Tag: creativity

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what studying music taught me about writing

Many of you know that I studied music at one point in my life. This is, perhaps, a reduction, because for a decade and a half a music-focused life was the pinnacle of all my hopes and dreams.

The short story is that after realizing how much I had wrapped my identity up in my musical abilities and dreams, I understood that I needed to take a break from it for the care of my soul and sanity. After a year or two adrift and desperately seeking to fit somewhere, God saw fit to urge me back into writing. As time passed, He gave me the grace of writing as a vocation.

There are moments now that I look back and think, what was the purpose of all of those years of education, work, and experiences?

On my best days, I know (mostly because, mind you, I’ve heard people say it A FREAKING LOT) that “nothing is a waste,” that “God works in mysterious ways and for our good,” and that if nothing else: “it built character.” Cliches aside, I’m at rest with this particular season in the same way you might be at rest on a dragon’s back. It’s uncomfortable and scaly, I’m clinging for dear life and it might bite me in the butt. But at least I’m warm and I can see pretty far on a clear day. Are there other ways to live with the past?

Apparently nothing but the sheer momentum of a selfish decade striving after dreams could have created enough force to propel me into His arms. If I hadn’t invested all of that blood, sweat, and tears into something, it wouldn’t have hurt sufficiently when the dream died. I wouldn’t have realized my desperate need.

But all of that doesn’t mean I haven’t applied some things in my current vocation from my focused time in the practice room, classroom, and concert hall. So in the interest of looking for light, here are a few things music taught me about writing:

Consistency in Practice

In any discipline, the fight to actually do it is the real war. Doing something a lot is the only way to actually get better, the only way to fulfill the heart burning within, to coax the young song or story out of yourself. You show up, and the story, like the song, will eventually get used to your presence and show itself. Don’t give up on the process – in it, you will find life.

Rhythm and Tone

Words have rhythmic and tonal qualities, just like musical phrases. I’m not sure that I’ll ever get close to mastering these qualities, but pushing and pulling through phrases by Chopin and hammering out the erratic driving forces of Prokofiev have given me a deep respect for them. I don’t rely on this enough, but I’ve taken to reading what I write out loud for the sole purpose of hearing how it sounds off the page. For poetry, this is essential. For fiction or non-fiction, it is also essential. I don’t know a better way of testing the flow of your language, except maybe asking someone else to read it out loud.

Voicing

My private professor in college was a master at both discerning inner melodies in relation to top-level melodies, and layering them intricately – and not just in the counterpoint of such masters as Bach. This sort of layering provides complexity and integrity to any piece of music, from the structural strength of a bass line to a mid-range turn in the alto line. As I began to listen to these more carefully, I also began to appreciate the simple nature of most inner melodies. It didn’t matter that it was only three notes. What mattered is that it played well with other melodies, making the sum greater than its parts.

Writing needs counterpoint and harmony as well. The architecture of a great story requires the basso profundo notes of plot, soaring tenor lines of theme radiating out as supports, and the interweaving of melodies between characters as each takes the fore. The concern is balance, strength, heart – and masterful layering of all of these melodies is what makes a story rich enough to resonate in our hearts far beyond its reading.

And one layer beyond this, even, is the fact that simple earthy things, those things that we might decry for their lack of nuance or complexity, for their apparent “crudity” – these are the through-lines that the rest of the story can rely upon. All art is, after all, some sort of communication of human experience, with all of its ups and downs. We can talk about the differences between high and low art until we’re Picasso’d in the face. But until we learn to let the transcendent walk within the pedestrian, we are missing something essential about the incarnational life found in Christ.

Attention to Detail

So you’ve finally mastered the notes of a piece? Now the real work begins.

My professor didn’t just bring intense care to voicing. He also brought it to artistry in phrasing, dynamics, articulation, and a million other tiny details. Caring for these details can be instinctual, but more often than not they must be rigorously gone over and over until the piece is so well-loved that it communicates.

Compare this to the editing process. A first draft is just that – a first draft. It’s raw material, like a lump of clay, or the scribbles of a long-dead composer. In order to breathe life into the tune, beauty and purpose to the clay, you have to work with it. This can be, if you let it, an act of love that transforms the raw material into something true and beautiful. But don’t forget that loving someone is hard, and circuitous, and it takes time and blood and sacrifice. It will change you as you change it. You will grow as it grows.

