Be-Atitudes of a Writer
As I began to write my second novel, The Fabric of Faith, I heard a sermon on the beatitudes. I’d heard a dozen or more sermons on that topic before, but as I pondered what the preacher talked about, I couldn’t help but applying it to the writing life.
Matthew 5 says that Jesus taught the multitudes, saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they, which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they, which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”
How can we apply the concept of “be-attitudes” to our writing life, our creative life, or just life in general in a new and fresh way? Although not in order of Matthew’s beatitudes, here’s what I came up with:
- Be patient. Writing is perfected over time.
- Be content. Enjoy the journey and stop wanting more.
- Be prepared. Learn all you can about writing.
- Be proactive. Schedule writing time and remember, you reap what you sow.
- Be clear. Communicate well.
- Be tenacious. It doesn’t matter how you feel; if God’s called you to write, never give up.
- Be doers. Write! Write! Write!
- Be connected. Find other writers and do life with them.
- Be dead. Die to your personal plans and live for God’s plans for your writing life.
But Jesus wasn’t finished. He went on to say, “You are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.”
How can we “salt” our writing to make our readers hungry and thirsty for Him?
And then Jesus said, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
Writers, creatives, and friends, let your light shine!
What other be-attitudes would you add to this list? I’d love to know!
Character Development
As a fiction writer, developing the characters in my books is a journey into psychology, anatomy, and sometimes chemistry! Sheesh! I never thought I’d have to go back to science class to write a novel. But sometimes I do.
In my second book of The Irish Quilt Legacy, The Fabric of Faith, one of the characters suffers from post-partum depression. Though I never went through that with my two babies, I know friends who did. They were sad, quiet, withdrawn, and depressed. Yet I really never researched the “whys”—until I created a character, which is experiencing this debilitating condition.
What is going on in the body, mind, and soul of a person who is depressed? My research is giving me a measure of love and compassion that I wished I’d have shown to my friends when they were going through it. And the compassion for this condition will undoubtedly show up in my story.
The bottom line is, fictional characters need to be fully developed and not just stereotypes. They need to be relatable and have emotions and feelings that readers can really connect with. And they need to have likes and dislikes, quirks and mannerisms, fears and dreams, and thoughts. They need to worry and fret, desire and long, get angry and resentful, forgive and have faith, just real people. And they need to experience life similar to your readers, even if the character lives centuries apart from today’s readers. They have to make hard choices and face tough challenges and struggle with life. And they need to wrestle with issues of faith and God and eternity.
So as I develop each of my characters, I must fully engage with them and “know” them deep within their soul. I need to know their emotional makeup and the psychological quirks and the scars and the pain they’ve experienced. I need to know their physical assets and weaknesses, their fears and their dreams and their beliefs about God. Then they become real, and in that reality they can live their lives in the story.
How do you connect with the characters you create? I’d love to know!
Toning Up Your Novel
When I was the editorial director over nine very different publications at the same time, I had to be keenly aware of the audience, tone, slant, and style of each article for all the various publications. One magazine was for pastors; another for single parents, and yet another for empty nesters. One newsletter was for new parents; another for parents of teens. One was for parents of tweens; another for parents of grade-schoolers. Each article for each magazine or newsletter needed a tone that would meet the needs of the audience and speak to them in a appropriate way.
But what is “tone”? As a language arts teacher for grades four through eight and later as an editor for more than a dozen years, I had to assess the tone of thousands of manuscripts that crossed my desk. As a conference speaker and writing coach, I’ve had to critique hundreds of writing samples and instantly give my thoughts.
Basically, “tone” is the author’s attitude toward the subject of the article or story. Is the tone of your writing happy, sad, fearful, angry, serious, humorous, pessimistic, optimistic? You can use just about any adjective you can think of—anxious, depressed, elated, euphoric. The tone of your writing creates the mood that the reader feels as he or she reads your work. Remember when your mom said, “change that tone, young lady!” when you were disrespectful? Your tone created a mood for your mom, and it wasn’t a good one!
