Category Archives: writing

permission to NOT write

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Last week I had coffee with Stacey, a fresh college grad and newlywed.  She has a degree in English from my alma mater, and we talked about how she hasn’t had any energy to write lately.  Faced with student loans for an English degree, she feels like she should be writing, but she is just so completely burnt out from her senior project.

I told her the same thing happened to me after college.  I was so exhausted in pretty much every possible way that I didn’t write for three years, I told her.  But I didn’t waste my time either: I read like crazy, tons and tons of great literature, which was essentially like planting seeds into the field of my mind.  I began to harvest years later.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with this.

It is still productive to the writing life to take a break from writing.

Quick clarification: I do believe that– in an appropriate season– it is important to force oneself to write through issues.  This is different than being in a season of rest.  I am in a harvesting season right now, and so I sometimes force myself to write, even when I don’t necessarily feel inspired.

It is the difference between the days of rest/no exertion after an injury and the days of rehab that follow.

I have never regretted my three-year hiatus from writing after college graduation.  It allowed me time to read like a maniac, immerse myself in fantastic literature, build up life experiences, and mature before I later dove into novel writing.

What are your thoughts on this?

Keep Calm

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I have never really been neutral about anything.  I am an extremist, and I feel things in my bones.

I sometimes have a hard time seeing that the current situation will likely change soon.  This is a burden given to me by obsessive-compulsive disorder.  We OCs think things will always feel this way.

I am a writer.  Creativity is like air to me.

All of these things combine, and you have me, this volatile, passionate artist whose highs are marvelous and whose lows are dark.  When writing is not going well, I sometimes think it will NEVER go well again.

Years of this rollercoaster should have proved to me that things will level out again.  I don’t have to rush every draft like a linebacker, don’t have to wrestle it into shape.  I can relax, breathe deeply, set it aside for a (short) time, think and pray and carry on.

literature, time, and other thoughts

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They were drawing me.  The books.

It was like my car was on autopilot– I thought I was headed to Dunn Bros, but when I drove past it, I wasn’t surprised.  Instead, I just let my car take me to Barnes and Noble.

It’s been a little while since I have been here.  Now that I have a membership and have free shipping, I’ve been buying most of my books online.  Today it wasn’t enough.  I had to be with them, surrounded by them, which is why I am drinking a banana chocolate smoothie, typing on my laptop alone, but feeling like I am in the company of friends– or future friends.

To be honest, I feel a little overwhelmed.  There are so many books I want to read, I don’t know when I’m going to find time to get to them all.  I perused the “Summer Reading” table and found more that intrigued me.  From where I sit, I can see the “New Fiction” shelves, and I wonder if I’ll ever have a book there.

I feel pulled so many ways.  I want to readreadREAD, but I am trying to balance that out with plenty of time for writing, which I love even more.  But my writing is informed and inspired by what I read, so I have to keep fueling that fire.  Those two activities alone could keep me busy until I die, I think, and yet– I have even more important things in my life than these.

People.  God.

I know everyone gets 24 hours a day, but I wish I could have more.  How am I supposed to be a loving, caring daughter and friend while working fulltime and writing a novel and feeding an obsessive reading habit– all while never neglecting my true love Jesus Christ and his church?

Praise God that OCD is no longer demanding so much of my attention.  How did I manage?  It feels like a different lifetime.

And yet, I have friends who do all this and take care of a spouse and children.  It boggles my mind.

I want my life to matter, want to leave a mark.  It seems difficult to do when my interests are so spread– I worry that my efforts in each area will be lacking because I didn’t have enough time invested into each one.

I think that one of the reasons I decided to keep a list of books I have read and reviewed (click THE READER tab above) was to try to organize at least one part of my life.  When I sit here in the bookstore, surrounded by all this brilliance, I know that there will be corners I never explore.  Somehow maybe this will help me keep better control of the labyrinth I’m in.

And what a beautiful labyrinth.

quality Christian fiction

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This issue has been pawing at me for the last week or so.

Here’s my dilemma:

As a fanatic writer, I have a hard time incorporating Jesus Christ into my writing in a way that is not alienating to non-believers.

As a critical reader, I find the number of books that can do this well to be sorely lacking.

Look, I know that there is a vibrant “Christian fiction” genre out there, but if I step into that area of the bookstore, I seem to be surrounded by Amish romances.  Really?  Amish romances?  That is what Christian fiction has boiled down to?  I have no– read my lips, NO– interest in reading such a book.

I want books like Perelandra by C.S. Lewis (which was full of dense theological arguments that were presenting in a fascinating and thrilling cosmic duel that draws in all readers), books like Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (which somehow manages to show a believer’s real relationship with Christ without stepping for even one moment into sentimentality).

Even worse than that issue is that I worry that I am contributing to the problem.  I’m not writing any poems about how God blessed us with puppies and rainbows or anything, but I am really struggling to find a way to speak to all audiences while still mentioning the name of my Savior.

This was my prayer the other night, which I am showing to you in the hopes that you will join me in praying it:

Jesus Christ, my hope, my love, I BEG THAT YOU WOULD SHOW ME HOW TO WRITE CHRISTIAN FICTION THAT GLORIFIES YOU AND CALLS OUT TO UNBELIEVING HEARTS.

 Jesus, I want to do something big for You.  Unfortunately, without Your assistance, I can do NOTHING.  HA!  I even need You just to enable me to worship rightly.  I NEED YOU, JESUS.  My heart wants this so badly– I so desperately, so deeply want to honor You through my writing and want to draw people to You through story.  It seems almost insurmountable to me– the idea of writing incredible, realistic fiction that both honors You and appeals to both believers and non-believers and that will minister to hearts of all kinds.  Jesus, I know it is possible with You, but I think that is the ONLY way it is possible.  And I plead for it.  It’s like my heart is begging for this, Jesus, to honor You in this way, and I need Your guidance and direction just to even come close.  Help me to get there.  Help me to persist even if it takes so very, very long to get there.