I know this and I still have to steel myself every time I edit the crap out of something. But that is my duty: to love my feeble words, by the grace of God, into something that sings. And while studying music didn’t teach me how to edit a first, second, or twentieth draft, it definitely taught me to stay the course.

Creating Is Mysterious, and That’s OK

Whatever I bring to the table, there is something I cannot hope to control about what happens in the end result. Perhaps its a crapfest (more likely if I shirked my duty), perhaps it soars way beyond what I thought was possible (more likely if I paid my dues). Either way, the very fact that notes played at a certain speed and velocity can evoke any feeling in a listener is astounding. May we forever wonder at it!

The same is true of writing, as in any artistic discipline.

Our purpose as creators is to steward the work, to care while it is in our keeping, to give it over and over again to our Creator freely, to submit to His guiding and the needs of the work. This is a holistic process; it takes sleeping and eating well, attending to my soul and my body and my spirit. But in the end – the Spirit is the wind that fills it, and carries it to ears and eyes and hearts and souls.

Friends, what a gift it is to create! How can we not give thanks in the midst of such a process? It is right and good that we do. May God except our humble efforts and transform them as He sees fit.

P. S. But wait, there’s more…

This Friday, February 7th at 9 PM EST, I’ll be hosting the second episode of Behind the Broken Season LIVE on Facebook. This is your new favorite live show, wherein you get the nitty-gritty details of how I came about writing the poetry in my new book, SOLACE: POEMS FOR THE BROKEN SEASON (hint: mostly lots of coffee). I’ll be reading some poetry to you, answering questions, and enjoying talking about creative work and life in general. Would love to “see” you there!

If you want to nab yourself a copy of SOLACE prior to Friday’s shindig, you can get an ebook here, or a snazzy hardback version here or here.

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we made a book

Tomorrow, I will release SOLACE, my first collection of poems, into the wild.

The last few months have been full, to say the least. In the midst of all of the chaos surrounding making the book, editing, proofing, working with Josie on the design and artwork, navigating the printer’s requirements, ineptly “marketing” this thing, and getting copies out to Indiegogo supporters (you know who you are and I know how awesome you are), normal life still went on. Or rather, in the midst of normal life, all the other things went on. I’m at work from morning to evening and a dad until the kids are in bed, and then I kick whatever energy I have left into overdrive on all of the other things.

I’m so grateful to all of you who supported this project, for all who made it a reality through editing and encouraging, for all who pre-ordered (which you can still do!)

I did not make this book. We made this book.

taking the next step

Today (which I’m referring to as “SOLACE eve” henceforth and forevermore), as I’m flipping out and flipping through this little volume, I’m surprised at what has grown out of something so simple. Several years ago, when I began writing poetry in earnest, I determined to keep myself honest by posting one poem every week on my blog. This habit grew into a steady stream of poetry, which was then bolstered by the merry poets of the Poetry Pub.

This book came out of just doing the next thing. Or rather, making the next thing.

One poem led to the next, to the next, to the next, until a vision for how they all fit together materialized. From this, all I needed was a push out the door by a party of very generous dwarves and wizards. Yes, publishing a book is a lot of work. But that kind of a journey starts with taking the next step, and then letting your community in on it.

I don’t know who needs to hear this right now, but here it is: make the next thing, and let your community in. You might be surprised at where it leads you.

experiencing SOLACE this winter

So, fair warning, in the next couple of weeks I’m going to be talking a bit about this book. But I hope to do so by creating avenues for all of you readers to experience these poems in new and exciting ways. In that spirit, here are two upcoming avenues I’m stoked about…

I’ll be doing live “Behind the Broken Season” events on my Facebook page starting this Friday (and then probably every three or four weeks or so). These will include poetry readings, random rabbit trails, and Q&A opportunities, all over at my Facebook page. There will also be some GIVEAWAYS during these, so if you like free stuff and poetry, tune in! It won’t just be me bloviating, I promise. Like my page to receive notifications about these, and join me for the first one this Friday!

Next Monday I’ll be releasing a companion playlist to the Winter season of the book. I don’t think I can properly communicate how excited I am about this, friends. I’m a sucker for experiencing multiple forms of art together; it offers dimension and layers that would previously never have been explored. I love that all art is influenced in some way by the art around it, and this playlist is an opportunity to experience that. Plus, I’m having a blast choosing the music…

Friends, thanks for joining me on the adventure!

