I’m a struggling artist, if I define struggling as “someone who intentionally doesn’t do something” and artist as “a writer that never actually spends any time writing.”  I’m trying to write contemporary romantic fiction right now (with an honorable hero and a tenacious heroine), but I find that the story in my head keeps getting drowned out by all the other romance novels I’m reading. And, even worse, I find that I avoid writing for the sake of curling up with my Kindle.

That’s going to change. Now.  

I returned all the romance novels I had checked out from the library, and, since not reading is completely, totally, never a plausible option, I’m loading my Kindle up with non-fiction.  Time to expand my brain, quiet the stories written by other people that are in my head so that my own characters can blossom, and then get to work.

So what’s loaded onto my Kindle, ready for reading these next few weeks?

 The God We Can Know: Exploring the “I Am” Sayings of Jesus by Rob Fuquay. (For total disclosure, Rob is my former pastor.  He’s the senior pastor at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana, which is the church that holds a huge spot in my heart. Rob, like Dr. Kent  Millard before him, is a truly gifted pastor and St. Luke’s is blessed to have him at the helm.)

 

 Greenhorns: 50 Dispatches from the New Farmers Movement edited by Zoe Ida Bradbury

 

 

 

The Prayers and Personal Devotions of Mother Angelica by Raymond Arroyo

 

 

 

Hello, Everybody! The Dawn of American Radio by Anthony Rudel

 

 

 

Cold Antler Farm by Jenna Woginrich

 

 

 

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose. (I’ve technically already read this book, but it was 12 years ago and was when I was taking a graduate level class on Lewis and Clark and this was one of the books we used. Time to delve in for pleasure this time!)

 

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

 

 

 

Spiritual Simplicity: Doing Less, Loving More by Chip Ingram. (Love his radio broadcast, Living on the Edge!)

 

 

Living More With Less: 30th Anniversary Edition by Doris Janzen Longacre

 

 

 

Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart

 

 

 

Footprints on the Ceiling by Dorcas Smucker

 

 

 

And I’ll round out my reading with my weekly print edition of The Budget, the newspaper designed for Amish and Mennonite communities to share information with one another. I get the paper every week and absolutely love it! I can get lost for hours reading the letters from the scribes living in various Plain communities throughout North America and other parts of the world.

Now, my biggest challenge is figuring out where to start!