please tell me i'm wrong

so here i am at the christian booksellers convention. it's a cool time for me, really. most of my year i'm writing away in little ole cottonwood, and then powie, i get to hang out with my favorite writer friends. i stay in hotels that i usually can't afford (they give discounts and i pile in friends). i see and meet a few famous people or once-were famous or lukewarm famous people too -- hey, i like them all. and some people actually act like i'm a little famous which is rather a kick. two dear people in my booksigning line mentioned their disappointment over my first three novels all going to out-of-print purgatory this year. bless them, i wanted to take them home with me.

i get to wear all my dressy clothes and shoes and feel prettied-up for author dinners and events. browsing the floor, i see all the new books, cool covers, spot christian music artists, rush over to old friends, set up meetings both semi-important and then just plain fun. talk about the future, the ideas, the vision, the plans, the things we've learned, the things we'd wished to never know. and i haven't even begun to mention the writer's retreat before cba begins, or the intense discussions or plans for my trip to the philippines in november. people expand my world, and i love them and they love me. you see the best of people and are reminded or given fresh views of god love, his grace, and his intimate reach around the world.

and then there is the downside. the convention is for displaying new products. christian products, if you will. though how really does a product understand its need for grace? so, among the christian stuff, i find things that i like. books, i'm bringing home tons of books. and other things too. but then, then, then, oh then, there is the crap, if you will. and i mean crap spelled s-h-i-t. really, will a christian in-soles (IN SOULS), you know those padded things for your shoes, truly help me live a better life in christ? (and i came up with that idea years ago as a joke, and now someone has a booth and product) and then, the scripture mints, the stickers, the flower arrangements, framed quotes...anything and everything you can think up that can hold a verse and sell, really they're selling what it cost christ to die for mankind.
how about some toilet paper?

WHY ARE THESE THINGS FOR SALE? WHY ARE PEOPLE BUYING THEM? HOW CAN THIS BE A MARKET?

no one thought my sleeping bag roller-upper was a good enough idea. or what about the body cup holder (hands-free coffee for the gal on the go!). or...hey, maybe if i put a scripture verse on that. and the thing is, people don't get outraged about it (well some do), but not enough really, cause it has a verse and so must be christian (is this the thinking?). but i'll get disapproval for saying shit.

god can use anything, and will. someone's life will be moved by a mint with a scripture on it. but that doesn't stop the disgust of motives behind it. i mean, enough already.

now, i really don't mind being told i'm wrong. i'm wrong all the time to such a degree i'm forever doubting myself. so tell me, if you know. am i wrong here?

i'll miss cba, the people, the events, the energy. it's been a great one, and i'm grateful for it. grateful for so many things i see in my mind right now, and wish to write each one. wow, i thank god for them.

home in the morning (missing home) and with the sleep i've had, that flight will be a blink.

????????

what do you want?
at the core of your being, not just what shiny car, what do you really desire?
and what do fear, the most? (make a list) when the feared comes true, how will you survive?
what keeps you from the want that is also part of the purpose for life on planet earth? what happens in the next life if you miss the purpose of this one?

at the end of the end of the day, will you have loved who you were meant to love, what will you wish to have done, who will you wish to have known, what will you wish to have changed? will you have loved enough? can you love too much?

questions for me, and you.

god, will you redeem this life every morning and help me answer?

far away

atlanta, georgia.

floor to ceiling glass gives a great view of the atlanta skyline.

flying today, i slept a bit and awoke to think i was coming into salzburg for a moment. had that sudden sense of a place and longed for it.

and glimpses, more glimpses. i feel the need for a life that matters, for a purpose, for a reason beyond myself. easy to let myself forget such need, get caught in the moment.

flying away from the majority of people I love (those close by and those distant), i thought of each one. wondered at the moment i first loved them and which ones i most needed and/or wished for love back. travel always makes me feel small. and makes me want to see the world even more. also makes me long for things i sometimes don't quite grasp.

rambling now. off to bed, but reports from cba soon....