P. S. Remember, today is your LAST chance to pre-order the book, because tomorrow you’d just be ordering it like everyone else. Be a pre-orderer, not an ordinary orderer.

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hutchmoot 2019 | you’re not crazy, nor are you alone

I didn’t want to go to Hutchmoot.

When my wife told me that she’d bought me tickets because, wise as she is, she knew I wouldn’t do it on my own, I immediately thought: 

“Oh crap. Now I have to go.”

For those of you who may not know, Hutchmoot is the annual gathering of the community of (and surrounding) the Rabbit Room. It’s a weekend celebrating story, song, food, art, community, and Jesus. Sounds kind of wonderful, right? And I knew this before I went to it, because of how vocal the whole Rabbit Room Chinwag Facebook group was about it.

But even though I knew all this, I had a lot of reasons for why it wasn’t a good idea for me to go, ranging from the very real “Linnea will be three weeks out from her due date,” to the also very real social anxiety, to thinking that I didn’t belong with such an accomplished, artistic group of people. I am an introvert, and I hate crowds. I might have been just a little nervous that all of these enthusiastic people I’d met on a Facebook group were actually a super-secret cult that performed sacrifices of Hutchnewbs on an altar of Tolkien novels to Andrew Peterson.

Thankfully, my wife’s good sense (and years of training in snagging Door County campsites) paid off, and she convinced me to drive the eight hours to Nashville and attend.

That first night was crazy. I was tired from the drive and experiencing Hutchgaze, in which you stare creepily at a person trying to determine if they look like their profile picture before greeting them sheepishly by both first and last names. But I was in line for only a few moments before I got a big hug from Bailey Berry McGee and the greeting that would become the mantra of the weekend: “We’re so glad you’re here!”

I could go on and on about the highlights: John Cal’s songs and stories that made me look at the simple act of eating together in a whole new light, the craftsmanship in every creative work, the free-flowing Ethiopian Guji, the Poetry Pub championing each other and the oft-overlooked poetic value of cheese, the total welcome of every face, a list a mile long of things I can’t wait to read and listen to, and the session notes that I will continue to pore over.

(I wasn’t planning to gush. I was going to hold it together a little better. But as I think back over the weekend, gushing seems to be in order.)

Let me narrow it down a little, for all of our sakes…

When I first came in, I was cycling through anxiety, envy, and discouragement. I was coming out of a dry creative season. I had experienced some pretty deep disappointment recently and was muscling my way through it the best I could. In general, I was exhausted and wondering if this writing thing was even worth all of the effort.

What struck me most about Hutchmoot was that so many of my fellow attendees (at least the ones that God opened up conversations with this year) seemed to be in similar spots, or a little down the road in either direction from where I was. Many have dreams of doing more creative work and maybe even getting paid for it someday, and many are feeling like that might never happen. Many are in the thick of some grief, loss, or discouragement. Many are grappling with what to do next, or how to best steward the creative passion within them. We all are people who need a hug, a song, a snack, and the assurance that we aren’t striving alone or in vain. And we’re also all people who are willing to freely give those things to each other.

Maybe it’s an artistic personality thing, or maybe it’s just the nature of the landscape when it comes to creative work — but the sense of companionship and commiseration was truly a balm to my soul. It was remarkable just to sit across the table from someone I’d met yesterday and think: “you too?” It was something I didn’t realize I needed as much as I did, to know that I’m truly not crazy, nor alone.

And if you’re a creative who is struggling right now, you don’t need to go to Hutchmoot to know this. You’re not crazy. You’re not alone.

Of course, we all went back to our homes and communities bearing within us this knowledge, a kind of ember to keep us warm on the way. Hutchmoot, for all of its wonderful immediate welcome, is not a place to make a home. As Andrew Peterson said on the first night: it’s a wayside inn. It’s Rivendell, a homely place – but not the final Home, or even the earthly home I am called to inhabit. It’s a place where I caught a vision for homely-place-making in my own community, so that as I drove those eight long hours back to Middlebury, IN my mind was blazing with ideas.

It was as if Hutchmoot held up a mirror in which I could see myself more clearly: a beloved, broken child of God who likes to create stuff. And then it gave me a swift kick in the ass and said, “Now that you remember who you are and Whose you are, go do what He tells you to do where you are. Here are some tools you can use, and some people who will walk alongside you.”

