Category: Writing

Hackney’s Novel Shop

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About ten years ago, I read a book that made quite a big splash in the world of Christian romance. It still comes up in conversation occasionally; it deeply resonated with some women.

I guess you could say that it resonated with me, but not exactly in the same way. I mean, those other women felt validated and even healed of past wounds. I, um… well, I wrote a parody of it.

Hackney’s Novel Shop

The bell tinkled as an author pushed open the front door and walked into the shop. The proprietor looked up and smiled. “May I help you?”

The author didn’t answer immediately. First-timers were always a little overwhelmed by the shop. Finally, her eyes stopped on the large, friendly-looking sign above the check-out station:

Your One-Stop Shop for People, Plots, and Places
B. Hackney, proprietor

“Can I help you find something?” B. Hackney prompted gently.

As if shaking off a daze, the author said, “Um, yes. I’m writing a novel.”

Hackney nodded, still patient.

“And I need… well, pretty much everything. A friend recommended me, said you could set me up.”

“My pleasure!” Hackney exclaimed. “May I ask who I have the honor of serving today?”

She blushed slightly. “I write under my pen name, Faith Tritely. You’ve never heard of me.” With a lift of her chin, she added, “Yet.”

“Delighted to meet an up-and-comer, Ms. Tritely. If you’ll follow me, let’s start with the setting. That dictates the rest of your choices, you understand. Can’t have a Southern belle in an ancient Persian palace, for instance.”

Faith’s eyes lit up. Hackney shook his head firmly. “No, no, I don’t at all encourage mixing-and-matching. Very rarely works. Best to stick with the package. Trust me, all our settings have been great successes.” He moved quickly across the floor to a large, ornate door. It was painted green, with gold lettering that said, Settings and Backdrops. Opening it, he ushered Faith inside.

It was an expansive room, with floor-to-ceiling rolls of tapestries. Faith looked at the nearest tapestry: it was a green-and-gold forest scene, with a large castle just visible through the trees. A crowd of colorfully-dressed people made their way down a winding road to a village market in the distance, past a row of thatch-roof cottages.

“That’s our Medieval setting,” Hackney said. “Very, very popular.” Indeed, there were a few threadbare places visible here and there, especially around the castle, the tourney, and the romantic moonlit bower. “Is your novel a medieval one?”

“No,” she said, regretfully turning her eyes away. “No, it’s a California mining town, circa. 1850.”

“Ah! A popular choice as well.” Hackney pulled down a roll and gave it a firm jerk. The tapestry spun off and settled on the floor, where Faith studied it with a pleased smile. It was all there: the dusty air, the muddy streets, the ramshackle houses. Horses plodded along with fully-outfitted cowboys on their backs (most of the cowboys wearing red bandanas and brown hats). Along the bare dirt Main Street were four wooden buildings: the Bank, the General Store, the Jail, and the Saloon and Brothel.

“I’m going to need a church in mine.”

“Certainly! That’s an add-in for only $1.49.” He fished in a plastic bucket and pulled out a white clapboard church with a steeple. “And a school too?” he added, holding up a red schoolhouse.

“No, just the church. Thanks. This is exactly what I need.”

“Great!” said Hackney. “I’ll have them wrap this up for you. Let’s move on… Characters, would you say?”

They stepped through the green door, and Hackney led the way to another door, this one painted yellow and marked, Characters, Main and Supporting.

This room was smaller, but brightly lit. Several round racks were hung with full-size cardboard people. Faith read the signs posted above each rack: Heroines. Heroes. Best Friends. Master Villains. Minor Villains and Thugs. Assorted. One rack proclaimed, Clearance! The rack was full of soft, plump, lacy Victorian heroines and hard-edged misogynistic action heroes.

She looked through the Heroine rack, taking her time with the decision. She finally narrowed it down to the tall, slender, red-haired one with flashing green eyes, or the tall, slender, golden-haired one with the alabaster complexion. “Just so hard to decide!” she said. “But I think I’ll go with this one.” She lifted off the blond heroine. Hackney smiled and set it aside.

“Now to heroes,” he said.

This choice was easier: “I’d know him if I saw him on the street!” she exclaimed, thumbing through the choices. “And here he is, exactly.”

