"My happiness is so great at this moment I wish I could die...because in the midst of happiness grows a seeds of unhappiness. Happiness consumes itself like a flame. It can't burn forever; sooner or later it must die. And that knowledge destroys the joy for me, right at its peak."
from A Dream Play by August Strindberg
When I first read this play in college, I thought it was so depressing... and yet so wise. Or maybe just insightful, because the older I get, the more this is how I subconsciously think. When I am the most happiest, I am the most aware of how happy I am - of how grateful I am for the people and things in my life, of how blessed I am - but also the most aware I am of how fragile those things are, and how quickly they can be taken away.
It's been three years this month that my friend died suddenly, brutally. This week, I got news that a dear man who has greatly influenced our oldest daughter, died Sunday morning. Another beautiful, amazing woman who taught my youngest daughter in pre-school and attended Bible study with me was diagnosed with stage three ovarian cancer. Another mother I adore got word that her daughter has not long to live.
It was a rough weekend.
And in their pain I am acutely aware of my own happiness - of my family, my kids that are my whole world and my husband who is the love of my life, the every breath I take. My parents who make aging look easy and graceful. My friends who stick by me through everything, who encourage me and love me. My opportunity to go to school, to write. The feeling of being healthy and pain-free. The pile of presents under the Christmas tree.
In the store today I saw an elderly couple shopping together, lovingly bickering over cuts of meat and loaves of bread, and my heart broke for the incredible woman who just lost her husband this Sunday and now faces a future that does not involve growing old with him. And the thought of the possibility of not growing old with my own husband makes my heart clench.
There is a part of me that thinks this is ridiculous of me - to spoil joy with sorrow that isn't even real. And yet, another part of me thinks this is how it should be - how it must be. To not be aware of how every day is not a given, every tomorrow is not destined, is to not fully appreciate how miraculous life is. It's not really that I am letting loss taint my happiness, so much as great happiness comes at the price of acknowledging the possibility of loss.
That's my philosophizing for the week. This is the kind of thing my mind rumbles around when I stop writing. Too much living in the real world and not enough in the imaginary one, I suppose.
Showing posts with label meaning of life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meaning of life. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
It's Friday: It's A Good Thing - People Taking Care of People
I used to do a gratitude thing every Friday and I've gotten myself off blog habits lately. Maybe it's just been enough trying to write every now and then so you don't think I've completely disappeared. But I always loved doing these posts, and especially now when all the political drama in this country is focused on what we don't have, it's good to remember the good things.
And in the spirit of "It isn't all about me," this post isn't about what I have that I'm grateful for, although indirectly, it does shed light on that as well.
Last week, our local ACTS food pantry, a non-profit charity organization in our community that provides food for about 4,000 individuals a month who otherwise would not have food, shut down for the first time in years. Their shelves were bare.
This is the picture from the video they took when they sent out the announcement that they were shutting their doors for two weeks, hoping to acquire enough food in that time to reopen.
ACTS stands for Action in the Community Through Service. And that is what happened.
In a flurry of social media, word spread. Within hours, businesses like local appliance stores and organizations like kid swim teams and churches began collection sites for food. Before school let out for the day I received calls from my kids' elementary and middle schools asking for donations. You could literally sit and watch facebook or twitter and see the action taking place.
In less than three days, over $60,000 and 12,000 pounds of food had arrived at their doorstep. So much that they didn't have room for it all and had to use an empty tractor trailer to hold the extra.
The outpouring of relief came so fast and furiously, ACTS had to put out another plea for help: volunteers to help stock the shelves and bag food for needy families. And that, like the money and food, came all too willingly as well.
In less than a week, the pantry re-opened with $120,000 and 30,000 pounds of food donations.
Did the government do that? No. The people of this community did that. Individuals and small businesses. Kids. The elderly. Students. People with a lot to spare. And people with just a box of macaroni. People who couldn't spare food, but could spare their time.
Today, in my community, people are eating who otherwise would be hungry.
I'm overwhelmed by this. But not surprised. Because I think most people are really generous at heart, really do want to help people, but often don't know how. I think, when no government will step in, the people do.
(As an aside, my husband, who works for the government, dryly commented that if it were up to the government to fill the food bank, it would have taken six months of red tape and bureaucratic wrangling to make it happen.)
I could make a political statement out of this, but I'll leave it at this:
Last week, the shelves were empty.
This week, because of the generosity of hundreds of people like you and me, they are not.
Because one person gave one box of mac and cheese, one child will not go to bed hungry tonight.
And the person who gave that food had benefited in ways that will never show up in a checkbook.
And in the spirit of "It isn't all about me," this post isn't about what I have that I'm grateful for, although indirectly, it does shed light on that as well.
Last week, our local ACTS food pantry, a non-profit charity organization in our community that provides food for about 4,000 individuals a month who otherwise would not have food, shut down for the first time in years. Their shelves were bare.
This is the picture from the video they took when they sent out the announcement that they were shutting their doors for two weeks, hoping to acquire enough food in that time to reopen.
ACTS stands for Action in the Community Through Service. And that is what happened.
In a flurry of social media, word spread. Within hours, businesses like local appliance stores and organizations like kid swim teams and churches began collection sites for food. Before school let out for the day I received calls from my kids' elementary and middle schools asking for donations. You could literally sit and watch facebook or twitter and see the action taking place.
In less than three days, over $60,000 and 12,000 pounds of food had arrived at their doorstep. So much that they didn't have room for it all and had to use an empty tractor trailer to hold the extra.
The outpouring of relief came so fast and furiously, ACTS had to put out another plea for help: volunteers to help stock the shelves and bag food for needy families. And that, like the money and food, came all too willingly as well.
In less than a week, the pantry re-opened with $120,000 and 30,000 pounds of food donations.
Did the government do that? No. The people of this community did that. Individuals and small businesses. Kids. The elderly. Students. People with a lot to spare. And people with just a box of macaroni. People who couldn't spare food, but could spare their time.
Today, in my community, people are eating who otherwise would be hungry.
I'm overwhelmed by this. But not surprised. Because I think most people are really generous at heart, really do want to help people, but often don't know how. I think, when no government will step in, the people do.
(As an aside, my husband, who works for the government, dryly commented that if it were up to the government to fill the food bank, it would have taken six months of red tape and bureaucratic wrangling to make it happen.)
I could make a political statement out of this, but I'll leave it at this:
Last week, the shelves were empty.
This week, because of the generosity of hundreds of people like you and me, they are not.
Because one person gave one box of mac and cheese, one child will not go to bed hungry tonight.
And the person who gave that food had benefited in ways that will never show up in a checkbook.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Love What You Do.
I never felt like I knew Steve Jobs. He wasn't family, or even someone whose face I saw often. He wasn't a movie star or recording artist I saw or heard on a daily basis like an old friend.
And yet I did let him into my life, in a greater way than any celebrity.
Every day, I wake up and turn on my iphone before I get out of bed, check the weather on it to see what to tell the kids to wear to school, peruse emails quickly to see if I missed something important in the night. I kick on the ipod to listen to music as I shower and get dressed and fix the kids' breakfasts and pack their lunches. Once they are out the door, the rest of the day I sit with my MacBook attached to my lap.
I have written three entire novels on my mac laptops, and uncounted partial novels, flash fiction and short stories. I have sent tens of thousands of emails. The first laptop I wore all of the letters off the keyboard. Literally, it's now like typing on it blind. You better know where your fingers go, because there's nothing there to guide you. And yet, nearly eight years later, that ibook still runs fine, hums without a care in the world, no viruses, no popups, no sudden freezing. I love that computer more than I should love an inanimate object.