And thankfully, those people didn’t sacrifice me to Andrew Peterson.

Speaking of creative community…

I’ve been running a campaign on Indiegogo to create a new hardback poetry book with original art. With the help of dozens of friends and family, we’ve reached 85% of our funding, with only seven days to go! If that sounds interesting to you, we’d love your help to boost us over the top! Go here for more info, and thanks for considering!!

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how to create when you’re crunched

As a dad of four young kids, it’s a given that my time is usually full to the brim. When I’m not at work, I’m supporting the extraordinary efforts of my long-suffering wife to raise up our kids in the way they should go, that when they are old they will not become sociopaths. This means that depending on the date, my evenings are as full as my days. When they are not full of children, errands, social events, or catching up on tasks around the house, you might find us melting into exhausted parent puddles on the couch to the Stranger Things theme.

All this to say, I’m recently finding it very difficult to carve out space to create.

Since 2016, when I first embarked on the writing adventure that has brought me to this blog post, Linnea and I have sought to make space for me to write. At first this was a once-weekly writing night at an Irish pub down the street from our Brookfield two-bedroom. Once the kids were in bed, I toddled on down to Irish Times and snagged a corner booth. I would order a beer, slide my computer onto the sticky tabletop, and get to work on whatever writing project was sitting across from me at the time.

Three hours and two beers later I would pack it up, having accomplished what I could and never enough.

Since moving to Indiana I was able to amp up my writing time to two full days a week. On Monday and Wednesday I’d perch in the spare room at my very own writing desk, have lunch with the fam, then go grab a coffee and spend the afternoon at the library pecking away at whatever project was next. I was becoming prolific: sending out submission after submission, writing piece after piece, taking gig after gig, brainstorming huge future projects… and I always knew that this wasn’t going to continue forever. Even though I was enjoying being a creative whirlwind, it wasn’t paying off financially. For the vast majority of creators, it never does. For those who actually make it work it takes years upon years to get to the point of solvency, if that ever occurs.

Someday in the distant future I may be paid enough to create full time, but for now I am working full-time at a great company. I’m grateful. But the amount of time I have to pursue creative endeavors continues to shrink.

Since I love brainstorming ways out of problems, I thought this post would be a great opportunity to share some rousing and innovative ideas for creative people with about an hour to their name, like me. Ten ways to carve out time for busy creatives. Five sure-fire methods to create quickly. Top three tricks of the trade for creators in the crunch.

But I couldn’t come up with a single one.

When the “crunch” begins to crush you

The truth of the matter is that, not too long ago, I was sitting in my car outside of Taco Bell watching the rain, and wrestling with whether I should just call it quits.

It isn’t just the lack of time. We’ve been exhausted for a while now, what with Louisa still squalling every few hours through the night and the boys both being especially taxing and needy. We’re tired, so when we do have time, our stores of gumption are depleted. And lately when I’ve gone to the “creative well,” I’ve come up dry. I look at what I’ve written recently and I’m not happy with it.

See, the “crunch” I’m referring to is not just lack of time. We make time for what we love, and if we are inspired and motivated, it doesn’t matter how much time we have. Rather, I’m referring to those times in life where all of the factors come together — your responsibilities, your lack of time and motivation, your growing to-do list, your dwindling health, your exhaustion, your inability to create anything but crap, your inability to see what you create as anything but crap — all of these come together and begin to crush you.

It’s discouragement, and it’s no game. At these times in my life, I find myself most open to spiritual doubt.

Like many creators of faith, I feel a deep calling to create things that honor God and make Him known. When I just can’t seem to fulfill that calling, I find myself accruing guilt and uncertainty. I begin to wonder if I missed God’s actual calling for me. I look back and question decisions that I was so sure God had brought me to. My sins are magnified – maybe they’re getting in the way? I’m just not good enough, skilled enough, holy enough…

I have plenty of ideas on how to make time to create outside of the crunch. But when I’m in it, I need more than ideas. I need something that tethers me to truth.

You’re a prospector, not a prodigy

I recently received a timely quote from Ira Glass, sent by a dear friend. It’s a truly honest assessment of creative work:

Nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish somebody had told this to me — is that all of us who do creative work … we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, OK? It’s not that great. It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste — the thing that got you into the game — your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean?

A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people at that point, they quit. And the thing I would just like say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be — they knew it fell short, it didn’t have the special thing that we wanted it to have.

