Monthly Archives: February 2011

A Warning:

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The Number One reason to cultivate good habits is that when you are too tired to do anything else, habits are what you live from and on.

~

I am sick.

I hate being sick. It enhances all my limits and tendencies.

To my relief I see light as well as darkness: I couldn’t spend more than a day utterly doing “nothing.”  My need for order (hey! I have one of those!) has dragged me through my sludge to get significant (though not nearly “enough”) things done each day.

I have taken more time to read (non-fiction– I haven’t had the stamina to enter anyone else’s drama this week), and I feel like a long-neglected part of my mind has been watered and nourished.

But mostly this experience has made me more aware of habits, and how much I want to focus on training them once I have the strength again.

Thinking Links

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Two posts I read last week made me think about my writing in a new way:

The Seven Virtues Every Writer Needs to Succeed

Which was a nice change from “discipline-” “organization-” “perseverance-” type lists I’ve read many times before.

What’s your Signature?

A lot of writing arenas talk about “brand” and how you need to market yourself to get read.

Steven King wrote in his book On Writing about life themes that come out of a writer.

But I rather like this concept and language better. It sounds more personal and poetic.

To answer the question I believe my stories all deal with the fragility and hunger of honest people searching for sustaining relationships.  I write a rebellion against what my critique friend calls “miscommunication as a plot device” and other relational gaffs that pit people against their feelings, not to grow them, but to create more story tension.

I call this Lazy Writing.

Another element my writing frequently addresses is the tension between helplessness and inaction. This is one of my favorite things about writing fantasy: as god of a whole new world I am able to say frequently, Yes, that first step is enough.

Not a little because I am assuring my own troubled heart that that first step is all that’s asked of me.

God Designed Religion for Us.

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Life itself is a series of problems that often act as obstacles to our search for significance… Our fulfillment in this life depends not on our skills to avoid life’s problems, but on our ability to apply God’s specific solutions to those problems.

Robert S. McGee in  The Search for Significance

There is a complicated confusion for Christians in the area of self-image. I have even been chastised for “thinking of myself.” Not for thinking of myself more than others, but simply thinking of myself at all.

And that almost makes me angry.  As if in thinking of myself (with anything other than contempt at my sin) I’m somehow being disloyal.

In his book Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton pointed out that it is only when the unlovely is loved that it improves.  That the disgusting inspires disgust is no surprise, but disgust leads to destroying, not enhancing. (Think snakes, spiders and rats, as opposed to specialized breeds of dogs or rabbits.)

We must accept that we have value if we are to proclaim that all human life has value.

If we are to champion the unborn, and the poor and infirm, we must also recognize there is something beautiful even in this soddy old skin we happen to be confined to.

Jesus Christ gave His life as a ransom for or lives. The price is too high for us to even calculate. Our desire to be loved and accepted is a symptom of a deeper need– the need that frequently governs our behavior and is the primary source of our emotional pain.  Often unrecognized, this is our need for self-worth. God knows we need to know how valuable our lives are, and he spends much of his Word telling us so.

Robert S. McGee in  The Search for Significance

I think there are very few passions or needs within us (I question if there are any) that don’t originate form the core of needs and desires that God himself planted in us.

It was C.S. Lewis who wrote, God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on.  There is no other.  That is why it is no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

In his book The Search for Significance Robert McGee creates a mind-spinning connection between four big churchy words, and how they meet four deep areas of hurt in our wounded self-worth.

I’ve read many many Christian books, so new gets my attention.  McGee asked a new question that totally rocked my mind and still has me reeling: If God has one perception and you another, whose is correct?

Well, we all know the Sunday School answer: God’s!

Why then do we preface such discussions of value or even forgiveness with the words, “In God’s eyes, I’m-“ as if we’re qualifying what we’re about to say.  As if he’s a dear old man who doesn’t really know what’s going on, but we’ll humor/acknowledge his version out of respect for his position as, you know, GOD.

We’ve lived backwards.

I love to quote 2 Peter 1:3 – His [Jesus’s] divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness (emphasis mine).  The following quotes are from McGee’s book, and showed me for the first time the tremendous and usable gift of words I’d heard all my life.

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Novel Samples Available

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To give a quick update, I am now ~2/5ths through my latest revision (at least, there are 5 distinct sections, and I’m one chapter from being done with section #2).

I have had difficulty staying focused this round, and was relieved to find a reason.

The short version is that my life has been really stressful lately (I’ve moved, set up housekeeping, restarted homeschooling and attempted to restart our gluten-free eating.  Apparently too much for a single month’s efforts).

While the novel used to be my go-to recreation, the amount of tension in the story on top of the tension in my real life has been more than I’ve had energy for.

Did you know that your body processes stress and adrenaline (essentially) as it hits the brain, not waiting for reality.  This is why worry can be so damaging (your body is continually gearing up for the worst), and why we feel so exhausted after an intense story.

This really just entered my awareness last week when my writing friend (Hi, Jennifer!) brought up two categories of murder mysteries: thrillers and cozies.  People looking for a rush read the first kind, and people who read to relax gravitate to the second.

So I did question for a while whether I’m writing the right story or the right genre, mainly because I’m so weary I question whether I can continue creating a whole world (and an intense world, no less!).

But then I find I can’t really quit, so on we go.

I’ve decided to release the story in sections to people I know, so if you’re willing to give feedback and we’ve talked before, comment here or send me an e-mail and I’ll get you the first block (then the next once you comment on the first).

The third and fourth sections contain the most changes for this newest draft, so they may be longer in coming, but several of you have been so patient already I wanted to give you the option of reading a bit of the story, if you would like, while you wait for the full.