When I sit at Starbucks with a friend who tells me about a new great song that she loves, I can download it right there and listen to it. I can find the carbohydrates in the coffees and pastries with my carb app that allows me to keep my blood sugar even. When I am waiting in the car at the bus stop for my kids, I can play angry birds and scramble and Sudoku. I can read a book on the phone. When I am lost or trying to find a restaurant, my phone will help me get there. When my children were babies - before my youngest was even born - Pixar changed the way we watched movies as a family. It gave us something to watch that my husband and I could love as much as the kids. Toy Story and Finding Nemo shaped our language.
How Steve Jobs has changed our lives cannot be overstated.
In 1980, when our phones were still tethered to the walls and envelopes with stamps were the only way to write friends, he imagined taking the hulking computers out of universities and businesses and putting them in the home, in a package small enough to put on a desk. He visualized every one being connected by that computer, in ways that hardly any one at that time could wrap their heads around.
Steve Jobs did not follow the trends, he set them.
"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."
How true is this of writing? If we are constantly running after the trends, we will be missing them. There was not a wizard trend before Rowling. There were few sparkling teen vampires before Meyers.
I don't know a lot about Steve Jobs as a person. I never met him or saw him live. I haven't read a book about him. I only know his products, and his work ethic, and the values he talks about in speeches. I know that his products are dependable. I know he was passionate about what he did, and that love showed in what he made. I know he was occasionally humble, even when he shouldn't have been. I know that, even though he made a lot of money, money didn't drive him. I know that he worked hard and loved what he did, and was grateful every day for being able to live that kind of life. I know that he wanted to make a difference.
I know that his work wasn't always easy. He didn't find immediate success. He didn't stay successful, but he didn't give up. He was compared to other CEOs, his products and company compared to other products and companies, sometimes favorably but often not. People laughed at his vision.
But he kept at it. A lesson for us writers, and parents, and artists, and business people.
"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."
The road is not always easy, but I am always so thankful to be on it.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Destination: X-Factor
But it's also powerful in ways that other letters aren't. When other letters stand for a sound and usually need other letters with it mean something, X is bigger than just a sound.
On a map, X is the destination. It's where you want to end up when you're on a journey.
In math, X is the part of the equation you want to solve for: it is what you are seeking.
In ancient Greek, X is the symbol for the word Christ.
This past weekend the youth group at our church had a retreat in which the theme was X. X for Roman numeral ten, as in 2010. X as in what you are seeking in life. X as in the end of your journey. X as in Christ – the destination, the One you are seeking, the place your journey in life will end up.
Which, of course, got me thinking about writing, and my particular path in my own life, and my own journey. Besides the obvious answer of wanting to spend eternity with God, where do I want my life to go? What is it I seek? What is my X-Factor?
I admit that last week I got a little Amazon-ranking addicted. It was fun seeing my book climb the chart, the number of books that sold more than mine go down. It was a freak out moment seeing my book listed in the same group as Jodi Picoult and Michael Crichton, both of whom I greatly enjoy reading. I want my book to sell well. What writer doesn't?
But as the weekend settled in and the numbers evened out, I got something even better than a notice that I was on the medical fiction bestseller list. I got an email from a reader saying how much my book had meant to them. And then another. And another.
I got six emails and letters this week from people who found a piece of themselves in the book.
Let me tell you, there is nothing better to me than hearing that something I wrote made someone feel less alone, less unheard, less frustrated; made someone think about God in a new way, find miracles in everyday life, understand what someone else is going through.
There are lots of reasons to read, and lots of reasons to write. Not a single one of them is bad. Not even if you as a writer secretly want to write to get rich. Hey - if you can do it, good for you. If you want to entertain, if you want to provide escape, if you want to be heard, if you want to help, if you want to be famous, if you want to just make some money doing something you love. All very valid reasons to take the journey of writing to be published.
For me? The X-factor is making a difference. The destination is having my writing touch someone else's life. It's being faithful to God's call to reach people and tell them he loves them, no matter whether or not they struggle loving him back, or whether they question his goodness or relativeness to their lives. Whether they even believe he exists.
I don't think it's a more noble goal than any of the others, and maybe my publisher would prefer I strove to be famous and wealthy. :)
Still, it makes me more focused when I'm writing to know what I want the end goal to be.
What about you? What is your X-factor? Why do you do what you do?
Monday, September 28, 2009
To be a motivated writer, all I needed was a thousand famous authors and a murder trial
Well, if you showed up here today hoping for a new look and a link to a shiny new website, my greatest apologies. I should know better than to post self-imposed deadlines that have to do with technology, because nothing is ever as simple as I think it's going to be.
I'd give you another deadline, but I'm a teensy bit wiser now. It will show up whenever it shows up. So now you have to keep coming back! :)
In lieu of that, I’ve decided to pepper this post liberally with pictures I took this weekend.
I spent this weekend at the 2009 National Book Festival in DC, which I described probably in too much depth in this posting at our 4 Corner’s group website. It was an amazing time, and just cemented how much I want to be a writer. Or at least a reader. I do really, really love books. And authors. Authors rock!!
So I took the Metro in, and one thing I love about the Metro is that the stop I get on at is the first, so there are usually not a lot of people around, and you can always get a seat. Or twenty if you need them.
I figured early on a Saturday it wouldn't be that crowded. I was wrong. Stop by stop it filled up until we were squeezed like sardines. Towards the book fest stop people on the platform couldn't even get into the train because there was just no room. When we got out, I'd never seen the platform so crowded. People couldn't even leave the train because so many people were there that the escalators couldn't keep up. This is the view from after I arrived at the top:
My first stop was the fiction tent for John Grisham. It was packed. This is about a third of the tent. I'd guess there were a couple thousand there.
I didn't get a seat, but I did get standing room slightly to the back and side of Grisham. Some people would have thought it was terrible, but I loved it! No one was in front of me, I had a perfect view of him the entire time, and if he had sneezed in my direction, I would have been close enough to give him a tissue!
He's a brilliant talker. And very humble. And funny as all get out.
I stayed there to see Jodi Picoult next. Same standing space, but the sign interpreter was in my way most of the time, so the best picture I got of her was when she left the stage and got into the golf cart right behind me. Classic!
The only other speaker I got a photo of was James Patterson. I've only read one of his books, and I've heard it's not very typical of most of his writing, but he was a fantastically entertaining speaker. I have a sense he is a bit ADD. He has 27 manuscripts going at any one time and a notebook this thick of ideas for more books. And he collaborates, he says, because he is too impatient to get to the next book to do good "style" on the ones he's written.
So that's the photos of Saturday.
On Sunday I was finishing up my website and the front welcome page troubled me. What does an author put on their home page when they don’t have a book cover to show off yet, nor a link to buy that coverless book, or even any great reviews from famous people who tell you that you must absolutely buy this terrific, coverless book?
The answer is: a book trailer.
Except I’ve been fighting that for a LONG time. Trailers are not easy to do well. I’ve spent hours and hours looking for music and trying to find the right words to use in it, and figuring out what pictures would be dramatic, and finally decided I just couldn’t do it.
Then this weekend I thought I’d give it another shot. So now I’m nearly done with that. It’s the last big piece to add into the website before it’s ready. Later this week I’ll post about the process – how I found the music, photos, etc, as well as maybe a sneak peak of it if it’s all spit and polished by then.
Tomorrow I’m hoping to write about my new book. It’s been an interesting and emotional journey that started back in January with an idea that came out of the death of my good friend Jeanie. It took a long while before I could actually go into that book and face it, and for weeks I’ve been skirting around a death scene I just couldn’t tackle emotionally. Today I spent the morning at the murder trial for her killer, and during one of the breaks I scribbled a good 1000 words of that scene in a notebook I’d brought with me. There was a huge therapeutic value in it, as well as a major breakthrough in my story.
So that’s this week. For now, I’m off to finish that trailer and do two more chapters of edits I’m supposed to have off to my editor tonight.