leaving on a jet plane

two writer friends were god-sends in the past few days:
one on the phone from chicago -- just talking writing plans and dreams with him brought alive something that was a little sleepy.

another friend called from an airport between north africa and atlanta -somehow minneapolis became one of her connections. i'll be rooming with her in a few days and see her once a year, unless i make it to the netherlands where she lives on rotterdam harbor. she never fails to inspire.

leaving for atlanta in a few hours for the christian booksellers convention. i will be reporting from there and will include phenomenal facts and insider commentary.

this evening -- family competitions -- i defended my title as air hockey champion, won at go-cart races (okay, i did take off well before the light turned green, but i didn't know there was a light), played video games and my first laser tag (what fun is that), watched in amazement at my children, how i love them! saw a bumper sticker: it's never too late for a good childhood. i have a bit of peter pan in me.

quote: "velour sweatshirts, for sure, but not baby pink or blue. maroon or fuchsia are always in style." from "Style Tips for Heavy Eaters" in The Sopranos Cookbook.

could i live without

could i stop writing? what would it do to me? is it even possible? wouldn't i always be one in my head, mentally writing things down, seeking that perfect description, grabbing onto things said around me, amazed by a sentence or word, or anxious to move my fingers in accordance to a thought?

or does it feel impossible because it's something i don't want to give up? wouldn't it be an easier life? i might be more organized, a better wife and parent perhaps, a better friend and correspondent. or would i? i have lived through things i needed but lost, got up another day because as humans we must, especially with people depending on us.

these are certainly not new musings. but tonight, or rather early morning, they return. hey, a bug is swimming in my cup and i'm suddenly thirsty.

grace and god's guidance to you with your musings.

wimpy writing goals

monday seems a good day to rethink and set new writing goals, sort of the new years day of the week (new years day is never as fun as new years eve, but it is the actual beginning). as i floated on an air mattress yesterday and swam a bit, i tried to consider where to go now. not writing is getting to me. it's like an ache in the stomach that grows, i feel it as i type this. thus some monday goals.

i leave for atlanta thursday (christian booksellers convention) and as with most of my trips, i don't feel ready (though i do need this i think). it takes until that plane tips off the ground to say, "okay, i'm going, i can't do anything more at home, can't feel bad for leaving, now i'll focus on what this will be." since i'm rather directionless at the moment, hoping it provides a little. meeting with my agent and writing friends should help. some help too from time to think and pray and sleep (yeah right, i'm in atlanta with friends). in many ways, life would be easier without writing. but could i live through it?

monday writing plann-eo: 1000 new words (at least) on writing experiment and put together some of the pieces -- see if they make anything. wimpy goal, yes, but trying to be realistic with what this week means.
also, create game plan for atlanta.

"you don't remember me, but i remember you." just heard that on the evanescence cd playing through my computer, liked it. maybe i'll put something of it in my writing experiment.

ambiguous sarcasm or sarcastic ambiguity

sometimes i can be such a sarcastic little twit, and yet the irritation doesn't leave me even while identifying such flaws. i'll just apologize in advance if this hurts feelings. but i have to say this. i just don't understand why many christians often say, "praise the lord" or "thank you jesus" or "exalt his name" or "rejoicing in him" but ONLY when something goes our way. i mean, when something goes our way, that often means it didn't go someone elses.

i'm all for gratitude and such, don't get me wrong here. but what about praising god even when life sucks? what about rejoicing in him when there's nothing or no one else to rejoice in? how often do christians say, "praise god, my car broke down, i'm in deep debt, i didn't get the promotion, my child said his first swear word and i'm rather suicidal today." so often the bad is the devil and the good means we're blessed. what about blessed are the poor in spirit? blessed are those who suffer...and all those mystifying words from that hillside chat.

this wasn't supposed to be a rant, but it somewhat is.

however, of writing value, today i chose this word and it's variants: mystify, mystic, mystical. i just said each slowly and find them of delight. and for my jenna jane, how about some ambiguity, i always liked that word until we said it two hundred times yesterday. any words to add that just sound great? i sure have my list of despised words, but i despise them too much to write them here.

