I go through these little seasons where I’ll read all middle grade fiction or all adult fiction or all young adult fiction. Recently I’ve been on a bit of a young adult fiction kick, so I’ve finished a couple of young adult books that I thought I’d share with you.
A couple of months ago, my book club read Madeleine L’Engle’s A Ring of Endless Light, which is part of the Austin Family Chronicles, a collection of five books. This one was the fourth book, but it doesn’t feel like you’re being thrown right into the middle of things. L’Engle does a great job of writing her series so that people can pick up the books at any point and not feel completely lost.
I’ve been a fan of L’Engle for a long time, but I had never read this series. I still plan to read the rest of the series, but for now, my shelf is a little full. A Ring of Endless Light was a sweet story about a girl visiting her dying grandpa. While her family seemed a little too perfect to be true, I found that the elements of science and poetry that L’Engle introduces into the story seemed to move it along more than the actual plot line. Vicki Austin, the main character, is trying to come to terms with grief and identity and how the world is the same or different after a beloved person has passed from it.
The book begins intriguingly with a funeral, and Vicki’s voice was curious, open and relatable, one that young adults can still identify with, even though the book was written many years ago.
The second young adult book I wanted to share was one called All the Bright Places, by Jennifer Niven. This was the story of two teenagers, Violet and Finch. Finch is a disturbed individual who has attempted suicide and suffers from a mental illness that’s not entirely clear until close to the end of the book. Violet is a girl who suffers from depression, and they find each other on the top of a bell tower at their school, where both of them are considering suicide.
It’s a sweet romance, but incredibly sad. One of those books I’ll probably only read once—not because it wasn’t fantastic but because it was so tragic. So you’ve been warned. You’ll probably need tissues for this one. The story was heartbreaking, the characters unforgettable, and the issues shared so openly and vibrantly will be life-changing for teens who struggle with depression and other mental illnesses. It could even save a few lives, which I believe is a valiant thing and makes this story quite necessary to the literature world, especially the young adult one.
Learning
Lately I’ve been lost in Telling True Stories: a Nonfiction Writer’s Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University. This is a book about telling true stories, as the title suggests. But let me just tell you. When you start reading the collected essays from famous nonfiction authors and journalists, you will be more than learning. You will be inspired to write your own contributions to the world of nonfiction—whether it’s essays, narrative nonfiction or daily news stories.
This book is an incredible resource of have on hand for those who are interested in pursuing a nonfiction career. You’ll learn from people like Malcolm Gladwell, Nora Ephron, Gay Talese, Phillip Lopate, Tom Wolfe and so many more masters. You’ll learn about things like the proper way to conduct an interview, how to go about excelling at participatory reporting, how to write personal essays, developing characters in your nonfiction stories, and so much more.
My wheels are turning now about a narrative nonfiction project that’s been on the back burner for quite a long time. I’m looking forward to carving out space to begin using the skills I learned as a reporter again. So stay tuned for that.
Personal
I just returned from observing a Sabbath week, and I cannot tell you how much I needed it. Just before we broke for the Sabbath, I launched three more episodes of my Family on Purpose series, and we were working our fingers to the bone to get everything done on time.
Now, in a couple of weeks, I’ll be releasing the first season of my Fairendale series, so we’ve hit the ground running again. But it was so great to have a break, where I could just read and soak in the lives of my boys and celebrate my husband’s birthday and get away from work.
It doesn’t matter how much we love our work, we need breaks every now and then. And because we’re working so hard, breaks help us avoid burnout. It’s always necessary to take a step back and do something for us for a change. So that’s what I did. I mostly read, but I did a little sewing, tried to make the end-of-year gifts for my boys’ teachers and did a little organization around the house, because I’m a neat freak. I couldn’t stay away from brainstorming, and there were some necessary things I had to do for the upcoming Fairendale release, but, for the most part, I did a pretty good job resting.
And now I feel like I can breathe.
Writing
If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I’m an author who self publishes but also is working to become traditionally published. There are a lot of differences between self publishing and traditional publishing. You do a whole lot of work for both, and there are rewards to both and drawbacks to both. What I’m learning is that self publishing takes a whole lot more time, and maybe has, at least for now, when my following is relatively small, small rewards for that. Traditional publishing, which doesn’t have great monetary awards—only about 3 to 5 percent of book sales—actually reaches way more people. And that’s why I’ve decided to do both.
It’s not easy to pursue both. On the one hand, I’ve been consumed with book releases this last month, so I haven’t had time to send out any of the projects I’ve marked for traditional publishing. On the other hand, I get immediate return on all those efforts—because when I publish a book myself, it publishes immediately.
When I send my manuscripts out to agents, it could take two or three years, sometimes longer. I’ve had a manuscript out with an agent for a year already. I’ve done edits, I’ve played the waiting game, I haven’t seen any return for that investment yet. I know I will. But traditional publishing is a much longer game. Which is okay. Because it also means that one day, I’ll be on the shelves of local libraries and in physical bookstores, which only happens with runaway bestsellers in the self-publishing world.
All that to say, more and more authors are becoming what’s called a hybrid author—they’re self publishing but also traditionally publishing. What I do myself is I evaluate my manuscripts. Traditional publishing isn’t as open to what I’d call “nontraditional manuscripts.” I have several nontraditional manuscripts that I’m releasing on my own.
The rest I’m saving for traditional publishing. I’ve given the publishing world five years for each project, and if the project isn’t sold or optioned, then I’ll publish on my own. That time period may change after a while. I may decide it’s not worth it to wait five years. But for now, I have so many manuscripts that it’s worth my while to wait.
Not everyone has that ability. So, really, the decision has to be up to each individual author. Traditional publishing works for some. It doesn’t for others. Self publishing works for some. It doesn’t for others. There is no one right way. Isn’t that good to know?
Listening
I’ve probably mentioned before that when I write my fiction stories and even my nonfiction essays, I write to music. Sometimes I listen to music and words, but lately I’ve been listening only to instrumental music. Specifically the music of Carmina Burana. If you’ve never heard the music of Carmina Burana, you should.
