A wise writing partner pointed me to this song, and reminded me that this story is not just Riley's.
Wherever there is someone leaving to find themselves, there is someone left behind, with a story equally compelling.
I often have a soundtrack that runs through my head - or through my earphones - that helps me focus on the characters, the moods, the emotional aspect. So here is John's song.
David Cook's Come Back To Me
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Obama signs reversal of stem cell research funding
As soon as my alarm went off this morning, the first words on the radio I heard were, "Embryonic stem cells have never been proven to work. Adult stem cells do."
Unfortunately, I hit the snooze so fast I missed the rest before the words could even register in my foggy brain (it's an automatic reaction).
I couldn't find the rest of that report (or editorial, most likely), but it has me thinking a lot about my finished book, and how relevant it is, and the whole query process. I thought agents would love the idea: a southern Baptist woman's daughter is faced with death unless she bucks the church's view of stem cell research and puts her daughter in a clinical trial.
It's got controversy, faith, medicine, love, protests, and a lot of misunderstanding of the difference between adult and embryonic stem cell use, without being preachy or lecturing (so I've been told. I hope that's true, because I tried very hard to not make it a referendum on stem cell therapy as much a just a good story with a controversy). The book is based on medical facts, true reports and AMA findings, and real-life successes.
I thought the topic would be hot. In-the-news-today kind of hot. Everyone's-got-an-opinion kind of hot. It was the writing I couldn't be sure was great.
Turns out, agents really like my writing - want me to submit anything else - they just aren't sure if the book should be marketed as Christian or mainstream. They suggest I find an agent willing to submit to both markets - agents with contacts in both markets. There is possibly too much faith to be desirable for some agents, and the words "stem cell" frighten others away before they can read it and judge for themselves.
The news today makes me more frustrated. While the book addresses all sorts of issues - faith, questioning, sacrifice, illness, a parent's love, how far friends can go before they go too far - it felt relevant to me on so many levels other than picking a side of a current contemporary political topic. But maybe I was wrong.
And I'm thinking relevance might be overrated.
Unfortunately, I hit the snooze so fast I missed the rest before the words could even register in my foggy brain (it's an automatic reaction).
I couldn't find the rest of that report (or editorial, most likely), but it has me thinking a lot about my finished book, and how relevant it is, and the whole query process. I thought agents would love the idea: a southern Baptist woman's daughter is faced with death unless she bucks the church's view of stem cell research and puts her daughter in a clinical trial.
It's got controversy, faith, medicine, love, protests, and a lot of misunderstanding of the difference between adult and embryonic stem cell use, without being preachy or lecturing (so I've been told. I hope that's true, because I tried very hard to not make it a referendum on stem cell therapy as much a just a good story with a controversy). The book is based on medical facts, true reports and AMA findings, and real-life successes.
I thought the topic would be hot. In-the-news-today kind of hot. Everyone's-got-an-opinion kind of hot. It was the writing I couldn't be sure was great.
Turns out, agents really like my writing - want me to submit anything else - they just aren't sure if the book should be marketed as Christian or mainstream. They suggest I find an agent willing to submit to both markets - agents with contacts in both markets. There is possibly too much faith to be desirable for some agents, and the words "stem cell" frighten others away before they can read it and judge for themselves.
The news today makes me more frustrated. While the book addresses all sorts of issues - faith, questioning, sacrifice, illness, a parent's love, how far friends can go before they go too far - it felt relevant to me on so many levels other than picking a side of a current contemporary political topic. But maybe I was wrong.
And I'm thinking relevance might be overrated.
The New Book - scene 3
I have a landscape-living view of my life. If you ask me what happened today, I'll tell you I dropped the kids off at school, went to the gym, came home and showered and sat down to write. The same as Friday. And Thursday. And Wednesday. And so forth.
I see my life in big sweeping pictures, broad strokes, and I often don't see the details that make my life different from anyone else's, or any day different than another.
This has become overly apparent through Twitter. While others seem to be able to endlessly narrate their days in humorous and delightful chunks of 140 letters or less. When I sit to update mine, all I can think is the same thing as every other update of mine... I'm sitting at the computer ready to write. Because when I twitter, that's what I'm doing.
But as I've gotten into my new book, I realize this book may have landscape photography in it, but the story is all about the macro. It's about seeing the tiny things we miss everyday because we are swept up in the larger things... or about seeing the details that make a person go off the edge one day, when seemingly that day is the same as any other.
It's important that she's had her plates for fifteen years and no one has a chip in it. It's important that she has conversations with her daughter where neither look each other in the eye as if they are both invisible. It's important that her husband falls asleep each night in the middle of their conversations. It's important that she tucks her hair behind her ears without noticing that she's doing it.
In a small thumbnail, this photo may look like a leaf with a water drop. Click on it and see the amazing world inside each of those drops. If you stop to look at droplets after the rain, if you tilt your head just the right way, get close enough, this is what you'll see. A world inside a world.
This is Riley's life. In the landscape of her life she is mom, a wife, a neighbor. In the macro, she is something no one bothers to take the time to see.
Until someone does. And that will change everything.
I see my life in big sweeping pictures, broad strokes, and I often don't see the details that make my life different from anyone else's, or any day different than another.
This has become overly apparent through Twitter. While others seem to be able to endlessly narrate their days in humorous and delightful chunks of 140 letters or less. When I sit to update mine, all I can think is the same thing as every other update of mine... I'm sitting at the computer ready to write. Because when I twitter, that's what I'm doing.
But as I've gotten into my new book, I realize this book may have landscape photography in it, but the story is all about the macro. It's about seeing the tiny things we miss everyday because we are swept up in the larger things... or about seeing the details that make a person go off the edge one day, when seemingly that day is the same as any other.
