Dialogue

This week in my Intro to Novel Writing class, I'm learning about Dialogue.  I'm sitting in a Starbucks now (okay, I don't go to Starbucks as much as it sounds like I do... we just have this tradition of going on Mondays when we both have a lot of homework, except this time we went on Tuesday because... oh, who cares!) and trying to pay attention to the kind of Dialogue going on around me.  There is a very unique group of people talking at the table next to us- an older white business man, a beautiful Asian woman, and a skinny young guy with hair that sticks up slightly around the edges.  The older man talks so low I can hardly hear him, telling stories in a matter-of-fact way while he sips on his drink with a refined air.  The woman laughs through every word and her voice rises and falls a lot, almost as though she's mimicking a whole cast of characters as she goes.  The boy's voice is louder and gruff, and he grins when he speaks and when he listens.  I wonder most what it is he thinks of the other two.  When he does speak, it is eagerly, as though he's excited to get a word in edge-wise. The woman reaches over suddenly and rubs the boys arm, revealing an interesting twist in the plot... is this her adopted brother?  Boyfriend, even?  Hum...

Then there are the Starbucks workers.  This week the gotte guy is missing his curly-haired companion, but he is just as talkative and eager as usual- maybe even more so now that he has the stage to himself.  He tells a different story to every customer, half of these stories about his adventures serving coffee with the curly-haired guy.  When he does manage to engage his work-focused co-worker in discussion, it is about things like milk, coffee, cleaning the counters properly, and the failings of the other employees.  Particularly about the curly-haired guy... I'm sensing this is a friendship that goes deeper than mere coffee and night shifts. 

But I digress from the point.  Dialogue.  The Starbucks guy tells a lot of pointless stories, says little things here and there that are mere silence fillers.  They would be very boring if put in dialogue form for a story, but as background to a more important scene... perhaps.  It's a good reminder that when people talk in real life they don't always speak with purpose, and sometimes that makes them lovable, even if a tiny bit annoying. 

for apple trees and honey bees

It is a perfect, sunny February day.  The kitchen window is open, the breeze moving the strings of a bright floral apron hanging from the window frame.  Max sleeps lazily in the patches of sun around the house, getting up to move every half-hour as the sun changes positions. The voices of kids walking home from school float through the kitchen, their voices merrier than usual.  The only thing that could make this day more perfect would be something lemony to eat...

Well, now it's perfect!

It is the kind of day that demands fresh starts and fresh thoughts, and I have spent it in preparing for the upcoming addition to our little family, reading, walking around the neighborhood, and checking things off the to-do list.  This all makes me think that if only I could live in a sunny climate, I would be happy, productive and interesting every day, though I know this is far from the truth.  In fact, it seems that the more we hang our happiness on something, the less likely that thing is to ever truly satisfy us.  Besides, I would never appreciate days like today as much if they happened all the time!

If anyone is looking for an interesting read, particularly for teenage girls, I would recommend Sarah Dessen's book "Along for the Ride."  I'm about half-way through it, and though the main character does make a bad choice close to the beginning, her behavior is not condoned and the incident is not described at all.  I appreciate that cleanness about Sarah Dessen's books (this is the third I've read so far), but even more so I appreciate how her female characters find themselves without either falling hopelessly in love or having any kind of feministic empowering experience.  God is sadly missing, but the message is oddly more along the lines of what I would want my girls to be reading than many Christian books of the same genre.  Not that I have read all that many Christian YA books... if anyone has suggestions for some good ones, I'd love to check them out!

Well, that's about all I have for my "writer's journal" this week... off to finish up some homework and then set to work on a egg-sandwich dinner to be shared with some friends.  Enjoy the rest of this beautiful day!

Things to say

Well, here I am, writing a blog post.

I recognize that I don't have many readers over here anymore, which is awesome, because my ramblings become more boring as I go on.  And now I have a school assignment to keep a writer's journal, which is simply too much for me given all the other kinds of journals I already keep.  So I'm going to try to blog once a week instead... we'll see how that goes.

I must confess, the concept of a writer's journal is largely lost on me.  My sister has one, and she writes things in it like, "Red is the best color for a car," and "What if there was a story about a giant who didn't like eating goats like all the other giants?"  This means that when various inspirational thoughts occur to her she actually has the energy to go find her notebook, open it, find a working pen, and write her thought down.  This is where it breaks down for me.