See, when I was in high school, our high school band was really, really good, and one year, for contest season, our band director had us perform three of the movements of Carmina Burana. So not only does listening to this bring back so many memories, but it’s also really great orchestral music.
When I’m writing to Carmina Burana, I feel like my characters can make it through any tragedy that comes their way, because it’s strong, passionate, wild music. I feel like I myself could make it through anything, too.
Also, fun fact: I used to be a drum major. That means I conducted all the music for the marching band. So maybe you’re not ready to know I was a nerd. But I still have great memories and pictures from that time in my life. All you band nerds, here’s a shout out. There’s nothing cooler than band. Except being a bookworm.
Yeah, I was really popular in high school.
For more in-depth content and a free book from my starter library, sign up for my email newsletter, where I share an inside look at life, books I’m reading, writing projects and the reality of a writing career with six little ones.
I know, I know. You think I haven’t noticed how you’ve been waiting seven whole days in that smelly basket, spilling over onto the floor so little boys trample you on their way to bedrooms, how you’re crumpled up in bathrooms and twisted across couches and even left in the cold car all night, how all you really want is someone to care.
I assure you, I’ve noticed. I wish I could say I’m sorry for not washing you sooner, like you wanted, but I’m not. Because I was playing, skipping through the city zoo and riding on a carousel, teaching kickball to my boys in a big field of green, making little dolls out of clothespins and yarn and fabric, and it was beautiful and invigorating and fun.
I just can’t say the same about you, Laundry.
[Tweet “I always notice you, Laundry. I just don’t like to acknowledge it.”]
Maybe I used to feel differently about you, back when Husband and I walked you to the laundromat and put you in three washers and sat holding hands while talking and writing songs and reading marriage books for the forty-five minutes it took you to wash, and then doing it again while we watched you tumble dry low for another forty-five. But you have gotten out of hand, Laundry. You have invaded where you were not wanted. You have rewarded my hours of care with next to nothing, trading scattered cotton smelling like feet for stacked cotton smelling like lavender and eucalyptus, and maybe I should be grateful for even that, but it’s just not enough anymore, because, well, someone needs to put you away, and that just seems like it’s asking a little too much. I don’t have that much to give you, Laundry.
I’m sorry you stay draped across the back of our couch for days on end (or maybe it’s weeks; I’ve lost count), only moving when little boys have run out of clean underwear and feel bothered enough about reusing their dirty drawers that they’ll come rifling in your avalanche. And then you’re not even neat stacks anymore. You’re like a laundry volcano, waiting for someone to turn a flip off the couch and scatter you everywhere, which will happen in about two more seconds. I’m sorry I’m not so great at finishing you. But I’m not really.
See, you’re just a little too needy. I have a LOT of needy people in my house, and I don’t really need more, but you, well. You must be done every single week, so many loads of you, or you start creeping into the places we don’t want you–like the baby’s bed (because twins have a fetish for clothes piles, especially when they’re smelly) and the boys’ bathroom (which has a floor I wouldn’t even wish upon my worst enemy, except maybe) and, yes, even the refrigerator (we have a few absent-minded ones in the bunch. “Where’d my soccer socks go?” “You mean the dirty ones you wore yesterday and the day before that?” “…” “Did you try the refrigerator?” “Why the refrigera–Oh. Yeah, here they are.”).
I’m just…
I’m just tired of you.
You steal so much valuable time, Laundry. You’re like a giant black hole, sucking those seconds and minutes and hours into an invisible time warp so I hardly know where my whole day has gone because of your intruding buzzer that, every half hour, screams, “Finish me.”
Finish yourself, Laundry.
[Tweet “I wish you would finish yourself, Laundry. I’d rather be playing. Make that sleeping.”]
As if all that weren’t enough, you’re never, ever actually done. That last load spills out of the dryer, and there are still the clothes we’re wearing today. Are you never satisfied? Is there never an end to your demands? Can I just be done for a second or three or fifty-million? You’re like one of my kids, and I know people say that after three it’s just “pull up another chair,” but that’s actually not true at all. It’s more like “Just pull up another adult,” because you suddenly realize that you’re way out of your league. Or maybe it’s more like “Just pull up another bottle,” because who really wants to help the parents who chose to have six kids? A bottle of Merlot, that’s who.
I need a break from you, Laundry. It’s not me, it’s you. I have more than enough people clinging to me. I have more than enough people stealing my time and space. I have more than enough people making a mess of things. I don’t need another, even if it’s just a pile of sweaty socks that smell like rotting skunks.
Besides, my little boys want to play cars, and I’m sorting you, dark and light and white and towels and blankets, eight loads a week. My little boys want to go on a nature walk, and I’m waiting for one-eighth of you to finish washing so I can put you in the dryer and start the next one-eighth of you before we leave. I just want to go to bed, and there you are, commandeering my sleeping space like an unwanted blanket.
You have some things to learn before we can move on, Laundry. Autonomy. Self-discipline. Moderation.
But I have a feeling you won’t even make an effort. So, with a great long sigh (it’s still going), I guess I’ll have to say that though I would like to say it’s finished, I know the truth of it. A mom’s relationship with laundry is never finished. So I’ll see you in our normal meeting place (all over the house) next Monday at 6 a.m. sharp. Don’t be late. As if you ever are.
It’s the last week of school, and I am a weeping mess.
It’s not a sad weeping, really. It’s a bittersweet weeping, a proud weeping, because every step they take on this road that is education and growing up and moving on is another step they take out of my home.
Those heartstrings tied to them want to pull tighter, shelter them from the heartache I know is coming, because it always does. I want to protect them and hold them and keep them.
Mostly I want to keep them.
Keep them small. Keep them safe. Keep them here.
And yet this week has reminded me that keeping them is not something I can do.
Two days ago I watched my 8-year-old walk the stage for his second grade completion ceremony, where he got the “Artful Artist” award. Yesterday I watched my 6-year-old sing and sign and accept the “Best Reader” award during his kindergarten completion program.
