Category Archives: Reading

It’s all… Just Enough

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I’ve been making a valiant effort in the preceding months to do everything.

And that made blogging easy to drop.

I read novels (!!!)

Galvanized by my disappointing failure in April to read a book in two weeks (I’m still sorry Mary!), I leaned into reading in May.

Image courtesy of Sanja Gjenero via stock.xchng

Then something clicked– a visit to the used book store, the right thing being on my kindle, and a delicious chemistry of calm in the household.

Before the Fourth of July I had read The Healer’s Apprentice, The Fairy Path, Silence of the Lambs, By Darkness Hid, To Darkness Fled, From Darkness Won, The Iron King, The Short Straw Bride and Clockwiser.

Thoroughly enjoyed all of them. Showed me all sorts of storytelling elements I’ve been studying and digging toward. Absolutely delightful blend of work.

It was just beginning to feel like a binge, and life was getting fuller, so I set aside fiction (which demands sustained reading) in favor of a nutritional, non-fiction season.

Trouble was, I felt suddenly guilty that I was no longer a reader. A fiction reader. A reader of what I wanted to write.

Because, look at me, I’m. not. reading! {fiction.}

Ridiculous, right? {please say yes.}

I made me think how I really don’t understand Grace.

No, really, it does.

And don’t give me that ‘None of us understand grace,’ bit. I didn’t understand digestion for years, either. There are some things that kinda just work on their own, but that doesn’t mean your relationship to them is unchanging.

Let’s try a healthy-food analogy (since that’s what I’ve been reading like crazy the last two or three weeks). Turns out Food is like the the code someone writes to create software. Only, the software in this case is the DNA regeneration in your body with normal cell production.

What you eat tells your body which elements (nearly endless, it seems) to activate or hibernate. Very like binary code.

Now, I don’t have to know any of this for my body to do what it does, but if I want my body to end up in the right place (physically/mentally/emotionally sound), I need to feed in the right code.

And that will take some awareness. A remembering. Continue reading »

Including the Kids

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I read a wide variety of topics, some pretty esoteric stuff.  And it’s tricky sometimes because I want to talk about what I’m processing (and Natasha in particular wants to do grown-up talk) but there’s always the question about how much is appropriate for the kids, and how much they would even understand.

Currently I am reading three books:

  • The Midnight Disease by Alice Flaherty (a book about the way the human brain works related to the various aspects of application and frustration reflected in writing and not-writing)
  • Deep Nutrition by Catherine Shanahan (a book– so far– about epigenetics and how food functions very like programming code being written for the DNA/genes to run.)
  • You’re Already Amazing by Holley Gerth (a book with a very ‘girlfriend’ tone that urges the reader to look very closely at herself and at life in the light of scripture).

Can I just say right here how much I love synergy?

I might (I doubt it) have finished one of these books already if it was the only one I was working on, but then I would have missed all sorts of interconnected gems.

Tonight I used something from the Midnight book with Natasha.

There are times she gets really *tight* about something and she can’t let it go. Just tonight for example.

“It’s happening again Mommy!” (I can guess she’s a bit regressed when I hear Mommy. My least-favorite title.)
“What’s happening?”
“I’m scared KNIDS are going to come and eat Elisha!”

And I have to try not to roll my eyes if the lights are on.

I really wonder if this started out as a game, or sleep-delay tactic, but whatever the origin these fears are now full-on terrifying to her, and just plain irritate me.

As anyone with fearful children will tell you, reassurances and discussions (or lectures) of reality are no use in these situations.

So I did an extemporaneous mini-lecture about perseveration.

I explained how a person whose brain has been damaged in a particular way will perceive something accurately, but then see only that. You show him a fork, ask him to name it, and he’ll say fork.

But then you show him a spoon, a knife, a toy truck, and each of those will also be called a fork.

The way to break this cycle is to draw his attention away from the idea for a moment:

A loud noise outside, or a family member walking into the room, will let the fork leave the center of his focus long enough for him to correctly name the new object.