What's you're week looking like?
I'd give you another deadline, but I'm a teensy bit wiser now. It will show up whenever it shows up. So now you have to keep coming back! :)
In lieu of that, I’ve decided to pepper this post liberally with pictures I took this weekend.
I spent this weekend at the 2009 National Book Festival in DC, which I described probably in too much depth in this posting at our 4 Corner’s group website. It was an amazing time, and just cemented how much I want to be a writer. Or at least a reader. I do really, really love books. And authors. Authors rock!!
So I took the Metro in, and one thing I love about the Metro is that the stop I get on at is the first, so there are usually not a lot of people around, and you can always get a seat. Or twenty if you need them.
I figured early on a Saturday it wouldn't be that crowded. I was wrong. Stop by stop it filled up until we were squeezed like sardines. Towards the book fest stop people on the platform couldn't even get into the train because there was just no room. When we got out, I'd never seen the platform so crowded. People couldn't even leave the train because so many people were there that the escalators couldn't keep up. This is the view from after I arrived at the top:
My first stop was the fiction tent for John Grisham. It was packed. This is about a third of the tent. I'd guess there were a couple thousand there.
I didn't get a seat, but I did get standing room slightly to the back and side of Grisham. Some people would have thought it was terrible, but I loved it! No one was in front of me, I had a perfect view of him the entire time, and if he had sneezed in my direction, I would have been close enough to give him a tissue!
He's a brilliant talker. And very humble. And funny as all get out.
I stayed there to see Jodi Picoult next. Same standing space, but the sign interpreter was in my way most of the time, so the best picture I got of her was when she left the stage and got into the golf cart right behind me. Classic!
The only other speaker I got a photo of was James Patterson. I've only read one of his books, and I've heard it's not very typical of most of his writing, but he was a fantastically entertaining speaker. I have a sense he is a bit ADD. He has 27 manuscripts going at any one time and a notebook this thick of ideas for more books. And he collaborates, he says, because he is too impatient to get to the next book to do good "style" on the ones he's written.
So that's the photos of Saturday.
On Sunday I was finishing up my website and the front welcome page troubled me. What does an author put on their home page when they don’t have a book cover to show off yet, nor a link to buy that coverless book, or even any great reviews from famous people who tell you that you must absolutely buy this terrific, coverless book?
The answer is: a book trailer.
Except I’ve been fighting that for a LONG time. Trailers are not easy to do well. I’ve spent hours and hours looking for music and trying to find the right words to use in it, and figuring out what pictures would be dramatic, and finally decided I just couldn’t do it.
Then this weekend I thought I’d give it another shot. So now I’m nearly done with that. It’s the last big piece to add into the website before it’s ready. Later this week I’ll post about the process – how I found the music, photos, etc, as well as maybe a sneak peak of it if it’s all spit and polished by then.
Tomorrow I’m hoping to write about my new book. It’s been an interesting and emotional journey that started back in January with an idea that came out of the death of my good friend Jeanie. It took a long while before I could actually go into that book and face it, and for weeks I’ve been skirting around a death scene I just couldn’t tackle emotionally. Today I spent the morning at the murder trial for her killer, and during one of the breaks I scribbled a good 1000 words of that scene in a notebook I’d brought with me. There was a huge therapeutic value in it, as well as a major breakthrough in my story.
So that’s this week. For now, I’m off to finish that trailer and do two more chapters of edits I’m supposed to have off to my editor tonight.
What's you're week looking like?
Friday, July 3, 2009
Happy 4th of July
I love this country. I really do. The more I study the history, the more I love it. I try to remember that, at the time, the men and women who risked their lives to bring about this country, did so with no assurances - and great odds against them - that they would succeed. They had no real idea what this country would become. They had a hope. And an idea. For something that had never been done before.On the eve of the 4th of July - the anniversary of the birth of this country - something which never ceases to amaze me - one of my favorite quotes from National Treasure:
A toast? Yeah. To high treason. That's what these men were committing when they signed the Declaration. Had we lost the war, they would have been hanged, beheaded, drawn and quartered, and-Oh! Oh, my personal favorite-and had their entrails cut out and 'burned'! So... Here's to the men who did what was considered wrong, in order to do what they knew was right...
Sunday, April 12, 2009
It's Some Mad Hope
Spring must be in full swing. Cherry blossoms are swirling like snow through the air, blanketing the ground in a constantly moving, changing lace of pink and white. The trees that were puffs of cottony blooms are now bare. Trees that were bare are showing the faintest haze of fragile green.The daffodils and crocuses and hyacinths are dying, the lilies are on the rise.
The days are unpredictable. We dress in layers and shed them as the hours pass, then put them back on as the sun sets.
Change is in the air.
I get twitchy this time of year. I clean. I move furniture. I redesign the blog.
Change.
There are times I fight change tooth and nail. I hang on to things longer than I should. But change is good. It's what Easter is all about. It's what God is all about. It's what life is about.
There are people who believe in God, but believe he created this world and then sat back to watch it do it's own thing. I'm not one of those. I believe God is in the business of changing - of changing lives. Of changing my life. Little by little.
Ocean Deep was the name of the first novel I wrote. For two years it was all consuming. It was what I wanted in my identity. So when I named a blog, that was it.
But I have moved on. My life is no longer about that book. Or about my last book. Or about a new book. It's so much more than that. It's about this mad hope I have that life will continue to change, and bring good things. It's about writing and faith and family. It's a hope that God will do something great in me through those things. It's that hope that I will be a better person tomorrow than I am today.
I believe writing is what I'm supposed to do, so I keep doing it. It may not be logical, or practical, or realistic, but for now, I keep at it, because it's what I believe God wants me to do. I don't know what the end result will be, but I keep at it, because it's about more than just seeing my name in print.
But still I'm reaching for the stars - for the impossible dream.
It's a crazy, wild, impossible, mad hope.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
It's a Roller Coaster - You Getting On and Riding?
"The only test we should use to allow a particular emotion to run its course in our lives is to examine what the final outcome of that emotion will be. Think it through to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something that God would condemn, put a stop to it immediately But if it is an emotion that has been kindled by the Spirit of God and you don't allow it to have its way in your life, it will cause a reaction on a lower level than God intended." Oswald Chambers
Doubt Depression Frustration Despair
I've been getting these a lot lately. I'm pretty sure nothing good comes of those, so why do I let them take hold of me sometimes?
Lately, though, I've started feeling little bits of hope here and there, too. When I get a new request for my manuscript. When I get great praise for my writing. When I drop another query and 50 pages in the mailbox. When I hear a song that reminds me of what I felt last summer as I was bringing this book to a close.
And then I crush that feeling. I don't want to feel it, because feeling hope and excitement makes the fall so much harder.
A friend gave this quote to me today. It's made me really think about what I do with emotions, and why I let the bad ones simmer, and the good ones I kill off. Really, what use is that?
The depression and doubt lead to nothing good. Ever.
Hope will eventually lead to something good. Even if it takes a while.
I'm not quite there yet. But I'm working on it.
Doubt Depression Frustration Despair
I've been getting these a lot lately. I'm pretty sure nothing good comes of those, so why do I let them take hold of me sometimes?
Lately, though, I've started feeling little bits of hope here and there, too. When I get a new request for my manuscript. When I get great praise for my writing. When I drop another query and 50 pages in the mailbox. When I hear a song that reminds me of what I felt last summer as I was bringing this book to a close.
And then I crush that feeling. I don't want to feel it, because feeling hope and excitement makes the fall so much harder.
A friend gave this quote to me today. It's made me really think about what I do with emotions, and why I let the bad ones simmer, and the good ones I kill off. Really, what use is that?
The depression and doubt lead to nothing good. Ever.