Today I watched them both dance their way into summer.
Or I tried. It was hard to find a window between hands and arms and video cameras and smartphones where I could actually see them. I ducked and turned and moved, and everywhere I went there was another camera or phone recording the moment.
I had to squint and tilt my head just the right way to see my sons.
At first I felt angry. Annoyed. Because I was a parent, too, and I deserved to see my sons bust a move just like the next person did.
And then I remembered: It wasn’t so long ago that I did the same.
///
Two years ago, when my first son was a kindergartener, I stood in the throng of parents and tried to take a video of him dancing.
Because his daddy wasn’t able to come and his daddy needed to see, but mostly because I wanted to keep the memory forever and ever and ever.
The whole time my Canon 7D kept slipping away from him because I was trying to just watch him, so the video isn’t even a very good one.
I watched him stand on his tiptoes waiting for the music to begin, and I watched him strike that last pose and I watched him walk away with a grin I could barely make out on the screen of the camera.
I could not see that grin shine. I missed the way he made a goofy face at his brothers in the crowd and made them all burst out laughing, because I was so intent on getting just the right shot. I missed the way his feet fairly flew off the blacktop because he was so excited that he’d nailed the dance. I missed looking into his eyes and letting him see the pride that shouted from mine.
I missed.
And to this day, I wish I had the vision in my memory store more than I had the video on my computer’s memory store.
When my boy got home from school, he didn’t even ask to see the video. He didn’t care that there was one.
He only talked about when he had done that jump move and did I see him throw some break-dancing into the free form section? And I had to admit, at least to myself, that no, I hadn’t seen it. Because I was too busy trying to capture video.
I missed.
///
We miss something in these moments we work so hard to preserve.
We miss living.
It takes us a while to see it, because we are the first generation of parents growing up in a world of technology that puts access to video at our fingertips, without having to set up the perfect shot or figure out the best lighting or get as close as we possibly can. We have zoom lenses and auto-focus and cameras that can take five pictures per second.
And everything feels so necessary.
I know. I felt it this year.
I purposely decided, before each of the school events, that I would not pull out a video camera this year. But when the second graders walked across the stage for their completion certificates and awards and the principal announced that the center aisle of the cafeteria was reserved for parents taking video and pictures of their kids, I wanted to get up.
And when my son stood with his teacher and turned to the center aisle and no one was there, I felt like I had missed something. Like I had lost an opportunity.
But I just waved crazily from the back of the cafeteria and called his name and let that grin of his slide all the way down into the deepest places of my heart.
You see, our kids don’t have to know that we are recording their every step and capturing their every accomplishment and putting it all into a folder they won’t really care about when they’re 18. They just need to know we’re there. Watching. Enjoying. Marveling.
It’s hard to watch and enjoy and marvel with a phone between us and every special moment. Sure, we may get to savor it later, but what are we missing right now, in this moment here?
There are some things pictures can’t capture.
The excited glow of his eyes. The way that smile lights up the whole room. How he grins even wider, if possible, when he catches your eyes and not just the camera’s eyes.
I understand how we can get caught up with every significant moment and just want to keep it. Keep them. I know what it’s like to feel like you probably should order a class picture and those individual school shots, even though you take a billion better ones at home. I know how a yearbook in elementary school can feel necessary, because how will they remember if we don’t find a way to preserve those memories?
The thing is, they don’t really need our help remembering what’s important.
///
My kindergarten year is hazy in my mind, but I remember balloon letters hanging from a ceiling and a gather-together rug in the middle of the room and a claw-foot bathtub in the corner of the room where we took turns reading for pleasure.
I remember blue mats on the floor and lying down too close to a girl who picked my chicken pox scab while I was sleeping and made a scar in the middle of my forehead. I remember pronouncing island like is-land and how Mrs. Spinks gently corrected me, proud that I’d tried that tricky word at all. I remember a playground with metal seesaws and above-ground culverts painted yellow and tractor tires cut in half.
I remember losing a tooth in a Flintstone popsicle that was pastel orange and my brother choking on a chicken bone, back when the cafeteria chicken noodle soup was made from real chicken, and the first time I slid down the metal slide in shorts and burned the back of my legs.
My mom didn’t have to capture any of those moments for me to remember them.
There is something magical about remembering something the way our minds want to remember them. That kindergarten reading bathtub probably wasn’t as pretty as I remember. That metal slide probably wasn’t as tall (or safe) as I remember. The cafeteria and gym and schoolyard probably weren’t as large as I remember.
And part of me is glad a video doesn’t exist to prove my memory wrong.
///
Memories are so much more than seeing. They are hearing and feeling and smelling and tasting, too, and a video can only catch two of those. Our memories can catch them all.
I record so much of my kids’ lives. When they do something funny. When they wear or say something cute. When they sing one of their original songs or choreograph that amazing dance or write a play and perform it for us in our living room.
I record because I want to remember.
But could I remember without the help?
Could I remember the way he moved his hands in that funky way during “Uptown Funk” without a video camera preserving it forever? Will I remember the hilarious poses he struck during the free-form part of the dance? Will I remember the way my other son tipped his head and made his body so fluid and waved his hands at just the right times during “Surfin’ USA”?
I’d sure like to try.
Because I want to be present in the moment. Right here. Right now. Looking at them with both my eyes open. I want my boys to know what it means to be fully present in a moment, to soak it up and let our memories do their work.
“Are you disappointed that we didn’t get a video of your dance?” I ask my 8-year-old when he gets home from school today.
“No,” he says. He grins. “I saw you dancing along.”
See? He knows the truth of it.
A mama can’t dance when she’s holding a camera.
This is an excerpt from We Count it All Joy, a memoir that does not yet have a release date. To keep up with book releases and to get a free book from my starter library, visit my starter library page.
This is something I tell my children all the time (because, of course, I’m teaching them to be writers):
[Tweet “The best way to become a better writer is to read. Widely, intentionally and continuously.”]
