I shared Truest excerpts with an audience this week, and I had a blast! The audience laughed in all the right places, and they asked such terrific, thought-provoking questions about writing and faith in the Q&A that followed.
Photo credit: Tracy Lair
Photo credit: Tracy Lair
Me with Ash // Photo credit: Tim Thorman
As regular blog readers know, I just recently signed my first book contract with HarperCollins Publishers! I have a few people I need to thank for getting me there:
My writing group: Anna, Carra, Jaidyn, Addie, Rachel L, and Rachel R. These ladies amaze me with their talent for writing and critiquing.
My beta readers: Melody, Brienna, Mary, Elyse, Stacey, Ashley, Cindy*, and Kristin L**, Megs, Tracy, Kristin R.
My cheerleaders: Des, Eir, and so many others.
* Cindy was also my go-to girl for basically every deep conversation I need to have regarding my characters, their actions, and their struggles.
** I credit Kristin with saving Truest twice. She was the one who spotted the plot’s earliest flaws and helped me to fix them. She also helped me figure out the conclusion when I was too deep in the story’s darkness to see any light.
Ben Barnhart helped me with both high-level, conceptual edits as well as line edits. His suggestions added depth, nuance, and conflict to my story, and I’m terribly grateful.
The Big Sur Writing Workshop was an amazing experience where I read and revised Truest as well as interacted with authors, editors, and literary agents all in the children’s and YA literature industry. I absolutely recommend it to serious YA authors who have a late-stage manuscript they’d like additional help with.
Steven Chudney, my agent, challenged me with some of the hardest revisions I have ever undertaken– and I was delighted with the results.
And now, Jill and Laurel from Katherine Tegen Books are taking me to the next level!
As you can see, I am the author, but I don’t work alone. Iron truly sharpens iron, and if people end up enjoying Truest, it will be because of so many men and women who would never let me settle with mediocrity.
This, friends– this is why it shocks me when I hear young writers say that they either a) don’t feel comfortable showing other people their work or b) that they don’t think they can learn to be a better writer. If you want to be a writer, you have to write. If you want to be a great writer, you need help.
Or at least I do. 🙂
I’m going through a mentorship program at my work, and one thing my mentor and I are doing is going through True North by Bill George. The book is about authentic leadership, and it’s great. Even better is the accompanying workbook, which has led me through a series of challenging questions.
Lately, I had to define my values and, from them, write out my leadership principles.
Looking at the list, I realized it was so important to me that I typed them up and posted them in my office. Here’s a pic. Would love your thoughts and to hear your own!
As you may have read before, I have a strange and evolving relationship with profanity. Having grown up in a home that outlawed even pseudo-swearing (we couldn’t say gosh or shut up, among other things) paired with growing up with a mental illness elicited in me a dreadful fear of curse words– more than was ever healthy, even for a child. For many years, my intrusive thoughts centered around illicit words, which developed in me a deep sense of guilt.
In my ERP therapy, I had to learn to think those words, even say them. In doing so, I was stealing back power from my OCD, putting it more and more under my heel. It was during ERP and in the year that followed that I realized a couple things:
1) Words are just words. That said, “just words” still pack as much power as a nuke.
2) You can harm with words that are not profanity– worse than with profanity, in some cases. A hard-hitting insult or an insincere comment can sting far worse than the word shit.
3) Shit does not equal poop. Ass does not equal butt. Damn does not equal darn. They just really, really don’t. They are completely different words. As a writer, it’s my job to choose the best word in every line I write. Just the same way that valor and courage both mean bravery, but those two words are not the same word. I have to select each word with extreme care.
4) The fearsome qualities one assigns to the dreaded f-bomb are terribly reduced when you’re forced to listen to it for 80 minutes a day (again, ERP).
5) In ERP, I learned to separate myself from my OCD. I learned to assign my intrusive thoughts to my disorder, instead of to myself. To say, “OCD wants me to think X.” This view, I see, has carried over into my view of my characters. Even though I am the author, if my character John or Paul or Suzie wants to say a curse word, I don’t feel guilty. Characters have their own histories, their own choice of words. (Maybe you think this is strange … passing off my responsibility to characters that I’ve created. If you do, then you’re probably not a writer. As a writer, I have far less control over my characters than you might ever imagine.)
6) I write realistic contemporaries. A teenager who has grown up lawlessly is going to swear. You know that’s true.
7) In my personal life, I refuse to let OCD enslave me again. One way it did so was by a huge and unwarranted fear of profanity. I damn well won’t let it take control of me in that way again.
8) Personally– again, this is just for me– profanity is a small way for me to ward off the legalism that used to bind me.