And the thing I would say to you is everybody goes through that. And for you to go through it, if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase — you gotta know it’s totally normal.

And the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work — do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week, or every month, you know you’re going to finish one story. Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions. It takes a while, it’s gonna take you a while — it’s normal to take a while. And you just have to fight your way through that, okay?

Here’s some rousing motivation for you: continuing to move forward in your art (and in your parenting, or your marriage, or your life, for that matter) rates as one of the hardest things you will do. Sure, creating itself can come as easy as breathing. Sometimes you’re so inspired that ideas are bubbling out of your ears. But if you’re in it for the long haul, you slowly begin to realize that you are less like young Mozart and more like Tom Waits’ prospector in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, toiling away for weeks on end for the sake of a few chunks of gold.

In those moments it becomes less about what you achieve and more about what you will do next. Will you write the next song? Practice the next measure? Run the next rehearsal? Write the next chapter? Write the next sentence?

And really, saying “yes, I will” has little to do with your ability or your moxie. As artists, we receive the courage to move ahead by receiving God’s grace (i.e. your art does not define you in God’s eyes), and by resting in the support of our community (i.e. I can’t do this alone.)

Take the step

If I were to make a short list of what to do when you’re so crunched that you want to give up, here is what I might include:

  1. Ask God to give you the grace you need for the next step (right now).
  2. Eat a taco.
  3. Write down your fears, doubts, and worries, and give them to God.
  4. Sleep on it.
  5. Talk to friends and family who know you and know what you need.
  6. Listen to friends and family who know you and know what you need.
  7. Take a day off and just spend time with God and in His Word.
  8. Take stock of your priorities and rearrange them as needed.
  9. Brainstorm ways you can make time to create.
  10. Know that it’s going to be hard, and do it anyway.

If God has called you to create, do it. Maybe it’s making the commitment to write 100 words a night. Maybe it’s setting aside 15 minutes every day to sketch a single drawing. Maybe it’s choosing a half-hour in the practice room working scales. Maybe it’s letting go of something that is perfectly good in pursuit of something better.

As of tonight, I’m still not where I want to be. But I wrote this blog post, so there’s that. And tomorrow I will write again. And again. And again. Because when you’re crunched, it’s not about the end of the journey, and it’s not about accomplishment (if it ever was). It’s about taking three more steps, and two more steps, and one more step. It’s about the courage to build a habit, out of faith in and love for God and those around you.

So if you’ll excuse me, I have a taco waiting for me and a blank page I need to fill.

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epiphanies and doughnuts

Writing, at its very core, is about saying something. It doesn’t have to be profound, and it doesn’t have to be beautiful as some might label it. But for me as a writer of faith, it has to be true. When I think about it, every change that happened in my life was connected to someone or something communicating truth to me – by words or by experiences.

I experienced a change of viewpoint by trying out the doughnuts at the Doughnut Vault on Franklin in downtown Chicago. I didn’t know it, but until that point I hadn’t truly had a doughnut. Everything else kind of paled in comparison. That’s a subjective reality right there, and some people would say it’s a small one (I disagree, the importance of doughnuts is gargantuan, just like the chestnut-glazed or the blackberry jelly-filled at DV).

The point remains. When I was open to tasting something new, I was able to receive truths that I hadn’t understood before. They were already true – but I hadn’t realized it.

Layers of Revelation

The illumination of our minds and souls and spirits deals primarily with epiphanies – those moments where something unknown or little understood becomes known and understood. It’s the same in a relationship – as each little piece of a person is revealed to their companion, it’s an epiphany. The word suggests light shining, sudden realization, a vast paradigm shift, but it’s often not flashy or stunning or vast. It’s simple, like eating a great donut or learning that your friend prefers heavy metal music. Behind each epiphany are a myriad of other epiphanies, too. It’s an unending journey of discovery – in food, in people, and definitely in Divinity.

I love this about communication of truth. In essence, it’s about a continual peeling back of layer upon layer of truths, deeper and deeper into the heart of things, more intimate by the sentence, nearer, still nearer by the word. The increments – mind-bending or miniscule – don’t matter so much as proximity does.

Getting Under the surface

This sort of obsession with layers was similar to the French symbolism movement in poetry during the late 19th century. It was a revolt against the rigid formalism of the poetry of the time in favor of impressions and metaphor, and it cherished mystery over realism. Ironically, the poets who loosely organized as Symbolists rallied around a lack of precise meaning in order to capture the essence of reality itself. They attempted to be more real by being less exact.