But don’t just read. Study. Gather. Analyze.
Earlier this year, I started reading books more critically. I pull out passages that I like and write a short note on what I like about them. This does two things for me (besides slowing me down when I’m reading):
1. Because I’m typing the passages onto a document on my computer, I’m writing that passage as if it’s mine (definitely don’t ever use it as if it’s yours, though. That’s not what it’s for). Did you know that there were writers of old who copied down entire chapters of the books they admired because they wanted to get a feel for the voice it was written in? They wanted to see what it was like to write brilliant words. So this is, essentially, what I’m doing when I’m copying those words down into my “book notes” document—I’m imagining how it feels to write brilliant words like Salman Rushdie does and brilliant dialogue like Rainbow Rowell does and brilliant humor like Erma Bombeck did.
2. Because I’m studying these passages, I’m able to point directly to what techniques I feel work in fiction and what techniques seem to fall flat. I’m pulling out passages on characterization and passages that have beautiful language and passages that make me laugh, and I’m assessing why it is that the passage works. I’m learning how to employ that in my own writing. I’m taking these techniques, from this studying of masters, and I’m applying them to my own work, even if the knowledge remains only in my subconscious.
To be sure, studying books in such a comprehensive way means the reading of them takes longer, and I can’t do it with every one of them, because sometimes I just want to read a book for pleasure. Plus some of the books I read—like mystery thrillers and adult romance, which I don’t have plans to write anytime soon—I don’t really feel the need to learn from just yet.
But I did start reading through all the award winners—the best adult books, the best memoirs, the best nonfiction, the best in kid-lit—and I’m trying to learn from the ones that have been named the best of the best. I’m trying to study them so that I can write my books in the best possible way I can.
Mostly because there’s a reason these books are published. There’s a reason why they won a prestigious award. So it’s worthwhile to study them so that we can glean what we can and apply the lessons learned to our own story technique.
Here are some reasons I write down a passage:
1. I’m held by it.
Sometimes, in my reading, I’ll get stuck on a passage that’s just so beautiful I want to read it again. I always mark them, because, clearly, it’s a passage that stuck out to me, and I want my writing to contain the same kind of passages. Sometimes I’m held by it because it was so hilarious, and I want to find out why, exactly, it made me laugh. Sometimes I’m held by it because it was a great passage on characterization and voice, and I’d like to keep it as an example of that when I get stuck in my own characterization and voice.
2. It stirs up a particular emotion.
It doesn’t really matter what kind of emotion—I love studying emotion in story. Most of the time I write down passages that feel a little bittersweet, a bit sad but also a bit beautiful. Sometimes I’ll write down passages that invoke anger or a feeling of injustice. Sometimes I write down the tragic passages that can’t be forgotten.
3. It’s a really good line that holds some universal truth.
I enjoy studying the art of good writing, whether it’s poetic writing or skilled humor writing or very emotional writing. But one thing that I’ve noticed about the award-winners is that there is always some line of universal truth in their stories. Sometimes it’s hidden in a passage about the tragedy that a certain character recently endured. Sometimes it hangs out all on its own. Sometimes it’s so buried you have to dig deep for it. But I also write down those passages of universal truth, because they tend to have a unique impact on readers, and there’s a reason that the award winners do it—because it makes a difference in the lives of readers everywhere. It changes people for the better, or it makes us think more critically or it shows us how to be.
Read in the genre you want to write in. Read in every genre, if you want, but especially read in the one you want to write. Read wide and deep and long, and figure out what other authors are doing to make their books so amazing.
This is how you’ll become a better writer.
Obviously, in order to read more, we’ll have to make time to read more. But that’s an article for another day.
For now, remember: The more you read, the better you’ll write.
You know what would make my life so much easier? If my kids woke up with a warning label plastered to their back, or, better yet, their face (I’ve been known to miss some things when I’m looking–but a warning label on their forehead? I don’t think I’d miss that.). You know, so I’d be well prepared for the completely different human being who’s crawling out of their bed. So I’ll know that yesterday’s angel is going to be a demon and that yesterday’s demon is, today, going to be the heroic angel of the family. A heads up about all that would be nice, because being blindsided at 6:30 a.m. is definitely not my favorite thing in the whole world.
Here are some warning labels that might come in handy.
Caution: Contents are explosive.
I would love to have this warning label on the mornings when one of the kids wakes up with a stomach virus that’s been hanging out in their kindergarten classroom and is now hanging out in their belly, which will soon empty out onto the floor, including my feet. This label would save me time, effort and gagging for half an hour, or every time I think about vomit on feet. It would be really great to know that their contents are explosive, or close to it, so I can make sure I don’t feed them Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies and tomatoes, both of which will stain the entire interior of the car when they explode.
Also, it would be nice to know when the normally compliant child is feeling especially explosive so we don’t let our guard down and think today is going to be an easy day (Ha. There’s never an easy day with illogical human beings). I would like to be prepared for the rare times he is explosive, which usually happens when he’s told, no, he can’t have another snack, because he just ate fifteen Little Cuties in as many minutes. Actually, I guess that’s easy enough to assume; they all get pretty explosive if they have to go more than twelve minutes without food. They also all get explosive when they realize, yet again, that the entire world does not revolve around them. And when they can’t quite figure out their state-mandated math homework and their parents can’t help them, either, because we’re too smart for the math they teach nowadays.
Warning: Handle with extreme care.
I have an extremely sensitive child. Usually he does alright. But every now and then, he wakes up and his extreme sensitivity is dialed up to seventeen on a scale of one to ten. I would like a warning those days so I could just shut my mouth and not say a word to him. Or avoid looking at him. Or just go back to bed, because I’m not going to come even close to winning on days like this.
Turns out, babies aren’t really as fragile as you think they are, but the older they get, the more fragile they become. Their emotional sides are worth cultivating with care. Except for the times they follow you into the bathroom crying about how you shouldn’t be reading a book on the toilet while they’re trying to tell you something and you say you can’t really understand them, because they have too much nose in their mouth, and there goes their emotional side.
