Day: November 1, 2025

November Writing Challenge Day 1

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

Okay, so it doesn’t roll off the tongue like NaNoWriMo does, but oh well. I am tracking my progress with a challenge called Novel November, but I’m not particularly attached to the name or the site (which is just a sales site for some kind of writing tool). So I’m making it my own this year.

The Words: 3632 words total for the day. I started right at midnight just like old times (it’s only been 3 years since I did this last, but man did it feel like longer) and did 2 15-minute sprints before going to bed. That got me to 1800 words, which was already more than the one-day goal of 1667. Then couple of sprints this evening–one 20 minutes and one 15–got me the rest.

So far I’m using my Freewrite Alpha, which is new since I last had much to actually write (mostly I’ve been doing revising work for a while now), so it’s taken some getting used to. But I do love the mechanical keyboard feel and sound.

The Story: Up until a week ago, I had no idea what I might write this month. I thought I’d end up just freewriting with prompts every day. So when my husband gave me a brilliant idea last Sunday, I only had a week to think about it. But in truth, I didn’t need to do any planning. I’m basically just writing about a side character in the book I’m currently revising to hopefully publish within a few months, “Power,” who has a story arc that takes him out of the book and onto his own adventures. What happens to him doesn’t really come back into play for a long time, and it’s not front and center in any of the future books I have planned. But my husband suggested I write about what he gets up to in a far off land that will be front and center in a later book. And since that gives me a chance to explore that place that so far has been a fairly nebulous future idea, I jumped at the idea!

So today I wrote about Garend, who has had a visitor from a stranger that wants to be part of his life. The stranger told him of a far-off land (we’ll call it Newland for the sake of avoiding potential spoilers) that, though he wants nothing to do with the stranger, he can’t help but be intrigued about.

Garend, who overall has a minor role in “Power” came out a lot more in my writing today, and apparently he’s a man who holds a grudge. Who knew?

Total word count: 3632

And in honor of November 1st, because even if it’s not really NaNoWriMo, the NaNoMusical still showcases the spirit of writing 50,000 words in 30 days. Plus, I can’t help but love spreading the NaNoMusical love, so here is episode 1!

Book Review: Seven Things I Wish Christians Knew About the Bible

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Seven Things I Wish Christians Knew About the Bible
by Michael F. Bird

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Christian nonfiction

In this book, Michael F. Bird explains how the modern Bible came to be, the need to take it in its proper context, and other nitty gritty details about the Word of God. It’s purported to be accessible to everyone, which means the fact that I struggled to understand some portions of it make me feel kind of stupid. Really, though, in a lot of ways it was similar to many other more intellectual, theologically deep books I’ve read, though not all the way through. Still, it makes me wonder why so many reviews talk about how easy it is to read.

As for the content, some aspects of this book were nothing new for me while others were quite new. For example, I’ve never before heard that the apostle John, the author of the 3 epistles named John, and the John who wrote Revelation might not all be the same John. My concern, though, lies in this book being read by new Christians or those who aren’t very strong in their faith. Even I, who 100% believe the complete accuracy of the Bible and the ability of God to protect His Word as it was handed down over the millennia, found myself beginning to question how accurate what I read can be when Bird gets into the details about how we got the Bible. Maybe that’s because he never quite touched on God’s sovereignty, that He had the power to guide the men who wrote, translated, edited, compiled, etc. the Bible and keep it intact to His wishes. On the other hand, He hasn’t stopped some translations and paraphrases from coming out that water down the truth, so therein likes the concern that this book could actually lead some people to question the Bible as a source of truth. His comments about learning about the historical and cultural context of the different parts of the Bible were intriguing though. I have no plans to try to read Josephus now, but there are more accessible options that I plan to look into. Overall, I can see the merit in this book, which my husband, who read a couple of chapters of it for one of his pastoral training classes, recommended to me, but I am not sure I’m the right audience for it. But I’m not really sure who is, since people who are newer to Christianity might not be able to follow some of it or might actually become confused about the authority of scripture and more mature Christians likely already know much of what is contained within.

Find out more about Seven Things I Wish Christians Knew About the Bible

See what I’m reading next.

If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!