Also, it seems the older I get the less I enjoy writing as an outlet.  It's still an awesome hobby, but I wouldn't think of myself as necessarily an artsy-fartsy person who likes to do things like sit in a Starbucks and write about the smell of coffee and the Arabic couple arguing at the next table over.  I guess it's part of settling into wife-hood and facing impending mother-hood...  everything must have it's box, and if the boxes start running over and falling into each other, chaos ensues!  So I'm a writer when I sit down to do an assignment or to work on my manuscript, but not when I get up to unload the dishwasher.  I'm going to go ahead and accept that this does not make me a terrible person, just a boring one.

But, since I have the excuse of this being an assignment, I might as well mention that I actually am at a Starbucks right now, and there actually is an Arabic couple arguing at the next table.  At least, I think they're arguing- it's hard to tell since they aren't speaking English all the time.  Looking at them is in a sense familiar to me now, since I live in SeaTac where it's unusual to see a white person walking down the street.  And yet, I was just learning in my novel writing class that it's essential to be able to write about people who are different from you, and I know I would be totally incapable of writing about the lives of someone like that without doing a LOT of research.  Isn't it so interesting that we live side-by-side with people we know absolutely nothing about, people who's lives we couldn't even imagine by looking at them?

Also, at this Starbucks there are two workers, the same two workers who are almost always here when we come in the evening.  They are quite a pair.  One of them is a big tall guy with a major head of curly hair, whose church I've actually gone to a couple of times- though he doesn't remember me.  It's weird because he's friends with a lot of my friends and he's the popular type, so I used to hear about him a lot.  Every time I come in he's leaning over the counter talking to someone, usually a female someone.  He's the kind of person who wears his heart on his sleeve and is pretty much always happy, and always in love.  It's weird to order coffee from someone whom you know a lot about.  Last week I was dying to ask him if he was still with the girl he was apparently so head-over-heels in love with in High School.  Can you imagine the look on his face?

The other guy is shorter and thinner, with a very distinguishing (not to be confused with distinguished) goatee.  Yikes, he's sweeping behind me right now... I hope he doesn't look up at my screen! He's the music-lover, the indie one- but the two are both very vocal and have very creative vocabulary choices.  They don't talk like most mid-20 year old co-workers, they are interesting and engaging.  It's kind of refreshing, actually.

What is life?

Is it the ability to grow? To Breathe? To feel? To have a soul?

So much of this life slips by unnoticed.  We don't realize that all of our coming and going and stopping and starting equals living, until that time is passed. Then a wave of nostalgia can take us back to something as simple as a dish we've washed a thousand times or a pair of shoes filled with signatures.  We don't realize we're making memories, but we always are.  We don't realize that we have made beloved friends until they are taken from us.

Is it living more to experience things beyond mere happenstance?  Would it be better to plot and plan out memories, with pictures and books full of words to remember them by? Does it make it easier when the real thing disapears?  I don't think so.  But there's a certain guilt that comes from staying home too many days in a row, spending evenings amid books and in the kitchen instead of with the people we love.

As with many things, I suspect the best path is somewhere in-between.  I didn't make any new years resolutions this year, but perhaps a good one would have been to seize each and every moment- weather small or large- and live it to God's glory.  It is not enough to wade through life as though it is only a drugery, nor is it sufficient to try to fly from mountain peak to mountain peak.

For life is not about finding happiness.  Neither is it all losses and crosses.  It is a conglomeration of moments strung out into hours, days, and weeks that make up our years, and those years are shockingly few in number.  How we spend those years is not really up to us.  One day we will look back, and it will all seem like a breath.

So don't let a moment slip by un-lived!

Walk by the Spirit

"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.  For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do."  Galatians 5:16-17

This is the memory verse that is next up to bat for me on my phones nifty scripture memory application.  Which means that I typed it in myself some weeks ago, though I don't remember what my thoughts were at the time.  When it came up on the screen Saturday morning, I was struck by how simple and yet how powerful of a message is contained in these two little verses.  At first glance, it seems to be a simple prohibition against living in the flesh- in other words, living for the here and now and satisfying the sinful desires of the natural man (or woman).  

But after looking at it again, I realize that the passage tells us not just what to do, but how to do it.  Which is awesome, because it answers to the promise in 1 Corinthians 10:13 - "There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above that you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it."  What is our way of escape?  Living by the Spirit.

What does this mean?  Matthew Henry says, "By the Spirit here may be meant either the Holy Spirit himself... or that gracious principle which he implants in the souls of His people and which lusts against the flesh."  

