Book Review: Running Toward Home

I’m not usually a souvenir-type person, unless you count my collection of autographed books from each writer’s conference I’ve attended. After Betty Jane Hegerat’s workshop at the 2009 ICWF WorDshop, I made a beeline for the book table. I wanted the book she’d talked about, the one where she’d gotten permission from the Calgary Zoo to hang out there for a night so she’d be able to describe the setting of her story accurately. And while getting her to sign the book, I had the chance to chat with her about the creative writing graduate program at UBC. Soon after I got home, I cracked open Running Toward Home. I wanted to see what sort of book a person with a master’s degree in creative writing wrote.

A very good book, as it turns out. This is a book that I want to read again and again, in the hopes that something of Betty Jane’s skill with words will rub off on me.  Betty Jane grabs the reader with the first few lines of Running Toward Home.  Her characters are raw and genuine; some readers may be shocked by the bad language used, but the language suits the characters. The chapters are short, jumping between each character’s perspective, giving a kaleidoscope image of the story and keeping the action moving.

Corey is a twelve-year-old foster kid on his bi-annual visit to the Calgary Zoo with his mother, Tina. She’s twenty-six, jobless, and broke, and has just gotten a surprise visit from her jailbird boyfriend—who isn’t allowed to be around Corey since putting Corey in the hospital with multiple injuries. Torn between her son and her boyfriend, Tina tries to make both happy and ends up leaving Corey at the Zoo—overnight. There, he fights his fever and his memories while deciding what to do.

Wilma is Corey’s foster mom, a middle-aged average housewife whose two sons have grown up and moved out. She and her husband Ben heard about Corey from friends of theirs, Corey’s former foster family, when he was being sent back for running again. They want to give Corey a second chance, but chances may have run out, because Corey’s new social worker seems bent on sending Corey into a group home. When Wilma and Ben find out that Corey is missing, the race is on to find him before social services does.

The entire story happens in less than twenty-four hours, with the feeling that each minute, each thought, each choice counts for each character. Bit by bit in the novel, Betty Jane reveals the complex motivations of the characters as well as the ways that their pasts have shaped them. In the end, she wraps up Running Toward Home with a touching and yet real ending, leaving readers hoping for the best for these characters  they’ve come to love.

Betty Jane says she is “an Alberta writer with a deep love of the landscape of that province, both urban and rural, and gratitude for the small town origin that has given her the conviction that there are no ‘ordinary’ lives.”  This shows up in the way the entire story is set in her native Alberta, in a landmark for Albertans. She also shows how the characters in her story impact each other and, in their own “ordinary” lives, are extraordinary.

Betty Jane’s experience as a social worker and her master’s degree in social work give impetus for the story. The book is dedicated to “children in care and the foster parents and social workers who keep them safe.” She also has a master’s degree in creative writing from UBC.

What to Blog About

Today is one of those days I have nothing to blog about.

I contemplated writing about the weather (spring, please, anytime now?), but that’s absolutely boring. That’s what you talk about with someone you have nothing else to talk about when you have to spend time together but you could both really think of something better to do or another place you’d rather be. Or when all of the topics that you could think to talk about are taboo so you just stick to safe topics. Like weather. Which right now is sunny, but a few hours ago was snowy.

I thought about writing something on my crazy busy weekend, which involved eight-plus hours of driving, a frantic search for a passport guarantor because somehow my husband and I forgot to get him to sign the backs of Sunshine’s and my passport photos, a very fun bridal shower for my best friend (who’s getting married in two months—wow, when did we grow up?), and a girl’s night with my college girlfriends. But really, are you interested in that?

This morning, Sunshine went down for her nap early, and I got onto the computer to start writing. I quickly checked my “business” email account, to see if I’d heard back from any writers, and scanned the FundsforWriters email newsletter to see if there was anything there worth keeping. The title “What Goes on a Blog?” jumped out at me. How appropriate for the day that I’m wondering what to blog about!

Hope says about blogs, “As a writer, however, your blog should ENHANCE your writing, not BE your writing. Don't give away what you should sell for a living.” Interesting. I’ve struggled between posting something on my blog and keeping it off my blog to try marketing it elsewhere. Yet then I end up feeling that the content on my blog will be second-rate because all the best stuff is going elsewhere.

