new about marriage in the writing of this book?

We learned that we’re not giving up our pastoral careers! Seriously, we learned our culture has created an acceptance of marriage being good enough and not every couple is going to be willing to do the work that is necessary to make it great. But it’s worth it!

What advice would you give newlyweds just starting out?

First and foremost, put Jesus at the center of your marriage relationship, where your marriage is built on a covenant rather than a contract. Secondly, seek counsel from couples with great marriages and utilize the resources available. Third, spend time together – just the two of you! Make sure your marriage remains a priority, before children, while your raising them and when they’re grown.

What’s next on the horizon for you?

Back to our day jobs and helping couples move their marriages from good to great! We don’t sense God calling us to write another book right now, but if we did, it would probably be on parenting.

Susan here: Thanks, Ken and Pam. Readers, if you want to hear more from this wise couple, here’s their Real Marriage blog that is full of more marriage-building tips. If you would like win a paperback copy of When Good Enough Isn’t for yourself or to give to someone (wedding season is here!), just leave a comment below. A winner will be drawn by random drawing on Friday, May 30 at noon Pacific. And if you want, include the best marriage advice you ever got, heard, or gave. Fire away!

Cover reveal!

When I get the email from my editor that the art department has come up with a cover for a new book, I always take a deep breath before I open the attachment to look at it for the first time. It’s the only time I can ever be just like the reader who is looking for a new book and who stumbles upon mine. They see the cover with fresh eyes and they know hardly any thing about the book except that maybe I wrote it. What emotions will that first look evoke?

Sometimes I will see a cover and I will know that it is perfect. Other times it will grow on me. Other times I don’t feel like the essence of the book has been captured and I will have to craft a carefully worded email describing what I like about the cover and then attempt to explain, even though the cover has merit, why it doesn’t seem to work.

When I saw the cover for Secrets of A Charmed Life my eyes were drawn instantly like a magnet to the woman’s half-face, her ruby lips, her porcelain complexion and that gloved hand by her cheek. Is she flicking away an errant hair or raising a palm to her cheek in shock as we often do when something surprises us? What is she thinking? Does she know the secrets of a charmed life or is she desperate for someone to tell her what they are? Her lovely green dress fading into the River Thames in London tells me the setting and her 1940s vibe suggests to me it won’t be an easy setting. Not then.

All that it is to say, I did fall in love with this cover, but it was after I contemplated this woman and the mystery that surrounds her. This book, which will release in Feb 2015 by Penguin, is set for the most part in England during the years of the war. In a nutshell, Emmy is a idealistic teenager of a single mother who aspires to design wedding gowns. She sneaks back to London after she and her little sister have been safely evacuated to the countryside. Emmy has an appointment to keep with someone who wants to see her fledgling designs, and no rumors of an attack by the Germans will stop her. But she and little Julia arrive on the very day the Luftwaffe sends a wave of 800 planes over London’s East End – in broad daylight — bombing it relentlessly. When Emmy finally makes it back to the ruined flat where she left her little sister for a meeting that was only supposed to take an hour, Julia is gone without a trace. And since Mum wasn’t expecting her girls to be at the flat – why should she? Emmy and Julia are in the countryside – Mum stayed elsewhere when the attack began. Julia had been left alone in the flat while hell rained down.

And so begins Emmy’s quest for absolution, for redemption, for restitution. She is a girl searching for the secrets to a charmed life. She had thought the perfect life began with the perfect wedding dress – the emblem of happiness and fulfillment. She was wrong…

So the cover works for me. Very much so. I see Emmy in this woman wearing the green dress, especially when Emmy attempts to reinvent herself after the loss of her sister which she clearly believes is her fault. This is her journey in the book: Becoming someone who can find a way to live with regret. But what she discovers is something else entirely.

I would love to hear what you think of this cover and the little bit I’ve told you. Thoughts??

Hungry books!

So I’m still hunkering down in the writing cave working on a deadline that is far too close, but it’s Friday and I wanted to share a little something with you, dear reader. Don’t know if you are on Twitter, but every now and then there will be some brilliant person who comes up with a fun game of renaming classic books with a trending topic and they will hashtag it so that everyone can get in on the fun. That probably makes no sense, so here’s what I mean: #Hungrybooks on Twitter looks like this:

The Velveeta Rabbit (Brian Sargent)

And this:

The Time Traveler’s Waffle (Dimitri Labarge)

Now you get it! Pretty fun, huh? Okay, here’s more:

Midnight In the Garden Salad of Good and Evil (Brianne Kohl)

The Scarlet Pumpernickel (also Brianne Kohl)

Curious Georgia Peach (ash)

Life of Pie (Amanda Wallwin)

For Whom the Bell Pepper Tolls (AgroBioDiverse)

A Thousand Splendid Buns (Rishikesh Tinaikar)

Million Dollar Baby Carrots (Melissa Petrozzello)

Love in the Time of Collard Greens (Mary Mascari)

and my favorite:

The Old Man and the All You Can Eat Seafood Buffet for $4.99 (Lana Johnson)

Okay, now you try! Here’s mine to start. . .

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Scone, Harry Potter and the Halfblood Pudding, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Cabernet Sauvignon, Harry Potter and the Deathly Marshmallows.

Now you!

It’s Limerick Day!

I am on a CRAZY deadline schedule, which explains why I’ve not been feeding the blog monster the last few days, but I thought I’d pop in today before I crawl back inside the writing cave after a wonderful Mother’s Day with my family.

It’s National Limerick Day, folks! I just couldn’t pass up a chance to share some awesome limericks with you, in hopes that you will want to write one of your own and put it in a comment below for all the world to see:

First, a few stellar limericks from masters of the craft:

There was a young belle of old Natchez
Whose garments were always in patchez.
When comments arose
On the state of her clothes,
She replied, “When Ah itchez, Ah scratchez.”
—Ogden Nash

A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, “let us flee!”
“Let us fly!” said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.
—Ogden Nash

And this last one, which is hilarious (if you don’t mind the teeniest of offending words!)

A wonderful bird is the pelican;
His beak can hold more than his belican.
He can hold in his beak
Enough food for a week,
Though I’m damned if I know how the helican!
—Dixon Lanier Merritt

Don’t you want to just give it a try? Here’s mine!

I must stay put and write the book
Someone please! Come clean and cook!
My house is a mess
I’ve yet to get dressed
Don’t believe me?
Just come and look…

Now yours!

Hello world!