Unknowing

Last night I dreamt of manatees.

I'd been in a seaside town, and there was a fair on. I walked down streets crowded with hot dog stands, stands selling artsy things, and here and there a booth where a man dressed as Hemingway would teach you how to write like Hemingway, or a woman dressed like Jane Austin would teach you how to write like her.

I was keenly interested in these booths, and stopped at every one. The chance to sit down and learn at the feet of a master! But I didn't really want to write like Hemingway. He was a fine writer, but his style was perhaps too spare for what I wanted to accomplish.

Whatever that was. I didn't know - though it seemed I should know - but Austin didn't suit me either.

There was even a booth for Stephen Benet. I didn't know there was a writer by that name, but as I write this, I look it up on Google, and there he is, an author who wrote The Political and Military History of the Campaign of Waterloo - back in 1864.

Well then. That would explain his outfit.

I turned and went another way, looking for more booths, some writing style to better suit  what I wanted, maybe help me figure out exactly what that was. I needed to make a plan. I needed to sort things out, get things done.

But the booths ran out, and the festival crowd faded behind me. I didn't mind, because I found myself under a dazzling sunset, walking barefoot on warm, packed sand with waves brushing the shore to my left.

The sky darkened as I walked. I thought how the sand felt like a soft mat under my steps, and at last I lay down on that map to look up at the night sky.

And overhead, I saw manatees, swimming in the sky, bumping against each other with gentle familiarity, occasionally turning a kind face my way.

It was the opposite of a nightmare. It lingered as a tender comfort all day long.

And I don't know what it meant. Just like so many things I do not know about my life. Why some other plan than my own is what works out in the end. Why my life has taken unexpected turns I never wrote in any five or ten-year plan.

But all the while there are manatees in my sky.

John of the Cross said, "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. The soul has to proceed by unknowing rather than knowing."

It probably doesn't have to, but it seems it might as well. My own plans always seem to

Do Not Power Off or Unplug

Today my computer issued this warning: "Do not power off or unplug your machine. Installing update 5 of 26." 

Yikes! Has it really been that long since my computer updated?  Seriously, where have I been?  How did it happen that my writing computer has been silent and I have been unproductive for so long?  Bad, bad writer

If I were my own employee, I would have placed myself on probationary status by now:

 "So...how long has it been since you showed up for work?"


(Cough) "About...four weeks." (squirming)

"Weeks?"  Steepled fingers.  "I think months."

"Months?  Maybe.  I guess so.  But you know how summers are at my job.  Nine hour days in 90 degree heat.  With kids.  All day."  Big sigh.  "It really wears me out."

Silence.

"I'm not as young as I used to be." 

More silence.

"And now chamber choir rehearsals have started up again.  We're already singing Christmas music."

"That wasn't part of your job description.  Why are you letting it interfere with your duties?"

Silence.  Shuffling feet.

"I like singing Christmas music."

 "You don't like writing?"

Really long pause.

"Well?"

"I'm thinking."  Chewing lower lip and frowning.  "I like how I feel when I'm done, when the story really comes together.  But it's hard work.  And I work hard all day."

Silence.

"I've been reading a lot of great fiction.  You know, um, for research.  A writer's gotta know what's out there."

Pen tapping on desk.  "I think a plan of action will help you get back on track."

"Do I have to quit singing Christmas music?"

"Not if you can work it into your plan.  Where's your day planner?"

"Here." An avalanche of books and papers slides to the rug as I dig out the planner and blow dust from the cover.

"Write this down: 

1. reorganize your work station so you don't waste time 
2. set a writing schedule, time of day, days of the week and the month 
3. set a daily word count
4. meet with other writers to stay plugged in and encouraged 
5. read a good book on writing technique

"I'm already working my way through Writing 21st Century Fiction by Donald Maass."

"That's good, but don't get bogged down. You need to finish your rough draft.  What's your word count so far?"

"About 30,000 words."

"That's a great start. Since you have work to catch up on, you should consider putting in some overtime.  Go someplace where you won't have distractions if you can.  And consider signing up for NaNoWriMo."

I nudge a paper on the floor with my toe.

"What's the matter?"

"I sorta don't like my manuscript anymore.  The characters are boring and the story is a snoozer."

"Every writer feels that way at some point.  Once you get the rough draft finished, you'll gain momentum and feel like it's worth telling again."

"How do you know?"

"Trust me.  I've been there."

I feel better already.

"So, sign the plan of action and I'll place it in your file.  You have two months to show significant improvement."

 "Wow, you're strict."

"You have no idea."


 In two months

Is the dark night of the soul without hope?

As we have been exploring some of the darker aspects of the writer’s journey, we have used the term, “dark night of the soul,” without really defining it. Perhaps that is because the phrase carries enough power with just its own words that it is both mysterious, satisfying, and self-explanatory to many.

However, the phrase refers not just to a condition, but to a stage in a progression. Though it is shadowy, it carries in itself the hope of redemption from itself.

Most people associate it with the 16th-century mystic St. John of the Cross, who wrote an elaborate poem on the subject.

Surprisingly, it is a journey toward, not away from, God. People nonetheless perceive it as a crisis, sometimes of catastrophic spiritual proportions. It’s characterized by an acknowledgement of what feels like hopelessness up against the backdrop of often-elusive faith.

What a paradox!  The sense that there is no door of escape in a house whose very foundation, timbers and roof are the bulwarks of a faith just beyond your soul’s fingertip’s yearning and reach.

How many people have undergone this wrenching experience? Only God knows. But we do know of those who have written about it. For C. S. Lewis, it felt like a door, slammed shut in his face, locked and bolted against him, specifically him.