Hope quoted from an excellent article on FreelanceSwitch about blogging. I think I’ve seen the article before, as I used to check on that blog once in a while. So if you’re also a writing blogger, wondering what to blog about today, check it out and chew over the advice given. And if you’re a friend dropping by to see what I’ve been up to lately... well, now you know about the weather and my weekend, and the fact that I’m procrastinating on writing and really need to get working on my next travel article.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrel

My husband is the king of surprises. He loves getting surprises and he loves planning surprises. I’ve gotten good at recognizing this look in his eye when he’s “got something up his sleeve” (though he’ll vehemently deny that there’s anything other than his arms up his sleeves). It’s a certain twinkle, a slightly smug look, the way he drops “clues” that are quite obvious to him but quite stumping to me, that tells me he’s planning something.

While we were on spring break last week, he sprung a surprise. I knew it was coming by a few things he said, such as not committing to any plans for Thursday night. All day Thursday, he kept saying things about us being “dirty rotten scoundrels,” such as when we took his dad’s quad out for a ride and got it stuck in two feet of snow, then used the winch for the very first time to pull ourselves out. I knew it was a clue, but I couldn’t figure out what it referred to.

Dinner happened as usual on Thursday night, and I’d almost forgotten to wonder what was coming up, although just before dinner my husband had told me I’d better get out of my muddy quading clothes and into some nicer “play clothes”—like maybe my black skirt and a nice top. Then, just as his mom was about to slice the pumpkin pie for desert, my husband said we had to run. He even cut short his usual fourteen goodbyes, and had our coffee cups ready to go, so that we were out the door in a matter of minutes. I barely had time to tell Mom about Sunshine’s bedtime routine.

My hubby pushed the speed limit all the way into the city, while still giving me “clues” and letting his “surprise expression” dominate his face. I was still clueless. When he asked me, “If you could do anything tonight, what would you like to do?” I thought about it and said I’d like to go to a play—we hadn’t been to one in ages. While we were dating, we’d both had subscriptions to the local theatre, but having a baby and moving to a small town had made plays a rare occasion.

We arrived downtown and my husband pulled into a parkade, then led me through a maze of hallways and pedways at a near run. Only when we dashed into the theatre did I realize we were actually going to see a play. And only when I saw the big poster advertising Dirty Rotten Scoundrels did I get the clues. While I dashed to the washroom, my husband bought us rush tickets to the play and the PA system announced the last call for seats before the play began.

We slipped into our first-row seats in the balcony just in time for the cell phone announcement. Then the curtains dropped and the music began. The play was hilarious, the acting and dancing amazing, the music toe-tapping. And my husband still had that twinkle in his eye when we were driving home, because once again, he’d pulled off a perfect surprise.

Jasper, Alberta: A Great Girlfriend Getaway

My first travel article is now published!!! GoNOMAD.com liked a story that I wrote about a trip to Jasper in 2004 with two of my girlfriends. Jasper, Alberta: A Great Girlfriend Getaway is now up on their front page.

ICWF WorDshop 09

Spring WorDshop 2009 was all that I had hoped it would be--inspiring, informative, refreshing. I met a few other writers whom I exchanged business cards with. I discovered that the main speaker, Lisa Samson, is Catholic, and had a great conversation with her about the need for some Catholic fiction in the Christian fiction market. And I met another writer who just completed her MFA through the low-residency program at UBC, and is willing to help me prepare my portfolio to apply again for the program.

I was a little nervous about being part of the panel, answering questions about getting published, but that went great. We had a bit of a laugh when Lisa pointed out that all of our last names started with "W." Helping other writers is something that I love doing, so I actually enjoyed answering the questions.

On Friday night, we did a little fun writing exercise. Each of us had a piece of paper with thirteen lines and instructions on it. We wrote a word or phrase on the first line, folded the paper over to hide what we'd written, and passed the paper to the person on our right. Then we wrote something in the next line on the paper that we'd received, folded it over, and passed it on, until all thirteen lines were filled in and we had a "story." When we finished, we shared our stories, as well as we could amid the laughter. Here's the story that I ended up with at the end of the exercise:

Quiet thinker Joyce met beautiful, plain David Thompson at Howie In the Hills. He wore a kilt, Stewart tartan. She wore sweat pants, a stretchy T, and an old hoodie. He said to her, "I am free to love." She said to him, "Open your eyes and see / a land that's brave and free." Then he jumped off the bluff and dove gracefully into the water. Then she leaped several times in the air screaming "You fool. I don't care!" And the consequence was the ice sculpture in front of the chateau shattered. And the world said you are what you eat.