I want what I write to matter; I want it to be infused with meaning and with YOU, and I don’t know how to do that without alienating the very people that I want to have read the book. 

May I please throw all this responsibility back on You and ask that You simply use these hands as Your tools?  When I sit at my laptop to write, Holy Spirit, I pray that it would be You who guides the words I write.

Amen.

trusting the creative process

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Trusting the whatta?

The creative process.  I don’t know anyone (except for maybe Addie Zierman) who writes lovely first drafts, and that is just fine.  Freewrite, feedback, re-write, repeat: for me at least, this is the model of the creative process.  And every time I get to the “repeat” part, the draft is better.  If you can boil writing into a formula, that’s what mine looks like.  And then one magical day, the “feedback” part says, “Um, I like it as is,” and you’re done (until some agent tells you otherwise).

It’s bizarre.  Writing– this strange, mystical, spiritual experience– is somehow, for me, whittled into show up and write and then do it again.  After enough times, this clunky, staggering, unrealistic, forced, ridiculous draft turns into a piece of art.  I’m amazed by it.

I have not been writing fiction for long.  Fewer than five years actually.  So I am still in the dating stage with the creative process, still a little unsure that it will really work, uncertain that this formula really does add up.  I’ve spent the last four and half years watching it work (consistently!), and yet I still find myself doubting it.

Then I write another draft, and it is that much better than the last one, and I think in wonder, “It really is working!”

Just like any other relationship, I am learning to trust the creative process.  Show up, put in the effort, don’t get too attached, receive criticism, edit, edit, edit, edit, edit … and it will work.

I am posting this reminder TO MYSELF:

Jackie, KEEP GOING.  Write and keep an open dialogue with those who care about your project.  It will come together.  If it has come this far in 8 months, think of where it will be a year from now!  The creative process WORKS.  It can handle your doubt as long as you keep showing up.

Will you please leave me an encouraging comment?  I could sure use one right now.

writing music

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For you writers out there, do you listen to music while you write?  What kind?  How loud?  Lyrics or no?  Do you make playlists based on what you’re writing?

My preferences have changed over time, but I find that now I like to write to music with no lyrics, usually background music from movies.  Right now I am loving Harry Gregson-Williams (the early Narnia albums), Carter Burwell (Where the Wild Things Are), Alexandre Desplat (Deathly Hallows and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close), along with other Potter composers like Nicholas Hooper, John Williams, and Patrick Doyle.  So good.  Carter Burwell has a song called “Life Death Birth” (which is from the Breaking Dawn album, don’t judge me) that is just so wonderful to write to.

Sometimes I make playlists to get myself into a particular mood/attitude while I am working a particular scene.  I have a “sadness” playlist, a “you can do it!” playlist, a “falling in love” playlist, and a “confused” playlist.  My friend Caitlin thinks I am silly but endearing. Ha!

Would love to hear how music influences your writing!  Please comment!

the writing life

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The writing life is a roller coaster.  Some days I feel confident in my writing skills and excited about the things that I am writing, and sometimes I think that I must be so blind and pretentious and disillusioned to think that I would ever write something beautiful enough to be published.  Right now, my roller coaster is going down … down … DOWN.

I set myself up for this, without even realizing I was doing it.  This weekend I went to Duluth with some writer friends, and in the same weekend, I asked for a critique of my manuscript’s first draft and I was re-reading The Fault in Our Stars.  This means that my story was ripped apart at the same time that I was engrossed in John Green’s masterpiece, a formula that adds up to believing that I am worthless as a writer and am wasting my time pursuing it all.

But I couldn’t quit if I wanted to.  And I don’t want to.

Why Christians Should Write

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Jesus Christ is a believer’s gravity; he infuses meaning and purpose into our lives and tethers us to reality through the Body and the Blood.  There is no story more fascinating, mysterious, devastating, resplendent, and sanguine than the gospel, and this is the reason we need more Christian writers in the United States to write and be published.  Believers have an incredible capacity for story—true story—which is our duty and privilege to share.  When we weave gospel truths into our stories—even when we whisper or our voices shake—those stories assume deeper meaning, exactly what the world craves, whether knowingly or not.  Tales with no hint of the divine, no rumor of a Savior, may often be a poor investment, a squandering of what might have been.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.”  Books written by Christians are just such miracles, stories that are able to be held, while the Great Story, instead, holds us.

The Fault in Our Stars

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I know I’ve mentioned this book before, but it really deserves its own post.

TFiOS is a young adult novel written by John Green, and while it has characters with cancer in it, I would never classify this as a “cancer book” (cough, Lurlene McDaniels).  This book is clever, FUNNY, moving, and it has incredible characters, most especially ♥ Augustus Waters ♥.

You really ought to read it.

I will say this:

1) This book made me cry both during and after I read it.  During because I was so involved in the story and after because I was so envious of John Green’s writing abilities.  (I am not joking– I’ve told you before I struggle with writer envy!)

2) I was working on an adult novel about a woman who discovers she was adopted when she inherits her birth parents’ estate, but after I readThe Fault in Our Stars, I completely scrapped that story and started over, making my debut writing YA lit.  That was in January, and now, in July, I have a first draft of a YA story!

So TFiOS is very important to me.  In some ways, it feels as if this book birthed my own.  I hope that makes sense to you.  This book and John Green were so much my muses as I wrote my story (working title Her Truest Lamentation) that I set it in the fictional town of Green Lake to throw props to John Green.

Request it from the library or buy your own copy at Barnes and Noble andread this story.  And then let me know what you think of it.