The husband and wife who try again.
The prince who saves the princess.
The obsessive-compulsive who finds freedom.
I love rescue.
The Best Stories
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Monthly Archives: September 2013
A Fun Writing Update for My Blog Readers
My last update on the writing front was on June 5th, when I wrote:
I am in the middle of writing a short story. It’s about four teenaged wards of the state living in hospice care. Morbid much? But I feel very invested in these thirteen pages, very passionate about these four friends who have no one but each other as their time is running out. My writing group is helping me with the next draft, and I’m hoping to enter it into a contest before the month is over.
Then, on June 19th, I let you in on my writing process, specifically regarding the hospice care story, leaving a tiny P.S. at the end of the post:
P.S. I really did write Mack’s story about living and dying in hospice with other teenagers. I’m submitting it to a contest this month, where I assume nothing will happen. Once nothing happens, I’ll probably share it on my blog or over on Crux.
Well, guess what?
That short story– “Covered Up Our Names”– won the contest! I’m so honored to be the 2013 winner of the Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing, a contest hosted by Hunger Mountain.
If you click here, you can even see their little write-up about me! They called it a “powerful” story, and that fills my heart with deep gratitude. The contest judge was Rebecca Stead, 2010 winner of the Newbery Medal. I read her book “When You Reach Me” nearly one year ago and reviewed it on my blog, saying:
Brilliant! I actually shouted aloud the moment that everything finally clicked into place for me– I was that excited. Absolutely loved it.
I am thrilled that my story will be published in Hunger Mountain, and I’m so terribly grateful for the cash prize, but what makes the entire enterprise so special to me is that Rebecca Stead loved my story.
I’m honored and elated.
I want you all to read the story! I imagine the rights will revert back to me after publication, so I’ll anticipate sharing it with you then. Or you can purchase a copy of Hunger Mountain 18 for just $12.
Over at The Redeeming Things
Today, I am blogging over at The Redeeming Things, the blog of Trinity City Church, where I am blessed to worship and fellowship here in the Twin Cities. I’m blogging about the intersection of my faith and my mental illness.
Here’s the beginning:
Last week, while listening to an audiobook by Anne Lamott, she mentioned a line she tries to live by: “And may the free make others free.”
I had to rewind a few seconds and listen to it over again. And again, amazed at the stark and beautiful way these few words summarize the last four years of my life.
I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, an anxiety disorder that preyed on all I most value: faith, friendships, vocation. Forget all media has ever taught you about OCD—it is not a funny, quirky, bothersome nuisance. Instead, it is a hellish, tormenting thief and tyrant. It caused me to question whether God was real, if he loved me, if I loved him, if I was going to hell, if writing fiction was sinful, if people were demons, if real life was real life– but not in the normal way that all or most people question such things. With “normal” minds, thoughts come and go freely, but with OCD, the gate is broken, and the thoughts get trapped inside the head, never making progress or finding resolution. Without the resolution, an obsessive-compulsive becomes lodged in a perpetual state of panic and terror. OCD is slavery, and I was in bondage to it for over twenty years. I was a tormented pot that complained to the Potter, “Why-why-why did you make me this way?”
To read the rest, jump on over here.
photo credit: izarbeltza via photopin cc
My Favorite Things
My friend Elyse recently posted about her favorite things, and I wanted to do the same!
1. The perfect phrase/image. My writer’s heart takes delight in the phrases that make me catch my breath.
2. Certain kinds of awkwardness. Primarily of the I-think-we-have-crushes-on-each-other type.
3. Color. Especially really rich reds and purples. (More details here.)
4. Creativity and the joy that comes from it. Although this is bigger than writing, writing probably tops my list!
5. Deep conversation sprinkled with silliness. One of the common threads through my closest friendships!
Bonus–
6. Smells. Current favorites are lilacs, mown grass, and Love, NY&C fragrance.
I’m an unmarried adult.
I don’t have a husband. Or even a boyfriend.
But I am an adult. I’m thirty-one. I have a full-time job. I pay rent, buy my own gas and groceries (and everything else). I am emotionally mature. I make my own choices.
So why have I heard twice recently that marriage makes someone an adult?
First a coworker said to Matt (the groom), “You’re getting married! That’s awesome. Welcome to adulthood, buddy!”
And someone at the wedding said tearfully of Des (the bride), “Wow, I can’t believe she is finally an adult!”
I was offended both times. Marriage is not a magical door to the land of Adulthood.
So what do you think: am I too sensitive or do people speak too thoughtlessly?
Writing is HARD … but worth it. (I think.)
No, no, I don’t think it– I know it. I’m just coming off of a long weekend chock full of revisions. The hardest revisions of my life.
I mean, I’ll be honest, I got down on my face before God about these revisions.
Here’s the thing. One of my #1 goals in writing is to make people think. I’m not setting out to write a little beach read about which boy is the cutest one on the island. (No offense to anyone writing a book with that premise.) I want to write about ideas and history, about philosophy and religion and paradigms for understanding the world. For teens.
The thing with that kind of book is that it’s hard to write. Your brain churns like a waterwheel, and you have to process these ideas that you’re setting forth. My goodness, I’m writing for young adults, so I feel this responsibility to present them with valid questions (and sometimes answers, although the questions are often more interesting). When I write a pivotal scene and send it off to beta-readers, the response isn’t just, “I like it” or “Use more imagery” or “Better word choices please.” Sometimes the feedback launches me into a re-evaluation of my worldview and the framework through which I see the world.
