Tag: writing

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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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milestones and markers: a year-end review

We’ve so enjoyed the year-end greetings we’ve been receiving in the mail recently, those check-ins that everyone instinctively sends out, to let everyone else know that they’re still alive and kicking. It’s a way to stay connected with loved ones who live far off, a way to look back and remember, a way to summarize a season.

Some years I’ve found it very easy to compare the events of my year with others. The accomplishments of kids, the lives of those who make a living writing stories, the books published and articles read and followers added. This kind of comparison can quickly start sucking all of the joy out of the many blessings I have actually received – smaller, perhaps, in my mind than they were in my heart at the time they occurred.

Our year had its share of difficulties, many unmentioned, even unresolved (perhaps like your year). And it had its share of joys, many unremembered, many potent and fragrant as an extinguished candle, held close for safe-keeping, like the family and friends we feasted with over Christmases here and miles from here.

In spite of all that conspired against true joy and peace in our lives, it has never been more evident to us that God breaks through and continues to do so in unexpected ways. Perhaps it is that resolve I’m sensing when I read the year-end stories of dear friends, a courage that says: whatever 2020 holds, we’ll make it through by the grace of God, as we did in 2019.

So what about 2019, then? Here are some personal highlights.

on the home front

In 2018, we moved into a new little basement house (The Grotto), living with my parents and sister. 2019 was spent making that house into a true home, learning to live with understanding and flexibility, and enjoying the three acres available to us in this place. I think a highlight of our year as a family was having an actual garden. We’re still feasting on canned and frozen produce we grew ourselves – mostly tomatoes, beans, and pickles.

But the biggest moment of the year was welcoming our fifth child, Digory John (affectionately known as #digdug), on Halloween. The days are passing too quickly for me to record all the delightful chaos occurring in our home, so you may have noticed my absence on this blog and social media the last few months. But maybe that’s for the best. It’s easier for me to be present when I’ve given up any expectation of having to display what’s going on in a feed. It’s not that I don’t want to share with you all the cute baby pics and notable events, just that I only have two hands and they’re always full to overflowing. And that’s okay.

on the writing front

In 2019, after an extended period of prolific writing since I started this whole crazy endeavor, I experienced my first real dry period – an extremely frustrating season where writing every word was like wrestling rocks out of an acre of hard soil. I share this as a milestone, because it taught me more than any other writing project, about myself and my dreams, about the craft of writing, and about the thing I believe every writer needs most: the courage to keep going. It’s not about recreating the moments of brilliance, it’s about showing up – even if you only write ten words.

But the whole year wasn’t this dry, of course.

In February I fulfilled a long-time dream of mine of getting something published with the Rabbit Room, a meditation on one of my favorite books of all time – the Wind in the Willows. Since then I had 20 pieces (poetry, non-fiction, reviews, etc.) published by some stellar online and print publications.

I wrote 30 blog posts this year for this site, including 12 sets of poems on the affections (here’s joy). Here are, not the top five, but five of my favorite posts from this year:

  1. we’re going on a bear hunt: loss for little ones
  2. jeremiah: eyes to see and a tongue to speak
  3. endgame: a war of fathers
  4. what I learned from 100 rejections
  5. contempt (four poems)

I joined an online poetry group in late 2018, and this group was the catalyst for almost everything poetic I’ve done this year. I went to Hutchmoot 2019, which was an eye-opening, affirming, and challenging weekend that left me comforted and excited about the future.

The biggest news of the year is that I published a book, and you can pre-order it here for purchase on January 14. (!!) I would not have been able to do this at all without the support of dozens of people – editors, encouragers, and family and friends who believed in me enough to make this a reality.

random things I enjoyed in 2019

And here’s a random list of things I enjoyed this year, in no particular order.

  1. This Day (Wendell Berry) – Sabbath poems, best read aloud, alone.
  2. Detectorists. Hilarious and kind and so, so British.
  3. Basics with Babish. I love to cook, and I also love to watch this guy tell me what and how to cook.
  4. The Whole Christ (Sinclair Ferguson) – A big spiritual theme of 2019 was reconciling law and grace, and this book hit the nail on the head.
  5. Mid-90s and Eighth Grade – The grace in these movies is no small feat, but both made me cry.
  6. I Am Easy to Find (The National) – Easily my top album of 2019.
  7. Mockingbird. Grace, grace, grace, and yes, more grace. I love their style, I love that they repeat themselves about the nature of the Gospel.
  8. This Tiny Desk concert.
  9. Chernobyl. Incredibly written and scarily prescient.
  10. Behold the Lamb of God livestream at the Ryman. This concert was pure joy.
  11. Patrick (H) Willems. My favorite cinephile, all around nerd, and contrarian, and his parents are adorable.
  12. Vulfpeck, just all of it. I can’t stay unhappy when I listen to these people.
  13. The Habit Podcast (Jonathan Rogers). It’s good to know there are others seeking to consistently work out their vocations as writers, and to glean from their compiled insights.
  14. Adorning the Dark (Andrew Peterson). This memoir and guide to the creative life was exactly the coda I needed to the year.
  15. The Mandalorian. Because I needed to believe that people still care about well-crafted, fun stories and cute puppets.

looking ahead

I suffer from a rabid hunger to fulfill creative impulses, and I don’t think 2020 will be any exception. I have too many crazy ideas, astronomic expectations of how many I can execute, and the blind idealism to actually accomplish some of them. 2019 gave me a glimpse of the possibilities of self-publishing, collaboration, and good old-fashioned hard work. I’m excited to see what comes next.

