The Next Big Thing
A heartfelt thanks to Elizabeth Fletcher for inviting me to participate in The Next Big Thing, an internet-age ponzi scheme to connect writers to one another. Creative projects incubate in privacy for SO LONG; it’s a relief to get a public glimpse of a work-in-progress—almost a confirmation that it exists. I imagine all the contributors to The Next Big Thing are like chickens sitting on enormous eggs. Squawk! I’ll send you to two other Next Big Thing blogs as soon as I hear back from the writers. Meanwhile, here’s what’s growing in my egg: What is your working title of your project? Hannah, Delivered. Although I’m also considering The Faith of Midwives. Where did the idea come from for the project? My sister is a homebirth midwife living in Taos, NM. She and her midwife colleagues tell the most hair-raising, awe-inspiring stories about delivering babies. Whenever I’d hear them go on…
Christ’s Body, Earth’s Body
Something’s got to change. I mean in my life and how I respond to the environmental crisis. Because global warming threatens our political stability, our food system, and our health; it’s already eliminating the water source for thousands and will soon displace whole populations, particularly in poor countries. Things are bad. Out of love for the earth, out of Christian duty, out of concern for the world our children will inherit, something’s got to change. Emily and I do what we can. We grow our own food, wash and recycle our plastic baggies, bike most places, get our energy from wind power, compost, strive for zero waste, buy local organic food, we even cook with a solar cooker, for heaven’s sake. It’s not enough. We’ll continue to make what lifestyle changes we can, but they won’t be enough. So here I stand, a small, caring person, helpless in the face…
Love in the Work of Writing
I write about love because I tell stories; and it is impossible, I believe, to tell any kind of powerful or valuable or meaningful story without writing about love. And, too, I have found that it is impossible to write a story without love. The writer must love her characters, must open her heart to them, give the whole of herself to them, in order for those characters to give themselves back to her. –Kate Dicamillo, “Characters who Love Again” Today I’m pondering love’s role in the making of literature. Love is a basic ingredient, like water in a soup. Without water, you have no soup. Before there’s any hope of writing well or of an audience appreciating your work, you must love writing itself. You must love…
Maybe
I’ve been mulling over a Zen story about a farmer whose horse ran away. “Such bad luck!” his neighbors said. “Maybe,” the farmer replied. Then the horse returned, accompanied by two wild horses. “So fortunate!” the neighbors said. “Maybe,” said the farmer. Later, the farmer’s son tried to ride a wild horse, was thrown off, and broke his leg. “How awful!” the neighbors sympathized. The farmer: “Maybe.” The army came through town, recruiting all the young men. They passed by the farmer’s son because of his broken leg. “Such good luck!” declared the neighbors. “Maybe,” said the farmer. What I can’t get out of my mind is the farmer’s abiding equanimity. Where I ride waves of emotion, he keeps an even keel. The highs of anticipation, excitement, and jubilation, he seems to say, can throw us off as much as disappointment. Throw us off what? Our center. Our place of…
Writing from Deep Gladness to the World’s Deep Hunger
As I move to the close of my second decade of teaching creative writing, I’m experiencing a dramatic shift in my philosophy. Writing has always been for me a means of personal discovery; I came to understand and claim my identity as a bisexual Christian when writing Swinging on the Garden Gate, and then melded my spiritual direction training with writing coaching to support others in profound personal healing and exploration through writing. I’m a firm believer in the power of privacy at the start of a writing project. If a writer’s heart isn’t on the line, what that writer writes hasn’t much chance of mattering. Because I’m well-trained as a feminist, I know the personal is political. So I’ve always trusted that deeply private explorations play a powerful role in public discourse. By reconciling my sexual identity with my faith, in my heart and in Swinging, I believe that,…
Bucket List
A friend explained to me yesterday why she, a born-and-bred Catholic, is faithfully attending adult education classes at her UCC church, asking hard questions, giving the pastor blunt answers, and otherwise being a rabble-rouser. “I want to know what I believe before I die,” she said. “I don’t want simply to fall back on what I was taught.” My in-laws call the list of things they want to do before they die their “bucket list.” I admire anyone who thinks through what might bring their life fulfillment and then sets out to achieve those things before they “kick the bucket.” I like the intention of a bucket list, how death helps us put life in perspective and encourages us to manifest dreams, live our values, and seek out significance. The majority of people who hire me as a writing coach give some version of this explanation: “I’m not a writer,…
Giving Your Story a Plot
I can’t tell you how often I read early drafts of memoirs that are thorough, lively recordings of events, great for preserving family history but absolutely unsatisfying as memoirs. First this happened, and then this, and then this… Even when the events are shocking, amazing, horrific, terrifying, or otherwise scintillating, the drafts read like flat historical records. Some authors stop there. Their purpose is creating a record of events, or simply getting down the story satisfies their needs. But a record of events is not a memoir, and I’ve just discovered a new way to explain why. I’m reading Janet Burroway’s master-text, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, awed by how smart and practical her advice is and by the ludicrous fact that this book is no longer in print. Burroway’s exploration of the difference between story and plot is an excellent guide for writers needing to make the…
Whutif and Howbout
From the moment her eyes pop open in the morning until that instant of surrender at night, Gwyn emits a steady stream of imaginative possibilities. “What if I’m a hermit crab? How about we live on the beach? How about you’re my crab mom? What if I have a shell? A shell, Mama—we have to make a shell!” Which is why I stumble through the basement at 7 a.m. looking for cardboard. An old lawn sign makes a cone-shell; stapled construction paper make claws. The game lasts an hour and then she’s onto the next possibility, the next revision of her world. Meanwhile, Emily retreats to the office to develop dance curriculum for seniors and I escape to write books and help others write books. Or we plan the garden, decide what to have for dinner and cook it, consider our weekend options, nurture our friendships… What if? How about? …
Too Busy to Write
Sorry, folks. I’m too busy to write a Faith Finder article this month. I could give you all sorts of explanations—the 8 a.m. phone call with Gwyn’s teacher, the hassle of bundling her off to school, the disaster I’m ignoring in the kitchen, my crazy to-do list—but ultimately the problem is internal. Jangled nerves. Thoughts popcorning willy-nilly. Disquiet, distraction, disease. Can’t write if you can’t focus. So instead I’ll give you the cat: She’s a lump of white and black fur curled on a blue blanket. From here I can’t see a head, only the slow rise and fall of her breathing body. Her every muscle is slack. Her snores are soft and even. Or perhaps I’ll give you this morning’s trees, sticky with snow, each branch white against a crystalline blue sky. The snow details the trees. For that matter, I could give you this awesome red easy chair. …
Four Excuses Not to Write Spiritual Memoir, and One Invitation
(This blog post is reprinted after appearing in The Loft’s “Writer’s Block.”) “I’m not interested in spiritual stuff. I just want to write stories.” A friend—a thoughtful, church-going friend—said this to me in passing the other day. Since she couldn’t hear my internal temper-tantrum, I’ll give it here: What in tarnation is more spiritual than stories?! Every story, from a child’s imaginative play to an adult’s crafted composition to an elder’s reminiscing, contains both the muddy mundane and the spark of mystery. When we humans want to understand our world, we make stories. It’s how we compose and are composed by meaning—Sharon Daloz Parks’ definition of faith. Dabble in stories, friends, and you work with the most intimate orientation of your heart. All writing’s spiritual. My point exactly. So what are you going to do about it? Sunday morning golfers like to joke that they pray on the putting green. …