Wind, Spring Pictures, and Novel Titles

The flowers are out in full brilliance—even if this picture was taken about 2 months ago! They’re still blooming beautifully. I love spring. :)

 

I love plum blossoms. They’re so lovely and beautiful!

 

 

Lambs in August. SO cute!

 

I can’t remember the name of this bush. But the flowers are lovely!

 

 

 

Wonder what he’s cooking up?

 

My two cute little brothers, both reading books. I love the face that Nate is pulling!

 

Did you know that I have three brothers named James? (I was trying out the panoramic setting on my camera.)

 

Handsome little brother!

 

I love daffodils.

 

 

 

Before the chickens were put in summer housing, they enjoyed dust-bathing under the trees.

 

Two of my favourite things: deep blue New Zealand sky, and plum blossoms.

 

Two of our calves, soaking up the sunshine.

It is really, really windy here at the moment. So windy, in fact, that when I went out an hour or two ago to take down the laundry I had a hard time keeping my balance. Poor Nate is housebound until the wind has calmed down—it just knocks him over. Mum wants to work in the garden, but as soon as she would loosen the soil I’m sure it would blow away.

I’ve been working on coming up with a novel title lately. I like to believe that it’s best to find a title after you write a novel, but then at the same time it’s nice to have something to weave in as you go.

So today I was thinking about it, because there’s a 30 covers, 30 days project going on where you put in your novel’s title and synopsis, and are entered in a drawing for a free cover design. I came up with the title:

“The Living Shield”

I don’t know if this will end up being the final title, but it’s a great working title. And definitely a lot shorter than the one I had last year (A Rose in Spite of Thorns)!

In trying to find a title, I looked up Jewish symbols. I was just curious, and I’d like to have some kind of symbol in my story anyway. I’m sure all of you have seen the star of David, and each place I looked mentioned that. Apparently, the star was actually a symbol on David’s shield. I don’t really want to use the star itself in my book because several different books I’ve read about Jews had that in them, so in my eyes it’s almost an over-used symbol. The shield part intrigued me, though.

The other symbol that I liked was “Chai”. Now, I know that’s a type of tea, but in Hebrew it means something much different—it’s the Hebrew word for “living”. One of the sites said, “Some say it refers to the Living God; others say it simply reflects Judaism’s focus on the importance of life.” Whatever it refers too, it is a very beautiful symbol.

So I thought of combining the two. Then after thinking about it, I decided to look up “God as our shield” in the Bible. Here’s what I came up with:

1. “The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.” —Psalms 28:7
2. “After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.” —Genesis 15:1
3. “Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! And thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places.” —Deuteronomy 33:29
4. “Our soul waiteth for the LORD: he is our help and our shield.” —Psalms 33:20
5. “O Israel, trust thou in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.” —Psalms 115:9
6. “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.” —Proverbs 30:5
7. “For the LORD is our defence; and the Holy One of Israel is our king.” —Psalms 89:18

Like I said, this is only a temporary title, but I really like it. I can just see (not quite taste it yet, but I can see it) how it would fit in the book.

Well, I should probably go. I need to finish planning the novel, and I only have (oh horrors!) only six days left. And I might be working one or two of those days. So I need to keep myself going.

~Esther

P.S. Do you want to look at some of the different interesting Jewish symbols? Go here: http://www.jewfaq.org/signs.htm.