Some say
climb a mountain, jump from a plane,
race a motorcycle, travel the world.
I say
read a book.
Or better yet,
write one.
Defining “adventurous.”
4
Category Archives: creativity
a literary life
What is your favorite thing about reading and/or writing?
It’s hard for me to choose just one thing! I love that I get to create new worlds, love that it’s my responsibility to make people think about God and ideas. But I think my very favorite thing is that I know that, when I write, I am sitting in the very seat of God’s will for my life … I am doing what I was created to do. How many 31-year-olds are that clear on their calling (and are able to respond)?! I love my literary life.
publishing peace (and conflict)
I just read Nahum after realizing that I’d forgotten Nahum was even in the Bible. Whoops.
“Behold, upon the mountains, the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace!” (Nahum 1:15a)
Such an interesting choice of words– “who publishes peace.” Definitely makes this writer stop and think. In my writing, do I bring good news, do I publish peace? Juxtapose this question with all I have been learning lately about conflict in stories: how we need conflict in stories even when we avoid it in real life.
Think of the gospel– the word gospel itself means “good news”– and yet it is full of conflict. The climax of the story involves a death.
And a resurrection.
While I’m still sorting out my thoughts on this, what this means to me is that while a Christian author needn’t shy away from the conflict (and, in fact, should embrace conflict in the story!), there should also be a nod toward hope, toward peace. The story might not end with sunshine or weddings or all the questions answered (I think I’d be annoyed if it did), but I think there should be a peek, a pinch, an inkling of hope.
I want to be a writer who brings good news, who publishes peace. And conflict. All of it.
a whole new way to look at things (and myself)
I can’t tell you how blessed I am to know Judy Hougen.
I had coffee on Friday night with my former writing instructor, who is so full of wisdom that she can’t help but share life-giving insight. We were discussing my recent blog post in which I fretted over mediocrity.
“I don’t think in terms of success and failure anymore,” she told me. “I’ve trained myself out of thinking that way. It’s better to think in terms of faithfulness and unfaithfulness. You are being faithful with the gifts that God has given you, and that is not a mediocre thing.”
Judy reminded me that that success/failure framework is all about us, but faithfulness/unfaithfulness frames things in our relationship to God, and those are the questions believers need to be asking.
I felt a little like a kaleidoscope that had just been given a good shake: a new way to look at things.
I’d been so zoomed in on my own life, the camera screen was full of me. But talking with her reminded me to take a step back, to zoom out, to remind me that I am a servant of God, that I am tethered to the King, that my actions gain meaning when seen in relation to him.
And anytime I include Jesus Christ in the picture, the pressure on me relaxes.
YA reading list
It was time for me to re-evaluate my top 10 young adult books. So, without your seeing my raging internal debate*, I very cleanly present to you the following:
1) The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
2) Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
3) The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
4) Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
5) The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
6) Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
7) Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta
8) Fire by Kristin Cashore
9) Unwind by Neil Shusterman
10) Every Day by David Levithan
*Ugh, I hate making top 10 lists of books– it’s so hard for me. Even now, I see that I’ve favored books I’ve read more recently over some of the “classics.” Tuck Everlasting. Bridge to Terabithia. The Secret Garden. It seems like a crime to leave these off the list. The Pigman. When You Reach Me. A Monster Calls.
Oh gosh. Anne of Green Gables. How could I leave Anne off this list– especially when I’ve included other books much more controversial? Or The Sky is Everywhere, which is better written than several books on the list?
Next time I do this, I need to be more specific with the name of my list. Top 10 YA Books I’d Never Want to Live Without … if that were the list title, it would be different than the list above. Top 10 YA Books That Made Me Think. There! That more accurately fits the list above.
Okay, it is time to quit obsessing over this list, which only 100 people are even going to see anyway.
What I’d rather do is give you a must-read book list personalized to your reading tastes. I LOVE doing this, so let me know if you’re interested.
I fear mediocrity.
High school valedictorian. Summa cum laude in college. Overachiever to a fault.
And oh how I compare myself to others!
… and a writer. What a devastating combination.
I love to write, and I have this burning desire in me to be an EXCELLENT writer. There is a fire lit beneath me, and it keeps me writing and reaching and trying to hard to do something incredible with words.
But sometimes it feels so futile.
What if my best is not excellent? What if my very best– all that I can possibly offer– is okay? So-so? Mediocre.
It drives me wild. It makes me want to climb mountains for the answer, whatever that looks like. Going back to school. Getting more instruction. Reading more books. Reading the right books. It makes me frantic.
No, I tell myself. You are growing exponentially. You’re 10 times better than you were in college, when you were 10 times better than you were in high school.
But I still feel scared, frenzied, nervous. Everyone seems to write better stories– funnier characters, better diction, cleverer plots, smarter concepts. I want to somehow breathe in wisdom and then exhale with my fingertips on the keyboard, letting something beautiful happen. Not just beautiful. Exquisite.
Instead, it’s okay. Even good. But I want to be a great writer.
What if I give all that I have … and it’s only okay?
I don’t want my life to be a waste. I don’t want to be mediocre.
Reading is sexy.
So true, in my opinion. Learning is sexy, and one of the best ways I can judge that is by whether a person reads.
I don’t care if he reads business journals, science fiction novels, textbooks, or biographies– or even if he listens to audiobooks to stick it to his dyslexia. If he likes to read, he enjoys learning, and both are sexy.
It is honestly one of my number one questions when getting to a guy. 1) Does he love Jesus? 2) Does he love reading?
This has definitely influenced the creation of the characters in the YA novel I’m writing.
