Behind the Scenes

Last night, my husband and I went to see Jitters at the Belfry Theatre.  We enjoyed several plays there last year, so I bought a subscription this year.  Jitters is the story of a small theatre company trying to put on a new play by a young playwright while hoping that the play gets picked up by a New York producer and taken to Broadway.  It was two hours with two intermissions, but it felt like the shortest play I've seen and we laughed through every act.

One thing that fascinates me about plays is the sets—how a small crew can turn a stage into a completely different place that fits the needs of every act in the play.  For Jitters, the whole set turned completely around during the intermissions.  For Act 1 and Act 3, we saw "front of house" as the actors rehearse their lines for the upcoming performances; for Act 2, we saw "back of house" as the actors prepare for the opening night of their play (amidst personal and professional turmoil).

That behind-the-scenes look applied to the play as well as the set.  I learned in my drama class last year that the playwright is often intimately involved in the production of his or her play, and that was demonstrated during this play.  I also found out more about what Stage Managers do by the at-first voice-only presence of Nick.  It was interesting to see the characters of the different actors on-stage and off, especially once we'd gotten to know them.

Towards the end of the play, the theatre company reads a critic's review of their opening night.  The critic slams the lead actress but gives high praise to an actor who constantly forgot his lines.  Thinking about that, I realized that as the audience, we see only the finished product.  We don't know how the lines were supposed to sound, who came in too early or too late, or who stood in the wrong place.  Oh, I noticed a couple places where actors stumbled on lines, but overall, it seemed smooth and flawless.

Similarly, in the writing business, we never see all the work—the rough drafts and rewrites and edits—that go into the short story in a magazine.  We never see the translator struggling over a sentence, whether this word stays truer to the original language or whether that word sounds better in the new translation.  We never see the author slashing scenes and adding other scenes and crying over their computer at night because the words won't come together.  That all happens behind the scenes, so that what we as readers hold in our hands seems like a perfectly effortless piece of work.

And that, I think, is what we want.  We want the reader or the watcher to get so lost in the piece that they don't think about what went into creating it.  There were many jokes in Jitters about art and how art is appreciated in Canada (underpaid actors and underpaid writers!), and yet we still keep doing it.  Writers keep writing.  Actors keep acting.  And translators keep working to ensure that works like the Bible are as relevant and easy to read today as they were to the first people who saw those words on a piece of parchment.

I left the play laughing and yet inspired.  It's a good thing to be able to poke fun at ourselves, to laugh at the things we work so hard at and to appreciate them at the same time.

If you haven't yet stopped by Monday's post, do so and enter the giveaway for a copy of the Common English Bible!  And if you live in Victoria, I highly recommend Jitters—it's playing until December 18th.  Have you seen a play (or movie) that inspired your own creativity?

Mailbox Monday and a Giveaway!

For the last week and a half, I've been eagerly watching the mailbox.  Of course, when I'm expecting a package, it seems like the mailbox is always empty.  I patiently walk the girls there, hold one of them up to insert and turn the key, and stare into the big grey space.  Nothing to carry back with us.  On Friday, however, when Sunshine pulled the box open, a large brown envelope was lodged inside.  A book-sized envelope.

I squeezed the parcel and tried to guess which book it was as I carried it inside.  Then I grabbed the scissors and opened it.  Out tumbled my Advance Reading Copy of Chris Fabry's newest novel, Not in the Heart.  There's my Christmas reading, and I'm looking forward to it, because I really enjoyed Almost Heaven.

———

Talking about mailboxes brings back a childhood memory for me.  When my parents first moved from the city to our acreage when I was about two or three, our mailbox was three quarters of a mile away.  Often, we did that walk as a family in the evening.  Other times, Mom took us kids there in the afternoon.  Various friends have expressed amazement that Mom could take three very young children on a one and a half mile walk, but I'm starting to understand... it was a chance to get out of the house and keep us kids from fighting.

Sunshine and Lily enjoy going out for walks too.  Often in the afternoon, if they are starting to squabble more with each other, I'll say, "Let's go for a walk!"  Instantly, the tone changes as they scramble for the door and get ready to go.  We either walk down the hill to the beach or across campus to the gardens.  Sometimes, I'm desperate enough to go out in the rain, putting up the top on the stroller and wearing my hat and rain jacket while we walk.  Those are usually shorter walks.  On the way back, we might stop at the mailbox, just in case... but it's only across the parking lot, not a long ways down the road.

———

As excited as I was to see Not in the Heart, I was a bit disappointed.  I've really been looking forward to getting my copy of the new Common English Bible.  You may have noticed that in my recent posts on friendship, attitude, marriage, and advent, I referenced the CEB.  This is a new Bible translation, in which translators were aided by "reading specialists working with seventy-seven reading groups from more than a dozen denominations . . . to ensure a smooth and natural reading experience."

I'm really excited to get this new Bible.  If you're on Facebook, you can check out the CEB Group Page or drop by the CEB Like Page (where you can download some cool posters of various Bible verses).  If you visit the CEB website, you can also compare translations, read selected verses, or read more about the story of this Bible translation.