Stapler.

But this merely shifts the problem, as everything now is identified as a stapler.

The point is, I told Natasha, You can use the same idea to shift your thoughts. If you let them go.

*Too* many times, she has come out to us in the living room sweating with anxiety. I’m convinced she rehearses the fear all her steps out to where we are, so whatever it is is only amplified, not relieved, by travel.

“Imagine your thoughts are a bouncy ball,” I suggested. “Right now, your ball is on the purple elephants step [She laughs]. If you want to quit thinking about purple elephants, you should try a shift of some kind. Go get a drink. Use the bathroom. Climbing down the ladder will give your brain a chance to bump the ball off the purple elephants step. AS LONG AS you don’t keep it there.”

I made a cage with the fingers of one hand over the palm of my other hand.

“If you don’t let it move, it won’t. Give it a chance.”

All these words were delivered with my end-of-the-day, how-much-of-this-is-useful-and-how-much-is-just-delay-? pseudo-conviction.

Jay took the kid-calls that came in the next half-hour, till Natasha bright-eyed and grinning tumbled into the living room.

“It worked! See, I was smoothing my hair, then thought, I bet I could make a pony tail–“

“This is a morning-story,” I interrupted. “You belong in bed.”

She backed away, grinning. “And it worked, Mama,” she finished. “Your idea of getting down worked!”

And she took herself back off to bed, tear-free.

Fear-free.

There’s More Than One Kind of Writers’ Block

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I don’t know why I never thought of it before, but it’s true.

For the longest time I enjoyed a smugly self-satisfied sense that (due to my limited writing time or imagination or some wonderful gift) I almost never suffered from writers’ block.

I made this determination based on the fact that I was never at a loss for words.

Because I assumed that writers’ block was like artists’ block: the literary equivalent of staring at a blank canvas and not knowing where or how to start.

Hint: for writing– especially with a computer– you just start. Put words down.  Make a muddle.  Build of your chunk of marble so that you have something solid from which to carve out your masterpiece.

But I was wrong.  Because I have struggled with finishing. With delivering.

I like to say (just because it sounds cool) that my Super Power is instant extrapolation. But what that really means (as I hinted in the last post) is that I react to things before I need to.  I anticipate, flinch, before the burn.  I call that way of life exhausting! because it is, but didn’t really see an alternative and got a bit fixated on the exhausting! (Because it really made me feel like I was working hard.  That’s what makes you tired, right?)

Well, here’s one alternative to consider.  It’s in a free ebook called The Flinch, and can be summarized like this:

  • Name this gut-reaction that is not very (if at all) useful. They call it The Flinch.
  • Recognize that the purpose it serves (keeping you safe), done too well, can hold you back from anything meaningful. Can keep you from taking good risks that will grow you.
  • Overcome the fear of The Flinch by reminding yourself failure isn’t permanent, and pain doesn’t last forever.
  • Use the momentum, the speed and impulse of The Flinch to react forward rather than cringe away.

Anyway, it was a short read, and brought up some good thoughts.

Best question it raised for me:

“Have you ever asked yourself why your stomach tenses up and your can’t watch imaginary characters on a television screen to awkward, embarrassing things? You should.”

Continue reading »

You know what’s delicious?

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Going through a list of personal interests/roles/priorities (this resource was what prompted the inventory) and firming which ones are just for me.

All mine.

Only and completely for my own enjoyment of life, and nothing to do with what anybody else thinks.

This is a big deal because it means if I’m happy, the task is successfully completed.

For the first time I realized that for me this is guitar and piano.

Previously when I’d try and go through the process of making a schedule (Always beginning with a list of everything I’d like to fit into my life) I’d include the “good” stuff I knew a disciplined me would do everyday with intent. That meant music practice (along with bible-reading, prayer and cooking), and even writing it down would leave a sour taste in my mouth. The reminder of something else I must not want enough ’cause I can’t make it happen.