Hope will eventually lead to something good. Even if it takes a while.
I'm not quite there yet. But I'm working on it.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Writing What Matters
Fess up... you have embarrassing stuff you've written that you would just about die if anyone read. Not like bad fiction.... Not blog posts from the past that might have exposed just a little too much. I mean the really embarrassing stuff. Diaries never meant to see the light of day. Journals. Gulp... poetry. That teenage angsty stuff you thought was all insightful and awesome and groundbreakingly emotionally gut-wrenchingly honest. That kind of stuff.
I've got notebooks and boxes full of it. Cringe-worthy material I can't quite make myself get rid of, because it is so honestly, heartfeltedly where I was at the time.
And there is probably embarrassing stuff I've written out in the world somewhere... letters and poetry I wrote for someone else and stupidly gave away.
I say all this because Jean and I were quite the prolific poets in our day. In a way, much of our high school days were documented by torn scraps of notebook paper dotted with free-form verse and slipped under desks back and forth. It was so much a part of our friendship, it wasn't like I could ever forget that.
Still, it came as a bit of a shock today when her daughter posted some of the poetry Jean had written for her and her brother when they were little. Jean kept journals full of her writing for years and years, and told her daughter if she ever died, to burn them or publish them. So her daughter has found them, and is reading through them now, and posting some of it.
I think, of all the gifts Jean could have given to her kids, this is the very best. It is a history of her love for them, of the years they can't remember.
I think of the notebooks, letters, poetry and journals I think of burning sometimes. But if all my kids have of me in the end is my novels, it doesn't real tell them a lot about me. And if all I have is this blog, it's only the tiniest bit I felt safe sharing. I'm wondering now if this is enough. Maybe it's time I write some more.
The friend who first told me I needed to be writing books several years ago was also the person who told me I should be writing poetry about my son when he was born. I wrote very little, overwhelmed with colic and sleepless nights and total lack of creativity. But I did eek one out, albeit a rhymed and metered one. I suspect I was in need of some sense of order in my life at the time! :)
To my son, who is now 10:
Eyes that search the room for me,
blue as the ocean, wide as the sea.
Little fists so tightly curled,
yet loose enough to hold my world.
Quiet breath, sighs so deep,
Cries of pain traded for sleep.
A tiny boy, perfect and whole,
small as a tear, big as my world.
I've got notebooks and boxes full of it. Cringe-worthy material I can't quite make myself get rid of, because it is so honestly, heartfeltedly where I was at the time.
And there is probably embarrassing stuff I've written out in the world somewhere... letters and poetry I wrote for someone else and stupidly gave away.
I say all this because Jean and I were quite the prolific poets in our day. In a way, much of our high school days were documented by torn scraps of notebook paper dotted with free-form verse and slipped under desks back and forth. It was so much a part of our friendship, it wasn't like I could ever forget that.
Still, it came as a bit of a shock today when her daughter posted some of the poetry Jean had written for her and her brother when they were little. Jean kept journals full of her writing for years and years, and told her daughter if she ever died, to burn them or publish them. So her daughter has found them, and is reading through them now, and posting some of it.
I think, of all the gifts Jean could have given to her kids, this is the very best. It is a history of her love for them, of the years they can't remember.
I think of the notebooks, letters, poetry and journals I think of burning sometimes. But if all my kids have of me in the end is my novels, it doesn't real tell them a lot about me. And if all I have is this blog, it's only the tiniest bit I felt safe sharing. I'm wondering now if this is enough. Maybe it's time I write some more.
The friend who first told me I needed to be writing books several years ago was also the person who told me I should be writing poetry about my son when he was born. I wrote very little, overwhelmed with colic and sleepless nights and total lack of creativity. But I did eek one out, albeit a rhymed and metered one. I suspect I was in need of some sense of order in my life at the time! :)
To my son, who is now 10:Eyes that search the room for me,
blue as the ocean, wide as the sea.
Little fists so tightly curled,
yet loose enough to hold my world.
Quiet breath, sighs so deep,
Cries of pain traded for sleep.
A tiny boy, perfect and whole,
small as a tear, big as my world.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Keep Moving Forward...even if that's in circles!
This is going to be short. Life has got a hold of me and this new year is proving to be, in the words of Frosty's magician, busy busy busy.
I am in the in-between place. I am sure God is calling me to write. I am not sure where he is planning on taking me in that process. I have a book done and ready to go, and another idea ready to put on paper. I am querying, waiting, writing, waiting. In Biblical terms, I am in the desert.
In the Old Testament, God called the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and promised a land for them. But before they reached that place, they wandered in the desert forty years. Wondering why they left Egypt, and wondering if they'd ever make it to the Promised Land.
Beth Moore, in her study of the book of Esther, states that we, like the Israelites, are most vulnerable to attack - to doubts and despair - when God has pulled us out of our comfort zones where we are and set us on a path to someplace new - where we are not yet.
I am in that place. Between where I was, and where I want to be. I have to keep reminding myself of those clear signs that this is where I should be, and to be patient. And persistent.
And hoping it doesn't take forty years!
I am in the in-between place. I am sure God is calling me to write. I am not sure where he is planning on taking me in that process. I have a book done and ready to go, and another idea ready to put on paper. I am querying, waiting, writing, waiting. In Biblical terms, I am in the desert.
In the Old Testament, God called the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and promised a land for them. But before they reached that place, they wandered in the desert forty years. Wondering why they left Egypt, and wondering if they'd ever make it to the Promised Land.
Beth Moore, in her study of the book of Esther, states that we, like the Israelites, are most vulnerable to attack - to doubts and despair - when God has pulled us out of our comfort zones where we are and set us on a path to someplace new - where we are not yet.
I am in that place. Between where I was, and where I want to be. I have to keep reminding myself of those clear signs that this is where I should be, and to be patient. And persistent.
And hoping it doesn't take forty years!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
The Shack
I don't do book reviews often. Rarely, actually. And never a fiction book. Not that I don't love reading other's opinions of a book, but I hate to draw judgments on writing that is so completely subjective. What I may dislike, obviously someone liked and saw not only redeeming value in but also "loved it," "connected with it," or whatever it is that agents and publishers need to take on an author's work.
But this isn't really a book review. It's about a book I read.
I'd heard of The Shack for months. Every time I turned around, it seemed, someone was asking if I'd read it. During an email exchange, one of my fantastic critique partners offered to mail me her copy. It arrived the day Jean died. When I pulled it out of the envelope, the German airmail postage stamped days before when she was alive and well, I knew it would be a different book than had I read it two weeks before.
And it was.
I think this is what I learned about books this week: a book so often is not just what the author writes, but what you as a reader bring to it. Passages that would have meant nothing to me weeks ago were heavy with meaning, passages I read over and over, sometimes trying to figure out in my head, and sometimes causing me to say "Yes! That's exactly what I think too!"
The Shack, if you haven't heard about it, is a book about a man whose daughter is brutally murdered. Weighed by depression, he receives an invitation in the mail from God to meet him at the very shack where his daughter was killed. The vast majority of this book is this meeting of the main character and God, and working through the questions all people face at some point in life: Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? How can we trust - even love - a God who allows the innocent to suffer?
This book is sold as fiction. It is fiction. But much of it actually reads as theology. It took me much longer to read through this 248 page book than most fiction books, mainly because of the stretches of theological conversations that range from the way the trinity works to forgiveness. There is an entire Bible packed into this book, in a very non-conventional way. And if you want to get something out of it, or even "get it," you need to take your time wading through it. Take time to ponder, to dwell in the ideas and siphon them through your own biases and experiences.
It may not be the book for someone not interested in spiritual issues, but for anyone who has wrestled with faith, with God, with the idea of church and religion as an institution, this book may make you take a new look at it all. And spark controversy.