Finally, LEAVE A COMMENT here for your chance to WIN A COPY of the CEB!  Feel free to ask a question about the Bible (I'll be reviewing it after I receive it and possibly scheduling an interview as well) or tell me what your favourite Bible verse or Bible translation is.  (Contest closes Friday.)

———

Finally, this post is participating in the Mailbox Monday blog meme (drop by to see what other bloggers found in their mailboxes last week) and in It's Monday! What are you reading? blog meme (although I have to finish some critiques before I can start reading Not in the Heart!).  Make sure you leave a comment to enter the giveaway before clicking away!

First Sunday of Advent: Preparation

For years, I haven't been excited about Christmas.  Lights appear, parades happen, parties are thrown, food is eaten, but it's just another year coming to an end.  I go through the motions of the holiday though it doesn't feel real.  I don't feel the excitement that everyone else does.  There are things about the season that I like—the food and drinks that only come out once a year (eggnog lattes!) and the chance to get extended family together to catch up on the events of the past year.

What I miss, I guess, is that little-kid excitement.  The way my younger brother used to lay on the ottoman in our living room, staring at the presents under the tree and dreaming of Christmas Day.  The way a little kid might cross out all the squares on a calendar in the hopes that then he'll wake up on Christmas morning.  The way that we felt on Christmas Eve, waiting for Dad to get home from work so we could drive to Grandma's place.

Maybe growing up means losing some of that wonder of Christmas.  Lights are just lights.  A Christmas tree means a big mess to clean up in January when the needles start falling all over the floor.  Someone has to cook all that food we enjoy and then wash the dishes afterward.  Getting family together means hours in the vehicle.  And even the Christmas presents under the tree aren't what you wanted them to be.

Or maybe, if even Grinches and Scrooges can get into the Christmas spirit, so can I.  This year has been different.  Yesterday, I spent the day preparing for a dinner party to which I'd invited my aunt, uncle, and cousins.  We went grocery shopping in the morning.  Cleaned house in the afternoon.  Pulled out all my Christmas decorations.  Baked a ham and scalloped potatoes.  Listened to my Christmas CDs.  Rearranged the house to fit everyone around one table.  I was actually excited, not only about the party, but about the coming Advent season—about Christmas and everything it brings.

The beautiful and delicious Christmas fruit cake my cousin made for our party

As I watched the clock to make sure the food was cooked on time and the house looked great before my guests arrived, I thought about the act of preparing for a big event.  In the Christmas story my family (sometimes) read before opening presents, Zachariah holds his newborn baby sons and prophesies about what John will do when he grows up: "You, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way" (Luke 1:76 CEB).

God spent years preparing for that first Christmas—thousands of years, actually.  From way back in Genesis, we can trace the path that lead to the stable in Bethlehem.  Even before His Son was born, He prepared Mary's parents to raise a godly daughter who would say "yes" to His request.  He closed Elizabeth's womb until it was the right time for her to conceive the prophet who would announce His Son's arrival.  He put a star in the sky to guide the Wise Men and did so much more to prepare the world He'd created for His one and only Son.

Christmas snowmen adorning our bookshelf

Advent is a season of preparation—four weeks before Christmas in which we prayerfully walk towards the stable in Bethlehem.  This year, I'm excited about Advent, about using this season to teach Sunshine about Jesus' birthday and about using this season to prepare my own heart for Jesus' arrival.  And you know what?  I'm excited just to be excited.

How do you prepare for Christmas or keep your child-like sense of excitement through this season?

This Side of West Editors' Reading

When I applied for a volunteer editor position with This Side of West (UVic's undergraduate literary magazine) back in October, I didn't really expect to get it.  Last year, I'd been been told that they hired mostly upper-year students or those who had been involved with the magazine in the past.  I forgot the submission deadline, didn't make it to any of the events, and missed the magazine launch in the spring.  This year held more opportunities to get involved, whether or not I was part of the team choosing what gets published in the magazine.

And I am.  I was delighted to get the email from Editor-in-Chief Vanessa Herman (whom I know from a class last year) saying that I would be one of the Creative Nonfiction Editors this year.  So far, we've had one meeting to plan the year, one brunch to get to know each other, and an editors' reading on Thursday night to promote the magazine.

On Wednesday morning, my husband asked me if I'd picked what I was going to read yet.  "I'll do it today," I said.  I was thinking of sharing the Virginia Woolf parody I wrote for my creative nonfiction class last year, but when I read it to my husband, he wasn't sure about it.  It wasn't "me," he said, even though it was descriptive and interesting.  On Thursday morning, I dug through some older files, going back to the very first creative nonfiction class I took during my first degree.  I rehearsed both stories during the day, and Sunshine even asked me, "Read it again, Mommy."  That evening, I read both stories to my husband and my cousin (who babysat for us).  They voted on the second story.

By 6:00, we were in the Jeep on the way to the reading.  Intrepid Theatre was small and quiet when we got there; black curtains around a stage area, forty-five chairs arranged on risers.  Within half an hour, it was packed with the 55 people who had RSVP'd on Facebook and more.  People sat on the floor around the microphone and stood in the doorway.  Four friends from my fiction class who arrived just at the start of the reading ended up in the corner behind the microphone.  My husband and I had gotten seats in the third row up, so when it was my turn to read, I had to climb over several people to reach the stage.

