Category Archives: reading

OCD and writing

Posted on by
17

Recently, my friend Tina at the Bringing Along OCD blog wrote about “reading OCD” — which she had in an earlier post described this way:

Imagine opening up a book to begin reading it. Chapter one. You read a paragraph. Then you reread it. Then you move to the second paragraph, but you realize that you may not have read the first paragraph well enough. So you go back and read paragraph one again. Then you read and reread paragraph two several times. You finally make it to the end of the page, and in turning the page, you think, “I’ve read page one adequately.”

  But you can’t be sure. Did you understand everything you read? Will you remember it?
  So you reread page one, reading and rereading the paragraphs again. After an hour of being on page one, you get tired and decide to put down the book. You’ll get through the book someday. It’s only the third time you’ve tried to read chapter one.
Tina said, “This makes reading laborious and sometimes unbearable. I find myself avoiding reading.”
I really, really hate OCD.  I hate the way it tries to steal whatever is most important to us.
For me, it tried to steal (and for a time DID steal) my writing.
At the time, I was working on my first novel, which was all about OCD, and my OCD kept reminding me of the Bible verse that says, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
My head snagged on the verse.  I was writing about OCD … and OCD was not lovely; that I knew for sure.  OCD was not pure or commendable.  It was ugly, tyrannical … not worth of praise.  And yet, I was spending all this time writing about it, all this time thinking about it.
I started to obsess that my writing was sinful.
Writing, which had always been a lovely release for me, a respite … even that was being stolen from me by OCD.  This is the scene I ended up writing about it (eventually):

“Stella,” I said, reaching out and touching her hand.

She looked at me.  “What’s up?”

“I think it’s wrong to write my poems.”

She frowned.  “What.”  It was an accusation, not a question.

I tried to explain my logic.  “So I write about feeling scared about hell, for example, okay?  And then other people read about it, and I’m causing them to sin.”

“Neely, the Bible talks about hell.”  The brown eyes of Stella Bay-Blake were flashing—and looking dangerously similar to Trapper’s.

“There is that,” I said, pausing to think it through.  Maybe Christ’s brief mentions of hell didn’t warrant people’s actual dwelling on it, whereas a poem would.  In that case, I’d still be out of line.  “I don’t know.”

“Neely, there is rape in the Bible.  And adultery.  And murder.”

“But maybe not really in a way so that the reader dwells on those things, you know?”

“No,” she said.  She sounded angry, and with her curls falling forward into her face, she looked violent, like a lion.  “This is the one way that you can healthily process your stupid OCD.”

“Maybe I could try to dwell on lovely things.  Write about lovely things.”

“Yeah,” she said sarcastically.  “You can write ‘Walking on a Rainbow to the King: Reprise.’  Because what I want to read are a hundred pages about sunshine and puppies.”

“Not sunshine and puppies, not necessarily,” I said.  “But things like … like faith and confidence.”  Father God, I love You.

“You have OCD,” she reminded me, “and you are going to write convincing poems about confidence?”  She had a point.  “My gosh, I will really blow a nut if you quit writing.  I’m the writer who doesn’t write!”

But we sat in silence at the tiny table, my closed journal a symbol of all my failure.

 

OCD. Is. A. Thief.  It will steal whatever you love best.  It will warp your mind into believing things that are so far from the truth.  It is a liar.  I hate the bondage it keeps so many people in.  I am so glad to no longer listen to and believe all those lies.

YA reading list

Posted on by
14

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.

reading0

 

a slew of thoughts on sex and sickness in teen books

Posted on by
11

So, the Daily Mail in the UK published an article that made a lot of people mad, including me.  The article condemned young adult books that deal with hard topics like sickness and death, calling these books “sick-lit.”  It ripped on one of my favorite books, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, in such a way that made me question if the author of the article had actually read it.

How’s this for an infuriating sentence: “While the Twilight series and its imitators are clearly fantasy, these books don’t spare any detail of the harsh realities of terminal illness, depression and death.”