Makes revisions go a lot slower.
The thing is, I love productivity, so I want to revise quickly and efficiently, but sometimes that’s just not possible.
I am so grateful for amazing friends who are also fascinated by ideas and willing to process them with me. Right now I’m thinking especially of Kristin Luehr and Cindy Hunt. Thanks, ladies, for loving the questions and, each in your own way, embracing the incredible gray areas while believing that black and white also exist.
I and my book are indebted to you.
Hanson: Reliving My Youth
Here’s what you have to first understand:
It was 1997, and I was in love.
I’d heard the song, and I’d seen the music video, but when YM posted pictures in their September issue, I looked into the (2-D, glossy-page) eyes of Zachary Walker Hanson and knew I belonged with him.
Sure, he was only 12. But I was only 16.
I had recently learned the word inevitable, and it started showing up in my poetry about this hyper young drummer who had so stolen my heart.
My sister Kristin called dibs on Taylor, the middle brother, but my love and energies were directed at the youngest. We plastered our walls in centerfolds, grew addicted to Tiger Beat and BOP, needing each new issue because ohmygoshdidyouSEEthepostersinside?!
I was more than 100% sure that I would marry him. I just had to meet him. I started to set aside money to travel to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and meet my future husband. I checked the daily weather in Tulsa thanks to this new-fangled internet-thing, and I checked out books about Oklahoma from the library. I wrote poems about Zac, about his drummer hands, about the Tulsa sky, which I was convinced was a blue you could not get anywhere else.
In a safe on my parents’ farm there is an envelope; inside, my sister and I wrote down what our lives would be like 15 years later. I can’t remember all the details, but I know I was Mrs. Zac Hanson and our daughter played on the floor by our feet. In the time capsule that is buried on the farm, there is a story about how we would meet when I finally raised the money and took a roadtrip to Tulsa.
(Believe it or not, I did make it to Tulsa. We were in Branson, Missouri, on vacation, and Dad asked if I wanted to drive into Oklahoma. Um, YES. And then in this Father of the Century manuever, Dad let us go all the way to Tulsa, where we stayed overnight. The money I had set aside to meet Zac was collected to pay for this rendezvous, and I considered it money well spent. Tulsa was, after all, where the magic was.)
Anyway, fast forward 16 years to the summer of 2013. Hanson is playing a free concert at the Minnesota State Fair.
“Kristin, should we go?”
“Um, duh.”
It was incredible. They played every song I wanted them to play (including “Madeline,” my favorite!), and I stared in awe at these (married) men who had grown tremendously as musicians, who joked around on stage with each other, and who– yes– exuded sex appeal so effortlessly. I kept looking at Zac and his magnificent mane of wild hair, thinking how well I had thought I’d known him through teenybopper magazines and music videos. It made me laugh and smile all night.
Zac and his majestic mane of sexy hair
My sister and I rocked out to “MMMBop” and “Penny and Me” and “Where’s the Love,” as well as newer songs that were just incredible. They really put on a great concert, and I loved every single minute.
Afterward, a mass of girls crowded up by their bus, and though we walked over and took a look at the bus, Kristin and I didn’t stay and wait for the guys to come out. I’m 31. She’s 28. We realized a long time ago that we weren’t going to marry rockstars.
But it was sure fun for a night to remember a time when we believed it would happen, believed the impossible was actually inevitable.
Books That Should be Taught in Schools
Recent DNFs
DNF = Did Not Finish.
I’ve always believed that there are too many GREAT books out there to waste time with the ones that don’t capture me. That said, I don’t want to be too negative about the following books, because I’m sure that some people will love them!
The Program by Suzanne Young | Had to cash this one in after the first few chapters. Did not dig the writing. Or premise. Or characters.
In Honor by Jessi Kirby | Read about half of this and then skimmed the rest. Never really felt connected to the characters or understood why they liked each other, except for physical attraction. After Will Trombal, Jonah Griggs, and Augustus Waters, my expectations are quite high.
I guess, more than anything, I want you readers to know that I have been reading (or trying to!) even if I haven’t posted many reviews lately!
I am also reading Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, which is wonderful so far! Later today, I will be starting, The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider, for which I am pumped.
Cheerio! What are you currently reading? Do you feel compelled to finish a book you don’t love?
Will Treatment Change Me?
I recently had coffee with a lovely young college graduate, a writer who has been dealing with intense anxiety, anxiety that has latched onto her faith and forced her into a position of crisis. We talked about medication and therapy, about how there is nothing to be ashamed of, about how even scripture can be twisted and used against us.
Then she said, “The way my mind goes so quickly? That’s why I think I can write. I’m scared that if I start taking medication, I’ll lose that.”
That’s a fear I could definitely relate to!
I told her, “I think just as quickly now as I did before treatment– only now, it’s productive. Before, my brain was spinning its wheels. I was thinking in circles, thinking all the time but never really getting anywhere. Now I can think productively. I can focus on things that are important.
“I still think deeply– in fact, more deeply in some areas, since I’m no longer terrified of thoughts.”
So, did treatment change me?
Yes, but for the better.
JACKIE LEA SOMMERS 