Well, there’s always tomorrow. Unless it’s another day you needed that warning label.
Warning: Keep all hands and feet inside the ride at all times.
Anytime I’m around my children, my hands and fingers, and, also, my toes and feet, are in grave danger. Also my back. And my neck. And pretty much any place on my body that could get elbowed or rammed or stepped on (and you’d be surprised how many there are). My boys seem to think Husband and I are human jungle gyms, and anytime I’m stretched out on the floor to try to attempt some push-ups that my arms are too weak to do, they’ll jump on top of me, as if, because I’m failing at lifting my own weight, I’ll suddenly be able to lift theirs, too. I don’t need another fifty pounds heaped over my torso to make me do girlie push ups on my knees. Oh, who am I kidding? I do them from my knees anyway.
Danger: High voltage.
So much energy. There is so much energy pulsing in the bodies of my boys. If I could bottle up half of it and inhale that tincture every other minute, I would still need a miracle to keep up. As it is right now, my boys are always about two hundred steps ahead of me. I’m pretty slow, to be honest. Not as quick on my feet as I used to be back when I played third base in softball. But every time those wrecking balls come hurtling toward me, I do cringe a little, like I used to when someone hit a grounder to third. So at least there’s that reminding me of the great I used to be.
I feel like someone should have warned me how much voltage a boy would have on a life. I’ve been violently shocked into movement I didn’t even necessarily need. I mean, I’ll do my interval training and my running-five-miles any day of the week, but trying to chase a 4-year-old because he wants to stay at the park for ten more hours? No thanks.
Danger: Heavy object, lift with care.
This warning would have been a good one for Husband. Every other day he’s injuring his back, because he offers to put the 9-year-old on his shoulders, which he used to do all the time five years ago—when 65 pounds was only 38 pounds—and he forgets that the 9-year-old is now all legs and muscle. Kids are heavier than they look, especially boys. Our pediatrician used to call our babies “solid.” They were born with muscle. I kid you not. When the 5-year-old was 2, he walked out of the bathroom naked, and every muscle on his back quivered. We have a video to prove it. Husband and I were both jealous. The only quivering our bodies see is the bouncing of our extra flesh.
Caution: Adult supervision is recommended.
Well, duh. Of course adult supervision is recommended. They’re kids, after all.
But I guess I thought that sometimes I might be able to close my eyes for a short five minutes and I wouldn’t have to worry about the three pounds of strawberries in the refrigerator getting eaten before I woke up again. I guess I thought I could “take a minute” in my room without the cabinets getting decorated with a permanent marker the twins were hoarding somewhere still unknown. I guess I thought I could actually close the door when I went to the bathroom without a kid running out of the house with a steak knife to “cut a carrot.”
But no. Adult supervision is recommended at ALL times. At least until the boys are fifteen or so. And even then, it’s debatable. Better just get used to peeing with the door open.
This is, by no means, an exhaustive list of the warning labels that should come with children. Believe me, there are so many more. But there’s only so much time in a day to write before I have to peek my head out of my room and make sure no one’s burned the house down yet. I’m just kidding. I never write on my kid-shift. Husband takes care of the kids when I write.
Which, come to think of it, is actually no guarantee that the house won’t burn down, but, hey, he knows what he’s doing. So I’ll let him do it.
I’ve talked about the Hero’s Guide books before, but I talked more about the incredible narration recorded by Bronson Pinchot (which really is incredible. If you haven’t read these books yet, pick them up on audio first and then read them again in book form).
But today I wanted to talk about the series as a whole. There are three books in the Hero’s Guide series: The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom, The Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle and The Hero’s Guide to Being an Outlaw. They are all equally hilarious, equally wonderful, equally written by Christopher Healy. I’ve always loved fairy tale retellings, and this is one of my favorites of all times. Not only because it’s so humorous—Healy is really great at making the situations in which the Prince Charmings of popular fairy tale stories find themselves—but because it is great story telling. The characters are lovable and yet comic, and the princesses are on equal footing—maybe even better footing than the princes.
What stands out the most about Christopher Healy’s series is the voice of the narrator. It’s easy to see why Bronson Pinchot did such a fabulous job narrating the series—because Healy writes the narrator with a distinctive voice that is, most notably, sarcastic. The narrator has a personality of his own, which I think is the best feature of the series.
This was one of my favorite passages from The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom:
“The other thing you need to understand about Duncan—and you might have already guessed this—is that he was odd. All the princes had their issues—Frederic was easily intimidated, Liam’s ego could stand to be reined in a bit, and Gustav could use some impulse control—but Duncan was flat-out strange. We all know somebody who is a bit eccentric—the girl who talks to herself, maybe, or the boy who eats the erasers off his pencils like they’re gumdrops. They could be wonderful people, but thanks to their quirky behavior, they don’t have the easiest time making friends. This was true of Duncan as well.
“If Duncan were to become your friend, he would bring a lot of positive energy to your day, he’s certainly make you laugh, and he’d prove himself to be perhaps the most loyal pal you would ever have. Nobody ever got close enough to Duncan to learn this, though. His questionable fashion choices and weird habits (such as trying to play his teeth like a piano) had a way of turning people off.”
Don’t you just love that sarcasm and wit? Duncan (who is the Prince Charming married to Snow White) sounds like a person I’d like to know, weirdly enough—if only just to see him try to play his teeth like a piano.
The Hero’s Guide is a series that now sits on our shelves, because I believe it’ll be one we read again and again. A classic in the making, for sure.
Learning
I’ve been studying this little book called A Writer’s Guide to Active Setting: Trying to Enhance Your Fiction with More Descriptive, Dynamic Settings. I originally picked up this book, because I’m brainstorming a new novel that features some woods as a sort of character. I wanted to know how to write deeper settings for this story. But I had also noticed, when going back through the drafts of my stories, that I’m not that great at providing setting details. They tend to stay in my head instead of out on the page. I knew that tons of setting details don’t keep readers interested in a story, but I wanted to figure out how to include some of those important details that actually move a story forward.