When God shows up as a large black lady and says, "I'm not too fond of religion," you know there will be outrage among some readers. But it's this very kind of twist on the world view of Christianity that makes this book alive and something unique. And all without really leaving the truth of the Bible, even if it does eschew tradition.
But like I said, this book is as much about what you bring to it as what it brings to you. In the face of recent tragedy, I found myself dwelling on certain parts of conversations more than others, like this one:
"Just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn't mean I orchestrate the tragedies. Don't ever assume that my using something means I caused it or that I need it to accomplish my purposes. That will only lead you to false notions about me. Grace doesn't depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors."
Two weeks ago, would I have stopped over that line and reread it? Would I have marked the page, come back to it days later?
Maybe if I read the book again, in a few months, it will mean something else to me, will flow with the something elses that are going on in my life. But I will have to keep wondering, because now it's time to pass it on to the next writer in my critique group. That was the deal.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Merry Christmas
I meant to write this today, but time got away and suddenly, as I sit to write, it's already officially Christmas day.
We have a nativity set my children love to arrange, the wise men coming with their gifts, camel following. The shepherds in the fields watching over their sheep and the angel who arrives to tell them a Savior is born. A stable: an ugly, dirty, hay-strewn stable with a cow and a trough, and a mom and dad with a newborn baby.
They love Christmas because of that little baby. Because God is huge and unseeable and hard to comprehend, but Jesus - he's a baby. They understand a baby.
Yet when we lay him in the feeding trough, I think that the baby is harder to understand than God. He was before the world, he helped make the world with his own hands, and then came as a baby to live in it. He was all God, yet all man. He who flung the stars in space, who separated the light from the dark and the water from the land, came as a baby completely dependent on two very human, fallible parents. Parents young enough to be my children.
How much did Mary really understand? As she lay exhausted and tired and scared and mostly alone in that stable, holding a baby no different looking than any other, how much did she know? Could she even begin to imagine what life held in store? Could she even begin to imagine that the baby boy she kissed was God?
This Christmas one particular song keeps playing in my head over and over. Words to ponder this day as you celebrate the day:
Mary, did you know
That your baby boy will one day walk on water?
Did you know
That your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know
That your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you've delivered
Will soon deliver you
Mary, did you know
That your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?
Did you know
That your baby boy will calm a storm with his hand?
Did you know
That your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
And when you kiss your little boy
You've kissed the face of God
Mary, did you know?
The blind will see
The deaf will hear
And the dead will live again
The lame will leap
The dumb will speak
The praises of the lamb
Mary, did you know
That your baby boy is lord of all creation?
Did you know
That your baby boy will one day rules the nations?
Did you know
That your baby boy is heavens perfect lamb?
This sleeping child you're holding
Is the great I am
To all of you from me: Merry Christmas.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
The Invisible Woman: The Job That Really Matters
Sometimes when I'm researching I come across the greatest gems when I am least looking for them; when my mind is somewhere else and I am intent on going down the road I think the book is taking, and suddenly I am on a different one altogether. And the two worlds I straddle - the world of my book and the world of my real life - collide.
This happened today as I dug around for more information about developing cures for diabetes. After heaps of JAMA articles and university hospital reports, trying to wrap my mind around medical jargon and simplify what is incredibly complicated biological and chemical information, I stumbled on a blog, of all things, where a mom of a type 1 posted a youtube video about a doctor who has found a cure for diabetes in mice. I scrolled down to find what other tidbits of type 1 motherhood I can gather and there it is: the gem.
At first I thought she wrote it. I was so moved, I went to comment, which I almost never do, especially on a stranger's blog (see Cyber Ettiquette- I'm Not Stalking You, I'm Just Old ) when I realized this woman hadn't written the post. I researched a bit (but not extensively; I do, after all, have my own research and book to write) and could find several copies of this, but no author.
In the spirit of flagrantly reproducing someone else's work and spreading it with no credit, I'm reprinting it here. It's not about being a writer, but it is about being a mother: my number one job. If I never get published, if I never make it as anything the world notices, I'm doing the most important work in the lives of my kids. And if, by the grace of God, I become a published author and the world notices, I am still doing my most important work in the lives of my kids.
Sometimes, especially in the life of a writer, it pays to bear in mind what really matters.
Read. Have a Kleenex nearby if you are one of those who weeps at Hallmark commercials.
The Invisible Woman
This happened today as I dug around for more information about developing cures for diabetes. After heaps of JAMA articles and university hospital reports, trying to wrap my mind around medical jargon and simplify what is incredibly complicated biological and chemical information, I stumbled on a blog, of all things, where a mom of a type 1 posted a youtube video about a doctor who has found a cure for diabetes in mice. I scrolled down to find what other tidbits of type 1 motherhood I can gather and there it is: the gem.
At first I thought she wrote it. I was so moved, I went to comment, which I almost never do, especially on a stranger's blog (see Cyber Ettiquette- I'm Not Stalking You, I'm Just Old ) when I realized this woman hadn't written the post. I researched a bit (but not extensively; I do, after all, have my own research and book to write) and could find several copies of this, but no author.
In the spirit of flagrantly reproducing someone else's work and spreading it with no credit, I'm reprinting it here. It's not about being a writer, but it is about being a mother: my number one job. If I never get published, if I never make it as anything the world notices, I'm doing the most important work in the lives of my kids. And if, by the grace of God, I become a published author and the world notices, I am still doing my most important work in the lives of my kids.
Sometimes, especially in the life of a writer, it pays to bear in mind what really matters.
Read. Have a Kleenex nearby if you are one of those who weeps at Hallmark commercials.
The Invisible Woman
It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I’m on the phone and ask to be taken to the store.
Inside I’m thinking, “Can’t you see I’m on the phone?”Obviously not. No one can see if I’m on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all.
I’m invisible.
Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I’m not a pair of hands; I’m not even a human being. I’m a clock to ask, “What time is it?” I’m a satellite guide to answer, “What number is the Disney Channel?” I’m a car to order, “Right around 5:30, please.”
I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude -but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again.
She’s going … she’s going … she’s gone!
One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My unwashed hair was pulled up in a banana clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it.
I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, “I brought you this.” It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe.I wasn’t exactly sure why she’d given it to me until I read her inscription:”To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.”
In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:
* No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names.
* These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.
* They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.
* The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.
A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, “Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.”
And the workman replied, “Because God sees.”
I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, “I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you’ve done, no sequin you’ve sewn on, no cupcake you’ve baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can’t see right now what it will become.”
At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.
The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. When I really think about it, I don’t want my son to tell the friend he’s bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, “My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.” That would mean I’d built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want himto want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add,”You’re gonna love it there.”
As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we’re doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
The Better Things in Life
I realized today how much I have surrounded myself with the better things in life. By this I don't mean material objects, I mean the things that really count in life. I have an incredibly supportive husband who brings me flowers randomly and does the dishes on the weekends. I have great parents, and an amazing sister. I have kids who draw cards for me to thank me for working hard and leave them under my pillow so I'll find them when I go to bed. I have good friends.
I read good books; mostly I read ones that make me want to be a better person, make me laugh or feel good about people, or make me think about God and family and life in a new way. I choose to watch mostly TV that is uplifting.
I take pictures of the beautiful things around me: the flowers and trees and fireworks that celebrate the birth of our country and the courage of the founders who set out to do something no one had yet dared to dream. Dogs and tigers, butterflies and neon lights. I love to capture the sun as it's setting, reflecting in someone's eyes, and the way light dances on the water and clouds languish in the sky.
I listen to music that makes me sing and dance, brings back good memories, that make me smile.
And so, when ugliness encroaches on my life, it almost always catches me off guard. The angry driver who somehow found something I did offensive. Kids who are just mean because they get a kick out of it. Writers who join writer's group intent on creating discord and slashing not only a writer's writing but the writer himself as a person.