9) “Let nothing unwholesome come out your mouth”: I guess I have to admit that I don’t really find curse words terribly unwholesome anymore. I’m finding a lot of it to be based on social constructs that I don’t value enough to hold to. I find it far more unwholesome for me to open my mouth and speak lies or to tear my fellows down.
10) This quote from Maggie Stiefvater:
Occasionally a reader will tell me that I don’t need to use swearing. They will follow this up with this well-worn phrase “you have a good enough vocabulary that you don’t need to use THOSE words.” Yes, I do. I do indeed. Since I don’t need to use them, that means I’m choosing to use them. If you trust me to be using non-swear words in a skillful way, please assume that I’m wielding my fucks and damns with the same contemplation.
As should all of you other writers out there. They’re just words. Handle them with care.
So, those are my thoughts. I’m not terribly interested in getting into a debate, but do feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!
See more of my thoughts on profanity here:
Profanity in Literature
Profanity
Image credit: found this all over the internet, couldn’t find original.
Let me be clear on one thing: I love literature. I really, really do. That’s why I’m a writer!
But being a writer has also drastically changed my reading experience.
In the words of Billy Collins, “Readers read great work and feel appreciative. Writers read great work and feel a burning jealousy.”
I know I’ve talked about this before, but I just wanted to share that– in some ways– I grieve the true reader’s experience. It’s becoming more and more rare that I can just fully take in a great book with an open, generous heart. There is this little flame of envy that licks all over my body, and while I think it’s a bit uncharitable, it also both reminds me that I’m a writer and fuels my writing.
Though I am terribly grateful that I’m a writer down to my bones, sometimes I do long for those golden moments of childhood when I could just embrace a book with nothing but love. Don’t get me wrong, I still love books– with a deep, passionate, fiery love– but there is usually envy in that matchhead too. Envy and analysis: how did the author do that? Can I do that? What if I were to …
Sometimes I miss it. That’s all I wanted to say.
Había una vez… (Once upon a time) by Carolina Pratto
Someone on Quora asked:
How does your personality compare from before and after the treatment ? Do you feel you are not curious anymore ? Do you feel you are now asking less questions than before ? Is there any reduction or improvement in cognitive performance ? What were the negative symptoms ?
Today is my spiritual birthday! I made my commitment to Jesus Christ eighteen years ago! (Does this make me an “adult” Christian now? Can I vote? I vote for grace.)
I rang in the new year with my best friend Erica and the cast of Downton Abbey. As you may recall, one of the keys to my productivity is that I’ve effectively cut TV out of my life. However, Eir decided to sabotage my life by forcing a Downton addiction on me, lol!
Photo credit: Ashley Thorman
Top: Eir, Ash, Amanda
Bottom: Jackie, Dora
Early in the month, we in the Cities were blessed by a visit from Dora, one of our favorite out-of-town friends, so a crew of my favorite people all hung out together. So lovely, although we missed Des!
Speaking of Des, I was able to get lunch with her on one occasion and coffee on another, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am that my former roomie and her husband live only two buildings down from me …
… especially because I had not one but two flat tires this month! Yeah, seriously. The one went out, and then one week later, another followed suit. The first time around, I handled it well. I’m fairly independent. I called AAA, and I took it to Tires Plus, and I shelled out the three bills it took to get two new tires and an alignment. But when it happened again a week later, I have to admit, I cried. I so desperately wanted to not be a grown-up in that moment. My delightful parents came to Minneapolis that weekend and rescued my car, dealt with it all for me. I felt a little like a baby, and it. felt. great. Des’s husband Matt drove me to and from work for a couple days. (Thanks, Matt!)
Then my heater quit working the following week. Did I mention that it’s been dangerously cold in Minnesota? We’re talking 60 below wind chill. So … I am really thinking that my book advance might need to go toward a new car.
My book showed up on Goodreads!
Photo credit: Ashley Thorman
Me, Eir, Des
I celebrated my birthday with some of my favorite girls! Eir made dinner for me, Des, and Ashley.
As for the next novel, it’s coming along quite well! (I know I was just complaining about anxiety, but the writing is [mostly] faring well.) I’ve met some friends on Twitter who use the hashtag #wewrotetoday to help encourage one another and keep each other accountable. I’m loving it!
Writing a novel means that you have to do a BOATLOAD of research (and sometimes it’s all for just a small detail that most readers aren’t even going to notice). Lately I’ve had to research woodworking, crown moulding, various sounds, and incomplete spinal cord injuries. Unlike a non-fiction writer, the novelist can (sometimes) get away with not becoming an actual expert in the various areas. We do this through skillful (and maybe manipulative) omission of facts, by insinuations, and by using vagueness to our benefits. I’ll be honest though: sometimes it doesn’t work. I do my very, very best.