“Ah, the tall, broad-shouldered, hard-bodied working man, with blue eyes and dark hair,” Hackney noted, and propped the hero next to the heroine.

“Now for the villain,” Faith said.

“We have several popular Master Villains in stock,” said Hackney. “Here’s the rude and shrewd one… No? Here’s the violently angry one… Not that one? How about this one, the polished and polite, sinister one? Yes, definitely a good choice. You’ll see that he comes with three free phrases: ‘My dear, you look lovely; Oh, my, what a temper you have!’ and ‘I do hate to have to make things messy!’”

“Perfect!”

“And today we have a special. Buy one Master Villian and get a Minor Villain half-price.”

The offer was too good to resist. She chose the dumb, dirty, and violent Minor Villain.

For the next hour, Faith browsed the other racks. She finished with an impressive collection of supporting characters, including a Villain-Who-Reforms, an entire set of The Benevolent Family (“they take in my heroine when no one else will,”) a Loyal Friend, a Wise Friend, and a “Uses Heroine For Greedy Schemes” Villain.

“Excellent, excellent!” said Hackney. “I’ll have these wrapped up for you. Before we move on, please look through this bin of Motivations. Our customers often find helpful tidbits there.”

She ordered the Deeply Hurt and Iron Will cards for the Heroine, and the Sensitivity and Understanding cards for the Hero. Hackney smiled, “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Do you have any pre-packaged scenes for my particular setting?”

“Oh, do we!” Hackney replied happily, and led the way to a large shelf along the back of the main room. “Let’s see, 1850s mining town… Here you go. This entire section contains applicable scenes. You’ll see that your Motivation cards have a colored dot on them. The scenes are color-coded to reinforce the Motivations.”

It was a happy half-hour as she sifted through scenes to include in her novel. She chose a Childbirth scene, complete with flustered husband, serene wife, and pots of hot water. For the Hero and Heroine, she chose a Playful Run Through the Field (useful for breaking down the Iron Will, according to the scene’s specifications). She found several brothel scenes, and chose one with world-weary harlots exchanging hard-edged dialogue during their off-hours.

“Just one more thing for now,” said the author. “My novel is a romance…”

“Say no more!” Hackney led the way to a pink-painted door marked Romance and Erotica. This room looked much like the Settings room, but was quite stuffy. The far back of the store was obscured by an opaque fug. “Light romance or…”

“Light,” Faith said quickly.

Hackney walked up to a roll marked “Western” and pulled off a length of bright red. It steamed slightly in his hands.

“Um, it’s a Christian romance…”

“Right. We’ve got those.” Hackney re-wound the red and turned to another roll. He pulled off a shorter length of pink, which was merely warm to the touch. “How many do you need?”

“Well, none of them too long, but a lot of them throughout.”

“Great! I’ll have those wrapped up for you. Now, if this is a Christian romance, you’ll want to look through our Morals box and see if there’s anything that will help you. Self-Sacrificing Love is a very popular, as is Knowing God By Falling In Love.”

At last, laden down with packages, Faith watched a clerk ring up her purchases. The price pleased her. “This is so much more economical. I heard that J.K. Rowling had a lot of her stuff customized, and it was over the top expensive.”

“Yes. I always recommend going with the pre-fab, at least when you’re starting out,” Hackney agreed.

As he escorted her to the door, he said, “If you need anything else, please come back! We’ve got a new shipment of Crisis and Catharsis Scenes coming in next week. Great for resolving relationship problems quickly.”

“Yes, thank you!”

“And remember,” Hackney added, “we have a special buyers’ program for sequels.”

Faith Tritely’s eyes glowed. “I’ll be back,” she promised.

**

And then I wrote a sequel!

First Draft!

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Today I finished a complete draft of my current novel. DJ took me out for ice cream.

The occasion certainly deserved a mint-chocolate-chip sugar cone from a specialty ice cream store. I’ve been working on this draft for two years, and this week I shoved everything else aside and wrote for six to eight hours a day just to get to that last chapter.

Of course, that chapter, and the forty-eight preceding it, will have to undergo some serious editing and revision to get it up to actual “I wrote a novel” level. But I can’t get to that until I finish this.