pain over morning coffee

this morning i think not only of the pain we carry, but the pain we cause. this life journey creates it.

i've never intended to hurt anyone, well, i'm sure a few times though i'm presently mentally blocking them. whether from simply not returning a phone call, not reading someone's writing...not doing any number of things to the actually doing of -- hurt can happen and i'm the cause. like trying to do what's best for everyone which is most often impossible and someone gets hurt. or trying and wanting to love selflessly and yet needing love desperately too. or...well, this could go on and on.

somewhere i have lewis' "the problem with pain" though it's probably packed for the forthcoming move. and more scary and weird dreams after my late blogging. weird one was that my new writing spot was on a skinny platform (like a giant lifeguard station) perched out in the ocean. i had to swim to get there (hmmmm) and when i'd finish writing and was feeling brave, I'd jump the 60ish feet to the water (where did my laptop go after work?). i watched a black stingray, then a whale, and wondered if i was brave enough to jump that day. so, analyze that.

anyway, who wouldn't agree that it's worse to be the cause of pain than to carry it? maybe those people who can move on and not look back. i'm not one of those, which sometimes feels unfortunate.

thoughts on pain

for no apparent reason, today i was thinking about the pain we all carry.

i pictured the faces before me from my husband, family members, and a trail of friends, and with each their pain seemed suddenly vivid -- nearly a color or image. then thoughts went to acquaintances who i've often been surprised to find what they've carried, or the many hastily resown hearts. we've no idea what each other has inside. such scars and unhealed wounds. they can't be compared to each other, each individual's experience comes in different weights. i considered my own too and wondered how we all do it. how do we get up sometimes?

later, i stopped by the traveling viet nam wall with my oldest son and daughter and my niece. yes, "stopped by" which felt rather disrespectful. my father was in viet nam when i was born, and i wished to know the names he could recognize there. we watched a man trace the name of someone he knew. i read wishing to speak each one aloud and know them for a moment. what enormity of pain in each one.

another matchbox twenty quote (oh, that rob thomas), "there's no one around who can tell us what we're here for." such could be a quest of mine, to know why we're here. i mean really. my need for christ is part of that quest, but all the old answers don't work for me (such as, "to go out and share christ." yeah, that's worked great, so all this pain has been well worth it). robert benson writes something of this in between the dreaming and the coming true. this from memory and my own thoughts too...but,

can we see or experience light without having been in the dark?
could we know joy without some sorrow?
is beauty beautiful because of the ugly to contrast?
for us to love must we also feel pain, even the pain of love?
is the loneliness required to someday feel complete?
and must we be separated from god to truly discover him or to need him or yearn for him or recognize our need and want of him?

somehow among these, i feel it connects with a required divine sacrifice for human redemption.

wonder if robert benson has a blog? i'd be stopping by if so; his books amaze me.

anyway, i'm much more philosophical silly-putty than any kind of theologian. maybe sleep will bring something more, lately sleep's been overflowing with dreams. some scary, others painful. so i'm tossing thoughts to see what returns.

asher lev

"faith in fiction" blog starts a discussion monday on one of my very favorite novels: my name is asher lev by chaim potok.

if you haven't read this book, you must! especially writers and other artists. and join or at least pop in to david long's faith in fiction for conversation. i'm anticipating. but next thursday, i leave for atlanta and the christian booksellers convention (cba) so might miss some, but hope not much. and cba, now there's a discussion. the reunions are longed for like my best writing friends, one as far away as holland.

today's writing chronicle: a few paragraphs on writing experiment tentatively called clockworks or 3AM. this project began over a year ago and keeps going. i thought it was two separate stories and called them: two weeks and 3AM. then they merged and now we have clockworks, perhaps. fun stuff. no deadline. very different writing for me. a general market audience, but strong redemption message. every one of my stories seems to be a redemption story of some sort. just like my life.
and answering reader letters...wow, that never fails to amaze me.

something musically interesting is on letterman, a rap group not sure who.

