So, I had the sudden crazy thought a few weeks ago as I was contemplating my story, that it is really well-suited for the young adult reader. That happens to be one of my favorite genres of literature. Not because I'm too shallow for the grown-up stuff, but because I am fascinated by the process of self-discovery and life change that happens at that age.
For some inexplicable reason, I have a heart to reach the young with the message of grace. I find myself repeatedly telling my group of kids on Sunday mornings that we all have a choice to make. "Oh, that you would choose life!" (Deuteronomy 30:19) It seems simple, I tell them, when you are young, and your moms and dads bring you to church every week, and following directions is just...what you do when you're 7 or 8.
But one day, I say, you are going to be a teenager and things are going to get really complicated. Right and wrong will become blurred. Your friends will go different ways and you will question the things that your parents have always taught you. Truth will be elusive. But, I always tell them, God will never EVER be surprised by anything you choose to do. Even if you mess up really bad. He'll always be waiting for you to come back to Him and that is something you can always count on.
I will never get tired of telling kids that.
So, thinking about my story, I began to wonder...what are teens reading these days? What makes a marketable work of young adult fiction?
That's why I picked up a random book on the teen fiction counter at Barnes and Noble yesterday that had an interesting cover. I won't give away the author because 1-I don't want to poke fun at him personally, and 2-I don't want to peak anyone's curiosity enough to actually pick it up and read it.
It's not that it wasn't good. It was! Well, save for the writer's voice which was clearly an adult trying to sound like a teen. "'Hey, watch it, man,' my friend was like." That's just a sample of the dialoge in the first couple of pages. Yuck. Other than that, it really was good. Like all good writers, this one had an uncanny ability to take an ordinary experience, i.e. talking about things when you're depressed, and describing it in a way that is fresh and unusual, yet totally relatable. "Your words come out like ice that's been ground up in the ice-crushing thing in the refrigerator." (I'm paraphrasing here.)
That's what writing fiction is, really, I think. Taking a character who is extraordinary in some way: determined, brave, frightened or strengthened by what's happening around them, quirky, gifted, troubled, insane, etc. and making them seem human so that anyone can learn from their experience.
But then I read a page further while I stood in the middle of the store and found out that this 16 year old boy is sitting in a bedroom with his friends who are passing a joint around. Ummm....what? This is young adult lit?? Shake it off and keep reading, Robin. He passes the joint on without smoking. Oh good. Wait. He's doing an experiment to see if his depression is brought on by the pot. But sometimes he smokes a lot of it at once to see what happens to him then. Great.
What is this book about anyway? I flip it over and read the plot summary on the back cover. This boy eventually finds himself in the psych ward of a hospital. This is a story of his time there and the friends he meets, inluding one transgender person who is addicted to sex.
I set the book down, thinking it was a little too adult even for me. I'm struggling in my own story with whether or not to edit some of the kissing scenes--there are three, which are never gratuitous, by the way. They are strategically included as tools to shape the character and reveal her motivations, her weakness, her self-doubts, her triumphs, and her joys, and to make her real, which all help to advance the story.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for truth being told in literature, movies, and other art forms. I don't mind gritty, explicit subject matter as long as it's there to reveal a truth about something bigger. As long as it is redeemed in the end.
Maybe I'm just not giving this book I found at B and N enough of a chance but my instinct tells me that there will be no redemption in the end. I think it will just be some writer, albeit a good one, telling a raunchy, sordid tale of teen angst where the "hero" (I use that term loosely) learns that life is all about him and whatever feels good in the moment.
What irritates me so much is that it really is good writing. Which means that there is a thoughtful, intelligent, articulate, human being punching letters into a computer that tell a story in a skillful way. I'm sure he's much more talented than I am. But he's using his talent to perpetuate a lazy truth that popculture has already filled our minds with again and again and again. Since the beginning time, really.
Maybe my story isn't marketable at all. Maybe my writing isn't good enough to get within reach of a publisher. It's alright, I'm not sitting here kidding myself. I do think I have an appropriate amount of humility. I mean, I'm trying, aren't I? I just really, really wish that the more talented thinkers, creators, writers, and artists out there, whose work gets produced, published, watched, read, and beloved by audiences were telling a truth that matters. A truth that we can always count on.