If I’m really going to go out of my way to do a creative something every. day. I want it to be writing!

What Amy (different Amy, not me) suggests instead is a step back, to first define the roles you have, and draw tasks from those roles.  It is, I suppose, a way of looking at priorities, but in a specific way.

For me, God, Jay, kids, house, is *way* too generic a list.

By saying the activities/jobs that are tagged under each role, I am able to break things into smaller chunks– but not so small that “musician” could make the list.  She limits you to seven roles (blanks on the worksheet, anyway) so *everything* isn’t included.

And I was able (because of her very specific insistence) to include self in those roles.  Once I saw music as an activity I did to become my best self, not a goal of it’s own, I felt instantly freer.  For the first time I saw that every time I dink around (and get a little better, and show my kids music is play and a delight), I’ve done enough.  With very. few. exceptions I have no need to perfect any one song for outside consumption.

Another bonus was seeing my list of “jobs” (what I want to do to become the best I can be) in my wife role, were basically covered by fulfilling a couple of the remaining roles on my list: home-managing and teaching the children.  These are the big things (I asked!) that make my husband feel loved and that he has a peaceful home/happy family.

So I’m recommending Amy’s (short!) book on time management.  Short reason: it’s about knowing where you want to go, and making small steps toward that every day.  It’s moving beyond wishing to living.

And that is delicious.

Girl Stories

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I am a female novelizing fairy tales, with the goal of publication.

I have two daughters, ages 7 and 8, who love stories and princesses and “glamor” and dressing up.  They talk about  the man they’ll eventually marry (though they acknowledge they might not know him yet), and the sort of choices they’ll make when they’re mommies (some like mine, some different).

So discussions about “gender inequity” in stories and challenges like the Bechdel test intrigue me, as a woman, a mother of girls, and a storyteller.

But I sometimes wonder how much I actually care, since some of this is choosing where to look, and some of this is having enough hope to look in the first (or second, or third) place.

Now, to start with, I’ll be the last person to argue that there aren’t more male-centered stories.  That’s not my point.  What I think when I look at the list of movies that “don’t pass the test,” (that is, they don’t have two or more named female characters talking with one another about something other than a male), I don’t think, The slimeball writers left out the women!

I ask, Was it a good movie/story anyway?

Maybe I’m a storylover first and a woman second.

Maybe more than seeing surrogates for myself or my daughters in interesting/tragic/life-threatening situations I want to have an emotional journey.

I want to experience things I’ve never felt before, find words or images for something previously ineffable, or relive something that is over but an exciting memory.

So I watch Lord of the Rings, Stranger than Fiction, or a romantic comedy for an echo of that unexpected spark that surprised me when I first realized I loved the man I ended up marrying.

As an adult, I’m not particularly looking for “role models” or ideas for relationships or interaction.  Ms. Bechdel’s test is an interesting piece of trivia, but not relevant to my storylife.

As for my girls I’ve never had the illusion that they will find adequate role models from movies. When poor choices are in front of our eyes we pick them apart, discussing motivations, connecting cause and effect.

Yeah, being the children of a storyteller can be hard sometimes. For the record we actually don’t pick stories apart that much, but when anything seems settle really deep we try to make sure it settles in a healthy context.

So I suppose that has never been a pressure in my mind.

I don’t feel bothered by their attraction to beauty or babies or the ideal of marriage.  It is the life I hope for them: one where they are happily married and raising a family.

Statistically that’s what’s going to happen anyway, so why not prepare and make it something to look forward to?

We are surrounded by hard-working, kind-hearted women who know how to listen and how to speak.  These are the role models I want all three of my children to key off of.

But what about the stories?!

Yeah, I have a collection of those, too. Mostly picture books, because that’s what I’ve spent to most time with in recent years,

They tend to be traditional so they conform to some *tsk*tsk*able norms (daughters suffering for a father’s “sin”?) but I roll with because every story needs an inciting event.  And girls will always be surrounded by people and circumstances stronger than themselves.  I feel it’s more important what they do next.

