16 Sunday Jun 2013
Posted in Miscellaneous
This is my son, done in acrylics by a wonderful artist, friend, and consummate storyteller named Tiffany McGillie.
You can view and purchase her work at her Etsy store. I commissioned Tiffany to paint this as a Father’s Day gift for my dear husband, Zachary. This is the first painting I’ve commissioned and the first I’ve purchased directly from an artist. It will not be the last.
13 Thursday Jun 2013
I’ve once more been in the throes of novel revision during the past couple weeks, adding subplot and subtext, honing here, shaping there, putting everything just so before sending it all off to hands waiting in the cybersphere. At the same time I have been forced to pay closer attention to my vegetable garden as the heat and rain combine forces, spurring on quick growth and a crop of weeds that must be eradicated.
It occurs to me, as I consider these two activities, that writing a novel is much like plotting out and planting a garden. If you start with nothing, just a bit of land and some muscle power and some seeds and plant starts, you can, through hard work and sweat make bare dirt into food. You can make this happen…
And if you start with nothing, just a blank Word doc and some brain power and the barest germ of an idea, you can, through hard work, make bare creative impulse into engaging fiction.
In fact, here are 14 ways writing a novel is like growing your own vegetables:
1. You till the soil. You prepare your mind to be receptive to writing ideas (these are your seeds) so that when the seeds are planted it is into a mind that is already at work helping them to grow. In gardening this means removing rocks, adding nutrients, and loosening the soil. In writing it means removing obstacles to creativity (like, say, forgetting to worry about the state of your house or waistline for awhile), adding muse-bait (taking more walks in the woods, traveling to some interesting places, or playing hours of Mario Cart–whatever helps you think creatively), and loosening up your writing muscles (by blogging, writing short stories, writing poetry–heck, even a Twitter tirade could get you loose).
2. You plan the layout. You can’t just dump a bunch of different seeds together and expect your garden to grow. You have to plan. For some people that may look like lots of drawing and erasing and drawing again on paper, scouring reference books for light requirements and companion plantings, and whipping out a protractor and one of those chalk line thingies. For others it’s just getting everything in line in your head before diving in head first with a shovel. Whatever your method, whether you’re a compulsive outliner or a free associating free spirit, you need to have some idea of your goals and how all the different parts of your garden will interact with each other. Otherwise you end up with a big mess on your hands come August and a lot of extra work as you try to fix your errors.
3. You plant the first seeds. These are the cold-hardy seeds that just need some thawed ground and the strengthening spring sunlight to get started. They’re your strongest ideas, the ones you can’t get out of your head, the ones that persist despite bad weather and not writing them down. Don’t worry about a late frost. Just get those suckers in the ground so they can get growing. Seeds don’t grow unless they’re planted. Your garden, your novel, will never happen if you don’t take a leap of faith and trust that the strongest ideas will survive.
4. You water. Here’s where you give those seeds a little push. When you write, what is it that helps you develop your ideas into something approaching a story? Whatever that is–giving yourself a word count or time goal, doing character sketches, etc.–do that.
5. You wait. Put your work away for a bit and let things start to happen. In the garden, beneath the soil where you can’t see, roots and shoots begin to grow. In your mind, the same thing happens when you put your writing aside for a while, get some distance, and let things develop beneath the surface.
6. You plant the next wave of seeds. While you were waiting, I bet you got some new seeds, didn’t you? Plant those when the time is right. Some seeds can’t be planted until the soil is warm. Some ideas don’t occur to us until we’ve already gotten started and the story gets going.
7. You water. Again. Keep an eye on those little ideas you’ve planted and don’t let them struggle for life on their own.
8. You wait. Again. No matter how much we may want to sometimes, we can’t force a garden to grow and we can’t force a good story to develop faster than it should. Time is a writer’s best friend and we should try to work with it.
9. You plant some baby plants. Remember that scene you cut from your last writing project? That subplot you’ve been dying to find a place for? Those are your baby plants. They’re already pretty far along and sometimes you can find just the right place to plant them in your current writing project. Don’t force them in if there’s not enough room for them. But sometimes they’re just what you need to make your garden whole and productive.
10. You water. Again.
11. You wait. Again.
12. You weed. Ah. And here is where it can get tricky, time consuming, and hurt your back. Sometimes you won’t know what’s wanted and what’s a weed. Very early on, it’s really hard to tell sometimes because seedlings can look very much the same. But if you let all these ideas develop a bit (through watering and waiting) eventually the weeds will show their true colors. Those things that stick out, don’t belong, and aren’t productive? Pull them out! And when you look over your work again and find that a new crop of weeds has popped up, pull those out too! Don’t let weeds take over your garden or your crops will suffer (and it will just look like one big mess).
13. Repeat steps 10 through 12 as many times as necessary. I’ve lost count on my first novel MS. But the number of times isn’t important. What’s important is that you repeat these steps as often as is necessary in your particular story garden.
14. Finally, you harvest. At some point, if you have been diligent and attentive, you will have a harvest. A lovely, verdant, productive garden that you are eager to share with others (because you can’t keep all that great food to yourself!). What you do with your harvest is up to you. Self-publish? Find an agent? Give it away for free?