Allow me a layer: in the simple shift from formalism to free metaphor we can find a deeper truth. These poets acknowledge that our world is more than surface deep – our feelings, our understandings, the matter that surrounds us. It’s as old as the theory of forms and the allegory of Plato’s cave, and older still. Essentially – appearance is only part of the picture. Something exists behind it all.

just sit on the chair

As Christians, this should be our natural state, but we too often act like it’s not. Too often we trade the truth of mysteries we don’t understand for the lie of claiming we know what’s what. Too often we champion our own “truths” instead of the truths of our Lord and Savior. Too often we assume that we are right because we do the right thing or think the right thing, instead of realizing the depths of our fallenness and the heights of the image of God in us. This place is not a battleground for surface-level faith. We must move past debating the color or type of chair and just sit down already. Sitting on it includes faith in much more abstract notions like gravity, mass, design, motion, rest… because the truth is that the things under the surface are also what we’re made for. Someday they won’t be abstractions to us – they’ll be more real realities than what we touch, taste, see, hear, and smell now.

But while we’re made for a new world, we were also once made for this one, fallen as it is now. So don’t mistake me for saying that the surface things don’t matter. My body is as much a part of my whole as my soul or spirit is, and it can act as a window into deeper realities when it is understood to be a distinct and important part.

Faith is not about reducing the whole to its parts. It’s about realizing there’s more than just matter and abstraction, there’s beauty within brokenness, and all of it exists together right now – and all of it matters. Instead of labeling, we should dive into the layers surrounding us with a curious faith, knowing that our God is bigger than our finite perspectives. We should, in some sense, be symbolists and materialists in one.

In other words, instead of debating the merits of the Vault’s donuts over Stan’s or Do-Rite’s, let’s go out and taste test them together.

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thoughts from a two-year-old writer

Recently I’ve been receiving this rash of wonderful wise words from established writers about the act of writing – everything from excerpts from John R. Erikson’s “Story Craft” …

 “My approach to writing has not been dramatic or romantic. It draws upon practical wisdom from ranching: Don’t pump your water well so hard that it goes dry; don’t overgraze your pastures; don’t milk your cow so often that she drops dead. The model I use in my writing is not the tormented genius screaming back at the storm, but a mule pulling a plow, around and around, hour after hour and day after day. Pulling a plow is a mule’s vocation. Mine is writing good stories for people who need good stories.”

to Stephen King’s On Writing…

“It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.”

Of course, early on in the multi-year process of deciding that writing was what I should pursue, I read Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water …

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”

and Neil Gaiman’s View from the Cheap Seats…

“It is the writer’s job to explode, and the analysts to pick up the pieces and figure out what happened.”

I love reading about the craft of writing because whenever I dive into these things I feel this affinity for the person on the other side of the page – like I get this person deeply, like if I sat down with them they would get me too. Maybe I’ll get the chance. Three of them are still living…

I realized as I was reading through these accounts that I have some thoughts myself about the writing process that might be worth sharing. Of course, they would never (at this point) be as extensive or tested as these giants of storytelling – in fact, they’ll only be as long as this blog post – but I hope these thoughts are helpful.

And if not, well, I’ll have written them down for the day that I write my own book on the craft of writing. *crosses fingers*

There were some recurring questions I ran up against in the past two years of transition. Here they are, with what I learned from them.

Can you get rejected and keep going?

Notice I didn’t ask if you’re okay with rejection; no one is. It sucks. But rejection is a fact of freelance life – of any writer’s life – of any creator’s life. By last January I had sent out around twenty or so manuscripts and single pieces to different publications and publishers, and hadn’t received anything back. I was writing like mad so I had plenty of material, but I was discouraged by the responses I was receiving – all kind, but all “thanks-but-no-thanks.”

I remember reading somewhere about turning rejection on its head, making it a goal instead of a failure. Doing this shifted your priorities enough to push past the fear of it and keep sending out work. So I made my 2018 New Year’s resolution to get 100 rejections in a single year.

I made a list, with the help of sites like AuthorsPublish, Freedom with Writing, and Writers Weekly. I snooped around the bios of authors I liked to see where they were published and added those places to the list. And then every night, I submitted one to two pieces to a contest, blog, or literary magazine. While I racked up a decent number of rejections in the first half of the year, I also racked up a few acceptances. When it was possible, I asked editors for feedback, and I applied their feedback to my writing.