When I got there, I had no idea what to say to introduce my piece, so I just said "hi" and started reading.  And I could show you what I read that night... or I could just read it for you.

Book Review: The Love & Respect Experience by Emerson Eggerichs

I knew the parcel from the post office was my newest book for review, but I still opened it as soon as I got into the Jeep.  My husband looked over when I pulled the book from its bubble envelope.

"Wow.  Is that real leather?" he asked.

"I don't think so," I said, stroking the soft brown cover and running my fingers over the title:  The Love & Respect Experience: A Husband-Friendly Devotional that Wives Truly Love by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs.  The book just begged to be held and looked like a manly book.

The Love & Respect Experience consists of 52 short devotionals (each is only about two or three pages).  Dr. Eggerichs explains that he wrote the book in response to feedback from his Love & Respect seminars.  In writing each devotional, he "tried to keep them brief but still provide enough substance for busy people on the go."  (That sounds like us!) 

The bite-sized portions made it easy for my husband and I to find five or ten minutes to sit down together and read.  Usually, I read the chapter aloud to him and then we talk about it.  Because this devotional book is laid out in 52 chapters, setting a one-a-week commitment to read and pray together might be a great way to approach it.  (We didn't do that, just because we were trying to read enough that I could review it.)

In each chapter, Dr. Eggerichs provides a Bible verse, a devotional, an "insight" that summarizes the ideas of the devotional, and then prayer suggestions and ways to put the devotional into action.  He uses material from couples who have read his book or attended his conferences, and also includes anecdotes from his own marriage.  The book contains discussion questions in an appendix, which can be used for group study or for starting discussions as a couple.
 
I found that The Love & Respect Experience was a good review of what I knew from reading the book years ago.  My husband, who hasn't read the book, says some things might make more sense if you have read Love & Respect; in this devotional, Dr. Eggerichs uses the "jargon" he coined in his earlier book.  And in chapters 7 and 8, Dr. Eggerichs refers readers to more material found in Love & Respect.

One chapter that caught my attention was chapter 5, in which Dr. Eggerichs explains the 80:20 ratio.  He looks at 1 Corinthians 7: 28, where Paul says that "married people will have a hard time" (CEB).  Dr. Eggerichs explains that "around 80 percent of the time, your marriage can be categorized as good or even great while around 20 percent of the time, you may have troubles of one kind or another."  He choose 80 and 20 randomly to illustrate his point that "God does not promise a fulfilling, trouble-free relationship."  Our culture would like us to believe that marriages end "happily ever after," and if they don't, then we must have married the wrong guy.  But that's not what God says.  So Dr. Eggerichs counsels, "Do not live by the sandards of Hollywood; trust what God says in His holy Word."  He advises husbands and wives to focus on the 80 percent that's good in their relationship, rather than the 20 percent of the time that they have bad days or face stressful situations.  His insight for this chapter is, "Every marriage includes trouble some of the time.  Do not let the 20 percent leaven all the rest."

I'm looking forward to finishing this book with my husband.  In only the first dozen chapters, it has lead us to talk more openly about some issues in our marriage and to start praying together again.  I appreciate Dr. Eggerichs' bluntness and honesty, and his insight into both Scripture and marriage.  Wives, this would be a beautiful Christmas gift for your husbands (make sure you read the introduction to understand what he means by a "husband-friendly devotional").  Husbands, I'm sure your wife would also love to read this book with you.

———

Check out more marriage advice at Sheila Wray Gregoire's blog To Love, Honour, and Vacuum.  Today, she's hosting Wifey Wednesdays, where bloggers can share their perspectives on being a wife.

———

Has a marriage book or conference such as Love & Respect influenced your marriage?  Have you had an "ah-ha" moment in your relationship, such as the one I had about the 80:20 ratio?

I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

The Power of Positive Thinking

Last week was a good week.  I say that because it's rare that I can.  In most weeks, there's at least one day that goes wrong—a day when I am super tired or the girls are super whiny or I don't accomplish as much of my to-do list as I want to.  Sometimes those days affect other days and I feel down and grouchy and just want to crawl into bed and hide.  But not last week.

Last week was a good week, and in some ways, it was deliberately a good week.  One thing that struck me at Women of Faith was that it was easy to have a great time at an event like that.  It would be much harder to remember everything that I learned there, and to hang onto that positive attitude, once I got home.  I also read an article in Natural Life magazine that recommended "right thinking" as a natural way to overcome depression.  Heather Mattern explained,

When you are recording the things that you are grateful for, research has suggested that it helps your mind focus and search for the positives throughout the day, instead of the negatives.  Much of the time, depression stems from this negative thinking.  I know that my time and energy are often spent dwelling on the messy failures and disappointments of my day.  When my head hit pillow at night I often started wallowing in all that I should have gotten done, or all that I should have done differently.

I could identify with what Heather said, but I was skeptical—writing down positive thoughts could really push away depression?  This week gave me a chance to test it out.

On Monday morning, I kept Sunshine home from gymnastics because she had a bad cough and a runny nose.  We spent the morning doing housework.  All morning.  Normally, stacks of dishes by the sink and dirt all over the floor would stress me out, because they are urgent tasks that keep me from things I'd rather be doing—like writing.  On Monday, I just tackled one task at a time, without worrying about what I needed to have done by the end of the day.  I also followed the girls around.  When they were upstairs playing in their room, I folded their laundry there.  When they were at the table eating their snack, I washed the dishes so I could watch them and talk to them.  By the end of the day, I'd actually gotten a lot done (and a clean house makes me feel good).