But these words have been ringing in my ears all December, and I think they’ve been ringing for a reason:

“But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

Philippians 3:7-11

May this year see all of us know Him, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings more deeply than ever before.

All glory be to Christ.

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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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what I learned from 100 rejections

2018 was the year I took up the challenge to accrue 100 rejections – with the goal, essentially, of submitting to 100 or more publications in a year.

The publishing landscape is sprawling and extremely diverse, but if there’s one thing I learned this year it’s that there’s a seat at the table for all of us, as long as we’re willing to listen and follow the rules. I think the biggest complaint I had within the first month of sending things out was that I either had too much faith for secular publishers or too little for Christian publishers. But I came to understand that the vast majority of publishers aren’t trying to weed out faith or inject it into somebody. They have a mission for their publication and they are responsible to guard that mission. “Not a good fit” is not just a generic phrase, it’s a true one. And once I found my people, I felt a lot more freedom to write what I wanted with authenticity then if I had pushed my way into a different niche entirely.

Here are some basic things I learned during this year of submissions:

  1. ALWAYS read the guidelines and follow them to the letter. If you’re shoddy about following instructions, you won’t get read.
  2. Get on email lists of publications like Authors Publish, Winning Writers, and Freedom with Writing, along with your favorite publications that have regular calls for submissions. Make your inbox do the searching for you, and then keep a running list of possible publications to look into later.
  3. Read at least 5 different published works from any individual publication before you even decide to submit to them. If you get to the know the feel of what they publish better, you have a higher chance of sending them something that matches their goals. You might also decide that this particular publication just isn’t a good fit for your style.
  4. Submit your best stuff and edit-edit-edit before you press send. Don’t just assume that because you like your words other people will even understand them at all. Publications want to publish your work, but you can’t give them crap you just wrote the other day on a napkin (unless you’re Ernest Hemingway – which you’re not, so just re-read and edit your words until they are the best they can be).
  5. Keep good records. Set up a spreadsheet and track which pieces you’ve submitted, where you submitted them, and when you’ve submitted them. Then, of course, track your acceptances and rejections so you have bragging rights someday. (“Sure, Rowling got seven rejections on Harry Potter, but guess how many I’ve racked up…”)
  6. Most importantly, invest in publications you admire and support. Find lit mags you love and follow them. Buy their stuff. Like and share their content. If you believe your work has value and should be out there, be a true fan of other people’s work. Say you get published by a small lit mag. Don’t just add their name to your Twitter handle and hit the road. Submit again (within the time frame their guidelines suggest, of course; see rule #1). In the meantime, engage with their content and your fellow writers.
Beyond the Basics

But beyond the basic advice, I’ve learned a lot about myself in the process of submitting to all these places.

  1. I need community. In the process of researching literary magazines and wading through a towering pile of submission requirements, I began to discover online writing communities that are both informative and encouraging about the process. The diverse range of authors represented didn’t take anything away from the similarities we all shared: we love to write, and we’re trying to get published. Twitter has a burgeoning writing community that supports and loves on each other’s work and provides opportunities to write daily stories. Facebook groups abound for Christian writers and creatives. Not every community I’m a part of now has directly led to opportunities – but they have led to good friendships and partners on the path to publishing, and that’s more important in the long run.
  2. Getting rejected will always be hard. I kind of assumed that I would get numb to it after a while, but getting told that your work isn’t wanted will always and forever suck. But here’s the thing – the point is less about getting rejected and more about how quickly you turn around and send something somewhere else. Submitting to places was excruciating at first – mustering up the courage to even press send on a piece took forever. But now it’s the new normal, partially because…
  3. I don’t need to take my writing so seriously. Part of submitting is letting go of a very personal thing which you have brought to life through your own sweat, blood, and tears. Initially, I loved my stuff too much. I wondered why others couldn’t see the importance and brilliance of what I was doing. But I came to realize that my writing isn’t always the greatest – in fact, it’s RARELY the greatest. And most of the world could care less about what I have to say. But with this realization came a great freedom – the freedom to pursue writing for the sheer joy of it, with the goal of getting better – step by step, little by little. As I repeatedly let go of my work, as I continually let it out into the light of day, I saw it for what it was – flawed. But also – hey, look at that – improving! And I loved writing all the more for it. I came to value the journey of writing and submitting more than I valued the accomplishment of finishing a piece or getting something published.
  4. I need challenges to grow. Sending things out consistently was hard, and it would have been so much easier if I had just stuck with self-publishing things. I have nothing against self-publishing – and I plan to do some of it this year! But sending my work out to objective parties helped me to grow up in general and to grow as a writer in particular. I got valuable feedback and pushed myself to write better stuff, to unearth more striking metaphors, to write and write and write and write. And now looking back I see clearly the areas where I’ve grown, and why growth has happened at all.
  5. I don’t need a platform, I need to love people more. I’ve struggled from day one with the concept of platform – the idea that in order to get your work out there, you need to have a following, and you need to cultivate that following. I would be lying if I said I don’t struggle with it now. But I understand it more – how it’s all part of a large information marketplace that has its own quirks and rules, but that isn’t inherently evil. As I’ve developed my own authentic voice and figured out the ins-and-outs of hashtags, I’ve learned primarily that it’s not so much about selling something as it is about giving something away. Now, even as I acknowledge and make use of Facebook algorithms, I ask myself different questions: How do I bless people when they see my posts? What gifts can I give to them? How do I challenge them? I’m learning to love on my communities instead of use my audiences. Also, when I like or comment or share something from my fellow creators, I do it honestly and out of love for them, as a way to support their art.
  6. My level of rejections or acceptances has nothing to do with my value in God’s eyes. It has been said and it will be said again, and I will say it until I am blue in the face. Over and over again this year, God has proved to me that He is all I need. He has given me desire, ability, and opportunity to write – and out of it He has provided joy in the work of my hands and motivation to love people through my writing. This blessing is not something I have earned in any way – as my long list of rejections attests. I have gained a new understanding of the idea of unmerited favor. In the process I’ve learned that acceptances don’t change my standing with Him any more than rejections do. He is at work in it all, and out of His fierce love, He draws me closer to Him through it all.