I actually pray that God would open my eyes and my mind to resources, and thoughts, and ideas that would make my writing better. Not because I want to see my book on a B and N table (ok, that would nice, I admit). But seriously, I'm not looking for any kind of accolades or praise, or anything like that. Those are things people crave that don't matter in the grand scheme. I just want my story to be heard by young girls who mistakenly think that one screw-up ruins everything. Who mistakenly think that having comfort and security is the ultimate goal in life. Who wonder why God made them and what they are supposed to do with their lives. Girls who would be encouraged and uplifted by the story of a true heroine who learns these things for herself.
These are the things that matter. Particulary to teens who are on the cusp of adulthood and figuring out life on their own terms. Or am I just totally wrong?
Friday, December 30, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
No time to blog! Too busy writing!!!
I know all my adoring fans are just dying to know how the old novel is coming along....wait, er, well, one person asked. Soooo, I'm just going to treat you all to a little summary of my progress so far.
Before I tell you anything else, I have to say that this has been a strange and wonderful mixture of completely terrifying and supremely pleasurable. I once read that a writer should force him/herself to write at least a little bit every single day, "come hell or high water." Even on the holidays. No days off. Thou shalt not rest on Sundays. Sounded like a chore when I read that. But when I really got going on my own story, I found that I couldn't bear to let a day go by that I wasn't adding to it. I think it's probably safe to say that I've had my computer on and click-clacked away at it every day since November 6. Even Thanksgiving when I packed my computer and hauled it down to Mom's. I'm not joking.
In the roughly six weeks that have passed I have written approximately 60,000 words and 18 chapters in what will probably be about a 24 chapter book. How have I found the time you ask? What with my three young children, my work at church, occassional babysitting, and my house to take care of (I even threw in a little girl's slumber party during that time!)?
For one thing I haven't watched a television show in its entirety since I began writing. Not even Bill O'Reilly. If you know me, you know that he has such a presence in our house that we refer to him as Uncle Bill (not to be confused with my real Uncle Bill). But he comes on in one of those precious hours when the girls are in bed and I can WRITE! So no Bill for me.
Second, there is no idle brain time. That means, if I can't write, I'm thinking on purpose about my story. I have a notebook that is bursting with sticky notes, grocery lists that I have dug out of my purse, junk mail envelopes that I have written on, etc. No matter where I am or what I'm doing, I'm thinking about my story and when something pops into my head, I jot it down and tuck it away for later. If I'm home but not able to write, I'm reading a book about writing. Or reading another work of fiction so that I can study what the author does that I like or don't like.
And if I can't do that? Well, there are simply some hours of the day when I need to be wife and mom. I block off sections of my morning and evening when cooking or babysitting combines with laundry and dusting. Amazingly, hubby has only run out of clean underwear once in the last 6 weeks.
Also amazingly, he has not written me off as a total nut job for spending hours with my mini HP on something that may just prove to be a fruitless endeavor. I think he's secretly hoping that it's good enough that a publisher will want to buy it.
Is it good enough? Um, I'm not sure. Truthfully, I'm not sure. It's kind of in the style of a Deanne Gist, although written more for the young reader. It's not as good as, say, a Francine Rivers. But it's waaaay better than a Karen Kingsbury. But that's just my opinion. I read "The Help" while I was in the midst of writing and practically despaired because I knew it was light years ahead of my skill level. But I'm not giving up because that's just not what I do. I actually used that experience to make my story better. I added a scene that provided conflict and developed an antagonist from the beginning that now makes appearances throughout the story because I so enjoyed the tension between Miss Skeeter and her nemisis, Hilly Hollbrook.
My story is one of those classic romances where girl meets guy, girl falls for guy, and then, uh-oh, something happens that pulls them apart...will they get together in the end? It's got all the good stuff too, ya know, hearts pounding, lips meeting. But it doesn't go too far. As Drew Barrymore says in "The Wedding Singer," it's church-tongue! ;)
There is guilt, love, danger, fist-fighting, self-doubt, being negatively influenced by a shallow friend, a longing to hear God's voice, grace, forgiveness, misunderstanding, loss, and realizing one's calling in life. Who hasn't experienced those things? Better yet, who doesn't want to experience those things vicariously through a herione that you are rooting for? But maybe that's just me. I love a good story.
But it's also one of those "inspiriational" types where God is practically a main character. So if you're not into spiritual things, there will probably be lots of eye-rolling. I just can't spend all this time on a story if the character doesn't figure life out without looking through the lense of scripture. It's how I make sense of the world. I teach a room full of kids every single week how to make sense of the world by looking at scripture. So naturally, a character that comes right out of my imagination would too.