On Thursday, I felt like I spent most of the day in the Jeep.  I took the girls to their music class in the morning, came home for a few minutes to check email, ran Sunshine to preschool, came home for a few minutes to work on a critique, then went to pick up my husband for an appointment.  I took my book with him while I was waiting, but it was still frustrating to be doing that instead of the critiques I needed to finish.  At least it gave me an opportunity to do some of the reading that my fiction instructor keeps urging me to do.  By the evening, when I was heading rock climbing (yay!), I  didn't want to sit in the Jeep for the half-hour drive out there.  I dug through my CD case, found some worship music, and found myself singing all the way out to the gym.

Small things that made a big difference.  As Heather says, "If I wake up thinking of all the things that I have to do and begin feeling overwhelmed and frustrated, then my day ends up being overwhelming and frustrating.  It just happens.  I must change my way of thinking, and it starts with looking for the gifts upon waking."  I'm learning to take each day as it comes, and to appreciate my daughters and my husband, rather than worrying over everything that "must" get done.

"Why, I ask myself, are you so depressed?  Why are you so upset inside?  Hope in God!  Because I will again give him thanks, my saving presence and my God." (Psalms 43:5 CEB)

What makes the difference between a "good day" and a "bad day" for you?

How to Be a Friend

When I first saw Lisa Welchel's book Friendship for Grownups, I wasn't very interested.  I kinda wondered how she could write a whole book on friendship.  I mean, it's not that hard—is it?  I should have realized, from all our moves and from my desire to return to Alberta because "our family and friends are all back there," that friendship is harder than it seems.  As I heard Lisa talk at Women of Faith, I found myself thinking hard about what she said.

Lisa shared how she grew up in the '80s as the lead actress in the TV show The Facts of Life (if you recognize the show, yes, you just revealed your age; I didn't know the show, but my husband did—he even remembered the name of the girl Lisa played when I described her as "the blonde main character").  Lisa was so busy learning lines for the show that she didn't have time to learn about friendships as most people do in their teenage years.

I could identify with that.  By the time I reached junior high and high school, I didn't have many friends.  Two of my friends were in public school; they didn't get off the bus until 4 pm and usually had homework to do.  My homeschooling friends around the block had moved to Colorado.  And my best friend, who had been homeschooled, was now doing part-time courses at the local high school as well as distance education courses that required a lot of time.  My friends became the characters in my novels until I reached university.

As Lisa talked, I found myself nodding and taking notes.  She shared there's a difference between being vulnerable and being transparent.  It's easy to be transparent when writing a book or a blog post or speaking to five thousand women at a conference; there's an arms-length distance that makes it safe.  It's harder to be vulnerable when you are speaking one-on-one with a close friend, opening your heart to him or her—and risking getting hurt.  I can think of only a couple people whom I'm truly vulnerable with; one is a friend who went through all four years of university with me.

Lisa went on to say that our hunger for connection is stronger than our fear of rejection.  That's easy to see in people who've suffered from a bad romantic relationship, yet start a new one right away.  God created us to be in relationship, both with him and with each other; think about how He said in Genesis 2:18, "It’s not good that the human is alone. I will make him a helper that is perfect for him" (CEB).  We're still afraid of being alone; we still want someone who is "perfect" for us.

Lisa Welchel's words touched a hole inside me that made me realize I still thirst for friendship—but I won't get that by hiding myself.  I need to reach out to my friends, even to my family, and to risk being vulnerable.  I've come to realize that too often, I get busy with my writing, my routines, my daughters and I don't make the time to connect with my friends.  Clicking "like" on a Facebook status to show that I'm aware of what a friend is doing doesn't count as connecting!  My challenge to myself is to pick up the phone at least once a week to call a friend.

Can you relate to either my experience or Lisa's?  What friendship advice would you offer?

Why Writers Need to be Editors

A small title on the cover of the June 2009 Quill & Quire magazine laying on the table jumped out at me: THE DECLINE OF IN-HOUSE EDITING.  In every book I've reviewed lately, I've noticed at least one typo (and in the case of one author, published by a major publishing house, a lot of dangling modifiers).  I've wondered about that trend—is it because I'm more aware of these things as I do more editing or because of something happening in the publishing houses?  I picked up the magazine and quickly read the two-page article.

Writer Stuart Woods talks about the reality that today's editors "are increasingly overtaxed—squeezed by a barrage of submissions on one side and a lack of time and resources on the other side."  I don't think the news has gotten any better in the two years since he wrote his article; more publishers have faced cut-backs or bankruptcies and more bookstores have closed.  It's thus a sad fact of the times that many editors can't work with writers as they did in the past, but are now just "glorified project managers."

What does that mean for writers?  Submissions must be really good to catch the attention of the editor.  Not just really good in terms of story, but also really good in terms of spelling and grammar, because "editors at practically every house are looking for manuscripts that need as little work as possible."  Or, as freelance editor Meg Taylor told Woods, "The news is out that you have to have a more polished submission, that you can't risk it just ending up in the slush pile."