This is the case the last two weeks in my FLI group. Flurries of emails, hateful comments, rude, snarky remarks, personal attacks. I tried to ignore the ones aimed at me, but when the comments caused others to start leaving the group, I began to speak up. And doing so put a huge target on my back. My words were distorted and blatantly changed. He could not have come at me any harsher had he been wielding a sword. If we lived 150 years ago he would have challenged me to a duel, no doubt, and shot me on the count of two. And then stabbed me fifty times for good measure. Because he can't just let things go.
So I did. I'm bowing out, temporarily at least. There is not enough time in life to fight battles that don't need to be fought, with people who fight merely for the sake of it and not for any grander purpose. I realized today that I could have written ten pages of my own work in the time I spent on emails today, to him, and to others in the group trying to mediate and draw some back in who have left because of him. Hours lost in the last two weeks equate to pages lost, and I'd rather write, even if badly, than not write at all.
It's not that I don't know the world is harsh. I know many rejections are probably in the future before the publication. I know getting published only opens a writers to more criticism. I know a great many people won't like my writing. I'm okay with that. I know a great many people may not even like me. I'm not as okay with that, but I can live with it. But I choose, when I can, not to put myself directly in the path of people who set out to be ugly and vicious, or those who can't tell the difference between being nice and mean.
I closed the computer and left the mess behind for a dinner with family. For several hours I was surrounded again by the best things in life, and while I put my kids to bed, we prayed, as we always do. And I realized how great my own life is, how much love I have around me, and that my strength is in God. And how sad this singular man's life is that his purpose is to make others miserable. And so I gave it up. And I prayed for him, and asked God to give me strength to reply with grace and humility and love and not out of my own anger or hurt. And I let the goodness of God wash away the day.
And when I went to open my computer again, there was an email from the administrator asking this individual not to comment any more in the group and that he would be moved into his own group where people who felt like minded could join him if they wanted. I felt... relieved, I suppose. But not triumphant or overjoyed. Because our lives go on, and so does his, none the different. His unhappiness will rub against others, and he will remain discontent and aggressive.
And there is so much better out there for him.
I read good books; mostly I read ones that make me want to be a better person, make me laugh or feel good about people, or make me think about God and family and life in a new way. I choose to watch mostly TV that is uplifting.
I take pictures of the beautiful things around me: the flowers and trees and fireworks that celebrate the birth of our country and the courage of the founders who set out to do something no one had yet dared to dream. Dogs and tigers, butterflies and neon lights. I love to capture the sun as it's setting, reflecting in someone's eyes, and the way light dances on the water and clouds languish in the sky.
I listen to music that makes me sing and dance, brings back good memories, that make me smile.
And so, when ugliness encroaches on my life, it almost always catches me off guard. The angry driver who somehow found something I did offensive. Kids who are just mean because they get a kick out of it. Writers who join writer's group intent on creating discord and slashing not only a writer's writing but the writer himself as a person.
This is the case the last two weeks in my FLI group. Flurries of emails, hateful comments, rude, snarky remarks, personal attacks. I tried to ignore the ones aimed at me, but when the comments caused others to start leaving the group, I began to speak up. And doing so put a huge target on my back. My words were distorted and blatantly changed. He could not have come at me any harsher had he been wielding a sword. If we lived 150 years ago he would have challenged me to a duel, no doubt, and shot me on the count of two. And then stabbed me fifty times for good measure. Because he can't just let things go.
So I did. I'm bowing out, temporarily at least. There is not enough time in life to fight battles that don't need to be fought, with people who fight merely for the sake of it and not for any grander purpose. I realized today that I could have written ten pages of my own work in the time I spent on emails today, to him, and to others in the group trying to mediate and draw some back in who have left because of him. Hours lost in the last two weeks equate to pages lost, and I'd rather write, even if badly, than not write at all.
It's not that I don't know the world is harsh. I know many rejections are probably in the future before the publication. I know getting published only opens a writers to more criticism. I know a great many people won't like my writing. I'm okay with that. I know a great many people may not even like me. I'm not as okay with that, but I can live with it. But I choose, when I can, not to put myself directly in the path of people who set out to be ugly and vicious, or those who can't tell the difference between being nice and mean.
I closed the computer and left the mess behind for a dinner with family. For several hours I was surrounded again by the best things in life, and while I put my kids to bed, we prayed, as we always do. And I realized how great my own life is, how much love I have around me, and that my strength is in God. And how sad this singular man's life is that his purpose is to make others miserable. And so I gave it up. And I prayed for him, and asked God to give me strength to reply with grace and humility and love and not out of my own anger or hurt. And I let the goodness of God wash away the day.
And when I went to open my computer again, there was an email from the administrator asking this individual not to comment any more in the group and that he would be moved into his own group where people who felt like minded could join him if they wanted. I felt... relieved, I suppose. But not triumphant or overjoyed. Because our lives go on, and so does his, none the different. His unhappiness will rub against others, and he will remain discontent and aggressive.
And there is so much better out there for him.
Friday, April 25, 2008
It's Friday; It's a Good Thing
Today when I walked over to the library to write they were having a book sale. Thousands of books, a buck or less a piece, waiting for new homes.
Hey, I have bookshelves now. Why not?
I ended up with only five books, two of which I've already read but don't own (Krakauer's Into Thin Air, which I've read many, many times and finally admitted I needed to just buy, and Anita Shreve's The Pilot's Wife), and three that I've been wanting to read but didn't want to spend the money on them (The Kite Runner, A Million Little Pieces, and The Victors, by Stephen Ambrose).
While perusing one of the tables, a man across from me kept plucking out books and adding them to a dangerously high stack he was carrying, all the while making very satisfied sounds. He finally looked up at me, a wide smile, and said, "Isn't this great? If I could breathe books I would!"
Amen to that!
Hey, I have bookshelves now. Why not?
I ended up with only five books, two of which I've already read but don't own (Krakauer's Into Thin Air, which I've read many, many times and finally admitted I needed to just buy, and Anita Shreve's The Pilot's Wife), and three that I've been wanting to read but didn't want to spend the money on them (The Kite Runner, A Million Little Pieces, and The Victors, by Stephen Ambrose).
While perusing one of the tables, a man across from me kept plucking out books and adding them to a dangerously high stack he was carrying, all the while making very satisfied sounds. He finally looked up at me, a wide smile, and said, "Isn't this great? If I could breathe books I would!"
Amen to that!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Faith and Writing
I have always had a strong faith in God. When I am doubtful and wavering about myself, my Christianity is not one of the things I wonder about. In middle school and high school I made no secret of my love for God and my desire to seek Him first in my life. I read my Bible often, often in public. I incorporated my faith in my writing: creative, compositions, even science papers.
But I didn't choose to go to a Christian college, and I got a lot of questions from people about that. I think it seemed to others the natural course for me, but my decision was based on my belief that if all Christians went to Christian schools, who would be salt and light to the students who didn't know Him at public universities?
I was not afraid to stand for God at Penn State. I have not ever been afraid to stand for God.
So why is it in my own writing, I find myself wondering how far to go?
In my first novel, the characters were not people of any faith, who found themselves facing difficult decisions with moral dilemmas. I chose, before I even put a word on the page, to have the two main characters do the right thing at the very end, even though it was not the thing they wanted to do, not the thing 90% of characters in books would do. I wrote it that way, not just because of my faith, but because I am tired of seeing movies and TV shows and books depicting people as puppets of their own desires, without the ability to see right from wrong, to choose right even when it is hard, to face the consequences that come from immoral choices. I am tired of affairs being no big deal. Affairs rip families apart. They desecrate a person's ability to trust anyone, for a very long time. They lead to lies and guilt and rage and depression. I wanted Caroline to stand on the brink of this canyon, consider the jump, play at it a bit, see all she has in life on the edge of disintegrating, and choose to take the right path, even when her heart is longing for something else.