This book has been fantastic for not only providing great examples of authors who have a good grasp on writing their setting but also on explaining the different purposes setting can serve in a book. I probably knew a lot of intuitively, because that’s how writers tend to learn, but it’s been good to make those connections and see examples of them so I can add more setting to my own stories. I’ve even added another draft to all of the novels I write—one where I’ll be assessing how well I use setting and how much more I might be able to do with it in every scene. Not that every scene needs setting—but it’s worthwhile to ask that question in the first place.
Even if I got nothing else from this book, that would be enough. It’s made me much more aware of how to improve my stories in simple ways.
Personal
Recently my family and I traveled to see my mother. We’ve been doing that a little more often lately, because I love her, and also because I’m in the middle of writing a memoir. I’ve been visiting some of my old childhood places, trying to get a feel for what they’re like now. I’ve mentioned before that my memory is not quite as good as I thought it was—I tend to remember things much differently than others. That doesn’t mean my stories aren’t true. It just means that I see them differently than others may. Our memories are never 100 percent accurate; we just do the best we can.
On the latest visit to my mom, we stopped by some railroad tracks again and let our boys play on them, and we visited my old high school and did a few laps on the old track where I ran the 400-meter dash, and then we showed up at my childhood church, which still looks about the same. It’s always good going home. It’s always good feeling like the people who knew you as a child and who have kept up with you as an adult still love you, flaws and all. There’s something about community that’s wonderful and transformative. And there’s something about being from a tiny little town that feels like, no matter how far you go away from it, you’re always forever connected.
Writing
I’ve mentioned before that I have a quite aggressive word count goal this year—two million words. I’m right on track, but lately I’ve been thinking about taking a step back from some of my blogs, and I’ve found myself worried that I won’t be able to make that word goal. When I expressed this worry to my husband, he had some very wise words:
It’s okay to take a step back, he said.
This is a hard one for me. When I commit to something, I really commit to it. There’s no turning back. I won’t let myself out of it, for any reason. I could be sick in bed one day, but I’m still going get that blog up.
But I thought about his words. I thought about big, scary goals that seem impossible when you first latch on to them. I thought about how, somewhere in the middle of reaching for that big, scary goal, it can start to feel like there’s no going back, because the train can’t be stopped. People are depending on you to reach it, because you’re an inspiration to them. And maybe that’s entirely true. Maybe it’s not. Either way, I can’t put pressure on myself for someone else’s inspiration. People don’t think about us nearly as much as we think they do. That means that if I abandoned my goal today, no one would probably even care.
I’m not going to abandon my goal. But I am, now, trying to decide what’s necessary and what’s not, and that may mean that this year I don’t reach that two-million-words goal. I think I will. But there’s no sense in overwhelming myself with a big-scary goal, when I could do much more with much more happiness and fulfillment letting the pressure off a little.
So it’s okay to let the pressure off. Don’t be afraid of disappointing someone. Don’t think that if you don’t meet this big-scary goal you’re never going to meet another goal ever again. Letting the pressure off this big-scary goal may be just the freedom you need to accomplish even greater things.
Listening
Have you heard Kelly Clarkson’s song “Piece by Piece?” I don’t usually listen to a whole lot of Kelly Clarkson—although I have to admit, that at one time I was a big fan—but this song. It is incredibly beautiful. When I first heard it, I wished that I had written it. It’s a song with a powerful story that resonates with my life—a man who left, a man who stayed and picked up all the pieces. It gives me chills talking about it. Just be prepared to cry, if you’re anything like me. I still cry, every time I hear it. I might even cry now, talking about it.
No. I’m okay. But you should definitely go listen to it–especially the version she sang live on American Idol. So good.
If you like content like this, be sure to check out my Reader Group, where I share all sorts of inside looks at my projects and the books I’m reading and great places of inspiration.
I’m no stranger to the kids-in-restaurants debate. It’s been going on for a while, and I always like to keep tabs on it, because I feel pretty strongly about my own point of view. I’ve stayed silent mostly, because I didn’t really want to rock any boats. I’m not a confrontational person by nature and I’ll cry if you look at me wrong, but there are some things that are worth being said.
There are restaurants that have actually banned children from coming to them. Which means, in essence, that parents have been banned as well, since parents can’t always get away without their children. There are also an abundance of people who will make parents feel so miserable when they’re out to eat with their kids that families will resolve to never go to that restaurant again, at least if they have to bring the kids (maybe even without the kids—which would be the case for me). There are people who don’t understand or don’t remember what it’s like to take children out to eat—and why it’s valuable.
I get it, sort of. When a kid’s being loud, it can be a huge distraction. But the thing is, how will children ever learn how to behave in a restaurant if they never get to go to a restaurant in the first place?
Husband and I don’t take our kids out to eat often, and it’s not because of the stares or because we think we’ll make the people uncomfortable. I could care less about that sort of thing. It’s more because have you ever seen the restaurant bill after you’ve taken six kids out? Well, I have, and it’s not pretty.
But on occasion, we do take our kids out for a nice little treat. Usually it’s for a special occasion, like a birthday fun day, where we’ve spent all day out at the city zoo or a children’s museum or walking downtown in the great city of San Antonio, where kids still think it’s cool to go visit the Alamo. So by the time we get to the eating out part, they’re not only hungry, but they’re tired and we’ve had a little too much family togetherness.
My kids are great in restaurants. But they didn’t get that way overnight. They got that way by that amazing tool called Practice.
My kids, like any other person, deserve to eat in a nice restaurant the times we can actually take them. They deserve to sit down to a meal that’s not like the meals they eat in our home every day—because we’re health food junkies—because they turned 7 today or they read a million words for Accelerated Reader or they got into a GT program or they learned to ride a bike or they just accomplished fourteen days clean and dry. They should be able to celebrate without feeling the looks of people who think they should be someone different, someone better, someone quieter and less noticeable.