So today I’m this much closer to introducing the world to Richmal Griffin, librarian and self-described supernerd, whose sense of justice is as vibrant as the Cherry Bomb lipstick she loves to wear.

8 Late Updates

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The updates aren’t particularly late, I guess. But it rhymes!

Interesting how nothing bloggable has happened since November, huh? Well, the truth is, too much has happened — many things that made me think, “I should post about that.” You know what they say about good intentions and how they’re ideal for diabolical road maintenance. I’m just giving up and writing out a list of updates.

1. I’m writing a novel. Yes, the same one I’ve mentioned over the past (sigh) two years. Two or three times, I thought the end was in sight. I got really excited. And then I’d run into a snag that required me to go several chapters back and rewrite. Which is where I am now, having to write in an entirely new event to justify the climax.

2. It’s going to be a good novel! My problem is that I tend to write stories that are similar to existing genres, but don’t quite fit in one. They’re too lighthearted for drama and too serious for beach reads. So in my current novel, I’ve got a young librarian in a small town who has two love interests; but at the same time she’s dealing with the ongoing effects of racism and abuse. So definitely not an easy fit into one particular category.

3. I’m putting this item third, but I really ought to put it first, last, and in between all other points. In January, my kids’ best friend, a 13-year-old boy who was like a nephew to me, died suddenly of a previously unsuspected brain clot. He and his family have lived directly across from us for sixteen years, and he spent hours at our house. His loss is inexpressible. My kids are still pretty numb, and my husband is able to compartmentalize a broken heart. But I go through every day with my brain repeating, over and over, that our favorite friend is gone. It’s very difficult to watch his family grieve, and to try not looking too far ahead at all the years that he won’t be here. It’s hard, and sad, and I wish we could rewind and get another chance.

4. But life goes on, weirdly enough. I can switch from flooding tears to figuring out the day’s schedule in a moment.

5. Some stuff has been happening in the Toxic Christian Patriarchy world. A lot of it happened around the time we lost our friend, and I just couldn’t dredge up enough spirit to care. Fortunately, others have covered it better than I could anyway.

Go here to read about how Bill Gothard of IBLP/ATI had to face his accusers in court. The suit was dismissed due to the statute of limitations, but the judge allowed each woman to speak and validated them afterward.

Here’s the Joy frequently covers the various implosions among long-entrenched church leaders.

You know how Christians are always looking at “our country” and shaking their heads and praying for revival? If you ask me, those prayers are being answered. Powerful men are finding that they can’t squash their victims’ voices like  generations of men before them could.

6. We’re finishing up another year of homeschooling, but this year is different — this year we’re graduating our oldest daughter. I wrote an open letter to her to commemorate the occasion. It’s odd to be writing to an almost-adult, when I still clearly remember her as a newborn baby with her nose smashed sideways from the birth.

7. I’m seriously excited about this novel I’m writing. (It’s still untitled since I can’t title my works until I’m done.) I’m finding space to allow my characters to be that confusing mix of good and bad that everyone is. It’s especially important in this novel, I think, because it’s set in a little Southern town with the usual history of racism. It would be all too easy to write it as “bad guys racist, good guys not.” But I strive to write real, human characters — and none of us possess all of the approved virtues that would make us a full-fledged “good guy.”  If only I could keep the plot from tangling up, I’d get this thing done!

8. (The fact that there’s a plot at all is a dramatic improvement from my earlier attempts at novels.)

Summer is coming. Writing is on the docket. That looks pretty good to me.

Fifty Shades of Fiction

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pexels-photo

Am I coming out as a secret fan of Fifty Shades of Grey?

Well, the books began as a fan-fiction retelling of Twilight. I will say that I don’t like Fifty Shades as much as I liked Twilight. 

And I utterly despise Twilight.

No, I’m not a fan. I did try to read the first book. The writing was abysmal, the characters were intolerable, and having been fed toxic patriarchy in my younger years, the forced-submission stuff made me want to cry. A good sex story shouldn’t make you cry.

So why have I linked to the video below? Well, sorry, it’s actually not as salacious as secret sex dungeons and thinly-veiled abuse. I’m linking to one section of it where he talks about fiction vs. reality, because I think this is an area where people haven’t really thought through things.

