Be Yourself

"Joy in the act of creating ... When was the last time you enjoyed the writing process?" Ariel Lawhon

"Lap up masterful writing. Savor it. Celebrate it. But do not compare your writing to anyone else's." Patti Hill

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Good insight from Ariel and Patti this week. If you haven't yet read their posts, I hope you will.

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To answer Ariel's question, the last time I enjoyed the writing process was ... well, the last time I wrote. But here's the thing. It's been a while. Typically, I love slipping into my fictional world, getting to know my characters -- and often being surprised by them. I love the unfolding of their stories, many of the intricate details unknown even to me until I stumble upon them. I truly love the process.

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But having put my writing aside for the sake of the long holiday season, I'm finding it difficult to get back into the process. My characters knock at the door, telling me all sorts of things about themselves, and wait for me to pick up the thread and get back to weaving. But I look at the loose ends and think, WHAT am I supposed to DO with them? Yeah, there are a lot of morals to this story, like Don't put the writing aside, whatever you do! But that doesn't help me now.

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I mean to get back to it, I really do. Right after I clean the toilet and fold the towels.

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And when I do, I plan to BE MYSELF. I don't plan to copy all those other excellent writers I so want to emulate. The Joy Jordan Lakes, the Elizabeth Bergs, the five fabulous women I blog with. No, I plan to be me. I pledge to be me. If I only knew who that was exactly.

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Years ago I had a Sandi Patty album -- yes album. As I said, it was years ago. There was some humorous dialogue on this live album that comes to mind from time to time. Patti's post jarred it to the surface again. Sandi talks about trying to find who she was as a young singer. In the 10th grade she had a big identity crisis, and was very impressionable. There were a lot of great singers she admired, but she was drawn in particular to Karen Carpenter. She said, "I not only wanted to sing like Karen Carpenter ... I wanted to BE Karen Carpenter." Then she goes on to sing a portion of "Jesus Loves Me," Karen Carpenter style. "I was so immature as a sophomore," she continues. "I realize all of this now because I was such a mature senior in high school, and I realized it was so silly and so ridiculous and so immature of me to want to be Karen Carpenter ... because NOW I wanted to be Barbra Streisand." And again she sings a portion of "Jesus Loves Me," ala the funny girl.

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In the 10th grade I wanted to be Janis Ian, Rembrandt, and Jose Feliciano, in that order. Today I want to be ... I guess more secure in what I do. I want to feel that I've arrived, but I've no clue what that means. I want to write the stories the Lord has planted in my heart, and do it in such a way that they touch other hearts. There's nothing easy about the process, about discovering your voice as a writer, about knowing just how to tell the story that lives in your soul. But "easy" isn't a condition of what we do. Birthing is hard work. It takes the most private parts of you and exposes them to the world.

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But where would we be if Tolkien had ignored the little hobbit in his heart? If Harper Lee hadn't given voice to Scout? If Dickens had never picked up a pen? It makes me sad to even consider it. Many people want to have written. Relatively few want to write. Whose voice may you be silencing with your reticence? What tale may go untold for fear of failure? With the gift of another new year let's pledge to be true to our call, giving birth to the stories only we can tell. Let's be content with the peculiar style that is ours, ever striving to improve our craft, but not held back because we aren't someone else. So thank you, Patti and Ariel. Your words were the swift kick this writer needed. Look at me, I'm weaving again.

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What about you? What story are you NOT telling? What sidetracks you from your writing -- and what gets you back on track? And tell us, who did you want to be in the 10th grade?

Books, Music & Nostalgia

Just a reminder, we're giving away Patti's latest release, Seeing Things, this month. Leave a comment for a chance to win this delightful novel.

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I'm writing this post on Thursday afternoon on what would have been my son's 37th birthday. His dad and I, our two daughters, and four of our grandchildren -- including our son's only daughter -- spent time together at the cemetery earlier in the day. As my husband Rick said more than once, it's not supposed to be this way. An 11-year-old girl is not supposed to lose her father, a son is not supposed to die before his parents. But it happens.
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I'm sure you'd agree, there's nothing like a visit to a loved one's grave site to induce a sense of nostalgia, and nothing like music to intensify it. And I've been extremely nostalgic of late. I've had Feliciano!, a favorite CD, in my car for several weeks, and listen to it over and over. I first purchased the album as a 16-year-old Feliciano fan in '68, then purchased the CD a few months ago when a favorite song from the album surfaced in my head and wouldn't stop playing. That song, The Last Thing on My Mind, was on repeat in my car all day. The words that touch me so deeply these days are from the chorus: "Are you going away, with no word of farewell ... please don't go, please don't go." (You can follow the link to the song if you'd like to listen, but you have to advance the play list till you see that title.)
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I realize this is an off-topic subject for our blog, but it leads me to the question I want to ask. I think everyone agrees, there's nothing like music to take you back. A song, or even just a brief refrain, can transport you to another time and stir up memories that make you feel you're there again, wherever "there" happens to be. You're swimming in emotion, pleasant or not, as if reliving the moment -- the deja vu factor, only you know for a fact you really have experienced the moment before.

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While music takes the prize hands down for being able to conjur that nostalgic feeling, books can too in their own way. I know without even asking, The Yearling does this for my husband like no other book. It was a wonderful source of escape for him during a difficult time of his boyhood. So years ago, when he told me how much he loved it, I couldn't wait to read it. But it didn't have even close to the same impact on me. I just didn't connect to the story the way he did.

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Maybe that's why you can recommend a book that has touched you deeply, much like my song, only to be disappointed that it doesn't touch the person you recomend it to the same way. We're so certain that if something strikes a chord in us, it will strike a chord in everyone else. Right? But if the connection isn't there, or if it doesn't stir up that sense of nostalgia, it's not going to have the same impact. It may be just another good story, and no more.

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So, what favorite book stirs up that sense of nostalgia in you, and why? Can a recently published novel accomplish that, or must it be something you read back in the day for it to take you back to the day?