Posts for category ‘faith’

Though Story of a Girl sold in May 2005, it was around this time that year everything was being made official—contracts, payments, deadlines. I was also figuring out with my employer at the time when quitting day would be. Since my job was dead-end, part-time, with no benefits, for me the question wasn’t if I’d leave, but when. We settled on January 31, 2006. My biggest fear when I left was that I’d run out of money and having to go back to work. When that very thing happened in 2007, the perfect temporary job came to me right when I needed it.

As I wrote my second book, my biggest fear was that it would be a huge failure and disappointment, that the success of Story of a Girl was a fluke. Sweethearts ended up doing just fine. When I sold books three and four, I didn’t so much fear total failure as I feared that I lacked what it takes to sustain a writing career over the long term. How could I keep this up? I had a sense of urgency about getting irons in the fire and exploiting every opportunity.

Now that I’m taking the last lap in the editorial process with what will be my fourth book, there are remnants of the fear that I can’t sustain this, but mostly they have settled into questions. What do I want next? What are the prospects that excite me vs. the ones that just make me feel tired? What would I do with the next year if I didn’t have to think about money? I haven’t yet tried to sell a fifth book; that’s been an intentional decision. Do I need a break? Do I need to try something completely new? Would a total failure right about now be exactly what I need?

My time at the Glen Workshop this summer provided roomy space not only for pondering these questions in the quiet of my own head, but exploring them with friends and comrades. No one gasped in horror when I talked about directions I might like to go, no one clutched at me and said But what about your career? (You know who you are. Thank you.) Rather, in several conversations, this warning came up: don’t ever do anything for money. Of course, we don’t live in a fantasy world in which all our bills are paid by a patron, and we all sometimes need to do things for money. Yet it’s wise, when possible, to avoid making creative decisions based on financial need—those are the decisions that are mostly likely to wind up sapping you of your energy and making you resent and avoid your work. In other words: don’t let the fear get to you.

And there are a lot of fears churning around in every writer, maybe most of all in those of us who have had some success. There’s the fear of losing your place in the community or the industry and then not being able to get it back, fear of letting people down, fear of being the subject of one of those “whatever happened to…” conversations, fear of stepping out to try something new and getting shot down, judged, fear of the assumptions people might make if you fade away for awhile. Fear of being broke and forced into a job you hate.

I’m weighing all those fears these days as I think about what’s next, and they don’t seem to the power they once did. A lot has happened in the last five years. A lot a lot. I was 34 then, and now I’m about to turn 40. Many of the things I set out to prove to myself and others back then have been proved. Terrain I wanted to explore has been explored. Now the globe is spinning beneath my fingers; it’s up to me to apply pressure where I want to stop. It’s not up to me how it all might turn out.

From the outside in, maybe whatever I do next won’t look that different from what I’ve been doing. Maybe it will. All I know for sure is that in the midst of being smart about the practical needs and realities, I want to be a beginner again at something creative, to always be a learner, to be bold and risk failure. I want to have faith that when I step off the comfortable path, I’m not going to freefall forever. So far, none of my fears have come to fruition—or at least, when they have, they’ve led not to disaster but to growth. All I have to do is hang onto that when panic threatens and fears seem to regain power. Easy.

(I was inspired to organize these thoughts in part by this piece on vocation, by my friend Allison Backous.)

And it’s allll links, baby.

- The New York Times recently featured Salt Lake City in its “36 Hours In...” series. I think you should go ahead and make it 72 hours. There are so many children’s and YA authors per square inch here, if you stay long enough you’ll probably be here during someone’s book release party. (For instance, Jessica Day George’s, tomorrow afternoon at 2 p.m. at the King’s English.)

- Maureen Johnson wrote a manifesto. Though I think there are definitely some practical things to think about in terms of “brand” and networking, MoJoFesto gets a big thumbs up from me.