“My turn to ask the questions,” said Silas, unwrapping a sandwich. “Tell me what books you like to read.” He had a nice voice, I decided. It was low and velvety … but with this sweetness to it, an animation that came from confidence. And something else: delight?
“Oh, everything,” I said, my feet dragging lazily in the sand beneath them as I bit into my apple—Gala, sweet. “Peter Beagle. John Green. C.S. Lewis. Dr. Seuss.”
Silas grinned. “C.S. Lewis. Have you read his space trilogy?”
“Only a million times,” I said.
His eyes grew wide with a childlike excitement that made me want to laugh. “I’m making Laurel read it this summer! That Hideous Strength!” he said, then quoted: “‘It was all mixed up with Jane and fried eggs and soap and sunlight and the rooks cawing at Cure Hardy.’” Silas sighed in delight. “Rooks cawing at Cure Hardy … all those k sounds.”
I smiled at him, a little skeptically.
“Don’t you like the k sounds?” he asked, eyes wide and beatific, and I burst out laughing.
“I’ve just never heard a teenager talk affectionately about plosives.”
Am I short-sighted in this?
If anyone knows where I could buy this mug, I would die of delight.
taking risks
Just the other day, I drove to downtown Minneapolis, parked outside of the Open Book, went up the stairs to the Loft Literary Center, and paid a LOT of money for a 15-hour online mentorship with a professional editor.
It’s a risk. He might hate my manuscript and tell me to start over (probably not). He might not catch my vision for it and suggest changes far beyond what I’m comfortable with (maybe). He might read my novel with a critical and professional eye and give me valuable advice for polishing the manuscript into something beautiful (I hope).
Again, it’s a risk.
An investment.
I hope.
creative growth
I am still learning this, but oh, how I am learning this!
I spent four years writing my first novel, finally putting my stamp of approval on it in January of 2012. Next month will be one year since I put the manuscript away, and already it is so very clear to me how much I have grown as a writer. History should have taught me that this would happen. I remember loving my creative work in junior high, high school, and college– all of which I can now summarize as weak. I didn’t know what I was doing! I hadn’t read widely enough, experimented enough, or even lived life enough to create a truly brilliant body of work.
Sure, there were moments– beautiful lines here or there that spoke of depth– but I was and still am a learner.
I was so proud of my first novel. I poured my entire self into the writing of it. And already one year later, I’m a little ashamed of it.
But not too ashamed.
I had to write it. It was my next step. It was what needed to happen. It was my playground. School was in session.
At least now I am more aware of the process, aware of the way I grow. I was always in school, but now I’m aware of it. I read as much as I can, and I re-read books that I love. I marvel at imagery. I work at my craft. I write draft after draft after draft, knowing that it will take a mountain of them before I am truly happy with the finished product. (Writing that word– finished— makes me smile a little bit. I wonder if artists ever really feel as if something is completed? I hope so– but I am going to wait and see.)
I know that twenty-some years of writing has been to build a solid foundation for me to stand on– and maybe leap from. I needed to invent that Pononia family in elementary school and come up with stories about their lives, needed to write about Mariah and Kayy, the best-friends-turned-track-rivals, in seventh grade. I needed to write that horror story where the best friend turned out to be a killer– her name was Chloe, and I definitely thought it was pronounced Sh-low. And that soap opera– the one about Sunnyside High and teen pregnancy, AIDS, romance, running away, and finding a long-lost twin– needed to be written and circulated amongst friends in high school.
And college. I had to vomit out those awful poems in college, had to learn how to take criticism, how to re-write, how to love a writing community. I had to attempt to not be jealous of great writers and then learn that it is pretty much impossible and that you can love those great writers even though you seethe with envy.
I turn 31 next month, but as a writer, I’m practically an infant still– maybe a toddler. It’s hard to assess. I still have a lot to learn, and I’m thrilled about that. I am committed to the writing life for the long haul, even if I still have years ahead of stilted, awkward, gangly stories ahead of myself.
Someday they will shine so bright they will blind you.
Why Write?
When it’s just you and your manuscript in a tiny house for a week, both truth and lies are going to ricochet like crazy off those old walls and you know some barbs are going to get stuck in you. You’ll go from imagining your impending wild success to realizing that you’re a complete fraud. The only reassurances you can find are electronic—Facebook, texts. You drink them like water, but even then, you think what do these people know anyway?
This has been happening a lot lately, you think. This up and down, this rollercoaster. You’ve tried to tell yourself it’s just the writing life, the way things are. And to some extent, this really has to be true. But you’ve got to find some solid footing or you’re going to go insane.
So stand on this: you don’t write because you want to be published. You write because you love writing.
You love sounds and rhythms and the way words work. You love that challenge of finding that exact right word—the one you’ll know when you see it—and so you dive through the thesaurus and spin in circles until you finally find capacious or sentinel or intrepid and think yes, yes, that is the one. You love the characters and the way they take on their own personalities and force you to share the decision-making with them. You love the modicum of control you retain over the rest of it—the smells, the sounds, the setting. (Even if you can’t manage what your characters will do or say, you can still toss them onto a roof together or in a car wash or a parking ramp.) You love story. You love the way that truth sometimes is clearest in fiction. You love alliteration and imagery and all those uncontrollable verbs. You love the way one perfect line can steal your breath. You love that you get to be a little creator.
And you love the writing community—how it’s full of quirky, broken people who beat back the darkness by stringing words together. You love how you can understand one another, and how at one point or another, they all need to be reminded of the same thing you did this week.
Life of a Writer
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JACKIE LEA SOMMERS 