I’ve heard many times, “How can a woman support the #metoo movement against sexual harassment when she reads things like Fifty Shades of Grey?” Or any erotic fantasy, really, because the genre so often blurs the line between consent and compulsion. This argument frustrates me. What people enjoy in fiction is often exactly the opposite of what they want in reality. In fiction you want conflict, drama, danger, and uncertainty. In real life, you want trust, reliability, peace, and security. Granted, I look askance at the fact that Fifty Shades was ever so popular because, really, it’s a very terrible series on many levels. But I don’t think that enjoying erotic fiction means a woman has no say in whether her boss can pat her butt or require sexual attention for her to keep her job.

The video explains it better, though. Why do we look for situations and stories in fiction that we don’t want in real life?

If you’ve got time, I recommend watching the whole thing, because he goes on to take apart 50 Shades (book and movie) and explain why it doesn’t work even in the context of fiction.

(Note: I have friends who like Twilight and Fifty Shades. Especially for Twilight, it really seemed to hit people on some deep level while they were dealing with difficult issues in their lives. I have no idea why, mostly because they can’t tell me either. They like it, I don’t, we’ve agreed to disagree.)

Pre-Made Book Covers

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One of the more surprising secrets of the indie-publishing trade is that there are entire sites selling pre-made book covers.

[I highly recommend Go On Write for pre-made, but not generic, book covers. I’m inserting this link here so you don’t have to wade through the rest of the post to find it. But please do finish the post before sailing away.]

You, the author, write your book and go buy a cover that fits it. You can spend quite a lot on them, but most of them cost within the $30 – $50 range.

And I obviously lucked out, huh? Both of my book covers are excellent. Yeah, well, that took a little more “doing” than just buying a $50 digital file

Browsing through a few hundred covers will tell you that the more “genre” your story is, the easier it is to find a cover for it. (If you happen to write paranormal romance, you are set for life and beyond.)

If, however, you write stories that don’t fit easily into any one category, even a dozen pre-made cover sites can fail you. They definitely failed me.

I ended up using a custom service for The Fellowship, but had to spell out highly specific instructions. I even went to the paint store, picked out two or three suitable colors, and emailed the numbers to the designer. I’m happy with the outcome, but I felt slightly gypped that I did nearly all the creative work, while paying $200-some for it.

I couldn’t afford to do the same with Go Right. So I pored over pre-made cover sites. The one site I kept returning to was Go On Write (which I think of as “goon write” because that’s how its address appears). These covers, while still mostly catering to genre fiction, showed a lot of creativity and sparkle.* The mock titles are entertaining as well.

I still didn’t find what I needed. Since I had a very clear idea of what I wanted, I took the chance on his custom service. The turnaround was fast, and I was very pleased with the result. It was more expensive than just buying one off the site, but all I had to do was toss him the ideas and a stock photo. A year later, I came back asking for the digital cover to be converted into a “wraparound” cover for a physical book. (That’s one of his other services, so an extra charge for it.) The result is beautiful.

I’ve also bought three other covers from him. (Once a cover is sold, he doesn’t reuse it.) I’m pretty sure I’ll write stories to go with them one day.

Anyway, that’s my endorsement — I used this service, I was happy with it, so I’m passing it on to someone else who might find it useful. And it’s plain fun to just browse his site. Go check it out!

*He obviously does a lot of business for erotica, both straight and gay, so be advised his wares are not all G-rated.

“Go Right” in Print!

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So how is your Friday? Nothing special here, just growing my collection of my own books thanks very much.

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Up till now, my short stories, Go Right, have been available only as an ebook. But today that all changed. Today my first box of printed books arrived. They’re beautiful.

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The collection is available for pre-order on Amazon, with a release date of December 15.  Just in time for Christmas! Unless, of course, nobody on your list enjoys warm, funny, feel-good stories, in which case I can’t help you out, sorry.

A little peek behind the indie-publishing scene here — I had to set the Amazon price a little higher than I wanted to. Mind you, you’ll get your money’s worth out of the stories. But you can buy it directly from me for a little less, plus get a signed copy. Email me at SaraRobertsJones77 (at) gmail (com).

So. That’s how my Friday is, thanks for asking! Now please go buy my book.

Dear ____, Love Sara.

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Dear Blog,

I’m so sorry. Between homeschooling, writing a new novel, and — you know — living, I haven’t had much time for blogging.