Writers must have an excellent grasp of the mechanics of writing, and for the most part, they must learn this themselves—schools (at least in Canada) are no longer teaching grammar.  I was lucky to have a grammar-heavy English curriculum from the States, which pounded prepositions and gerunds and proper use of semi-colons into my head until I was ready to scream.  Now, I'm grateful for that education, as those things come second-nature to me.

In all the reading and critiquing I've been doing lately for my workshops, I've come to appreciate editors more.  Many of my classmates are fantastic writers—they have amazing life experiences to draw on or a poetic voice that brings their subjects alive—but that is sometimes lost beneath bad grammar.  I don't want to read a sentence three times to figure out what it means.  It's one thing to have deep writing which encourages multiple readings for greater revelation; it's quite another thing to have sloppy reading that requires multiple readings (if your reader is that patient) because the writer didn't know about dialogue punctuation or comma splices.

If you are a writer, buy a good style guide (such as The Canadian Press Stylebook or The Little, Brown Handbook) and use it.  Find some good critique partners who can tell you "this is confusing" or "this is out of place" and learn from your mistakes.  Take a grammar or editing course (look online or try your local university).  Hire an editor who can coach you through your manuscript, telling you what things you need to work on.  As a writer, you must now be an editor too.

Mommy's New Shoulder Bag

When I started classes again this September, I began looking for a school bag.  We have bags all over the house, so you'd think that would be an easy process.  It wasn't.  Last year, I used a book bag given to me by my favourite English professor when I graduated with my BA.  That bag is now my rock climbing bag.  I tried other bags, but they were all too small or too big or the wrong shape, and I didn't want to spend money on a new bag.

At Women of Faith, I noticed my friend Joanna had a nice shoulder bag.  When she commented she'd made it, I thought, "I could do that!"  The Monday after we got back, when I was doing laundry and chasing the girls and trying to return to normal life after a weekend away, I dug out my fabric bin.  Lily was napping and I was too tired to concentrate on editing stories.  Plus, a sewing project seemed like something I could do with Sunshine.

She oohed and aahed over the fabric—satin scraps from my wedding dress and my university grad dress; lengths of flannel I bought before she was born, intending to make sleepers; a piece of bright pink linen that might someday become a dress for me (or her).  Nothing suitable for a bag.  As I stacked the fabric back in the bin, I caught sight of two pairs of pants I'd thrown in: a pair of jeans with a broken fly and a pair of cargo pants with holes in the bum.  They'd once been my favourite pants, and still had a lot of good fabric, so I hadn't wanted to throw them out.  As I eyed them, an idea grew up in my head.

Sunshine chattered to me while I spread out the cargo pants and began cutting and ripping.  "What's that?  What's this?  What are you doing?"  She unrolled my tape measure and offered to help and ran around with bits of fabric.  When I got out my sewing machine and began stitching, she stood beside the table and watched.

"Mama Bear did that for Sister," she said.

"What?" I asked.  She repeated the statement.  It took me a minute to put that together with the Berenstain Bears DVD she's been watching recently.  Then I felt guilty.  Apparently it's been so long since I sewed anything that she only knows what a sewing machine is from a TV show.  The only time I've gotten my machine out lately has been to do mending for my husband.

By the time I finished my bag, several hours later, Sunshine wanted a bag for herself.  My project had taken longer than I expected and I was ready to put everything away again, but I looked at the pair of jeans.  It took me only a few minutes to transform the pant legs into two little bags—one of her and one for Lily, now up from her nap.  (I've learned life is easier when everything comes in twos.)  For the next week, the girls carted their bags everywhere; Sunshine even insisted upon using hers as a snack bag for preschool.

I'm quite pleased with my bag, which is just the right size of my papers, holds my coffee cup upright (so it doesn't even spill if it's full!), and has space for my pens too.  If you want to try making a bag like this, check out my step-by-step article  on the Untrained Housewife.

The girls and I with our new shoulder bags

Poppies, Uncles, and Remembrance

You can tell November is approaching when the poppies start appearing.  Sunshine loves the poppies; last year, my aunt took them walking across campus in the week before Remembrance Day and they found poppies all over.  I view them a bit more sceptically, as the plastic red flowers fall off her coat or seem ready to poke her at any opportunity.

This Remembrance Day, here's what I'm thinking about:

• My great-uncle is the only man on my dad's side of the family to serve in the war.  He passed away this summer, just before his one hundredth birthday.  I had the opportunity to visit him in the hospital when I was there in July, but I'm not sure that he remembered either me or my daughters.
• If you haven't yet watched Ray Comfort's new documentary 180, which used the Holocaust to start a discussion about abortion, I urge you to do so.  My generation is getting far enough from the war my great-uncle fought that some people don't even know who Hitler was or what he did.  I find it mind-boggling to consider that soldiers from as far away as Canada and Australia fought to stop Hitler when normal people living right next to camps like Auschwitz didn't even realize what was happening there.
• Lisa Hall-Wilson, a fellow Canadian writer and blogger, wrote a great post earlier this week about Canadian contributions to both World Wars and how we are different than our American neighbours.
• Six years ago today, my husband and I went on our "marathon" first date together.  Later, when we were talking about what, exactly, was our first date, and arrived at this particular moment in our friendship, he said, "I knew there was a reason I was going to remember that!"