One more exciting thing: I finally saw my contract. I’m thrilled. I’ll be signing any day now (once my agent irons out a couple wording issues!).
So that’s my January! I’m really excited for February, because I’m participating in a reading on Tuesday, February 11th, at the University of Northwestern — St. Paul. I’ll be reading excerpts from Truest and (I think) doing a Q & A afterward. If you’re in the Twin Cities, you should come! (More details soon!)
When I was a child, I thought, “If I could just know that I loved God, I would be totally and completely happy.”
If only it were this easy. Or is it?
When I was in high school, I thought, “If I could just know that God was real, I would love life.”
When I was in college, I thought, “If I could just know I was going to heaven, I’d be the most joyful girl in existence.”
Then, “If only I could write a good book.”
“If only I could get an agent.”
“If only I could get a book deal.”
Yet, here I am, I love the God I know is real, the God who has saved me. I’ve written a book that an agent and an editor love enough to publish. And I think, “If only I could write another good book.”
I don’t want anxiety. I want to be happy, to feel peace. Is it human nature to always want the next thing, whatever it may be? Don’t get me wrong. I am happy, joyful even– but still not anxiety-free.
Last month I was stressing out intensely over writing my next novel. We’re talking panic, high stress, extreme anxiety, the whole shebang. There’s a head game in writing, and I was losing it. Badly.
I reached out to my undergraduate writing instructor, Judith Hougen. She was a mentor to me in college, and in many ways, she still is today, even though I don’t get to see her nearly as often as I’d like. I’ve written about Judy on my blog before: how she is laden with wisdom and creativity, how she loves truth and beauty.
We got coffee, and I shared how stressed I was, then I waited for her wisdom. She said:
InWater1 by carpeemorteem
via deviantART
Don’t push the river.
The full proverb is “Don’t push the river; it flows by itself.”
A river is going to go where it wants, carve out the path it chooses. I’m a fool if I think that I can redirect it– or that I somehow keep it flowing.
It quite fascinated me because one of the things that my cognitive-behavioral therapist said to me (digitally recorded for all time in my ERP exposure recording) was this:
“I want you to close your eyes and imagine you’re standing in a river. The current is strong, and the waters rush past you, pounding you, beating against your legs, hips, waist. Eventually your whole body is fatigued; your legs are so tired you can barely stand. Then you finally turn around and let yourself go with the current.”
His point was plainly and simply that he was offering me relief.
And that’s what Judy was offering too.
Judy said, “If you skip writing one night, you have to trust it’s not all going to leave you.”
Judy said, “Let the writing of this book be its own experience. Don’t compare it to the last one.”
Judy said, “Respect the mystery of writing.”
It was like balm to my anxiety-riddled soul. I am letting her words minister to my writer’s heart. And letting my one word for 2014– grace— work its way into the cold and lonely places in me like an adhesive that holds me together.
There’s a famous Dorothy Parker quote: “I hate writing; I love having written.”
Someone recently reminded me of this quote, and I argued back immediately, “No, I love writing itself!”
Here is where I will now contradict myself:
I love writing. What can be more enjoyable than experiencing magic while it is happening? To let the keystrokes happen almost of their own accord. To encounter storylines that I could have never dreamed of on my own. Or to press hard into a challenge and discover a solution. This is the brilliance of writing, of being in the minute, of loving each moment as the words fly from you.
I love having written. Lately, writing has been producing so much anxiety in me. It’s different than my OCD anxiety though. It’s more of a fear of the future and a fear of failure. Part of it is that I’m writing on a deadline again for the first time since college. Part of it is working on a first draft of a character-driven novel where I’m not certain the characters are strong enough to drive it. Part of it is that it’s simply what writing is like.
I do know that I need to get my anxiety under control again. I have a couple ideas:
* Post my First Draft Manifesto in places where I will see it often.
* Start using Valor, a blend of essential oils that’s been called both “a chiropractor in a bottle” and “courage in a bottle”
* Meet with writing mentor for some valuable wisdom on the writing life and how to win the head game [edit: did this and will post about it tomorrow!]
* Give myself grace
* Chat with my psychiatrist about this recent flare of anxiety
Any other suggestions? My writing life as of late has been like a roller coaster of self-doubt, and I need to get this under control. In other words, I need to not only love having written … I need to love writing itself.
My friend Anna posted about this on her blog today as well! Check it out here!
JACKIE LEA SOMMERS 