And, yes, in a significant number of these stories the girl has help.

I’m glad for that: I never want any of my children to assume they have to do enormous tasks in isolation.  I pray they will always be surrounded by healthy, loving people who with share their burdens.

Most of those next time.

My list begins (and some commentary):

Continue reading »

I am the Poet of Reality

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I am the poet of reality
I say the earth is not an echo
Nor man an apparition;
But all the things seen are real,
The witness and albic dawn of things equally real
I have split the earth and the hard coal and rocks and the solid bed of the sea
And went down to reconnoitre there a long time,
And bring back a report,
And I understand that those are positive and dense every one
And that what they appear to a child they are
[And that the world is not a joke,
Nor any part of it a sham].

This unfinished poem by Walt Whitman (published in this form in A Book of Luminous Things edited by Czeslaw Milosz) expresses so perfectly my need for the solidity of the physical to mean something.

I do find evidence for the unseen in the seen, and sometimes I think this is why I love so much what I see.

Obscurity has its Advantages

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One of which is realistic expectations.

Or, rather, few to none, which works as well.

I’ve gone through cycles of seeking my “brand” or identity, or audience, pouring thought and wistfulness and effort into producing content days at a time.

The closest I’ve gotten to a theme is, “an unexamined life is not worth living.”

Which is overstating it, as quotes will.

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

John Keats (1795–1821)

For now, I more wish to belive that the unexamined life may perhaps be lived better (than examined), but without the benefit of reproduction. And I believe a scientist would say that any outcome, however perfect, is not useful unless it can be reproduced.

While I do not strive to live as a scientist, I do wish to be of use. And I know my deepest need (for an improved life) is not perfection, but consistency.

But, returning to obscurity (we left it for a moment), I think on what is necessary to leave it: nakedness. Utter exposure, whether voluntary or not, is the cost of coming out of invisibility.

It was Edna St. Vincent Millay, I once read, who said, “A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.”

My friend Becky and I have had (e-mail) conversations over this, the choice about how open to be.  She knows her audience. She has a sense of mission in her writing, and finds both power and purpose in choosing to open some very personal parts of herself.

I have none of those motivators. Much of my fragility and “intimacy” is very self-centered; they are things I want to remember on topics that are close to my heart and so are easier for me to write about.

Or maybe just easier to stay connected long enough to finish.

All my life I have heard about “masks” and “getting rid of masks.” The idea of presenting a false front is despised in all circles, even while (as a culture) we feel more disconnected from one another than ever before.

So people talk publicly about stuff that doesn’t make you blush any more, and shocking announcements are defended effectively.

I tried to explain the phenomenon to my mother (who doesn’t need anything explained to her), and she is simply horrified at the practice. “Why would anybody do that?!” she asks.

I proffered a few of my theories (the attempted explanation part), but she didn’t seem to hear any of them. And I can’t say I blame her. I don’t rightly understand it myself.

But I’m a part of it.

Apparently I’m in the early years of Generation-Y, and attribute it to what you will (I’ve read theories about this too), we are a “real” generation, where authenticity is the key word.

I’m a part of it without even knowing it.

I can’t tell you how many times someone older than me (and not always very much older) will laugh in an embarrassed way at something I just said and respond, “That’s what I love about you, Amy, you’re so real.”

Which, frankly, confuses me, because what else can a Believer be?

Continue reading »

Still Reading

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And now I’m reading differently.

Jay got me a Kindle for Christmas.

My favorite thing so far is that I found a cheap Ben Hur (paid for one that was indexed) and a free ESV translation of the bible.

When I described to my writing friend that I was basically writing Christian fiction, she urged me to read Ben Hur, even loaned me the book, but it was hard to get into.

Ditto with the ESV, which was discouraging becasue that’s the translation Jay wants our family to memorize in, and I need to read in it to collect the rhythm.