And how do we accomplish living by the Spirit?  Matthew Henry again: "The best antidote against the poison of sin is to walk in the Spirit, to be much in conversing with spiritual things, to mind the things of the soul, which is the spiritual part of man, more than those of the body, which is his carnal part, to commit ourselves to the guidance of the Word, wherein the Holy Spirit makes known the will of God concerning us, and in the way of our duty to act in a dependence on His aids and influences."

So basically we are to live in a spiritual state of mind all the time.  Christianity is not a on-again off-again thing- and it's not enough to have devotions once a day and go to church once a week, either.  If we are to live by the Spirit, we must zealously pursue spiritual things until our hearts are in it. We are to live in a constant state of dependence on God, which is the only way to really escape sin.  

It makes me think of a passage from Stepping Heavenward that talks about committing even the smallest of daily actions to God, as a way of checking that we stay within His will.  It seems this would also be a good way to keep from slipping into a worldly state of mind.  Of course, I don't mean, and I'm sure that Matthew Henry and Paul didn't mean, that we are to walk around with long faces and pray for hours a day. Rather we should live with a joyful awareness of God's presence and prayerful submission to His will at ALL times.  

I think of how often during a day I think of things I want to say to my husband.  Can you imagine if we set up fifteen minutes each morning to be our only talking time for the whole day? Our relationship would fall apart, and love would cease to grow between us with so little to go on!  How much more should I talk to God.  As hard as this goal is to accomplish, I can only the blessings that would come if I could ever learn to truly walk by the Spirit.

Sneak Peak

This month I have been incredibly blessed both by the things I've been learning and doing in school, and enough extra time to participate in NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.  Here is a very short story I wrote for school using characters from my novel.  Constructive criticism is welcome!

            The day before my first audition finally came.  I felt as though I was walking on air.  Adam said this was a literal truth, as I practiced my kicks and jumps in the hallways at school. “I just hope I’ll never have to hear ‘Danced All Night’ again once this is finished,” he added, referring to the song I’d been working on with my voice teacher.  But then he smiled his one-sided smile and bumped his shoulder against mine.

            “I really do appreciate all the help and support,” I told him, slipping my hand into his as we headed towards the high school cafeteria.  “You are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.”

            “I know,” Adam grinned.  He tried hard to come across as tough by keeping his red hair a tousled mess and delivering snarky one-liners at every opportunity.  But he ruined the effect by dating me.  I was a home grown country gal with honey-blonde hair and an addiction to vintage 50’s clothing. 

            After school, Adam dropped me off at the big blue farmhouse where my family and I had lived all my life.  I waved goodbye to him on the front porch, then paused to breathe in the scent of pine and growing things.  It was so beautiful here, with the expanse of sky overhead and the trees hemming us in on all sides.  It made me wonder why I so desperately craved the flashing lights and crowded rooms of stage life.  With that thought, a rush of nervousness for tomorrow washed over me.  There was only one cure for that kind of anxiety, and I knew exactly what it was.

            I turned and went inside, the screen door banging shut behind me.  Mom was in the kitchen, and I greeted her hurriedly before rushing up the narrow stair way to my attic bedroom.  The little room had a wooden ceiling that came to a point in the middle and was wall covered in blue and red wallpaper from my childhood.  I tossed my backpack on the bed and grabbed a bulging folder of CD’s from the window seat, flipping through them until I found one labeled “SONGS TO SING AND DANCE TO” in pink sharpie.  This I put into the boom box on the floor, plugging in my headphones and putting them on over my hair.

As the first couple of notes of a Mahalia Jackson gospel tune began to play, they had a kind of healing effect on me.  I picked up the CD player and drug it over to the vanity table where my makeup and cosmetics sat, tilting the mirror back so that I could see myself in the reflection.  I grabbed a bottle of hair spray to use as a make-shift microphone and began to sing into it, belting out each note with reckless abandon.  I didn’t care that it probably sounded terrible at first, I just sang to release the built up tension and excitement in me. 

After that it was a Disney love song, followed by a classic Kelly Clarkston don’t-mess-with-me tune.  As I sang, I played all the parts, from self-righteous gospel singer to Princess to empowered female pop star.  It wasn’t that I was acting; I was feeling through the music.  In the space of half an hour I traveled through time to many different parts of the world, and to some worlds that didn’t even exist.  And as I became those other girls, it was as though I could feel everything they felt.  Almost as though I was making up the words rather than reciting them from memory.

By the time the CD finally skidded to a halt, I was exhausted.  In the sudden silence that followed, I sank onto the stool in front of the vanity and looked at my flushed face.  It no longer seemed such a sacrifice to walk away from one cozy life in the woods.  On stage I could live countless lives and stories, and be countless different people.  Perhaps there were nobler callings, but this was the truest part of me.