Love, Sara.

*

Dear Other Novelists,

I don’t understand how you can say, “I’m working on a new novel, and here’s my first chapter!” Everything I write is in a state of flux until its final edit. I mean, I just changed the main character’s name and her bike’s name. Just not ready to share anything yet.

Love, Sara.

*

Dear AOL Instant Messenger,

I read recently that you have officially passed away. My friends and I don’t use you anymore, but we mourned your passing. You were the social savior for all of us cult kids in the 90s. I’m not even sure I would have gotten married without AIM access to keep in touch with DJ.

I will wave a sad farewell as that little door-closing sound makes it final slam.

Love, Sara.

*

Dear Other Novelists,

It’s going to be an excellent story when I’m done. A friendly white girl learns how racial injustice in the not-too-distant past still affects our lives today. So far I have two love interests, a narcissistic grandmother, and at least three Jane Austen references. Ha, I see you baring your teeth in jealousy. That’s right. It’s going to be good.

The bike’s new name is Imogene, by the way.

Love, Sara.

*

Dear Enya,

I found out that you released an album as recently as 2015. You were my guilty indulgence in the 90s, along with AIM. I was supposed to be listening to “godly” music, defined by our Revered Leader as any music that emphasized beats 1 and 3 in the rhythm line. (I didn’t make that up.) But you usually didn’t have a driving rhythm line, so I could justify listening to you — despite fears that you were spewing New Age spiritism all over my fragile Christian soul. Thank you for giving me some relief from choral hymns and harp music.

Love, Sara.

*

Dear Misguided Readers,

What do you mean, does my  main character run a cute little shop and interact with colorful characters? Do you really expect me to write cute little bumbling romantic scenes? Do you even need a final piece of folksy feminine wisdom to wrap everything up? Oh horrors, I’m not the women’s fiction you’re looking for.

Love, Sara.

*

Dear Grammar Nerd,

Okay, yes, I know. The second sentence of this post should begin with “among,” not “between,” because I listed more than two reasons. Thank you for your contribution. Nerd.

Love, Sara.

Untwisting Scripture: A book for you

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Yield your rights.

Don’t become bitter.

Don’t take up an offense on behalf of someone else.

If these phrases kicked you in the gut… do I have a book for you!

If, however, you nodded along, knowing they are true Biblical principles… well, then, I definitely have a book for you.

Untwisting Scriptures by Rebecca Davis takes a few “Christian” teachings that have been used to confuse and silence abuse victims for many years, and shows how they’re not even valid Biblical concepts. The book grew out of blog posts that Davis wrote as she learned more about people — mostly women — held captive by abusive theology.

Her tone is quiet and straightforward; she doesn’t indulge in snark or personal attacks. She doesn’t have to. All she has to do contrast actual Biblical context with actual teachings, such as this quote from the once-vaunted Bill Gothard from his 1984 Basic Seminar:

“Just because you are alive, you probably believe you have the right to be accepted as an individual, to express opinions, to earn and spend a living, to control your personal belongings, and to make decisions. You expect others to respect your rights.”

Spoiler: Gothard and the others quoted in this book don’t think you have a valid argument. Also spoiler: many of the people who teach these things either protect abusers, or are abusers themselves. Not a coincidence.

In this small book, Davis untwists a lot of strands. From the difference between human rights and human desires (looking at you, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth) to the fact that the Western church doesn’t know how to deal with grief and therefore labels it “sinful,” to the fact that we are supposed to take up the causes of the weak and abused and oppressed—there’s a lot to take in.

(And it’s not her fault that the chart on Page 59 made me want to fling the book away from myself in self-defense. I saw so many charts and graphs in my Bill Gothard days that they just look menacing to me, like the king snake that’s colored like a coral snake.)

Davis made one layout decision, based on early feedback, that vastly improves the reading experience. She set off the false teachings in gray boxes. It’s easy to identify the quotes she’s disproving… or, as she suggests, easy to skip over them entirely if you just don’t want to read the words. Even I, years away from that bondage, still felt the weight as I skimmed those twisty teachings.