Anyway, both tomes had small print without enough leading or kerning for comfort in extended reading.

But with the Kindle I can change all that, and have.

I’ve gotten farther and read longer in the days since Christmas than I did in the weeks before it.

My current bible-reading plan, facilitated by the Kindle: 15-minutes/morning (set a timer) picking up where I left off the day before.

I like a length of time better than a length of text because it lends itself to a more patient reading.

And 15-minutes sounds short, at least to me, but whether you’re sitting in the quiet of a house asleep, or attempting to be the island of calm in the mists of an active family, a stretch that long on any one thing seems like time eternal.

And I started in the Minor Prophets this time, since I’ve probably read Genesis more than any other book in the bible.  The prophets are amazing for their word pictures and analogies.

I’m Not the Reader You’re Writing For

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Readers read to worry. They want to be lost in the intense emotional anticipation over the plight of a character in trouble.

–The Kill Zone

This is only the latest place I’ve read this analysis/assertion. And this has never been true of me.

(I don’t think it’s a small thing to observe that I’ve only heard this assertion either from men or women quoting men.  Men think knocking heads together is funny — this is science, not sexism– so the concept of pain = entertainment is already established. And should not be heresy for me to question.)

Just this weekend I put down another book because for me, the writer was too good at her job of conveying intense emotional distress.

I opened a novel that was play for the Jane Eyre governess/romance genre published by Bethany House, which gave me the hope of a clean play on the theme (in general I’m afraid to invest in such stories, so a Christian publishing house is a nice safety net).

The prologue (yes, there was a prologue) opened with the heroine at age 12 hanging out with her drunken papa at the local pub.  She’s done this all her life, whiling away the hours by counting, which grew into a precocity at math.  On this particular day a Rich Man and his Son enter and Drunken Papa sees an easy mark, challenging Rich Man to set his boarding school educated son against a village Girl in a test of mathematics.

The emotionally astute Girl recognizes the Son’s agony at the prospect, interpreting it both as his lacking in that subject, and the familiar fear of losing a demanding father’s approval.  Drunken Papa offers a 10-guinea wager on 3 math problems (“Best two out of three.”) and Rich Man construes it as 30 guinea, which 12-year-old Girl knows her father cannot afford.

I got through her first (and correct) response to the first question, and her interpreting its affect on the stricken boy before I put the book away.

There just was no way for that to end well.

I gave that much to my husband the same night I read those pages, and he was really annoyed I couldn’t even remember the name of the book.  Said he was ready to go back to the store so I could track down the book and he could know how it ends.

I was *grabbed* emotionally, even intensely, but I wasn’t invested enough to feel these characters where worth the angst I would share for a few hundred pages.  I assumed that the inevitably agonizing ending wouldn’t be fully salved until the happy ending of the whole novel, and I couldn’t see enduring the knot that long.

Really, it was a brilliant opening.  Everything I’ve ever believed an author was supposed to do (not the least of which being establishing an *observant* POV character, which will be very useful in the course of the longer story).

But it was nothing I can feel peace about.

I’m not that kind of writer, and I’m not that kind of reader, either.

This is not the first, or second, time this has happened to me.

Can I learn from this?

Continue reading »

Good Books!

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As long as it takes to get me rooted in a story (to no fault of the books!), I keep wondering if this fiction thing is really for me.

But then I feel so fed when I finally get the chance to finish something.

Today’s accomplishment was Waking Rose, the third of three Fairytale Novels I first mentioned back in February.

And yes, I will attempt to post reviews of these last two books. Here’s my review of the first: The Shadow of the Bear.

I have already put the fourth book by Regina Doman in my Amazon cart. Looking forward to purchasing it.

This lady has done what it is my heart’s cry to do: write about pure love, honor, relationships in the context of engaging action and even humor (!), through a lens/worldview that allows God his rightful place at the core of reality.

Should it please God (such a sweet phrase, and I’m sure it does), this is my ultimate goal in all my writing.