night night, cee

ps. hi a.d.

comments

i love seeing people make comments. please do on anything! so a questions after my "underwater," what other places do you feel closest to the eternal?

underwater

i went swimming yesterday.
at last, and how i'd forgotten.

there's a nice lake near my house and soon i'll be moving to its shore, so it's often that i see it. water never fails to hypnotize me, i could stare at it for hours. but i haven't been swimming there since last year, last year when life was utter chaos.

i almost didn't go. my hair was washed already, makeup done, and i had my writers group in several hours. then my seven year old lured me in to swim with him, so i was halfway there. funny how i can sit and consider and sometimes not do what i need so desperately, some practical thing keeps my feet on the ground.

finally, i asked my sister-in-law katie, "do you mind watching the kids?"
"you're going across?" katie knows, we've been friends since third grade and then married brothers, quite conveniently.

so i left everyone and went to my spot. it was windy and the water a little wild. the cold crept over my skin, physical exhilaration. there's a stiff line between air and water; the surface we call it though it should be named something else. it's rather a doorway, but that doesn't quite work either. when i've had a mask, i like to put that water line halfway up so as to view both sides. whatever that line or veil is called or should be, i was in it. lungs in need of air brought me up, everything else was taken in, so struck by that other place, consumed and at one. it's a whole other world, truly a step closer to the eternal, i think. always near, yet completely foreign to the world i inhabit. you can actually hear peace underwater. i'm weightless and have a sense of freedom unfound anywhere in the world of air and earth. friends have mentioned such deterrents as large fish and things in the dark down deep, and sometimes that thought has made me pause. but not when i'm there. the magic of water takes over then and fish or creatures of any size are simply comrades in our liquid kingdom. it's like flying, or maybe better.

on the other side of the lake, i sunk my feet into the slimy, thick mud and felt six years old. staring back, i could see the kids and katie all appearing so "away" and none saw me. the light too was oblivious to everything except it's dance on the tips of those waves.

it was another perfect moment. a wider glimpse. a reminder of all that's right beyond my sight especially when i won't allow myself to see.

and so, no more whining, i told myself as i've told myself before. no more eeyore whining (as a friend would say). i'll swim instead. swim and swim. of course, whenever these moments happen, it seems we come from our enlightenment to be slapped around a bit. the rest of the day had some of that and i wanted to sink into the earth again, so quickly i forget the places barely separate from us. so i hope to go swimming again today. when i move, my neighbors might hate me. they'll say, when does that crazy women ever DO anything. but it's when i forget that i begin to unravel. and my god how i need him, and how i need water.

it's summer, i might just stay there.

glimpses

do you ever get glimpses of something you can't quite name, but want to understand or really see? i'm having glimpses of something more and more lately.

a little writing tip

for many aspiring and professional writers, we've all heard about tightening our writing, or writing tight. the goal is streamlined sharp prose that can be lyrical but has chopped the fluff and self-indulgent crap (you know, the stuff allowed in blogs). so here's a great tip in developing sharp writing. ready?

it's worthy of some attention...

very important...

are you paying attention?

here it comes...

TEXT MESSAGING
tah dah!!!!

yes, i'm serious as both a writing instructor and writer. the world of text messaging has been opened before me, okay, i only text one friend as of yet. but she's funny, and keeps me on my toes. i love that little beep beep on my phone when one has arrived. but then i want to say so much more than i can. it takes such time tapping those buttons. it makes me conserve words, choose wisely, or attempt to. the perfect writing lesson.

on other subject now...last night with eric, carolyn, cassie and jackie wilson was great! we talked for hours. and today i went to a bookclub who read my book -- wonderful women. so does meeting with a writer, talking writing to a bookclub, and text messaging constitute progress in my writing chronicles? oh oh, i DID start a story while waiting for a train (the train came at just the right moment cause driving and note-taking wasn't working well)...the title even came with it called "one missing week." we'll see about that title and the story, but i was really getting into it. maybe my new character idea, billy jean castle, should be in it. puzzle pieces click together in such ways. speaking of, i have a writing process sort of called "the puzzle." different from randy ingermanson's "snowflake" which writers should checkout on his website (rsingermanson.com). very helpful, mine is a little more messy and for less organized more puzzle-type people (will have the process on my website eventually, maybe, possibly).