I will say that this book targets a specific subculture. Those of us who sat under the teachings of Gothard, Bob Jones University, Nancy (Leigh) DeMoss Wolgemuth, and their ilk will recognize the phrases and terminology. Those outside of this small circle won’t find them as immediately recognizable. But these ideas permeate American evangelicalism. It’s a good bet you’ve encountered the teachings even if you don’t know the names and the terms.

Untwisting Scriptures came out in 2016, not even a year after I released The Fellowship. I mention the timeline because that’s why I didn’t pursue the book when I first encountered it. I was weary after years of struggling through twisted Scriptures. I thought, “So glad somebody is addressing these problems. I’ve already dealt with them. Time to move on.”

When Davis and I connected this summer over our books, I had “moved on” enough to come back to these concepts with renewed passion. So many others are still hurt and grieving. They need to hear a voice that untwists the bonds and gives freedom.

Rebecca Davis’ book is a voice like that. Check it out.

Good Wives Are Happy

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One of my favorite ranting topics is bad marriage advice.

Here, for instance, I discuss in a testy way the idea that “men need respect and women need love” as if you can separate the two in a marriage.

I also devoted an impressive wordcount to illustrating how God wants us to play mind games with each other. (Bonus: Blatant misuse of Scripture by an author who teaches women what “the Bible says” about marriage.)

A friend sent me a post she found (it’s from three years ago) that fits right in with the themes above. The major feature of this type of bad marriage advice–mostly to women–is this:

You don’t need to communicate with your husband. You just need to stay in your God-given role and follow the rules (whatever you perceive the rules to be). If you are unhappy, then make yourself happy.

Let’s roll out this blog post and I’ll show you what I mean.

My Husband Is Not My Helpmeet… I Am His. The title really takes care of the whole issue, but the author does unpack it a little.

She begins by remarking: “Often as a wife I’ve found myself sucked into a downward spiral of ugly thoughts. With all of the laundry, cooking, cleaning, dishes, and childcare, I at times make myself out to be a martyr.”

Note that this line of thought assumes that negative emotions are bad and must be gotten rid of. Tiredness and frustration aren’t signals to stop and ask “Why am I feeling like this? What needs to change?” They’re automatic indicators that you’re sinful and you need to stop that.

Her husband, the blogger says, is helpful with the house and the kids when he’s home. “But sometimes my selfish, greedy heart piles demands onto him that go far beyond the realms of his reasonable duty.”

She goes on to explain,

I’m angry when he doesn’t read my mind and vacuum the floor while I’m doing the dishes. I become disgruntled during final dinner preparations if he’s reading to our daughter but ignoring the baby’s screams. And if by chance he is sitting on the sofa watching t.v. while I’m still slaving away in the kitchen, you can bet a storm is brewing in my heart.

“Why doesn’t he help me more???” I stewed on one particularly grumpy evening. All I wanted to do was crash on the couch with him. I was tired and worn out, and it all seemed so unfair.

The thought dawned on me in that moment. A gentle, Holy Spirit guided hush-

Okay, so this is the turning point right here. The buildup is a situation that most of us have experienced in one form or another. We’re tired, we want help, we’re stewing and unhappy. Something has to change.

Here are a couple of good options of what the turning point could be.

Option 1: “I realized that I was piling greedy demands upon myself as well as my husband. Somewhere I made up a list of what a properly kept house should be like, and I’m killing myself to keep it up to that standard. The truth is, a lot of the work is unnecessary. I can let it go and have time to crash on the couch with my husband.”

Option 2: “I waited until I was not actively stewing and grumpy. Then I asked my husband if he could help out in specific ways. To my surprise, he said that some of these essential jobs really didn’t matter to him. So I told him which ones were most important to me, and we figured out a way to get them done together.”

As a matter of fact, I myself just wrote a blog post  with a different approach to the same problem. Adam and Eve and the Parable of the Balance

But in the Husband Isn’t My Helpmeet post… I hate to disappoint my readers, but the actual turning point is neither of the above options. This is what the Holy Spirit whispered to her in her moment of need:

–my husband wasn’t made to be my helpmeet. I was made to be his. 

These dishes, and the day-in, day-out, draining tasks that come with a house full of kids- they’re my opportunity to serve him well and fulfill my God given role of being “a helper suitable to him”.