For a bit more about Spring WorDshop, and answering the question "What do you write?", hop over the Inscribe Writers' Online.

Book Review: Daisy Chain

Fourteen-year-old Jed Pepper has appointed himself Protector of the Innocent. So when his best friend Daisy goes missing one summer evening, it’s Jed’s fault. He should have walked her home that night. Now it’s up to him to find out what happened to Daisy, but clues are hard to find. He had Daisy’s diary and missing shoe, but as the summer passes, hope wanes. Did Daisy just go to find her long-lost father, or is something more sinister going on in small-town Defiance, Texas?

Daisy Chain is Mary Demuth’s second novel, and one that grabbed me from a few chapters in and held me until the end. Jed Pepper’s voice is real and heart wrenching as he deals not only with the pain of losing a best friend, but also with the trials of becoming a man and the confusion of a father’s abuse. Mary stays solidly in Jed’s point of view throughout the novel, showing us everything through Jed’s eyes as he struggles to understand what is going on around him.

Over the course of this strange summer, as Jed searches for Daisy and lives in his memories of the girl who knew him better than anyone else, he makes new friends. Muriel is the cancer-stricken Catholic woman who no longer cares what society thinks, and so does what she knows is right. Hixon is the black “prophet” who appears just when he’s needed and says God told him to. Miss Emory is Daisy’s mother, a grief-stricken single-mom dealing with guilt for her mistakes and lifestyle.

As Carla Stewart (who sent the book to me when I won the contest for it on her blog), says, “It’s difficult to read at times with raw emotions laid open on every page, but that’s also what is so gripping about it. Each chapter draws you into the next as you hope life will turn out better for Jed. Glimpses of beauty and kindness woven into the tragedies gives the book many layers and a tender side.”

Mary’s novel is back on my bookshelf, but it’s begging me to pick it up and read it again sometime soon. Like Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, it’s the kind of novel that sticks with you and won’t let go. And while Mary ends it neatly, she leaves a few loose ends that promise the next book in the series will be just as good.

Writers-on-Wednesday: Kathleen Gibson

Kathleen Gibson is one of the first writers that I met nearly ten years ago at my first ICWF Fall Conference. I was the youngest writer there, just starting to explore what it meant to be a "writer," and she was very encouraging. One piece of advice she gave me that I've never forgotten was to always have a business card. Recently, I enjoyed connecting with her again in an interview for FellowScript, as she's one of the keynote speakers for the 2009 Fall Conference.

How did you become a writer?
As a child I loved books, but outside of writing letters (which is still, I think, one of the highest use for words) I didn’t publish until I was almost thirty. I fiddled around and published little for a few years—a necessary wandering, I call it, while finding my writing feet. When I found my particular writing niche, the personal essay (that doesn’t mean I don’t write other things), I found I couldn’t stop.

I still have difficulty calling myself a writer, honestly, even with my publication background as freelancer, author, columnist, and magazine editor. I still stumble over the title ‘author’ when asked by strangers. I use the title primarily to justify the amount of time I spend at my computer.

What inspires you to write?Deadlines, usually. Strong emotion helps. Menopause does too—it provides the urgency to write things down so I don’t forget them. Men have difficulty with that.

What authors do you admire, and why?Honestly, I write far more than I read! But among others, I enjoy CS Lewis for his use of metaphor, Jan Karon for her genuine portrayal of decent human nature, and a man of God (my husband is a clergyman!), Kathleen Norris, for her sacred exploration of the human/divine connection, Anne Lamott for her open quest to discover what it means to be a follower of Christ today. Phil Callaway, because he’s so serious.

Dust, Go to Sleep

I’m a to-do list person. Even if I don’t make the list on paper, I have one mentally, and check off on it the things that I get done. Somehow, I’ve become driven by accomplishments, what I can get done in a day. When my husband comes home and says, “What did you do today,” I want to be able to rattle off a long list: “I did the laundry, washed the dishes, cleaned the house, wrote a few articles, ran the errands, etc.”

The problem is that some things never make it onto that list. Things like “play with Sunshine” or “rock Sunshine to sleep.” I find myself trying to get her to play with her blocks so that I can just get the last paragraph of an article finished or giving her a few more Cheerios so that I can wash the last few dishes by the sink.

Once in a while, I try to pause and remind myself what’s really important. In ten years, Sunshine won’t remember that there was dust under the couch; she’ll remember that Mommy had time to make her laugh. She won’t care that I’ve written the next best-seller if I never take the time to hug her and let her know that I love her.