Remembrance Day is Reading Week here at the university, so I get a day off from my nonfiction class—a whole extra week to work on this round of critiques.  I'm not sure whether we'll try taking the girls to any ceremonies, but I'm hoping to find a few hours to work on revisions to my first fiction assignment.  However you spend this day, may it be a day of good memories and appreciation for what our parents and grandparents have done for us.

What is Literary Fiction?

Towards the end of last semester, I was talking to a fellow writing student about what classes she was planning to take.  I mentioned I was hoping to get into the fiction workshop and asked if she was also taking fiction.  "Oh, no," she said, "I can't write the kind of fiction they want here."

That seems to be a common conception about literary fiction—it's hard to read and hard to write.  I'm not going to say it isn't, because writing is hard work and some types of fiction do require more of the reader than others.  I think the key difference between literary fiction and non-literary fiction (or genre fiction) is that literary fiction is about character and genre fiction is about plot.  There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, but the literary fiction I've read explores human nature—why someone would do something, rather than how he or should would do it.

Author and former literary agent Nathan Bransford says it slightly differently:

"In commercial fiction the plot tends to happen above the surface and in literary fiction the plot tends to happen beneath the surface.

"Most genre fiction involves a character propelling themselves through a world. The character is an active protagonist who goes out into a world, experiences the challenges of that world, and emerges either triumphant or defeated. ... Sure, the character might have an inner struggle and be a richly rendered character, but for the most part genre novels are about the exterior—they are about how a character navigates a unique world.

"Now consider literary fiction. In literary fiction the plot usually happens beneath the surface, in the minds and hearts of the characters. Things may happen on the surface, but what is really important are the thoughts, desires, and motivations of the characters as well as the underlying social and cultural threads that act upon them."

It is this close look at "the thoughts, desires, and motivations of the characters" that makes literary fiction "hard" to read and write.  I would much rather be doing something—even if it's dishes or laundry—than reflecting upon my mistakes.  So a story—even a short story—that devotes a lot of words to reflecting upon what is a small but significant event in a character's life can be tough to read.  And tough to write.

Some of my favourite literary fiction titles

I just handed in my second story for my fiction class (that's it for this semester, thankfully).  Both times I've handed in material for this class, I've written two stories before finding the one I wanted to workshop.  The first stories didn't feel "literary" enough.  And that is a nebulous definition, one I've reached by reading a lot of fiction—both genre and literary.  It's easier to recognize what I like about the literary fiction I've read than it is to actually write stories which explore character in the same way.

While I often despair of writing like the authors I admire, I've come to this conclusion: whatever I write, I will try to be the best writer that I can be.  Whether I'm working on my YA fantasy novels (genre fiction for sure!) or short stories for my university fiction classes (and trying to be more literary), I'll grapple with the words and the plot and the characters and all the elements that must come together to make a good story—whether it's literary or not.

A Big Piece of Dark Chocolate, Please

One Wednesday night a couple weeks ago, I was trying not to fall apart while I made supper and counting down the hours until I could go rock climbing with my cousins.  Lily had been clingy and whiny all day and Sunshine had been asking a thousand "whys" and pestering her sister at every opportunity.  When my husband walked in the door, I was in the kitchen with the girls, trying to throw together a curry for supper.

"What's that?" Sunshine asked from her perch on a chair at my right elbow, watching as I scraped the surprisingly pale flesh from a dark purple eggplant.

"Eggplant," I said shortly.  It had been roasting in the oven for an hour and was supposed to be soft now—the recipe said "mash and add to the curry"—but it was about the texture of an apple.  And hot.  I dropped a piece, grumbling under my breath, and stacked it on the cutting board to chop.

"Why?" asked Sunshine.

"Because it is," I said.  "Go play with Daddy."  He'd changed out of his work clothes and disappeared into the living room to check his email.  Lily began pushing buttons on the toaster, which she was sitting beside on the counter.  I dumped the knife and cutting board in the sink, rinsed my hands quickly, and put her on the floor.  She wrapped both arms around my leg and began howling.  I clenched my teeth, took a deep breath, and put her back in the corner of the counter.

"Oh, I have a rugby practice tonight at the law school," my husband called from the other room.

I thought, I'm going to scream.  I looked at the clock.  Okay, hold it together until bedtime now.  "All right.  I'll go rock climbing tomorrow night," I answered him.  That solved our problem about what to do for those two nights—both of us had about three different places we could have been on Wednesday and Thursday.

Somehow, I served supper, cleaned up, and then checked Facebook while the girls played.  I updated my status to "A tall glass of wine, a big piece of dark chocolate, a hot bubble bath, and absolute silence, please."  Then I put the girls to bed, worked on my writing assignment for two hours, and went to bed myself.

 The next day, I laughed when I saw what one of my friends posted on my status update.  She said, " "I'm sorry to say I was slightly relieved to see that someone else was having one of those days. :)"  Yes, we all have days like that—days when the girls make a mess as soon as I clean it up, get more Kraft Dinner on the floor than in their mouths (yes, I feed my kids KD), days when they fight more than they play, days when nothing happens the way I want it to.  And yeah, it does help to know that other moms go through it too.  