            The next day Adam picked me up at ten o’clock and drove me to Federal Way for my audition. “I’ll be right here waiting for you,” he told me as we parted ways in the parking lot.  We were at a local High School, and the place seemed eerie without any students in it.  I followed the sound of a piano to the theatre, which was much bigger than our school’s auditorium.  The room was mostly black, with a spotlight on the stage.  I slid into the front row and waited for my turn to sing.

            “Allison Morris?” they called at last.

            “Here,” I squeaked, scrambling to my feet. 

            “You’re next,” said the director, a middle-aged woman with a striped scarf wrapped around her neck.

            I hurried up the steps to the stage and stepped into the spot light.

            They asked me what I was going to sing, and I answered while handing the sheet music to the pianist. 

            “Miss Morris,” asked the director, peering out at me from behind a desk set up in the center isle.  A small lamp lightered her face from below, casting odd shadows across her cheeks.  “Why do you want to play the roll of Eliza Doolittle?”

            “I don’t want to play anything,” I replied.  “I just want to BE her, for a little while.”

            “Very good,” she replied, smiling a little.  “Let’s see how you do.”

            The pianist began to play, and I opened my mouth and transformed.

Six Reasons Why

As I look out my window on this election morning, I see piles and piles of leaves blanketing the ground and a light fog hanging over the rooftops of this town.  It is a magical sight, and makes me think of waking up at my parent's house on Thanksgiving morning to the smell of cooking turkey and the sound of the parade on TV.  Every season of the year has it's magic, but none is greater than this.

And as I eagerly await the results of this election, more out of curiosity than any kind of strong hope one way or the other, my sluggish mind is trying to wrap its self around post-modern ideas about writing as presented in my online classes.  It's the last thing I want to be doing right now.  Falling asleep next to the space heater, reading some C.S. Lewis, or bundling up for a run in the crisp fall air sound far more appealing.  But I know that I'm learning a lot at this school, both by way of technical craft and by way of philosophy, if only by learning exactly what I am not.  So before I go back to competing with far greater minds than mine on the online discussion boards, I feel the need to establish very clearly why it is that I write.

I write to capture beauty.

Philippians 4:8 - "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy- meditate on these things."

I understand that life is not all sunshine and roses.  Indeed if it were, there would be no such thing as plot!  Grief, suffering, physical pain, emotional pain, and war all have their place in the tales of this world.  Writing about these things in order to make a point is all well and good, but I will not explore scenes of misery, death, decay, and disorder merely for the sake of exploring them.  There is always hope in this world, because Christ came to save sinners. I want to find the beauty in things and capture them in words, transporting readers to a world which is broken, but worth saving- just like ours.

I write to move people.
Words are powerful, and the right story can help us to deal with things that we have trouble facing in real life.  Emotions aren't everything, but they can also lead to actions, and if I can inspire just a few people to have more hope, faith, or joy in this life than I will be satisfied.

I write to show the triumph of good over evil.
It might be cliche, but I've read too many books and seen too many movies where the line between good and evil is blurred.  Main characters have serious character flaws, all in the name of realism, but they are excusable because of his ultimate triumph.  The bad guy is only a few shades darker than the hero, or perhaps in the end he was a better man all together. These are not the kinds of stories I want my children to grow up reading!  I wish more people would write stories about the knight in shinning armor, who struggles against the evil within him but ultimately does what is right.

I write for a healthy escape.
For now, the escape is for me, but maybe someday it will provide escape for others, too. I'm not one to bash social media, but I do think we live in a time where the temptation to waste time is paramount.  Engaging in stories keeps my mind sharp and imagination fresh, which is profitable in it's place.  It also helps to keep me sane in a world of to-do lists and endless engagements.  Too much reality isn't good for anyone!

I write to provoke thought.
Novels may not be the best forum for preaching, but they can be a sort of "trojan horse" to convey important ethical, moral, and Biblical lessons.  I hope not just to write fluff which tickles the fancy of the reader- I want to leave them with something to chew on.

And last but not least...

I write to reflect the glory of God.
Our God is a God of beauty, of creation, of imagination, and of stories.  The first and most fundamental plot structure is that of this world- created, fallen, redeemed, and one day, restored.  I recognize that there may be far more important tasks which God may have for me to do than writing stories, and I certainly don't think of this as a heavenly calling or anything like that.  But I believe it glorifies Him when His created beings exercise the creative capacity He gave us to create things that magnify His creation, His work, and His person. I hope that the things that I write will cause my own heart and the hearts of others to love Him more!