It's important that she's had her plates for fifteen years and no one has a chip in it. It's important that she has conversations with her daughter where neither look each other in the eye as if they are both invisible. It's important that her husband falls asleep each night in the middle of their conversations. It's important that she tucks her hair behind her ears without noticing that she's doing it.
In a small thumbnail, this photo may look like a leaf with a water drop. Click on it and see the amazing world inside each of those drops. If you stop to look at droplets after the rain, if you tilt your head just the right way, get close enough, this is what you'll see. A world inside a world.
This is Riley's life. In the landscape of her life she is mom, a wife, a neighbor. In the macro, she is something no one bothers to take the time to see.
Until someone does. And that will change everything.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
The New Book - scene 2
There's photography in the new book. I love that! I love that I get to mix my two passions, and have one of my main characters as passionate, and a bit as clueless, as I am about it. I expect there will be lots of researching involved as well, which I am excited about.
It's a great metaphor for the book as well. Everything else I've written I've started at the beginning and worked through to the end in one long sweep. This book is coming at me in snapshots. I have the entire book loosely plotted (until the characters take over, that is), but when I try to work through it chronologically, I am overtaken by scenes later in the book. The character, Riley, looks at life through the eyepiece of the camera in bits and pieces, seeing only what catches her interest, blocking the rest out. And so I see, clearly in my mind, exactly what bits and pieces of the story look like.
The structure of the book may very well end up following in Riley's snapshot lifestyle. Or eventually all the pictures may end up weaving themselves together in a beautiful mosaic to make a much larger picture.
In any case, it's a world I'm thrilled to get to live in every day alongside Riley. Not that the road won't be rough... not all photos are of beautiful things, and there are plenty of un-beautiful things about Riley's life. But overall, it' s going to be a real journey for both of us.
It's a great metaphor for the book as well. Everything else I've written I've started at the beginning and worked through to the end in one long sweep. This book is coming at me in snapshots. I have the entire book loosely plotted (until the characters take over, that is), but when I try to work through it chronologically, I am overtaken by scenes later in the book. The character, Riley, looks at life through the eyepiece of the camera in bits and pieces, seeing only what catches her interest, blocking the rest out. And so I see, clearly in my mind, exactly what bits and pieces of the story look like.
The structure of the book may very well end up following in Riley's snapshot lifestyle. Or eventually all the pictures may end up weaving themselves together in a beautiful mosaic to make a much larger picture.
In any case, it's a world I'm thrilled to get to live in every day alongside Riley. Not that the road won't be rough... not all photos are of beautiful things, and there are plenty of un-beautiful things about Riley's life. But overall, it' s going to be a real journey for both of us.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
The New Book
I'm trying to focus more on writing the new book these days than blogging, even though I have lots of ideas to blog on. But for now, I need to focus on writing, on the new ideas that are taking root, and giving them a firm foundation to grow.
So for the next few days, instead of writing, I'm going to share a few images that are inspiring my writing, and maybe some of the music as well. The book is as much emotion and setting and mood as plot at this point.
So here is the first... a scene from Ventura, California, as taken by the phenomenal photographer, Amery Carlson.
So for the next few days, instead of writing, I'm going to share a few images that are inspiring my writing, and maybe some of the music as well. The book is as much emotion and setting and mood as plot at this point.
So here is the first... a scene from Ventura, California, as taken by the phenomenal photographer, Amery Carlson.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Snowed In
Last week the sun was out. The birds were singing. My crocuses and daffodils were poking their brave little heads out of the earth and looking around. It felt like spring. I started daydreaming about short-sleeved shirts and counting the weekends until the pool opens (eleven). Despite the fact that it was barely finishing February, winter had been fickle this year, and as it seemed done with me, I was glad to shake the dust off and move forward.
Then this morning I woke up and BAM! This is what I saw out the window.
Snow day for everyone!
No running today. No writing, either. But lots of coffee and some serious shoveling of our 300 foot driveway. And some sledding and a few random snowballs. But mostly coffee and shoveling.
I realize fully that our wimpy six inches is nothing for many people. Someone in Michigan reminded me that they've gotten over 100 inches so far this year. Us? Well... about eleven with this snowfall. So I want to tell her, yeah - but did you get half of that all at once???
Seriously, we don't have the right equipment to deal with the snow... we have tons of back roads and non paved roads, and there is always inevitably a half inch of ice under all that snow that can't be merely plowed to the side.
So all you people who want to joke about how backwards and soft we are to cancel school and offices and governments for six inches of snow (with ice!), you can keep your tough-it-out, never-close-down culture. We'll take our enthusiastic snow days. With some really hot coffee on the side.
Then this morning I woke up and BAM! This is what I saw out the window.
Snow day for everyone!
No running today. No writing, either. But lots of coffee and some serious shoveling of our 300 foot driveway. And some sledding and a few random snowballs. But mostly coffee and shoveling.
I realize fully that our wimpy six inches is nothing for many people. Someone in Michigan reminded me that they've gotten over 100 inches so far this year. Us? Well... about eleven with this snowfall. So I want to tell her, yeah - but did you get half of that all at once???
Seriously, we don't have the right equipment to deal with the snow... we have tons of back roads and non paved roads, and there is always inevitably a half inch of ice under all that snow that can't be merely plowed to the side.
So all you people who want to joke about how backwards and soft we are to cancel school and offices and governments for six inches of snow (with ice!), you can keep your tough-it-out, never-close-down culture. We'll take our enthusiastic snow days. With some really hot coffee on the side.
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