assignment #1: text message someone as an exercise in writing tightly (you don't get this just anywhere folks!) let me know how it goes.

my life is not my own

this has been the truth for a while and i can sustain such existence for a time and some time after that, but it's beginning to take a toll. then my neurotic side really comes out. already i feel it in the stomach aches while i'm driving listening to music that's is mine and reminds me of all the things and places i want to discover and writing i want to do and depths to explore. i send my girlfriend text messages of SOS.

i'm behind on reader letters too. i can hate myself for that. there are authors who so proudly say they never let a week pass without responding. i so can't say that, we're talking months behind! and it's not that i want it this way. it's not that the letters mean nothing, because they are so meaning-full! quite the opposite. they're so full of meaning that i want time, thought and energy to respond. and then i don't because time, thought and energy have been lacking. for nearly the last 2 years. the last 2 years have a lot in them, dark places and such. stories from others that i still can't forget, shouldn't but they do jade you. my own inner and outer struggles. deadlines that nearly did me in. and such.

i'm a whiner. and i'm distracted cause i'm instant messaging my aunt right now and my mother-in-law just arrived with her two sisters and my son and his two friends are coming home from eating pizza and soon gotta take my daughter's friend home and get daughter to her cousin's house and i'm waiting for a phone call from a writer and his family I'm about to meet for the first time (eric wilson -- read his debute novel DARK TO MORTAL EYES www.wilsonwriter.com). can't wait to talk writing. can't wait to write. the writing chronicles ended so quickly....

the search for eternity and shiny cars

so i need a car.
i have two, both paid off, and both beginning to break down. one has nearly 190,000 miles. one a jeep, the other a sporty little red thing i bought at a steal from my brother-in-law. in a few months, i have lots of driving ahead (kids and sports at 3 locations, at least) so i need dependable and with breakdowns lately, dependable has not been here. i start one of the cars, hoping it will. so i need a car, just one, not two, and suddenly, i'm checking everything out. what will be practical? gas efficient? fun? me? can a car be me? should it? do i care about practical or efficient? sometimes. i do care that my kids aren't crammed and grouchy, but oh, that rx-8 is so sweet and just might be "me." 197-238 hp, 0-60 in 3-4 seconds, cool four doors that open like french doors of the future (http://www.caranddriver.com/article.asp?section_id=33&article_id=7581). i discovered upon buying "sporty-at-a-steal", that a car actually can bring a measure of happiness. taking those curves, stereo pounding, and zipping along (a touch over the speed limit) -- it's exhilarating. i like that, even if i don't necessarily think i should, or that being a somewhat conservative person with an impulsive wild streak is good(i think stephen king described himself in a similar manner which makes me wonder.)

so all this car searching is consuming: suv, 2-doors, 4-doors, car payment or go cheaper and happily have no car payment (like now), V-8, straight 6, a jeep like i once had (a real jeep with big tires and hard top), sporty extravagant, mini-van conservative...my son wants me to get the 2005 Corvette that looks like a Dodge Viper, yeah, okay (he's only a few years from getting his license). it's only a car, i tell myself. but i'll be living and writing in that car, the other self says. regardless of what each part of self says, i suddenly find that this has taken WAY too much thought. i mean, i'm blogging about it. it never ceases to amaze me how consumed with temporary things i can become. i'm a seeker person, somewhat dissatified, sometimes lonely, often reaching for the beyond, the meaning of everything, the important and eternal, how God views it all. then i see a shiny car and wonder, "what kind was that?"

torn between here and there.

