A seven Heavenletter ebook about grief
I have selected 7 Heavenletters for a mini ebook to help console those who have recently lost someone they love. I envision that this book could be given to those that would benefit from the solace and comfort of God's words through Heavenletters. This book may be particularly helpful for those associated with a hospice and who deal with death and dying on a regular basis.
The manuscript, here, is a rough draft. It not only includes the pertinent seven Heavenletters concerning grief, it also includes an extended dialogue from Diane who lost her daughter Molly and has graciously allowed her experiences, questions and God’s answers to be shared. Once the book is through the editing process, it is my hope that someone with the necessary skill will reformat it into a more finished and attractive product.
If anyone wants to share this ebook before it has been completed, of course this would be fine and I would love to hear how it was received and if it is as helpful as I hope it will be. If anyone wants me to send the ebook as an email attachment, just send me a short note to that effect.
My questions about the book center around its effectiveness as a stand alone resource. Any ideas about how it may be improved? Is the concept of seven letter ebooks a useful and effective one? Any changes you would recommend for this ebook? Unclear portions are important to point out at this stage, but typos will be easily caught later.
Thank you for your help.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Grieving ebook 2-2-10.doc | 186 KB |
Beloved Chuck, did you mean
Beloved Chuck, did you mean us to write on the attachment? I see you say Read only, but I am able to write on it.
Since we last wrote on the topic of the 7 Heavenletters books, I have met with this great editor, Chamaigne Montana. She's in the most recent Heaven News. You may remember I was writing an article for the web site on Godwriting. Chamaigne is an amazing editor. I will tell you why. She is easy-going, does not pressure, does not insist you change anything but offers her insights. Wherever she saw a weakness, she was inevitably right that something was missing or needed attention.
But here's where I'm getting to. Maybe this was clear to you already, but it wasn't to me, or I forgot it! Chamaigne thought that we should entitle the series of books 7 Heavenletters just like the Chicken Soup Books for the Soul were all Chicken Soup books. Chamaigne loved the name 7 Heavenletters, for one reason because it subtly reminded her of 7th Heaven, a really good association to have! We'd have to work on how to connect the particular topics -- Grieving, Your Purpose in Life etc. with the title to make it charming.
There is another point Chamaigne made that I will write to you about privately because I'm pretty sure Chamaigne would prefer it that way.
Regarding including Diane and Molly's story in your grief book, I am thinking that we might want their story to be an entirely separate short book, chronicling from beginning to end the love of mother and child and then the child's death and aftermath. It would be a story with much illumination from God, but it would be a story with real people in it. I'm sorry I didn't think of this before you went to all the trouble you did. Are you all right with that?
There is another one about a wife who lost her husband that I can see as a separate short book as well. It also tells quite a story.
My feeling is that, if you're willing, the task right now -- and what you're amazingly good at -- is to find and choose 7 top Heavenletters per topic. Just that. The way I'm seeing it now is to wait on the details of presentation, introducing each Heavenletter etc.
Later, at some point, we will figure out format, design etc. for all the 7 Heavenletter books. We would finalize later, more or less, in one fell swoop.
Okay, I'm going to email you on that private matter in a minute. How are we doing so far?
Loving you,
Gloria
This is great news!
It is great that Chamaigne has taken such an interest in the seven Heavenletter idea! Seven Heavenletters is a catchy name. I am looking forward to what Chamaigne can do with this project.
It was not really very much work picking out the dialogue about Diane and Molly. The editing I did can still be of benefit if the story is used in a seperate book of personal stories. Nothing is lost by changing the direction. The benefit of this kind of work, at this stage, is in testing a concept, I fully expect to make changes and redirect, throwing out some and putting in new approaches.
Finding 7 Heavenletters that explain a theme is not too difficult. It is a bit more than that, though. The letters in this format are not stand alone so there are compatibility and development issues that enter into the selections. I am fine with doing whatever seems to be helpful to make this project successful. Picking out effective Hevenletters to explore a theme and then developing a presentation later based on the guidance of a publisher is a very reasonable approach.
I am wondering, though, if Chamaigne is aiming at a series of books like the Chicken Soup books you mentioned. A book with just seven Heavenletters would seem to be too small for this. However, a book could be made out of a series of related themes that sort of expand and develop each other. Each theme could be a chapter and each chapter could have the appropriate 7 Heavenletters as its main attraction. The name Seven Heavenletters could be built into the title quite nicely.
I changed the attached rough draft to be "read and print only" so that changes can only be made if you have the password. When changes are made to a draft I will put a new date on the document so people can tell what is what.
This is fun and I believe it will be quite worthwhile in the end. We are doing quitw well. Love......Chuck
Beloved Chuck, Yes, I am
Beloved Chuck,
Yes, I am well aware of what you mean when you say: The letters in this format are not stand alone so there are compatibility and development issues that enter into the selections.
You make it seem easy, but I know it's not. The sequence and flow matter very much. It's more than a question of just grabbing Heavenletters on a topic. Not at all.
For years, I sat on my office floor with printed out Heavenletters in piles all over, and I never got it right! Part of the difficulty was that there are so many Heavenletters to choose from. When Monica who sponsored the Godwriting workshop in Turin, Italy, made a CD of simply 7 Heavenletters, I thought she was a genius and that her idea would have to make it easier than trying to sort 70, let's say, on one topic. Suffice it to say that you are doing a fabulous job.
That a practicing physician who works 11-hour days and is on call on rotation on certain nights has the heart to make the time to put Heaven books together says a lot. We are so appreciative, Chuck.
Chamaigne helped me to see that right now it's better to work on the gist of these short books. The choice of 7 Heavenletters is the basis of everything. It is very possible that what you suggest about combining them is what will happen.
Chamaigne hit on the idea of capitalizing on a series, using the same main title. Chamaigne is a wealth of ideas. She has her own work to do. She woke me up to a direction, and she was generous and invaluable.
Chuck, you like Seven better than 7?
God bless you.
7 is a wonderful number
When my son was about 3 years old, we were at a public swimming pool with him. They had the depth of the water printed around the edges of the pool in big red numbers to warn you of the depth of that spot. All of a sudden he came running up to us with a look of wonder and ecstasy in his eyes, the way only a there year old can be! “Mommie, Mommie look! My favorite number seven!”
Gloria, dear, I can happily report that the more I go about selecting sets of seven Heavenletters to explore a given topic, the easier it gets. And it feels to me, at least, that I am getting better at it. I do think 7 is a wonderful number whether we call it 7 or seven!
As I go through this process of selection, it seems that less than seven Heavenletters would be too few and would not do justice to the many related insights that the letters contain. More than seven, though, might get redundant and too repetitious. Wouldn’t books with seven chapters of seven letters each have a nice symmetry to it?
I am wondering if any other readers have any ideas about these things. I hope people feel free to chime in about anything here, any time.
Hugs to you, Gloria, and all the Heavenletters readers and crew…….Chuck
I do indeed think that seven
I do indeed think that seven chapters of seven letters each has a nice symmetry to it!
Thanks for everything, beloved Chuck.