In my first novel, The Fabric of Hope, several characters struggled with seeing their futures through a lens of hope, as I did years ago. Although the tone somewhat reflects what I experienced when I went through a traumatic divorce—a tone of feeling anxious and even fearful at times—hope finally triumphs as God helps the characters overcomes the challenges of life. Redemption is evident, and readers can journey through that change and learn how faithful God is.
How does the tone of your writing reflect your life? I’d love to know!
That Fearsome First Draft
I’m working on the second book in The Irish Quilt Legacy, and if I’m not careful, I can get overwhelmed at such a daunting task. The fear of the blank page staring back at me on my MacBook Pro. The ominous Table of Contents that I know is empty of words and will probably change quite substantially over the course of the next several months. The 70,000-word or more word count before I get to “The End”.
For me, the scariest thing is to realize that it’s only a “draft”. Are you kidding me? I sit at my computer for hours, days, weeks, months, and get to the end knowing it’s a “draft”? Eghads!
Personally, I like the word manuscript much better. It sounds so…polished and professional.
But what I’m writing now and in the weeks and months to come is really a draft of the manuscript. It will change, and sometimes it will change a lot. So I need to be pliable, willing to work with the Holy Spirit who, I believe, is guiding me along this writing journey.
Before, during, and after writing the first draft, one of the things I feel is most important is to bathe it all in prayer. Without Him, I can do nothing, even if I know all the novel writing tricks and have all the writing and editing skills at my fingertips. So I ask Him for wisdom, for creativity, for inspiration. I give Him my hands and my mind and my motives. And I implore Him to journey with me through every word of the story.
In my first novel, I experienced that a lot. I’d come to my computer and have just one sentence for my plot idea: “Maggie goes to The Irish Shop”. I’d sit down and wonder, “And? So what? What’s going to happen?” And guess what? I’d meet new characters or experience new events or get caught up in a really provocative conversation that would bring me to tears!
What a blast!
In reality, I have to simply be willing to be His scribe and go with His flow. I know, professionally, it’s called “free writing,” but I love to experience that deeper “scribing”—the parts of the story that He inspires and that rarely gets the cut when I get to the revising and editing stage.
I also have to remember to turn off my editing self. Since I was a professional editor of twelve different publications for eleven years, my editor self likes to rear her critiquing head up far too often. Sometimes she squeals like a naughty pig. Sometimes she roars like a lion. And sometimes she’s as wily as a weasel on a henhouse. So I have to put her in her place and banish her from my draft-writing world.
Then I write. Everything. I know that much of it will move or change or be deleted. And that’s okay. But sometimes a character will give me a glimpse into some fear or dream that I need to explore with him or her later in the story. Sometimes I see something or smell something or feel something, and when it all gets written down, I can later let the editor take over, move it or revise it, and clean it all up.
Most of all, I enjoy the journey. I set aside all the distractions and, like I mentioned last week, I go out to play. Whether it’s a draft, a manuscript, or the makings of the next great American novel, I’ll embrace the experience of birthing this baby!
Do you enjoy writing your first draft? If not, why not? I’d love to know!
Treasures in Your Family Tree
I had just put my baby and toddler down for their naps when the phone rang. It was Mom, calling for a chat. A few minutes into the conversation she said, “Today is the anniversary of your dad’s death.” I asked her to tell me more, and what she said, changed my life.
Just ten hours before he died, Mom was so frantic that she went into the hallway to regroup. There she saw a minister who had just left a patient’s room. So she went up to him and asked him to pray for my dad. The man not only obliged but also led my father in a prayer of repentance and salvation!
My dad died three months before I was born, but knowing that he became a Christian before he died was a treasure in my family tree. One day, I’ll meet my father in heaven, and that will be a glorious day!
In most of our family trees, there are beautiful branches of faith, limbs that appear gnarled and confusing, and new growth that struggles for life. But all of the lives in our family tree are precious to the Lord, the Creator of life.