Those are the days when I pick up the phone, or pack the girls into the stroller to walk down to the beach, or grab one of my favourite mommy books (for the bath that never happened), or just throw the to-do list out the window and sit down to read their entire bookshelf of stories together.

Love Your Coffee Mug

One of the first things I noticed about my husband when I met him was his backpack.  While every other student at the university carried a standard black and some-other-colour backpack (mine was black and maroon), he had a khaki brown, military-style rucksack.  One pocket on the outside held a battered green thermos.  Every morning, he filled that thermos full of coffee and then, throughout the day, topped up his travel mug until riding the bus home with empty thermos and mug at the end of the day.

By the time we married, he had a new backpack (yellow and black, standard style, with the university logo on it) and a new travel mug (a gift from me for his graduation).  He'd given up on the thermos and now carried a small jar of instant coffee in an outside pocket on the backpack; hot water was readily available around the university.

His travel mug is always stainless steel and black, though it's been through several incarnations in the near-decade I've known him.  It first shows up in my photos albums at my graduation; we took pictures in my friend's backyard between the grad ceremony and the reception that evening.  We're standing under an apple tree, whose green leaves and white blossoms match the corsage pinned to my shoulder.  He has an arm around my waist and my arm is over his shoulder; I'm smiling, but you can't see his smile because the coffee cup is in the way.

One of our friends commented on how often the travel mug shows up in our honeymoon pictures.  Nearly half of the photos of my husband feature the mug.  It went on the hikes with us and all around the cruise ship.  There's a series of pictures where I'm holding the mug because he wanted to take some pictures—or maybe I was cold out on the deck of the ship and just borrowed the mug to warm my hands.  In the next picture, I'm holding the mug out to him, smiling for the camera.  The last picture is him with his mug again.

They say that when you love someone, his (or her) habits begin to wear off on you.  I hadn't been dating my husband for very long when I started using phrases like "it's all good" that I learned from him.  Picking up the coffee mug habit took a big longer, even though I've had a personal mug since my days working as a summer student at my dad's office during university.  Sometimes, when we went on road trips for the weekend, I'd fill my mug with hot chocolate or tea while he was making coffee.

I didn't start using my own mug until I worked at Starbucks and became a more serious coffee drinker.  As baristas, we were encouraged to use personal mugs for the five free drinks we were allowed per shift (hey, in a week, that's a lot of paper cups).  Starbucks also offered a discount for customers who brought in their own mug, but I was surprised by how few people did that.

I was unpacking a new shipment when I found my mug.  It's curvy and slender, light green, grande size.  I bought it for my birthday (before my husband could find a way to sneakily buy it without me noticing).  Since then, I've come to love my mug.  It keeps drinks hotter for longer than a paper mug and it's easier to drink from.  Sometimes, when I'm thinking about buying a coffee, I'll decide not to because I didn't bring my own mug with me.  Other times, when I'm thinking about taking my mug, I'll decide not to because I don't want to cart it around all day.

Recently, several mugs went missing.  My husband started using my mug—the one from my summers working with my dad's company.  I wanted to say, "Don't lose that mug!" but I didn't.  He did.  He put it down on the bus, he said.  I called Victoria transit; had they found it?  Yes, they had.  The girls and I took the bus the next day and made a detour to pick up my mug.  (Moral of that story: carry a mug that's easy to identify, just in case you lose it.)  He jokes he's just trying to find an excuse to buy a new Contigo mug we've heard good things about.  Environmental reasons aside, may I heartily recommend a travel mug to you—it's much more convenient and personal.

Explore: Seattle, Washington

About two weeks ago, Joanna emailed me to ask what I wanted to do while we were in Seattle.  I had been so busy trying to make sure I had my homework done before the weekend that I hadn't even thought about Seattle.  "Um, maybe visit Pike Place Market and definitely go to the first Starbucks," I emailed back.  We exchanged ideas and links over the next few days and in the end realized we were both trying to travel cheap, which ruled out quite a few "touristy" options.

The Seattle Space Needle provided a handy landmark for the entire weekend.  Women of Faith happened in the Key Arena right underneath the Needle, so we just had to walk until we got to the Space Needle and then look for the Arena.  I find it hard to adjust my sense of direction to a new city, but the Space Needle helped as we just had to look up to know where we were.  Seeing the city from the top would have been neat, but it didn't fit into our budget for this trip.

Changing views of the Seattle Space Needle

The Olympic Sculpture Park was located just down the street from the Key Arena, so when the conference ended on Saturday night and we wanted a bit of a walk, we headed there.  The park is built on a sort of overpass above a freeway and the railway tracks—beautiful manner of disguising the ways we get about a city.  We followed the trail that zigzagged back and forth until we'd crossed from downtown to the beach, and then we continued down the Elliot Bay Trail for a little ways, talking and admiring the changing sunset over the water.

Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, at sunset

At one point, when we'd pulled out a little tourist map to decide if we wanted to keep walking or turn back, a jogger stopped to ask us if we were lost.  That was a common reaction we got when we were looking at maps; Seattlites are quite friendly to tourists!  She assured us there wasn't much more to see along the trail, so we turned around, as we still had to walk up Capitol Hill to our B&B (drop by Joanna's blog for pictures and descriptions of this beautiful place).