I understand that you’ve paid for your dinner and all, and you don’t want to hear a kid screaming in the middle of your dinner out (if mine were screaming, I’d take him outside), but I don’t need someone else telling me what I should and should not do with my children. We’ve got a little too much of that going on in our world already.
When I take my kids out to restaurants, they get to experience what it’s like to eat in a place other than their table at home, and they get to learn proper manners in a public setting, and they get to observe the ways that other people conduct their meals and be glad that we don’t allow phones at our table.
I remember back when Husband and I only had a toddler and a newborn infant, and one night we decided to go out to eat, because I was getting cabin fever cooped up in the house all day, but I didn’t yet trust the baby to a babysitter. There was a white-haired couple who came in to the restaurant, and when the waitress asked if the booth beside ours was okay, they took a good long look at us, and I thought, for a minute, that they might say no, they wanted to sit anywhere but here. But then the woman beamed at me, turned to the waitress and said, “Yes, of course.” She put down her purse, promptly perched on the edge of her booth and exclaimed over the new baby. For the next fifteen minutes, this man and woman asked me how old the toddler was and told me what they remembered from their sons’ early days and, at one point, the woman patted my hand and said, “It gets easier. It really does.”
Our food arrived, and she and her husband turned back to their own table. When our check came, it had already been paid.
I wonder how the world might be different if we all had such welcoming, understanding hearts?
In this episode, Rachel talks about a humorous series of fairy tale retellings, a helpful book for writers, the thrill of returning to one’s hometown, the power of letting the pressure off goals and an emotionally charged song by Kelly Clarkson.
He hugs the toilet, his head hanging, his legs folded beneath him in a way mine don’t do anymore, his arms trembling because he knows what’s coming.
I sit beside him, not even a foot away, on the lid of a stool his brothers once thought it would be fun to pee in, and I am here because he asked me, because he just wants his mama, because I am the one he loves hard and hurricane-like, and he wants my comfort beside him while he works through the nausea or whatever else may come.
Down the hall, in my bedroom, sit all those things I need to work on, because it’s bedtime and they’re supposed to be asleep, not feeling sick, but I cannot leave him, because he’s my son, because he asked, because he’s gripping the toilet like it’s that old lumpy dog he’s slept with since before he could talk.
I feel angry and frustrated, in a deep place I cannot speak, that we’re here again, bonding around a toilet instead of his bed, like we did a few days ago when he ate too much junk at a birthday party, when I rubbed his back curved over the white that caught his nausea, when I curved relief around his pain. It was okay then, and I waited as long as he needed, but tonight, the ending of this day where too many people derailed too many efforts, where the time leaked into a giant, invisible vacuum, where I’ve just spent the last hour pouring out my voice and my worship and my heart to a group of teenagers in a place where pranks cornered a stage and a guitar ran out of battery and voices had to make up the difference, all I really want to do is climb into bed and bury myself deep, deep, deep, in a book.
And I’m just thinking of this when he asks, between heaves, if I’ll get a story to read to him. So I bring the one that we’ve been reading during our night read-aloud time, and he listens.
It’s only my voice he hears in that tiny bathroom, and it murmurs in waves like the sickness twisting him tonight.
My voice, my presence, is the calm of his night.
I know this feeling, the body all out of control, those sea-foam swells rolling and pushing and pulling, this never knowing when they will pull too hard, when we will lose all control, and it’s wild and scary and unnerving, but the presence of one we love makes us brave.
That chapter winds toward close, and he sits up and watches the pages instead of bending and heaving. We finish, and he climbs into his recliner bed in a room that belongs to books, and I kiss his head and finally, finally, finally close myself in my room, turning down the covers of my bed with only a few minutes to read before I need to close my eyes.
Care, when we’re parents, can look a lot like the care of Jesus, a sacrificing that feels gutting and brutal and maybe even too hard, like a cup we can’t drink, at least not today, and those words whisper in the tangled gardens of our hearts: Take this cup from me. Because there are lunches still to pack and there is bread still to bake overnight and there is a full load of dishes still to be put away, and we have given all we can give and more already, and sitting in a bathroom for an hour, where a boy writhes and cries and hangs heavy over a toilet, was not on that list of to-do today.
Here we are shedding skins of self, one after another, for all the ways they are teaching us and growing us and re-making us.
“I lay myself down for my son who is learning to love because I first loved him,” says Lisa-Jo Baker.
I sit and lend my presence and fan into flame his brave, and he learns love.
We sit and lend our presence and fan into flame that light beam of motherhood, of daughterhood, of what it means to be God’s child, and the truth of it warms the faces of all those littles so they see the way we filled their cup of milk first, even though right there, on the counter next to that empty one is a computer waiting for a deadline-passed-already story; and they see its presence in the way we washed all those stuffed animals even though the laundry piles are taller than they are; and they see it in the way we sit and wait and breathe and read and wrap in these late-night hours when the work undone waits to be finished, like it does every night.
We know it for what it is, a stretching of arms on a cross, a dying to the old and a living into the new of a life named Mama or Daddy. They see it all, and they don’t call it sacrifice, not yet, not right now. They just call it love.
And this is the voice that whispers in their waves, calming their nights.
We die every day on the altar of Parenthood, and this sacrifice is never easy and the dying is never simple, but we are raised to live freer and stronger and so much more magnificent than we ever once were.
They fill all our spaces, and we don’t even know it, but they are burning all those bridges down between the old self that wore those white shirts because they were cute and that marked all those hours as uninterrupted reading time and that thought a career path toward advancement and name-recognition and Pulitzers was the way for her, and the new self that doesn’t even own a white shirt anymore and carves reading time into the bathroom breaks; and chose to pass up that job advancement because she wanted to spend more time at home.
The children who sleep down the hall, the ones I’ve snuggled and tucked and kissed, are walking me right into the aftershock of my dying and living again, and they are stretching all the lines I once drew and knew, and they are painting a sunrise, a new day, in brighter, more brilliant colors, because who I am becoming, with them, is greater than who I was, without them.