Grandma Graham was my dearest companion growing up. Her strong faith in the Lord, her steadfast trust in Him, her constant devotion to serving God and family taught me a lot during the 13 years she was in my life. She laid a firm foundation for helping me know who God is and why we are here on this earth.
Grandma Grace was a gnarled, grouchy, and sometimes mean woman who had Alzheimer’s disease. She turned deep into herself and did weird things I didn’t understand, like walk downtown in her see-through nightie—which mortified me! But as she lost more and more of her mind, she could still do one thing. She could play the piano. So in her last days, Grandma Grace spent hours playing hymns and singing all the words correctly. Her life, though confusing, was in His hands, and it taught me that God’s word just doesn’t return void.
My brother Paul struggled to live for the first two years of his life. Seizures attacked him daily, and he was in the hospital more than he was home. It was hard to understand why my baby brother had to struggle so, but today he’s a productive man who loves God and cares for our mother.
In every family tree there are shining lights, confusing lives and heartache. Too often we are so busy that it is hard to dig out the treasures buried deep in the stories of each life. Whether those stories are ones of miscarriage, infant illness, childhood tragedies, or long productive lives, there is a sacredness that every human life carries with each one. It may be from a glimpse of a baby on an ultrasound or a struggling life who knew challenges that no one should have to deal with. It may even be self-imposed addictions that ravage a person but he somehow overcomes.
God sees and knows, and our stories are important to Him. We have the opportunity to redeem our story and those in our family tree. We can look at the beauty of each life and see God’s redemption, even in the most broken lives. My dad wasn’t a believer until ten hours before he died. My grandmother couldn’t remember who she was but remembered every word and note of the hymns she had learned as a child. Digging out these treasures can heal deep hurts, redeem ugly memories, and change our lives.
What treasures have you found in your ancestory? I’d love to know!
My Favorite Playground
When I’m with my granddaughters, one of our favorite things to do is to go to a playground. Their imagination goes wild! Swings let them fly like birds. Slides let them soar like a dolphin in the blue ocean. Monkey bars let them be monkeys swinging in trees. Rings and balance beams let them be acrobats in the circus. It’s great to watch them have fun, use their amazing imaginations, and be creative in their play.
My very favorite playground is my imagination. For me, there’s nothing more exciting than dreaming up a lovely setting or a compelling dialogue or discovering a character’s new perspective that changes her life. When I write, I’m definitely in one of my favorite play places, and when I’m done “playing”, I feel like I’ve had a fun afternoon at the playground.
I’m tired but happy. I’m satisfied and energized. I’m content.
When we use our imagination—and have a creative calling—creating makes us feel so fully alive, and when we fully access the possibilities of it, it’s a blast. We hear sounds and see details that we might not ever see otherwise. We smell the rain coming and taste flavors we might never taste with our tongue. We feel the leather or the rough homespun cotton. We hear conversations that make a difference in the lives of others.
Our mind’s eye becomes electric with the details and scenes and characters and plots that challenge our fingers to virtually fly over the keys, trying to keep up with our mach-speed creativity. We’re enjoying the journey so much that it doesn’t matter if our stomach is growling or sweat forms on our brow or our girlfriends are e-mailing. We are in the zone. We are playing in God’s playground.
We’re giving birth to a story, and we know it’s God leading us to write it down.
For those of us who are not writers or haven’t yet experienced such elation, don’t worry. We writers are not crazy. You’re not crazy. We’re all just unique. And that’s okay.
Whether you’re a four year old on the playground, a fourteen year old in English class, a forty-year-old beginning writer, or an eighty-four year old seasoned author— allowing the imagination to play and creativity to grow will open your world to an exciting new life. And even if you’re not a writer, creating a new recipe or building a new wood project can give you that creative excitement and play.
So no matter where you are in life, go and play in the playground of creativity. Let your imagination soar and let inspiration and creativity flourish. Make time for it. Develop the skills to grow in your creativity. Let the childish play begin, and see what God might do.
How do you enjoy using your creativity and imagination? I’d love to know!