This decision was not a hard one for me, until I began to wonder if it put the book in a no-man's land. It isn't a Christian book. Moral, maybe, but not Christian. It's not something I would hunt out a Christian publisher for. But maybe it's a little too straight-laced for the secular publishing industry. I find myself wondering if it's possible to be faithful to my faith, and be competitive at the same time. Who wants to read a book about an affair that never happens? (The book is about so much more than that, but I can hear an agent picking this out as the sticking point).
Even more surface than this, though, is language. People in real life swear. I know. I hear it all the time. I hear it from the mouths of kids who learned it from their parents. But I don't swear. I have never, once, even said so much as damn, or God, in a swearing manner. And it bothers me to read books with a lot of language in them. My writing teacher told my class back in college, when it seemed the students wanted to sprinkle generous doses of language through their stories just because they were in college and now they could, that seeing a word on a page is much more powerful than hearing the word, and you have to be careful how you decided to use it, and how often, because even people who talk that way may find it abrasive to see a lot of it in writing.
It seems like every book I pick up these days is strewn with it, so I'm not sure if what he said is true, or if the publishing industry hasn't figured that out yet, but it does bother me. I read a great book last week that I won't be buying for the three people I usually buy books for because I know the language would be offensive to them. Even though the story was really good. And don't even get me started on the language in books that are aimed at the middle grade and youth market. What agent - editor-publisher decided it was okay to put language that makes a movie an R-rated movie in a book aimed at middle schoolers??
But I know people do use language like this. And my characters are people. And sometimes, not people who would care so much about swearing. So what do I do then? Although in my own world I might say, "Oh my gosh!" or "Holy cow!" or "what in the world?" these statements sound hollow and funny on the page. In the first novel, I managed around this, sidestepping these moments like land mines. I've heard others deride cuss words as a lazy way of talking, using the easy words rather than finding the specific ones. This is definitely true in writing because, in choosing not to use the swearing or the easy, lazy alternates I sometimes use, I was forced to choose good, specific words. Lively words. Better words. I think the writing is stronger because of that, although I wonder if someone will actually read it and say, "hey, there's no cursing here.... this isn't realistic!"
This book that I am working on now faces the same struggle. In a crescendo of crisis, in the flow of the dialogue, Travis says, "What the hell?" I hesitated before I wrote it. I know some of you are laughing at that, but for me this was a big deal. There was nothing better to capture this moment - his surprise and shock and anger. I left it, but I have revisited it several times, wondering if I should write something in the book that I would never say myself. These people are not me, not by a long shot, and yet I am still the author. It is my name on the cover (someday, I hope). And what I believe in my personal life colors every part of my life, including my writing.
This book, in contrast to the first one, is a bit about faith. It's faith clashing with science. There is a church community that plays an important role, although not necessarily always a positive one. And they are Texan, so there are lots of other great substitutions for language. "Oh sugar" is my favorite one so far.
Still, I wonder if the aspect of their faith, and my own, will make this a less viable book. And I feel like I am in no man's land again.
But I didn't choose to go to a Christian college, and I got a lot of questions from people about that. I think it seemed to others the natural course for me, but my decision was based on my belief that if all Christians went to Christian schools, who would be salt and light to the students who didn't know Him at public universities?
I was not afraid to stand for God at Penn State. I have not ever been afraid to stand for God.
So why is it in my own writing, I find myself wondering how far to go?
In my first novel, the characters were not people of any faith, who found themselves facing difficult decisions with moral dilemmas. I chose, before I even put a word on the page, to have the two main characters do the right thing at the very end, even though it was not the thing they wanted to do, not the thing 90% of characters in books would do. I wrote it that way, not just because of my faith, but because I am tired of seeing movies and TV shows and books depicting people as puppets of their own desires, without the ability to see right from wrong, to choose right even when it is hard, to face the consequences that come from immoral choices. I am tired of affairs being no big deal. Affairs rip families apart. They desecrate a person's ability to trust anyone, for a very long time. They lead to lies and guilt and rage and depression. I wanted Caroline to stand on the brink of this canyon, consider the jump, play at it a bit, see all she has in life on the edge of disintegrating, and choose to take the right path, even when her heart is longing for something else.
This decision was not a hard one for me, until I began to wonder if it put the book in a no-man's land. It isn't a Christian book. Moral, maybe, but not Christian. It's not something I would hunt out a Christian publisher for. But maybe it's a little too straight-laced for the secular publishing industry. I find myself wondering if it's possible to be faithful to my faith, and be competitive at the same time. Who wants to read a book about an affair that never happens? (The book is about so much more than that, but I can hear an agent picking this out as the sticking point).
Even more surface than this, though, is language. People in real life swear. I know. I hear it all the time. I hear it from the mouths of kids who learned it from their parents. But I don't swear. I have never, once, even said so much as damn, or God, in a swearing manner. And it bothers me to read books with a lot of language in them. My writing teacher told my class back in college, when it seemed the students wanted to sprinkle generous doses of language through their stories just because they were in college and now they could, that seeing a word on a page is much more powerful than hearing the word, and you have to be careful how you decided to use it, and how often, because even people who talk that way may find it abrasive to see a lot of it in writing.
It seems like every book I pick up these days is strewn with it, so I'm not sure if what he said is true, or if the publishing industry hasn't figured that out yet, but it does bother me. I read a great book last week that I won't be buying for the three people I usually buy books for because I know the language would be offensive to them. Even though the story was really good. And don't even get me started on the language in books that are aimed at the middle grade and youth market. What agent - editor-publisher decided it was okay to put language that makes a movie an R-rated movie in a book aimed at middle schoolers??
But I know people do use language like this. And my characters are people. And sometimes, not people who would care so much about swearing. So what do I do then? Although in my own world I might say, "Oh my gosh!" or "Holy cow!" or "what in the world?" these statements sound hollow and funny on the page. In the first novel, I managed around this, sidestepping these moments like land mines. I've heard others deride cuss words as a lazy way of talking, using the easy words rather than finding the specific ones. This is definitely true in writing because, in choosing not to use the swearing or the easy, lazy alternates I sometimes use, I was forced to choose good, specific words. Lively words. Better words. I think the writing is stronger because of that, although I wonder if someone will actually read it and say, "hey, there's no cursing here.... this isn't realistic!"
This book that I am working on now faces the same struggle. In a crescendo of crisis, in the flow of the dialogue, Travis says, "What the hell?" I hesitated before I wrote it. I know some of you are laughing at that, but for me this was a big deal. There was nothing better to capture this moment - his surprise and shock and anger. I left it, but I have revisited it several times, wondering if I should write something in the book that I would never say myself. These people are not me, not by a long shot, and yet I am still the author. It is my name on the cover (someday, I hope). And what I believe in my personal life colors every part of my life, including my writing.
This book, in contrast to the first one, is a bit about faith. It's faith clashing with science. There is a church community that plays an important role, although not necessarily always a positive one. And they are Texan, so there are lots of other great substitutions for language. "Oh sugar" is my favorite one so far.
Still, I wonder if the aspect of their faith, and my own, will make this a less viable book. And I feel like I am in no man's land again.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Things I Lost in the Storage
I am relentlessly cleaning out my storage area this week, going through boxes and boxes of old stuff, mostly from my long gone teaching days, and throwing out pounds of paper. Hundreds of pounds. But in the most unexpected places I find treasures. Letters from old friends I'd stuck in a notebook; tapes of my favorite music from 1991; poetry scribbled in the margins of my child psychology notes.
I thought I had all my poetry in a binder, but I keep finding random bits, some not even finished. Thoughts jotted down to keep me awake in class.