We lay down the old self, and we pick up the new, and we let them keep stripping all that skin until we are new and dazzling and beautiful.
This is the miracle of love.
This essay is an excerpt from Family on Purpose Episode 5: We Care for Each Other. The Earth. Widows, Orphans & Foreigners. To learn more about the Family on Purpose series, visit the project landing page.
Here we are. You’re another year older. It doesn’t seem all that noticeable, if I’m being completely honest, because I’ve lived with you every day of this getting older, from the time you were 21 to the time of now. You are greater and truer and much wiser than you were all those years ago.
Remember that first birthday we were together, when I made you a Reese’s Pieces cake, back before we knew so much about food, and the humidity in that outdoor park split the cake in half, so it fell apart before we even cut into it? Remember how we laughed? Remember how we actually used to do something special for birthdays—like invite family to a park or throw a surprise gathering or even go out for dinner?
It seems like a lifetime ago—back before kids came along. It’s a life we hardly remember. We don’t often have the time or energy to do what we used to do for birthdays, or just to say I love you, or to cheer each other up after a terrible day. Kids are hard. We’re entrenched in the raising of our children, and that means we’re not so entrenched in the raising of us anymore. But you know what? Even after all this time, I can’t imagine doing the work of every day without you by my side.
It’s strange how some people talk about the way love fades over the years, and even though ours has changed since that rainy day in October, 12 years ago, it hasn’t faded, not at all, because what has come to us in these difficult parenting years and these trying don’t-know-where-the-money’s-coming-from years and these I-feel-like-giving-up-but-know-I-can’t years is a deeper, wider, longer knowing of one another. We talk more, we listen more, we love more, I think. We know each other’s dreams and hopes and fears and disappointments. We know each other’s loves and hates and frustrations and joys. And even though sometimes I get annoyed that you’re videoing everything for your snapchat followers, because I don’t like our family being on display all the time, I still choose to love. And even though you get annoyed that I’m always talking about the same old things, because my mind works in circles sometimes, beating something to death, you still choose to love.
When you were brought into the world, my love, all of humanity gained a wonder. You are the most amazing man I have ever met in all my life. It’s true that I didn’t recognize it for a time, because I was shallow, and I was, to tell the truth, a little scared of the way you could see right through to the heart of me (you still can, and it’s still just as unnerving as it used to be), soon your curly black hair and your intense blue eyes and the way you saw good in everything to climb its way into my heart.
What is most significant of all is that you stuck around.
It didn’t take long for you to find my flaws, to locate all my insecurities, to feel the weight of my fears, but you stuck around.
I was a girl who didn’t think anyone could stick around, because the most important one didn’t, and I thought I had been made wrong. I had been made ugly. I had been made twisted and undesirable and insignificant.
But you stuck around, and you picked up all those pieces from the ground and you wrote on them the truth.
Wrongly made, I said. Perfectly made, you said. Ugly, I said. Beautiful, you said. Gorgeous, lovely, stunning. Yes, stunning. Twisted, I said. Bent but smooth, you said. Undesirable, I said. Wanted, you said. So very wanted. Insignificant, I said. Noteworthy, you said. Important.
You whispered it in every way, at every turn, and how could I not begin to believe what you’d written on my shards?
Little by little, you gathered them all—all the pieces that someone else had left—and you showed me that a man could love enough to stay, and a man could be trusted to hold a heart in both his hands and not damage it, and a man could see my weak spots and call them enchanting. Those years began to unfold around us, and trust warmed their edges, and you proved in a thousand different ways that you would not be like him, that you would never leave, that you were in this forever and ever and then some. You told me in all the spaces between words that there was nothing I could do that would scare you away or make you turn your back or hasten your leaving. And I learned that I did not have to be alone, as I had always been alone, safe inside my own protective bubble that prevented me from getting too close to anyone who might hurt me. I learned that I could trust the deepest burdens of my heart with a lover, a friend, a fellow traveler along this journey into adulthood. I learned that I could be loved. That I was beloved.
And now I have the great pleasure of watching you with our boys.
I watch you let the 4-year-olds ride your back to bed. Every night they ask, and it doesn’t matter how tired you are, you do it. I watch you sit with the 9-year-old and patiently walk him through all those choices he’s made in a day, especially the ones that haven’t been the best choices, and you don’t hurry, you don’t rush, you don’t get that tone in your voice that says this walking-through-it is inconvenient, because you desire him to know that you’re always here and that you’re always around and that you’ll always be open to talking with him. I watch you with the 7-year-old and notice, again, how he looks like you and talks like you and looks at the world like you, how he reminds me so much of who you were all those years ago—looking at everything with innocence and optimism and a helping heart. I watch you with the 5-year-old, the way you affirm and encourage and love him even in his most challenging moments, and I think how very fortunate he is to have a dad like you. I watch you play with the 15-month-old, every chance you get, and I marvel at how secure he is, how secure they all are, in your love.
You are an amazing dad. You really are a wonder. I never knew that there could be such joy, such love, such hope in watching the one I love raise up his boys into men who will be just like him. Raising up a generation of daddies who stay. What greater gift to the world is there?
It’s true that kids are rough on a marriage, but what kids seem to have done for me is deepen my love and appreciation for you—because I know that you are a man who plays and takes part and loves. You are a man who stays.
You have changed my life in a thousand tiny ways and a whole lot of earth-shattering ways, too—speaking my beauty when I can’t see it myself, believing in me when I don’t have a believing bone left in my body, sacrificing yourself so that I can get a little rest every now and then. I love you for that.
And I know that I can be whoever I choose to be, and you will stay. There is freedom in that knowing. I love you for that, too.
Today, on your birthday, I want to affirm, again, that I appreciate everything you do. I appreciate who you are. I appreciate what you’ve done in my life, in the lives of our boys, and in the lives of so many others who love you. I appreciate your love and your care and your kindness and your optimism and your heart and your dreams and your stubbornness and your help.