Time out.

Time the hell out.

It’s better for kids to read books like Twilight (a book considered poorly written by many creative thinkers … featuring an obsessive, co-dependent romance with a vampire) than to read books like The Fault in Our Stars, which makes readers of all ages think deeply?  I can hardly process that quote.  It’s better for kids to live in a fantasy land than to learn to think about real-life hard situations?

It boggles my mind.  Honestly.

I’m not a parent.  Maybe I’d feel differently if I was a parent.

I want kids and teenagers to read great books, great writing.  I want them to be forced to think critically and examine their beliefs.

But maybe that’s looking through rose-colored glasses?

I’ve read a lot of YA books in the last year.  A lot of them had sex scenes or sexually-charged scenes.  Would I censor these books from kids?  No.  From my kids?  … no.  I don’t think so.  But what do I know?  Everything could change if I were a parent, I know that.

I think Harry Potter is one of the most brilliant series for teens in existence.  I don’t think I’d stop my kids from reading it … but I do think I’d talk to them about magic and witchcraft and good vs. evil.  If my kids read The Fault in Our Stars, I’d talk to them about sex and terminal illness and death and the meaning of life.  If my kids read Jellicoe Road, I’d talk to them about drugs and abandonment and romance.

But would I?  It’s easy to say that when I’m 30 and childless.

I’d love to hear thoughts on both sides of this debate– please comment!

cuddle

 

 

Roses and Janie “mash-up”

Posted on by
Reply

Turn this song on and read the poem below it for the most deliciously melancholy experience.

(Am I weird for liking sad songs and poems?  I love them!)


Roses
by Billy Collins

In those weeks of midsummer
when the roses in gardens begin to give up,
the big red, white, and pink ones—
the inner, enfolded petals growing cankerous,
the ones at the edges turning brown
or fallen already, down on their girlish backs
in the rough beds of turned-over soil,

then how terrible the expressions on their faces,
a kind of was it all really worth it? look,
to die here slowly in front of everyone
in the garden of a bed-and-breakfast
in a provincial English market town,
to expire by degrees of corruption
in plain sight of all the neighbors passing by,

the thin mail carrier, the stocky butcher
(thank God the children pay no attention),
the swiveling faces in the windows of the buses,
and now this stranger staring over the wall,
his hair disheveled, a scarf loose around his neck,
writing in a notebook, writing about us no doubt,
about how terrible we look under the punishing sun.

books books books

Posted on by
5

Just finished …

Reached by Ally Condie | This is book three of the Matched trilogy (preceded by Matched and Crossed).  If you’re not familiar with the concept of these books, they are set in the future in a time when the Society rules and in order to “simplify” things, the Society has only retained 100 poems, 100 stories, 100 etc., etc. from the past.  As teenagers, couples are “matched”– and that is whom you will marry.  The first book was quite fascinating because Cassia was matched with her best friend Xander but was secretly falling in love with Ky.  The second book was much less interesting, particularly because Cassia, Xander, and Ky were all separated– I essentially skimmed Crossed.  I still wanted to know how the story ended, so I requested Reached from the library long before it was released and was relatively near the top of the waiting list (within the first 100 probably).  I started reading it, and it was more interesting than the second book, but the library book ended up being due back sooner than I could finish it, so I skimmed the rest of the book (a very thorough skim!), and I think I made the right choice.  It was good, and I liked the ending, and Condie has brilliant moments in these books, but all told, I think the third book might have been drawn out too long.  Can’t say for sure since I didn’t fully get to read it.  But I don’t think I will return to it to do just that.

Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta | I re-read this one, this time on audio, and was just as thrilled with it the second time through.  Finnikin’s country has seen half of the people in bondage inside the country’s borders and half of the people in exile outside of it.  He is on a quest to come up with a solution of some kind, and he has to take a young novice named Evanjalin with him.  This book has lovely twists and surprises, and it is such a delight.  This second time through (since I knew the ending), I would actually talk aloud to the characters in my car: “Oooooh, you’re gonna regret that later!!” and “Oh man, if you only knew what I knew!!”  I know I’m a nerd.  But it’s pretty awesome when a book can suck you in that much– especially with all its secrets already laid bare.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore | This book was recommended to me by a friend, but others warned me that I wouldn’t like the ending, so I devoured it … but nervously.  I loved the characters in this story about a land where some people are Graced– that is, they have a special skill.  Katsa’s skill is killing– or so she thinks.  She meets Po, another Graceling, and they go to another country in search of a secret.  It is fascinating, and the dialogue is incredible.  Loved this book, even though I read it nervous that I’d hate the ending.  And did I?  No.  Not exactly.  It wasn’t as disappointing as I’d been guessing from the warnings I’d been given.  Still– it is obvious that Cashore is a feminist, and she inserted her beliefs into this book decently, I thought (though I am not a feminist myself).

Fire by Kristin Cashore | This is a companion book to Graceling, although it has a new set of characters, save for one important person.  This. Book. Was. Great.  Wow!!  I think I liked it even better than Graceling— maybe since I could relate better to Fire, the protagonist, than to Katsa.  This book takes place in a kingdom east of the lands where Graceling occurs, in The Dells, a kingdom on the verge of civil war and filled with gorgeous but dangerous “monsters”– monster animals … and even a few monster humans.  Fire is a monster human, with bright orange-red-gold-pink hair that is so beautiful that many people can’t control themselves around her.  She can also read minds and influence them, although she has been careful with her power and guards herself against manipulating others.  She can read almost anyone’s mind … except for Prince Brigan, the younger brother of the king.  When the royal family asks Fire to use her powers to save the kingdom, Fire has to make some big decisions … and she is mysteriously drawn to and scared of Brigan, who looks at her with hate.  I loved these characters– so real, so flawed, so layered.  I love the conversations Cashore creates, and I love the secrets she reveals at strategic times in both this story and Graceling.  This is a must-read.  And while you can read this book without reading Graceling, it is even more fascinating if you have.

Every Day by David Levithan | I have been intending to read this book for so long, and I finally got it on audio from the library (though I purchased the hardcover months ago).  Audiobooks I seem to get through faster, since I use a lot of my free time for writing instead of reading– but you can’t write while driving! 🙂  This. Book. Was. Fascinating.  First there is A, who inhabits a new body every day.  A has done this for 16 years without questioning it too much until one perfect day A spends with Rhiannon.  After that, A wants to spend EVERY day with this girl.  This is a problem, obviously.  I have never read a more gender-bending book in my life– some days A is a girl, some days A is boy, all days A loves Rhiannon.  I just gobbled this book up, could not wait to find out what would happen next.  The ending was PERFECT and unexpected, but I can’t tell you how it made me feel because I want you to experience it for yourself.  Interestingly, the audiobook was read by a girl.  I didn’t know if that was subliminal or not … on the other hand, although A is the protagonist, since A changes bodies daily, Rhiannon’s voice is the most consistent one, so in that sense, it fits that they chose a female reader.  The book was really, really, really good– except for the moments Levithan got on his homosexual soapbox.  Those diatribes interrupted the story and felt as if Levithan were intruding out of nowhere.  The book already makes the reader ask a lot of questions; I didn’t think Levithan needed to provide his own answers.  All that said, though, this is an EXCELLENT book.  I loved it, as in, really, REALLY loved it.  Highly recommend.

 

Currently reading …

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern | Got this on audio for Christmas and so am re-reading this one.  Jim Dale is the narrator!!!

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore | The sequel to Graceling … I AM LOVING IT!!!  Almost done … review to come.

Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta | Just as brilliant the second time around.

 

Up next …

Son by Lois Lowry | The brand-new fourth book in The Giver series!