- Speaking of manifestos, there’s this song, which I discovered via Pandora, and it pretty much blows my mind. It’s Josh Garrels’ Zion & Babylon. Scroll down. It is hot musically, too. He’s got his music streaming on his site – check it out. I don’t really know how I didn’t hear about him before. I ordered a couple of his CDs; right now Over Oceans is my favorite. He’s kind of a Jesusy Matisyahu, or something? I don’t know. It’s just really good.

Okay, that’s all I have. Pretty soon, I’m vacating this space for a large-ish chunk of time. More on that later. Have a great weekend!

NBC’s relentless flogging of Parenthood during the Olympics totally worked on us; we watched from episode one and never missed seeing it in real time. It’s not a flawless show, but between the phenomenal cast and great writing and the fact that it does not feature police or medical procedure, and is actually sincere and not all winky-winky ironic and is on regular free broadcast TV, I’m a happy camper. The showrunner, Jason Katims, is also a force behind Friday Night Lights and you know how I feel about that. (Jason! I love your work! Have your people call my people!) The season finale aired last night, but if you want to catch up before fall you can watch online. (I just found out on IMDB that Maura Tierney was originally cast in Lauren Graham’s role, and then her breast cancer treatment forced her to quit. Which makes me sad, because as much as I love Graham, I also adore Tierney and think she would have been great.) (P.S. according to Wikipedia, her treatment is going well.)

Last night’s episode especially made me think of a book I recently read—Paula Huston’s Forgiveness: Following Jesus into Radical Loving. I picked it up because I’ve been a fan of Huston, not for the topic, though I figured there’s always something new to learn. Despite the subtitle (which reminds me of every Christian book I read in college—everything was “radical”…hospitality, evangelism, quiet times, worship, time management, you name it), it was a powerful read. It’s published by Paraclete Press, whose “what are doing” info includes this statement: “Although Benedictine spirituality is at the heart of all that we do, we publish books that reflect the Christian experience across many cultures, time periods, and houses of worship.”

Huston is very, very thorough in her look at this topic, which is discussed incessantly in churches but rarely grasped by any of us. She starts with the wide-angle “the problem of evil” (oh, that), gradually narrowing focus throughout the book with sections like the need for truth before reconciliation can begin, how to tell a real hurt from a wounded ego, and spiritual disciplines of the Desert Fathers (and Mothers) that help prepare you for forgiveness, until finally on page 150 of 288 we get into the forgiving of other actual people. If I’m making it sound long, dense, or dry, it’s not. At a small trim size—about the size of a prayer book—the pages are not long, and I read it more or less in one afternoon. My point is there’s a careful foundation laid in the book so that when the rubber meets the hard road of reconciliation, we’re ready. A little bit ready.

The very first actual people Huston writes about are our parents, who we often find ourselves needing to forgive even if they haven’t done anything overtly wrong to us. Simply by virtue of being our parents, they rack up a lot of offenses, perceived or actual. Huston sums it up pretty well and universally, I think, when she writes about her own parents:

“What had they done that was so hurtful? The answer is easy: with all their efforts, they had not managed to produce a perfect person—and I found ways to resent that.”

In the final sections of the book, we get to how to receive forgiveness, which may be hardest of all. The book deals with demanding material, but Huston’s humility and honesty and gentleness—along with the intellectual and theological rigor she applies—make it all seem possible. (That said, if you’re not already of the Jesusy persuasion, this book may not be for you. It is written firmly from a Christian worldview in which one’s ability to give and receive forgiveness is directly tied to and dependent on the Christian gospel.)

But, even if you don’t read Huston’s book, you can watch Parenthood. The whole season has basically been a stew of intertwined people—parents, children, cousins, friends, spouses, siblings—needing forgiveness, grace, and compassion from each other. There are real hurts, wounded egos, the necessity of truth and the difficulty of that, of making even small turns by degree toward each other when there is History. If you’ve read any of my books, you know this is all stuff in my writer DNA, and any piece of art or culture probing the same soft spots of life is speaking my language.

Watch Parenthood online
Order Forgiveness straight from Paraclete (available in all kinds of formats and on sale until May 31).

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