The marriage that God is most interested in, according to this thinking, has nothing to do with mature, adult-to-adult interaction. It’s all about staying in your place and playing mind games to feel better about it.

She adds a general observation that’s hard to argue with:

But when my eyes are on my lofty expectations for what my husband ought to be doing for me, my perspective is way skewed.

True. That’s the problem you need to take care of. Your frustration, tiredness, and resentment toward your husband are merely symptoms. But thanks to the timely whisper of the Holy Spirit, reminding you to stuff all those bad emotions, you never actually get to addressing this issue with a real solution.

Instead, the blogger closes with this sentiment:

Peace and freedom come in embracing the work God has given with joy and a thankful heart. 

Peace (as long as you make yourself be happy) and freedom (but not to talk to your husband about your struggle) come in embracing the work God has given (assuming that everything you feel that you ought to do is straight from God) with joy and a thankful heart (make it so).

Whew. The Holy Spirit has a full-time job just keeping couples from talking to each other. Fortunately he’s got this kind of advice to help him out.

 

How to Get a Story Unstuck

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Let me start with a confession, just to get everything clear and out in the open: I don’t actually have a real method for unsticking a story. But wait! Don’t go away! I do have ideas and suggestions. Which, if you’re interested in this post, is probably more than you have at the moment. Right? Right.

1. Research first

Writing a story isn’t something I can just sit down and get done. Other authors might be different. (Brandon Sanderson apparently can write 1500 words before he wakes up in the morning.) For me, it takes a lot of background research, writing out ideas, looking up character names, collecting possible occupations, and just letting the whole thing simmer in my head for a while. This is an exciting time of development and discovery!

I hate it.

Well, what I really hate is the delay. I want to write, but instead here I am watching quilting tutorials. However, if you get interested in what makes up your characters’ lives and personalities, eventually that will result in a much stronger story.

2. Talk to People

Yes, I’m cheating, because this is technically part of the research stage. But it’s important enough to be its own point. If you need to know about an occupation, a hobby, how to cook certain foods, what it’s like to live somewhere you’ve never been — nothing beats real-life voices and opinions.

For my current Work in Progress (WIP, as we writers refer to it), I’ve messaged six or seven friends for their expertise in certain areas. I’ve watched YouTube videos. I pay attention to conversations, online and in real life, that relate to my subject matter. I plan to attend some community events and get to know real people involved in the world I’m trying to build.

Note:
The research stage takes a lot of time, so you can skip it in two ways:

A. Write about something you already know very well; your research is already done.

B. Fake it and fudge it and write around the stuff you don’t really know. You definitely can write a story this way. Just don’t expect me to like it.

3. Make a List of Possibilities

This trick has gotten me out of Unstuckness many times. But I’d completely forgotten about it until I couldn’t figure out how to start my WIP. I ran a Google search and came up with this article. It’s all good advice, but #9 reintroduced me to my old friend, List of Possibilities.

The concept is simple. You number your page 1 – 10 and then you write down ideas to solve whatever your problem is. You keep thinking and writing until you finish your list. You’ll be surprised at the ideas available once you’re forced to articulate them.

For my problem of how to begin my story, I sat down for my regular writing time* earlier this week, and wrote ten possible openings.

*See my next point about this. Which you would anyway, I guess, but I just wanted to make sure.

I kept making up ideas until I filled up the whole list. It looked like this:

****

Ten Possible Openings
(some written without regard to usefulness or craft, just to fill up the slots.)

1.My grandmother didn’t want to give me the topaz necklace.

2.I was fourteen, it was Christmas Eve, and I was riding around an unfamiliar town with brand-new friends, trying to find somewhere that sold fireworks.

3.When I was fourteen, my paternal grandmother gave me one of her own necklaces. It was smoky topaz, a color that she said suited my ginger hair and freckles. The necklace was special to her, but even more so once it was mine. She often asked me to wear it. That’s how she remembered the story, anyway.

4.Being a librarian, cataloguing comes naturally to me. So as I got ready for work one chilly day in early December, I kept track of the texts and messages that came in on my phone from my dad, stepmom, sister, and brother. Three started with “my god” or “OMG!” One inquired if I were insane. Five overused exclamation points. All seven messages told me to call my grandmother, apologize, and not ruin Christmas for everybody.