Divergent by Veronica Roth | It’s about time, right? 🙂

reading12

looking back … and ahead

Posted on by
3

2012 was a good year.

In January, I had just aside my OCD manuscript and was 50 pages into writing adult fiction about a woman who was a late discovery adoptee when I read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.  The book walloped me in the best way possible, inspiring me to drop the LDA story and try my hand at young adult literature.  12 months later, I am head-over-heels in love with writing for this demographic– not to mention deeply in love with the characters in my book.

In February, I posted one of my most frequented links, about how medication is scary.

In March, my friend Ashley encouraged me to get serious about my blogging, and the rest is history.  I started blogging with a lot more frequency after that, trying to refine and define what exactly Lights All Around was about.  In the end, it boils down to three things: faith, creativity, and OCD.

I believe it was in April that I wrote and submitted a post for the Rage Against the Minivan blog, never guessing that it would actually be chosen and posted months and months later.

In May, I left my job in management, moving into my old role as an admission counselor only.  At the time, it was devastating to me, but in the months since, I have come to realize it was a true blessing in disguise.  I had wondered if it might, but it was hard to see past the sadness.

In June, I spent a week tucked away in an apartment above a Wisconsin garage, writing like a maniac and finishing the first draft of Truest.  It was a bad draft, but that’s what first drafts are supposed to be.  At least it was in the computer.

July, I nursed my crush on the Olympian Michael Phelps and posted a mildly scandalous short story about Adam and Eve, one of my most-commented-on posts.

In August, I read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, which, alongside The Fault in Our Stars, was one of the best books I read all year.  (I love that I can measure my months by the words I encountered.)

September marked the end of an era as I ventured to the University of Minnesota Medical Center to meet with my beloved psychiatrist for the final time before he retired.

In October, the International OCD Foundation flew me out to an event of theirs in Boston to read an excerpt from my OCD novel that had won an international creative expression contest.  There, I fell in love with the IOCDF.

November I decided to speak out even louder than usual about cognitive-behavioral therapy, explaining to blog readers what my life was like before and after CBT and also details of what my CBT experience was like.  I got emails from people after this, asking for even more details, even some fellow Minnesotans wondering specifically about my own therapist.

In December, I finished yet another draft of Truest while on an artist retreat I had been selected for.  I am committed to this story.  My writing group has helped and continues to help me SO MUCH with revisions, and I decided to purchase a short mentorship with a Minneapolis editor.

Which brings us to now.  And what’s ahead for me?

I have gotten into the habit of blogging, and I love it.  I will keep speaking loudly about OCD and CBT and ERP.  God has been so good and so faithful to me, and even today, when I was feeling very low, I was still able to be grateful that I have a permanent love in my savior.  I will keep reading as much as I possibly can and review the books here on my blog.  I will keep writing– because I love it, and because I crave it, and because I have to.  I will continue to meet with my brilliant writing group and start my online mentorship next month.

2012 was good.  Here’s to an amazing 2013.

20122013

Reading is sexy.

Posted on by
3

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.

If anyone knows where I could buy this mug, I would die of delight.

 

creative growth

Posted on by
2

body of work

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.

reading like a rocket

Posted on by
4

Just finished re-reading The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis, and I so dearly love the part where “the King’s poet with two fiddlers stepped into the middle of the circle”:

Aravis and Cor prepared themselves to be bored, for the only poetry they knew was the Calormene kind, and you know now what that was like.  But at the very first scrape of the fiddles a rocket seemed to go up inside their heads, and the poet sang the great old lay of Fair Olvin.

Mmm, I love that– “a rocket seemed to up inside their heads.”

It made me think, How do I feel when I hear or read an amazing story?

Incredible stories rush my heart like a beautiful phantom.  They satisfy this incredible longing for beauty in me– and then stretch that part of my soul, increasing my appetite for enchantment.

How about you?

magic