I could write so much more about the past year, but the thing that weighs on my mind after thinking through 2018 is mostly: thank you. Writers are nothing without readers. And not only have you encouraged me and supported me in numerous ways – from a like on Facebook to a friendly word on Sunday morning – you have given me someone to write to. I hope you’re not tired of me yet, because I’ve got some projects I’m really excited about in queue for 2019.

So – thanks. I really like you people.

Until next time,

-Chris

 

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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?

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life update: a new season

Friends,

It’s been a while! I’m excited to be back writing to you about things and thoughts in both poetry and prose.

I apologize for my absence from this space in recent months – in addition to moving our entire lives to the rural wilds of Middlebury, IN, I’ve been steadily tapping away at over a dozen projects, including the redesign of the website you’re visiting right now. Here’s the short story on what’s been happening:

THE GREAT WHEELER MIGRATION

At the end of May, with the invaluable assistance and strong muscles of friends and family in Illinois and Indiana, we succeeded in moving all of our paraphernalia (and our children) into a two-bedroom apartment in my parent’s basement.

We’ve adjusted much more quickly than I would have imagined and are loving living with family. The countryside is rejuvenating after ten years living in and around Chicago, and the kids have three acres to run around on.

We really miss the community we had in Chicago, but are not missing the crazy commute and the busy schedule we kept. I’ll share more in future blog posts about what it means to move back here – for now, know that we’re settled and loving it!

WRITING FOR A LIVING

One of our goals in moving back to Indiana was for me to take a crack at freelance writing, and God has provided opportunity above and beyond what I could have expected.

  1. I got a gig doing case studies for a leadership development company in April, through a friend of a friend of a friend, which has now turned into a part-time job writing everything from training materials to scripts – and helps pay the bills.
  2. I have been able to put all of my years of listening to random artists to good use at Think Christian, where I’ve written about Jack White and Kiefer.
  3. I joined the ALTARWORK family with my poem “begin-again.“
  4. I was hired to write the script for Candlelight Carols 2018 – this year, a period drama on the Christmas Truce of WW1.
  5. Daniel Mattix and I got our Lenten collaboration published over at a new choir music publisher: O Suffering Savior.
  6. And quite a few other projects in the works that I can’t discuss yet – but you’ll be the first to know!

NEW WEBSITE

We’ve finally finished up the bulk of redesign on this website, with the goal of making it more beautiful and useful to you as followers. In the time that I haven’t been posting these last two months, I’ve been stocking up blog posts and poetry to share with you once everything was in order.

This space has been and will always be about writing that comes straight from me, no edits or over-arching marketing machine.  That will never change. In fact, I recently dived into my writing archives from my teenage years and earlier, and some of those embarrassing first attempts might even end up on here…

Suffice to say – this will always be a place for the writing that interests me most, and a way to connect with you.

AUGUST PATREON LAUNCH

I’ve been looking for a way to channel and expand my liturgical writing for some time now, and Patreon first surfaced as a possible platform in January 2018. Well, after months of building and breaking and rebuilding, I’m set to launch in early August – writing liturgies for you, your families, and the church.

Patreon presents me with a unique opportunity to connect with a community of people who believe that words used in worship should be prayerfully thought through. If you decide to sign up, not only do you receive exclusive access to devotional liturgies, family collects, and new liturgies for corporate worship, but you and I can collaborate on where they go next.

I’ll be sending along more information in the upcoming weeks. Stay tuned!

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Friends, I’m so grateful for your continued support of me and my family through this whole process.  We’re still in a massive time of transition, which is why I’m so glad to have this open line of communication with you available again. So until the next time I write something on here (it won’t be long, I promise!), cheers.

Chris