when the randomness rises

so the weekend exhausted me and not in a fun way. bright note, i did find a character and named her "billy jean castle." (wonder if i heard that name somewhere, but google turned up nothing) she's a woman in her late 40s, slightly overweight, dirty-blonde hair in braids, flip-flop shoes and cutoffs, and runs with her shoulders and head down while hands move even faster than her feet. i loved her and will put her somewhere.

other than that: thai food tastes good (green curry dish),
the changing sunlight on water is hypnotic,
someone you love getting arrested and making phone call to you at 6AM is terrible.

i need a nap, for a few days.

the writing chronicles begin

so i've written six novels now and i'm still unclear as to how long it takes me to write one. it takes until the deadline, that's how long. i've recently finished a book and it's safely off to beloved agent where we'll look for a home for it (i'm in a publishing transition, at least, hoping it's "transitional"). seems changes are everywhere, me made to move when i don't want to, worrying sometimes, or just riding the wave. anyway, there are several ideas i keep working on, two are pretty much experiments with possibly no marketable value -- these are currently my favorite projects to work on. we'll see what happens there. i need a bit of focus, maybe, but a few months of non-writing-focus sounds nice too. with a big conference coming soon, the fog might burn off a bit. i love fog.

but, i thought i'd try to gauge how long it takes ME to write a novel (or to complete a writing experiment) by recording it here in my shiny new blog. i mean, it's not like i have a following or am here for any other purpose than no purpose at all...it's rather for me i think that's what Lisa Samson was trying to tell me).

so...chronicles of one writing life:
--about 6 hours working on promotion, learning html code, web stuff, email and general such stuff that had nothing to do with stories (and still didn't catch me up).
--that one sentence discovered while driving and wrote down, or rather half a sentence. i'm not putting it here, it's sleeping away for now.
--a quote that moved the gray matter tonight as it has before, but maybe now towards a story, could fit with experiment #1 (titled either 3AM or clockworks -- why am i giving titles to experiments?) "the people we’ve become, well they’ve never been the people who we are." quote from a matchbox twenty song. there's a lot there.
--returned to john gardner's on writers and writing

for the purposes and purposeless...grace to you, and good sleep.

To blog or not to...

I've started my own blogspot, and why would that be? Mind you, a few months ago, I knew nothing about blogs. David Ryan Long's (http://faithinfiction.blogspot.com/)
was the first I viewed, and his was so impressive the thought never occurred to do my own(and mine will be nothing like his, I'm far from that ambitious or talented).

I've no real idea why I'm doing this, or why it would mean anything, or why...hey, I bet half the blog-people say just that. Therapy perhaps? Buying into the reality TV generation? The need to be heard, even if no one will listen? So the list could continue. But my writer friend, Lisa Samson, suggested I do this -- there were reasons even. She has a blog, another I'm much impressed by, and she's such a fabulous person that I'm reading hers all the time now. Lisa Samson inspires me (http://www.lisasamson.blogspot.com/). And so, without reason, what the heck, diving into the deep water, here I am. I'll misspell words, make horrid grammar mistakes, and often make no sense at all, or worse, reveal more than I should. I won't be consistent. Or reliable. I won't offer the best advice. I'm on a straight and narrow path, as best I can, but the lines sometimes are blurred, so I tend to bump around or step into potholes, often. So that worries me. Everything pretty much worries me lately, which then worries me more. A friend once said, "Don't worry, don't do it" and yet, what I worried over came true. So there.

But I'm a blogger now. My words may be mostly fiction, I will warn you of that. Or not. Who knows? I don't. This is a work in progress, as I am. And some progressive work is needed in me, I'll talk about that more later and hopefully more changes will occur. For now, let me tell you, I had a great moment tonight, well, even longer than a solitary moment. An evening with two writer friends. We sat outside on Kimberly's patio with amazing view, ate Greek salad, sourdough bread, watermelon, drank some Chardonnay, talked about the writing life and read Cathy's chapter (she has a great reading voice). It was rather magical. The moon rose up as the horizon turned dark. I could've stayed there for hours, and actually did. So much for a moment. But I'm grateful for it. Thank you God for tonight. It was needed. Writers need one another.

My first blog. Here you are.