I don't write poetry much anymore. No time, mostly. I'm too busy writing prose, and I find my mind only focuses on language one way or the other. But I love the poetry because it is a snapshot of what was going through my mind, what was on my heart at a moment of time in my life, in a way that writing fiction cannot.
So on January 31, 1990, I wrote this:
Sometimes His voice
comes calling
like rolling thunder,
like driving rain.
Sometimes His voice is quiet,
and we wonder if
He knows our pain.
But He who spoke peace
to the waters
cares more for your life
than the waves.
And He who said
"You're forgiven,"
still says
you're forgiven today.
I thought I had all my poetry in a binder, but I keep finding random bits, some not even finished. Thoughts jotted down to keep me awake in class.
I don't write poetry much anymore. No time, mostly. I'm too busy writing prose, and I find my mind only focuses on language one way or the other. But I love the poetry because it is a snapshot of what was going through my mind, what was on my heart at a moment of time in my life, in a way that writing fiction cannot.
So on January 31, 1990, I wrote this:
Sometimes His voice
comes calling
like rolling thunder,
like driving rain.
Sometimes His voice is quiet,
and we wonder if
He knows our pain.
But He who spoke peace
to the waters
cares more for your life
than the waves.
And He who said
"You're forgiven,"
still says
you're forgiven today.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Sick Day
Yesterday's word count: 1,441
Today's word count: 300
Today my youngest woke with a terrible cold. We took a sick day, which included me having to ditch most of my writing time. A tiny part of me is frustrated with this, but mostly I think, this is what is great about being a writer and a mom. I get to do both. And be one more than the other if necessary. Today it was necessary to be more mom than writer.
I did spend an hour with some new emails from parents who wrote me about their experiences with their children's diagnosis, which were extremely helpful. These parents continue to amaze me with what they go through every day, and the incredible trauma before diagnosis. If my children ever develop diabetes, I will be so, so thankful that I have it; that I will know the signs before it gets too bad, and that I can say, "I have been there. It will get easier, and feel more normal, and you will survive and live a great life." I tell some of the moms who write me this, who only know what it is like to have a child with the disease and see only the uncertainty of the future and the frustration and fear in each day.
Is it bad that I really want this book to make a difference in the world? That I want, through a story of one fictional family, to educate many, to give hope to some? To let people know it can be life altering, but not life ending? That crisis can make you stronger? That faith will sustain you, even when your friends won't?
I spent my precious little quiet time today reading about children who almost died before being diagnosed, whose pathetic, arrogant doctors misdiagnosed or undermedicated or simply didn't care enough. I wrote back to parents who wrote to me about their fears of their children seizing and dying in the night while they were asleep.
Then I went and held my daughter on my lap and watched Little Bear and wiped her tears and read her books, and thanked God all she had was a terrible cold.
Today's word count: 300
Today my youngest woke with a terrible cold. We took a sick day, which included me having to ditch most of my writing time. A tiny part of me is frustrated with this, but mostly I think, this is what is great about being a writer and a mom. I get to do both. And be one more than the other if necessary. Today it was necessary to be more mom than writer.
I did spend an hour with some new emails from parents who wrote me about their experiences with their children's diagnosis, which were extremely helpful. These parents continue to amaze me with what they go through every day, and the incredible trauma before diagnosis. If my children ever develop diabetes, I will be so, so thankful that I have it; that I will know the signs before it gets too bad, and that I can say, "I have been there. It will get easier, and feel more normal, and you will survive and live a great life." I tell some of the moms who write me this, who only know what it is like to have a child with the disease and see only the uncertainty of the future and the frustration and fear in each day.
Is it bad that I really want this book to make a difference in the world? That I want, through a story of one fictional family, to educate many, to give hope to some? To let people know it can be life altering, but not life ending? That crisis can make you stronger? That faith will sustain you, even when your friends won't?
I spent my precious little quiet time today reading about children who almost died before being diagnosed, whose pathetic, arrogant doctors misdiagnosed or undermedicated or simply didn't care enough. I wrote back to parents who wrote to me about their fears of their children seizing and dying in the night while they were asleep.
Then I went and held my daughter on my lap and watched Little Bear and wiped her tears and read her books, and thanked God all she had was a terrible cold.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Cyber-Etiquette (or I'm Not Stalking You, I'm Just Old)
I don't think of myself as old. Really, my hair is this color naturally. I can hoof four miles of mall at ten minutes a mile, pushing a stroller and forty pounds of kid, and I know my way around a computer pretty well. I've been programming computers before schools had them and I learned to do it from a workbook. I remember when computer screens were black with neon orange type and asteroids seemed like really advanced graphics. I owned one of the first laptops... one of those behemoths that required a suitcase with wheels to haul around. I mean, I'm not a computer engineer or anything, but I do double as the help desk for many friends and family who find themselves unable to discern why their computers are wigging out (okay, does that phrase date me??).
But though I get the technical side of things, the whole social thing, aside from email, is a mystery to me. I joined myspace just to be able to contact a long-lost friend who had a site, then suddenly started getting daily messages from old guys (by old I mean with grandchildren my age) so, adequately creeped out, I got rid of that.
Now I have blogger. And I discovered a world of other bloggers out there. People who are agents, and writers, and parents, and friends, and a lot of strangers that seem really neat. And a lot of these strangers are younger than me. Which makes me, the naturally blond, can kick your butt Wii skiing, completely able to set the time on my own DVD player thank you very much, the old person. Yikes!
I've found a few bloggers I really like. They are smart, sassy, funny. I want to tell them this. I want to write in their comments, I love this! You are amazing! Your life sounds fascinating and fun and I wish I were one of your friends because you sound just like someone I'd hang around with, except, you know, I'm all old and stuff and I'd embarrass you. But this post was hilarious and I totally relate. I check your blog every day because you totally rock!
And then I don't, because doesn't this sound a bit stalkerish?
What are the etiquette rules for blogging? Besides being civil and polite, is it okay to say, "I happened upon your blog and I really like it"? Is it okay to comment on what appears to be personal revelations or activities? Although I realize these things are put out into cyberspace with the awareness they are open to public access, do people want the public access? Do they want strangers peering into their lives?
It's a little like reality TV, except you actually can communicate with these people. It's reality computer. And I'm just afraid I'm the middle-aged woman everyone wants to vote off first.
But though I get the technical side of things, the whole social thing, aside from email, is a mystery to me. I joined myspace just to be able to contact a long-lost friend who had a site, then suddenly started getting daily messages from old guys (by old I mean with grandchildren my age) so, adequately creeped out, I got rid of that.
Now I have blogger. And I discovered a world of other bloggers out there. People who are agents, and writers, and parents, and friends, and a lot of strangers that seem really neat. And a lot of these strangers are younger than me. Which makes me, the naturally blond, can kick your butt Wii skiing, completely able to set the time on my own DVD player thank you very much, the old person. Yikes!
I've found a few bloggers I really like. They are smart, sassy, funny. I want to tell them this. I want to write in their comments, I love this! You are amazing! Your life sounds fascinating and fun and I wish I were one of your friends because you sound just like someone I'd hang around with, except, you know, I'm all old and stuff and I'd embarrass you. But this post was hilarious and I totally relate. I check your blog every day because you totally rock!
And then I don't, because doesn't this sound a bit stalkerish?
What are the etiquette rules for blogging? Besides being civil and polite, is it okay to say, "I happened upon your blog and I really like it"? Is it okay to comment on what appears to be personal revelations or activities? Although I realize these things are put out into cyberspace with the awareness they are open to public access, do people want the public access? Do they want strangers peering into their lives?
It's a little like reality TV, except you actually can communicate with these people. It's reality computer. And I'm just afraid I'm the middle-aged woman everyone wants to vote off first.
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