I think of it as the realization one day that your love letters no longer have a destination. Or that all the chickens of one’s fears have come home to roost. 

The hope? I find my hope in 

Top Ten Delights of Obscurity

When I wrote the first chapter of my first novel, I'm not quite sure I intended to finish the book. Writing was an experiment. A means to play. So I wrote for the joy of words and stories. I was virginal, really.

I ended up experiencing enough publishing success (by the world's standards) that my friends and those who thought they knew me, started looking at me differently, started referring to me as the author, like I'd somehow metamorphosed into a new creature. Something rare and weird. (This could be true.)



I cannot tell a lie. It was fun, at first. My life opened up. I met people I never would have met and was asked to do things I was unqualified to do, but I did them anyway. I also traveled more.

I liked the attention.

Once I understood how skewed people's views of me had become, I wished I'd written under a pseudonym. Brenda Paris or Elizabeth Moon were top contenders.

But I didn't. And now that my notoriety is waning, I'm relieved to be incognito while using my very own name.

Here are ten reasons I'm enjoying my new obscurity:

1. Amateur writing groups don't ask me to judge writing contests.
2. I'm just me, no descriptor necessary.
3. People don't assume I'm rich.
4. I'm not asked if Jodi Picoult and I are BFFs.
5. Fewer people suggest that I write their biographies.
6. I'm not in a position to introduce anyone to an agent or an editor. 
7. Hands don't fly to mouths when their verbs and nouns don't agree. 
8. I have the time to use my accumulated set of writing skills to serve my church.
9. I'm not asked if readers can download my books on RapidShare for free. (Scream!)
10. I write daily for the love of words and story. (Yay!)

I'm also learning that I'm enough. We're so used to being paid in some way--admiration, affirmation, cash--for what we do. What I'm content to say is that...

The Color of Sorrow Isn't Blue

How do you lose a child?

It’s not so hard, really. You simply make one irredeemable choice. You ignore the warning bell that rings in your head, because it’s not a bell at all, you know? It’s just the gnat of a thought that’s too easily brushed aside. But in the scheme of things, it turns out that it’s the mother of all bells, made up of all the noise in the universe. You just don’t happen to hear it. Can you imagine?

Since that first irredeemable choice was so easy, I’m planning another. But I’m finding the serendipitous ones, the ones that are completely spontaneous, are so much easier. It’s one of those mysteries of the universe, like blinking out your last contact lens into the sink just as the water is swirling down your vanity drain along with the toothpaste you swished out of your mouth. You could try to do the same thing on purpose for a hundred years and never manage to do it.

As David and I sit across from each other at the dinner table, he pretends not to enjoy his meal. He downplays everything on my account these days. He toys with every bite, as I do in earnest, but he manages to clean his plate, while I don’t even come close. I rebuke myself for every morsel I swallow, for going through the motions of normalcy when things are so colossally abnormal.

I try to remember what dinner was like a year ago, the day before that day, when a little girl’s laughter was always on the menu. I try to remember how much I loved the three of us at the table back then, together again after a day apart. What I remember instead is how much I hated being apart in the first place. When you’re trapped in the dark, it’s hard to remember the light. Still I try. Try to recall what our last supper was, and whether Kinsey liked it. I’ve wracked my brain for three hundred sixty days now to remember all the details of the last good day of our lives. There are so many gaps. It’s a puzzle I work at even in my sleep. Occasionally I find a missing part, and it’s like a gulp of air in my drowningness. I just want to remember the last 3:02 my daughter and I were together, the last 7:49. The glow of Kinsey’s skin in the last bath I gave her, the last bedtime story I made up—because made-up stories were the ones she liked best. Is that too much to ask, I ask? The detectives, who now call this a cold case—as they called the Martin case until this morning—tell us as kindly as possible to accept that our little girl is not coming home. Well. How do you do that? How the—


An excerpt from The Color of Sorrow Isn't Blue, by Sharon K. Souza, which releases October 8. Available at Amazon.com.

I'm Taking My Wild Heart Outside

Roll with the punches.

Stay flexible.

Be dynamic.

It's exhausting.

I'm not rolling these days. On the best days, I bend a little, but mostly I just fold. Fold up for easy storage.

I need to get out of my head. Get away from myself and the stories I've convinced myself make me an artist.

My brain needs a break. I need to get outside and sniff the air. Look around and hear my heart beating for anything other than an industry that holds me in no regard. I'm okay with that: no regard. Likely wouldn't know what to do with it if I had it. Probably would leave in on the lap of a stranger sleeping in a doorway.

I'm a doer. Not a waiter. Waiting breaks my stride. Smears itself across my psyche until the most dynamic parts of me line up into a holding pattern, and I stammer and cry in public.

I am an artist.

I'm taking my wild heart outside. I can't be the creative firebrand if I stay inside the lines.

God help me shed expectation. Finally and forever toss aside the notion of success and instead let me touch the faces of the people I love feel the weight of eternity.

Show me how to travel . . .

Let Me Sleep

When I get to Heaven, I hope the first hundred years I may only sleep. I pray I will see you, yes, and that your hand will lay on my head and stroke back my hair. That you will understand, say "You are so tired. Just rest."

That you will know that I am only dust. The grass that fades away.

Let there be moonlight, and stars.

Please understand.

Please don't be disappointed.

This was a battle, wasn't it? And not just a sad trail of missed opportunities and wrong turns? Tell me I fought valiantly. Even if I lost.

Stroke my hair from my forehead, please. Tell me I served you. Tell me I did well.

I hope I did well. I hope