There’s a little poem that I try to remember when Sunshine tries to take my attention from the housework or my writing:

The cleaning and scrubbing
Will wait till tomorrow,
For children grow up,
As I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quite down, cobwebs,
Dust, go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby,
And babies don’t keep.
~ Ruth Hulburt Hamilton,
"Song for a Fifth Child"

The Freedom to Love

No refugee from Russia sends a gift back to a dictator; God’s gifts, too, are dependent on our love. Adam and Eve could have passed on to posterity extraordinary gifts of body and soul had they but loved. They were not forced to love; they were not asked to say, “I love,” because words can be empty; they were merely asked to make an act of choice between what is God’s and what is not God’s, between the choices symbolized in the alternatives of the garden and the tree. If they had had no freedom, they would have turned to God as the sunflower does to the sun; but, being free, they could reject the whole for the part, the garden for the tree, the future joy for the immediate pleasure. The result was that mankind lost those gifts that God would have passed on to it, had it only been true in love.

~ Fulton J. Sheen, The World’s First Love (Ignatius, 1952)

I’ve often heard the question that, if God is good, why is there evil in the world? The other day, I read one of those email forwards that said there’s no darkness—darkness is really just an absence of light. There’s no death—death is really just an absence of life. And there’s no evil—evil is really just an absence of God. But why would God be absent, if He loves us?

The answer is in this paragraph from Fulton Sheen, which jumped out at me as I was reading the book before bed the other night. God could have created us like robots or, as Sheen says, like sunflowers; He could have forced us to love Him and respond to Him as He wants us to. But that isn’t really love. Love is a choice, and so robots and sunflowers don’t love. That isn’t what God wanted.

There’s a neat scene in Book 3 of John Milton’s (extremely) long poem Paradise Lost, where God and Jesus are talking in heaven just after the creation of the world. God is telling Jesus that Adam and Eve “will hearken to [Satan’s] glozening lies, / And easily transgress the sole command” (given to them in the Garden of Eden). God (being omniscient) knew ahead of time that man would disobey Him! But He also knew that “Not free, what proof could they have giv’n sincere / Of true allegiance, constant faith or love”? So, as Sheen says, Adam and Eve were not forced to love—and neither are we.

Why is there evil in the world? Because mankind chose that rather than God’s love. And while it’s easy to blame Adam and Eve, I wonder how often I make that poor choice over again in my life. How often do I ignore the love that God holds out to me, all the gifts that He offers me, and instead choose my will and my wants? That’s a tough question, but what amazes me most about it is that God always lets us choose—because He loves us.

Book Review: In the Footsteps of Paul

Saint Paul is one of the best-known apostles and missionaries of the Bible. His conversion story remains one of the most famous in history and his missionary journeys took him through most of the known world in his day. His letters to the early Christian churches form nearly half of our New Testament and much of our Christian understanding is based on what Paul said. Yet for most of us, the places that Paul visited and walked remain just random names in our Bible or spots on little maps in the back of our Bibles.

Ken Duncan’s book In the Footsteps of Paul illuminates Paul’s life and journey with beautiful photographs, excellent quotes from noted Christian authors, and pertinent Bible passages. With his camera, Duncan traced Paul’s journeys through the Mediterranean, photographing the way things are today, yet also capturing rocks and gates and tells that have stood since Paul’s time.

In his introduction, Duncan admits that “part of me didn’t really want to follow in Paul’s footsteps because I knew it would challenge me in my own walk with God, and I was right. Paul was a man just like me. ... Yet as I looked closely at Paul’s life, I realized how far I still had to go as a believer. Paul was all in for Jesus.” Duncan’s pictures, maps, and reflections on Paul’s life give the reader new understanding of what this one man accomplished for God.

Duncan’s photographs are amazing, making each place pictures seem stark and real. As John MacArthur says in the foreword, “Ken is a superb photographer with an uncanny ability to capture the atmosphere of Paul’s world with breathtaking clarity.” Duncan captures the churches built as memorials to Paul’s journeys, the icons and statues carved in honour of Paul and those he met on his journeys, and places that Paul himself would have seen and travelled past.

In the Footsteps of Paul is a book that readers will want to read again and again, to delve into in their devotional life, or just to leave on the coffee table to glance through as time permits.

This book was provided for review courtesy of the publisher or publicist.