But one thing is sure: you’ll never have anything to share if you don’t plan, plant, have patience, pull up the weeds, and put your back into it! So get out there and get dirty.
06 Thursday Jun 2013
Posted in Mackinac Island, Michigan, Nature, Summer, Travel, Up North, Upper Peninsula
Tags
biking, Hiking, Lake Louise, lakes, Mackinac Island, Michigan, Pictured Rocks, summer, travel
Over the past week my husband, Zach, and I have been engaged in the blessed process of planning summer travel around the state: picking dates, securing care for our pets, coordinating travel with family, reserving a room here…
We’re thrilled to be heading back up to Mackinac Island after a few years’ absence and excited to introduce our son to its magical qualities for the first time. Zach and I will spend two nights there alone, writing while overlooking the Straits of Mackinaw and riding bikes around the island. Then my in-laws will come up with our son and we all get to pal around, ride bikes, bring the boy to Fort Mackinac, ride in horse-drawn carriages, and eat ice cream. I can already feel the wind off the water.
But before we get to Mackinac Island, we’ll be spending another week at a very special place to our family, Camp Lake Louise…
And in late summer will be the Second Annual Sisters’ Hiking Trip. Last year we hiked Pictured Rocks…
You can read about our amazing trip here, here, here, and here. Not totally sure just where we’re going this year. But I’m scheming.
This is the time of year my heart aches for woods and water and sky, when thinking about driving north–far north–elicits a physical reaction of butterflies in my stomach and even tears welling in my eyes. The silence of the night sky filled with stars. The sound of wind through trees. The cold splash of clear water. The clip-clip-clip of horses’ hooves. The heat of the sun upon bare skin. The scratchy sound of sand upon worn pine floors. Just the thought of these stirs deep longing in my soul.
I’m hopelessly in love with Michigan.
04 Tuesday Jun 2013
Posted in Writing
Tags
On Sunday we had my son’s fifth birthday party with his crazy little friends at Impression 5 Children’s Museum. Calvin wanted a Toy Story theme, and so I made these little cupcakes for dessert.
For the uninitiated, these are my best effort at making a bunch of Pizza Planet aliens from the claw machine. Observe…
As the writer seeking publication or even representation, it’s easy to feel like one of those little alien squeaky toys, waiting in a sea of other aliens–er, writers–for some mystical outside force to pluck us from obscurity. We long to be “chosen.” Some, like Woody, will search out another, more indie avenue. Others, like Buzz, will be chosen without even having waited at all (those lucky-ducky writers who are at just the right place at the right time and know the right people).
But most of us are aliens. Waiting and hoping.
But while you’re busy waiting, be busy writing more, revising again, making everything you create as creative and as strong as possible. So that when The Claw closes around you and draws you up above the crowded masses, you will be ready to take full advantage of that “better place” to which you are going.
And here’s hoping your agent or publisher is nothing like Sid.
28 Tuesday May 2013
Posted in Philosophizing
Today my son turns five.
I took this photo at Woldumar Nature Center last year when he and I were “hiking” through the woods. I stood back, proud to see that he ignored the stairs and chose instead the natural path. Instead of the easy way, he chose the harder way. If this picture had been taken in the fall, it would put me in mind of “The Road Not Taken” by Frost.
Then in the car a week or so ago, the boy and I were listening to Hard Way Home by Brandi Carlile. When the song was done he asked, “Why doesn’t she take the easy way home?”
“Sometimes,” I answered, “you have to take the hard way. And anyway, sometimes it’s more interesting than the easy way.”
This seemed to suffice. We arrived home and he went off to play and I’m sure he has given it no more thought at all.
But in the next five, ten, fifteen years of my boy’s life, he will have many opportunities to choose either the easy way or the hard way. If the easy way is the path of least resistance, an unchallenging, popular path that leads him to a sense of entitlement-because-I-breathe and success at the expense of his faith or his self-respect, I hope he chooses the hard way, the little-bit-strange way, the peculiar way of hard work, personal responsibility, earned trust, generosity of spirit, and faithful devotion to God, family, and friends. I hope he has the strength to eschew the cultural stairs, endure the stares he gets for being different, and press on toward a meaningful life amid a culture that is all too often focusing all of its energy on meaningless things.
And I hope that, as we guide and love him, his father and I will have that strength as well.
Happy birthday, Calvin. Let’s take the hard way together.
26 Sunday May 2013
Posted in Publishing News, Short Story
Tags
Today is the day! You can now buy Clean, my short story for May, for Kindle and Kindle apps. Just click here.
I’ve got covers mocked up for the next five months of short stories and I’m looking forward to writing stories inspired by the titles and images.
As always, things may change, but for now, here’s a peek at what summer will bring…
25 Saturday May 2013
Posted in Short Story
Tags
This was super fun to work on. Many thanks to my lovely and intrepid model, Elise, who didn’t blink an eye when I asked if she’d be willing to get inside a commercial clothes dryer at a local Laundromat.
Clean will be available on Kindle by the end of the month!
24 Friday May 2013
Posted in Philosophizing, Writing
Tags
Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller, film, genre, medium, memoir, movies, writing
How many of you out there have heard this song from Switchfoot’s first album in 1997?