That's all for now. I've just thought of something I want to change in the last little bit of dialogue I wrote. Ah, dialogue. I could write an entire blog just on what I've learned about dialogue! It's not what you might think!
So, until I get another few minutes when I'm not writing, working, reading, cooking, teaching, or caring for the chillin's, wish me luck! Say a prayer! I'll keep you posted.
Before I tell you anything else, I have to say that this has been a strange and wonderful mixture of completely terrifying and supremely pleasurable. I once read that a writer should force him/herself to write at least a little bit every single day, "come hell or high water." Even on the holidays. No days off. Thou shalt not rest on Sundays. Sounded like a chore when I read that. But when I really got going on my own story, I found that I couldn't bear to let a day go by that I wasn't adding to it. I think it's probably safe to say that I've had my computer on and click-clacked away at it every day since November 6. Even Thanksgiving when I packed my computer and hauled it down to Mom's. I'm not joking.
In the roughly six weeks that have passed I have written approximately 60,000 words and 18 chapters in what will probably be about a 24 chapter book. How have I found the time you ask? What with my three young children, my work at church, occassional babysitting, and my house to take care of (I even threw in a little girl's slumber party during that time!)?
For one thing I haven't watched a television show in its entirety since I began writing. Not even Bill O'Reilly. If you know me, you know that he has such a presence in our house that we refer to him as Uncle Bill (not to be confused with my real Uncle Bill). But he comes on in one of those precious hours when the girls are in bed and I can WRITE! So no Bill for me.
Second, there is no idle brain time. That means, if I can't write, I'm thinking on purpose about my story. I have a notebook that is bursting with sticky notes, grocery lists that I have dug out of my purse, junk mail envelopes that I have written on, etc. No matter where I am or what I'm doing, I'm thinking about my story and when something pops into my head, I jot it down and tuck it away for later. If I'm home but not able to write, I'm reading a book about writing. Or reading another work of fiction so that I can study what the author does that I like or don't like.
And if I can't do that? Well, there are simply some hours of the day when I need to be wife and mom. I block off sections of my morning and evening when cooking or babysitting combines with laundry and dusting. Amazingly, hubby has only run out of clean underwear once in the last 6 weeks.
Also amazingly, he has not written me off as a total nut job for spending hours with my mini HP on something that may just prove to be a fruitless endeavor. I think he's secretly hoping that it's good enough that a publisher will want to buy it.
Is it good enough? Um, I'm not sure. Truthfully, I'm not sure. It's kind of in the style of a Deanne Gist, although written more for the young reader. It's not as good as, say, a Francine Rivers. But it's waaaay better than a Karen Kingsbury. But that's just my opinion. I read "The Help" while I was in the midst of writing and practically despaired because I knew it was light years ahead of my skill level. But I'm not giving up because that's just not what I do. I actually used that experience to make my story better. I added a scene that provided conflict and developed an antagonist from the beginning that now makes appearances throughout the story because I so enjoyed the tension between Miss Skeeter and her nemisis, Hilly Hollbrook.
My story is one of those classic romances where girl meets guy, girl falls for guy, and then, uh-oh, something happens that pulls them apart...will they get together in the end? It's got all the good stuff too, ya know, hearts pounding, lips meeting. But it doesn't go too far. As Drew Barrymore says in "The Wedding Singer," it's church-tongue! ;)
There is guilt, love, danger, fist-fighting, self-doubt, being negatively influenced by a shallow friend, a longing to hear God's voice, grace, forgiveness, misunderstanding, loss, and realizing one's calling in life. Who hasn't experienced those things? Better yet, who doesn't want to experience those things vicariously through a herione that you are rooting for? But maybe that's just me. I love a good story.
But it's also one of those "inspiriational" types where God is practically a main character. So if you're not into spiritual things, there will probably be lots of eye-rolling. I just can't spend all this time on a story if the character doesn't figure life out without looking through the lense of scripture. It's how I make sense of the world. I teach a room full of kids every single week how to make sense of the world by looking at scripture. So naturally, a character that comes right out of my imagination would too.
That's all for now. I've just thought of something I want to change in the last little bit of dialogue I wrote. Ah, dialogue. I could write an entire blog just on what I've learned about dialogue! It's not what you might think!
So, until I get another few minutes when I'm not writing, working, reading, cooking, teaching, or caring for the chillin's, wish me luck! Say a prayer! I'll keep you posted.
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