5.My life was bookended by grandmothers. Everything else—my parents, stepparents, half-siblings, Christmas in Maryland, Easter in Virginia, growing up in between—was enveloped by the influence of my grandmothers.

Grandmom on my maternal side, my rock and foundation when my life got shaky.

Poppi on my paternal side, the brick wall that never moved, and heaven help the family member who tried to get around her.

6.I wouldn’t say that I grew up with a Good Grandma and a Bad Grandma. I wouldn’t say it out loud, anyway.

7.I liked to curl up in the hanging hammock chair in my living room, snuggled into one of Grandmom’s quilts, and let the swaying lull me into peace. The quilt still smelled like the perfume that Grandmom wore.

8.I guess I like the Dewey decimal system because it puts everything in order and makes sense. It would be nice if my life had a decimal system. I could definitely use a spot for Feelings about The Divorce even though it happened when I was six and I’m twenty-seven now. Or, Of course I love my mother more than my stepmother but Mom could take some lessons from April on being emotionally present most of the time.

I’d need to have a section dedicated to relating to my much-younger half-siblings. And most of all, I’d love to shelve my paternal grandmother. I’m not sure that came out quite right. Then again, considering that it’s Poppi we’re talking about—maybe it did.

9.When I first met Carolina, she was only sixteen and I was only fourteen. But she had enough poise to greet me with a handshake. “Hi, Bria. Nice to meet you.”

I remember the sight of our hands clasped briefly. Her dark skin, lighter along the knuckles, set off my own fair and freckled skin. Even our fingers were a contrast—her smooth oval nails polished in shocking pink, my stubby nails a deliberately offbeat olive-green.

10.When my maternal grandmother died, I packed up all my stuff, left the sprawling suburbia where I grew up, and moved into her old house on 123 Day Street in Delmar, Virgina. If nothing else, it put me three hundred miles away from my paternal grandmother, who was still alive—in case anybody needed proof that life is very unfair.

***

I ran all the ideas through my personal rating system and eventually decided on one. Which one? Well, I hope that when I finish it and give it to the world to read, you’ll see.

4.Write consistently

I kind of have to say this one. When you become an author, you sign the super-secret pact of loyalty that says, among other things, “Anytime somebody asks me about writing, I will without fail tell them to find a time to write consistently.”

Haha, I’m just kidding. Or am I? You won’t know until you join the society of authorship, and the only way you’ll do that is to… guess what?… write consistently.

When I do finally get a draft done, it’s usually because I’ve written it in 300- to 500-word bursts every  morning. Note that, unlike Brandon Sanderson who can write 2500 words while dead, I don’t write a whole lot most of the time. But I’ve carved out a specific time to write, and can keep up any momentum I’ve created. Or even if I don’t have any  momentum, I’m still there to write.

Related to this point…

5.Write anything

Even if you’re not actively writing a story, novel, memoir, whatever — use this time to write. Letters, writing prompts, ideas you’ll one day use, blog posts… Ooh. Blog posts. Yes.

If you’re a writer, start a blog. And then maintain that blog. Who knows if anybody will read it? But it gives you an outlet to write regularly. During the years when I had four young children, homeschooled, and no emotional space to construct real stories, I blogged. It kept my hand in the craft so that when life became less intense, I was already primed and ready to write seriously. (As a major side benefit, we have a fairly regular record of our life stretching back to 2004.)

6.Don’t assume that where you are now is where you’ll always be

One benefit of having finished two serious projects is that now I know the truth. I know I’ll get stuck, the story will tangle up, I’ll hit dead ends… but eventually I’ll figure a way out and finish the story.

That’s not to say that I’ve finished everything I’ve started. I’ve got drafts of two separate stories that I’ve put away for now because I don’t yet know how to tell them properly. But I know that one day, if they’re important to me, I’ll break through the wall and get them in shape. I have before. I will again.

If you’re a writer, you don’t throw in the pencil, turn off the computer, and abandon your foolish passion. You just don’t. You take breaks, find new approaches, and never ever stop writing.

(That’s the in the super-secret author pact too.)

And when I do find a way through a tangle, or when I reach the end of a story, I’m on such a high that I will assure the whole world that it’s worth all that effort just to get to this point.

You know what? It really is.