It was a favorite GenX anti-anthem of mine in college. I joined the members of Switchfoot in lamenting our generation’s general laziness and lack of ambition. But then this week I found myself in this very situation.
In 2003, Donald Miller’s memoir Blue Like Jazz came out and seemed to almost singlehandedly resurrect the memoir genre for the Christian subculture. Devotees sprang up everywhere I looked, so I figured I ought to read it for myself. However, despite enjoying memoir (I’ve read several over the past few years that contained some of the most lovely writing and emotion I’ve ever encountered in written form) I just couldn’t get into it. It seemed…I dunno…just a bit too whiny.
Whatever it was, I couldn’t relate, and so I couldn’t get past the first chapter. I’ve read nice quotes pulled out of that book and I’m sure Donald Miller is a great writer, but his story of growing up without a father, questioning God’s existence and God’s love, hiding his faith from others during college–it just didn’t resonate because my life experience has been different.
And that’s fine. Lot’s of people bought Miller’s book. Lots of people love it. He doesn’t need me to be a success.
Somewhere along the way, Blue Like Jazz became a movie. A movie I had no interest in seeing, but that my husband, a compulsive consumer of Christian movies (both sincerely and ironically), kept badgering me about. Okay, badgering is too strong a word, but it kept coming up. And on an evening when there was nothing either of us wanted more than to finally sit down and vegetate, I said I’d watch it.
Blue Like Jazz the movie was pretty good. The acting was beyond the moon when it comes to Christian films. The book had been plucked for the most compelling storytelling bits. And it was made by the incomparable songwriter-turned-director Steve Taylor who wrote, among other things, most of the Newsboys songs I love.
The reason I bring this up is not to critique the book or the movie, but to talk about narrative. Narrative in a memoir and narrative in a movie are different. Unless we’re talking about some art house film at Cannes, movies generally have a stronger narrative and more forward motion than a memoir. A memoir feels recollected (because it is) while a movie, even if it begins with a voiceover from the narrator, and even if we then hear that voice now and then later on in the film, is experienced as though it is just now happening because we viewers get to see the action as it happens on the screen.
The medium isn’t necessarily the message, but it sends a message. It creates expectations in people that, when left unmet or when trampled upon, create dissatisfaction.
Occasionally you read an article that should really be given a book-length treatment. Occasionally you read a book that really only has enough substance for an article. Occasionally you read a short story that you wish was a novel. Occasionally you read a novel that would have been far better as a short story. Occasionally a memoir is better as a movie.
Is the form in which you are writing truly the best form for what you want to get across? Are you writing a novel because that somehow feels more legitimate than a short story? Are you trying to stretch a theme out to be a book when it would actually have more impact as a series of blog posts? What expectations do readers have of your chosen genre? Are you meeting and exceeding those expectations?
23 Thursday May 2013
Posted in For Your Information
The line-up for the Breathe Christian Writers Conference workshops is taking shape. Click here to see the incredibly awesome array of topics and speakers. This year I’m afraid I’ll have too many things I want to attend!
This year’s conference is to be held October 18th and 19th at Redeemer Covenant Church in Caledonia, Michigan. Check out the website for lots more details and plan to join us!
22 Wednesday May 2013
Posted in Short Story
Tags
Here’s a quick sneak peek at May’s short story, which is awaiting a photo shoot and design work for the cover…
The bell above the door jangled and Lindsey swiped the tears away and turned to look at the newcomer. The woman pulled a collapsible cart behind her and walked with a red-tipped white cane toward the machines. Lindsey watched her deftly maneuver the narrow aisle between the washers and dryers. She came to a stop not far away and Lindsey suddenly realized she was not a woman at all.
The legs visible between the black heels and the knee-length skirt were most certainly a man’s. Lindsey could see this even through the dark nylons. And the torso and shoulders and chest, they also belonged to a man. And if there were any doubt left in her mind those doubts were gone once Lindsey took a good look at the woman’s face. Though crowned with a feminine bob and flanked by dangling earrings, the shadow of stubble across a muscular jaw was most certainly a man’s.
“Excuse me,” the woman said to her in the voice of a man. “Is this machine taken?” A manicured fingernail tapped metallically on the hood of the washer.
“N-no,” Lindsey managed in a hoarse whisper.
“Great.” And with a gleaming smile, the man opened it up and began transferring things from the cart into its cavernous mouth.
Lindsey watched closely and saw that everything, down to undergarments, was women’s clothing. She pulled out her phone to text her friend Trish.
There’s a blind drag queen here. Seriously.
Trish’s response came quickly.
No there isn’t. No way.
Lindsey typed furiously.
Swear.
She waited for a response.
Pic or I don’t believe you.
Lindsey switched her phone over to camera mode and tilted it up surreptitiously, trying to get the newcomer in the frame. Then she realized it didn’t matter how obvious she was if her subject couldn’t see anyway. She held the phone out in front of her to get the drag queen and his cane in the frame, but hesitated before clicking the shutter.
She turned her phone off and dropped her hands to her sides, imagining what the coming months had in store for her.