Shifting the game from accruing acceptances (a rare commodity) to accruing rejections (an abundant commodity) was what I needed to remind myself that rejection was going to be my norm. Without the understanding that disappointment was going to be a part of life and I needed to use it to grow, I would never have been ready to make the decision to dive into freelancing.

Can you set realistic goals and will you complete them?

Notice I didn’t ask if you could write well. That’s a good question to ask, but it’s complicated and personalized. What’s more important is determining whether you will make goals that match your abilities so that you can actually follow through. My goal of one submission a night was feasible for a dad with a full-time job and four kids five and under. It was small enough that I could definitely do it. Previous goals were writing-based – one post a week on a blog, taking one night a week to write for 2-3 hours, etc. Whatever the goal, small steps can and will turn into big steps, as long as you understand your limitations and realize you have to be in it for the long haul.

It’s the same thing with the Christian life, btw. We all need to be reminded that nothing we do will separate us from the love of Christ. But what we do matters – just ask the sheep and the goats. What so many consider to be inconsequential pieces of the Christian life are, according to Scripture, THE Christian life. Prayer, Bible reading, going to church, participating in the sacraments, living in community – these are how we talk to and hear from God. They aren’t big or flashy methods of Christianity. They’re lifelines that produce courageous faith, and they help us to mind our own business and work with our hands.

Start small, and follow through.

Do you know what you love to write?

This takes a while to discover, but having a general idea of what you really like to write about will stand you in good stead. Early on I realized that I loved story and creative writing much more than other types of technical and marketing writing. I also was passionate about the arts, particularly music and story. And finally, I loved writing for the worship of the church. These are all guideposts pointing me to what I’m good at writing.

I can fake a lot of other things. But the fact remains: if I’m not excited about something, it’s harder to write. This is not, as many people claim, a bad phenomenon. It is something to realize and use. Believable writing comes from an authentic place. I can write marketing copy. But it won’t be that great by comparison to a report about how God is working in the world, or a liturgy for confession, or a story for or about my kids.

And if you can’t find a readily accessible market for what you love, do three things in order: 1) Dig deeper. 2) Be patient. 3) Make one.

Are you and your community supportive of each other?

I believe strongly that the merit of what we as artists accomplish is based on the level of community we let into our process. Simply – the best art comes from community, and gives back to the community. This goes way beyond simply asking your friends if they know anybody who needs writing. It goes to the heart of why you’re even doing this writing thing at all, and if your answer is for yourself, you’re not going to succeed. Spiritually, an individualistic pursuit of a goal will dry you out and wear you down. Practically, without a cushion of encouragers, first-network fans or healthy support group, you won’t even get good gigs.

So consider this – how would you respond to your church family if they asked you to write something for them? How are your words pointing those around you to Christ? How are you giving of yourself – in all ways, not just writing ways – to love and care for the people closest to you? Dig into this community, not for what it gives you in return, but because they’re your family.

Who owns your words?

I have to repeat some big ideas to myself a lot, and the primary idea is that my identity is not “writer,” it is “child of God.” This reminds me that, of no merit of my own, and having done nothing to deserve it (not even writing a best-selling novel or a stellar blog post), I am accepted and loved and valued. Your writing is not the best writing in the world, but it is unique to you, because you are a unique child of God. Your voice has meaning and value, and God gave it to you for a reason. As you submit yourself to Him as a willing vessel, He will use you.

The second idea that needs a lot of repetition is that my work is not mine. Madeleine L’Engle captures this idea in “Walking on Water” when she says:

“The artist must be obedient to the work, whether it be a symphony, a painting, or a story for a small child. I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very small, comes to the artist and says, “Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.” And the artist either says, “My soul doth magnify the Lord,” and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses; but the obedient response is not necessarily a conscious one, and not everyone has the humble, courageous obedience of Mary.”

This is the other thing I need to bump into daily – my writing isn’t ultimately about me or my experiences. It is a window into something eternal. As soon as I clench my fist around what I’ve written and claim it as my own, the work is stillborn. But if I open my hand and let the words live and move and have their being in submission and boldness, the work is endlessly meaningful.

Your turn.

So I would love to know what wisdom you’ve learned about your vocation. Also – what books on the craft on the creative process would you recommend to me?