On Sunday morning, we walked to Pike Place Market.  Like any market on a Sunday, it was packed with people.  A grocery store had its fruits and vegetables neatly arranged in colour-coded rows.  We braved the lineup in the original Starbucks, which had the friendliest baristas I've ever encountered.  In the market, Joanna and I tried on hats and wished for more money, then browsed a bookstore in the basement, where I found Goodnight Seattle as a way to show the girls where I'd been and, if we ever make it back, to talk to them about where we'll go.

Seattle Public Library

From there, we went to see the Seattle Public Library, which my cousin had told me had some cool architecture.  I was expecting neat old stone building, in keeping with some of the other historical buildings we'd seen around the city.  Instead, as we hiked up the hill, we saw a modern glass-and-steel building whose shapes defy definition.  Inside, we took the elevator to the tenth floor to look out over the city and admire the library itself (which had a "writer's room" on the ninth floor).

Back in the elevator, I looked at my plane tickets and realized that I'd better get myself on a bus... so we hiked the few blocks to the bus stop and said hasty goodbyes.  I had some quick last glimpses of the city from bus and seaplane before leaving Seattle behind... with a promise that I'll be back, because there's so much more of this friendly city I want to see.

Seaplane to Seattle

Fuel fumes filled my nose as the seaplane taxied slowly across the water.  In the time it took me to boot up my Netbook, the pilot steered us through Victoria's inner harbour.  Just as I began typing, he turned the corner and picked up speed.  Instead of the bump of water beneath the floats, I felt the lift of wind beneath our wings.  We soared over the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater and I realized that the white dots below us were seagulls gliding above the blue-green waves.

“I’d like to promise it’ll be smooth,” the pilot had told us after giving us the usual information about where life jackets were located.  “But it won’t be.  It was rough coming here.”  He had just flown in from Seattle and was now taking us back there.

The earplugs expanding slowly to fill my ears didn’t cut out the sound of the plane’s engines.  There were seven of us on the ten-passenger float plane.  One young man, flying by himself, took the co-pilot’s seat.  I wondered if, like in a vehicle, I’d be less prone to motion sickness with a forward view.  Straight below my window, the waves looked like greenish linoleum; at the horizon, they melded into a smooth blue expanse with no separation between sea and sky.

Gusts of wind sent the plane bouncing unpredictably.  I thought of my daughters shrieking with glee as I bounced them on my knees and wondered why it was so delightful.  My stomach sent signals that it didn’t like this bouncing either.  I focused on the horizon, the boat in the distance, the gauges and switches I could see through the doorway into the cockpit.  Why was the plane so warm?  I stripped off my vest, then my sweater.  Then I closed my Netbook and put it away.

Twenty minutes into the flight, land appeared below us again—first a rocky cliff plunging down into a line of white waves with curves of the rock showing where the water had carved out this cliff and trees daringly clinging to patches of dirt.  Houses appeared as squares in larger squares of lawn or fields cut from the dark evergreens of forest.  Reds and yellows of deciduous trees dotted the greens.  All very pretty, except that my head still felt hot and my stomach was complaining about the mocha I’d had just before takeoff.

Downtown Seattle from the plane

I cast covert glances at my fellow passengers.  The man beside me stared straight ahead, his face as serious as his black business suit, despite the orange earplugs sticking from his ears.  The lady two seats in front of me leaned against her window, occasionally tossing comments across the aisle to her friend or pointing out the scenery below.  Behind me, an older lady typed at her laptop or took notes on a scrap of paper.  I envied her; I'd planned to spend this hour of travel working on critiques for my class or having some uninterrupted writing time.

I peered down at the scenery below, hoping desperately this was Lake Union we were flying over now and we’d soon be landing.  But as the water stretched on, zigzagging back and forth among boats and buildings and treelined coasts, I realized we were just following Puget Sound.  My stomach revolted at the idea of more flying.  I clamped my teeth together and reached into the pocket in front of me.  A blue envelope had something about “motion sickness” on it and a white baggy inside.  So much for what my fellow passengers might think of me—I opened the bag and let my stomach do what it wanted to do.

The plane continued bumping up the coast as I held my baggy like a best friend.  I pulled my earplugs out and found that, despite the noise, my head felt better with my ears clear.  Breathing deeply, I watched the scenery pass below and wished for land.  Next time, I though, I’ll take the ferry—at least if I get motion sick there, I can step outside for some cold, fresh air to clear my head.  Then the plane dropped towards Lake Union and began bouncing across the water, but the waves felt solid and good underneath the floats compared to the weightless bouncing we’d done up in the sky.

We walked off the plane together, took turns handing our passports to the customs’ officer, and then I found a garbage in which to deposit my baggy and stepped out into a cold, rainy Seattle afternoon.  Never have I been so happy to walk in the rain.

The seaplane preparing to leave Seattle

I spent the weekend at Women of Faith dreading the flight back to Victoria and praying for a smoother ride.  I didn’t eat lunch before getting on the plane; I didn’t read or get out my Netbook; and perhaps that, along with the nicer weather, helped me fly home without problem.  Some things are better small, but some things—like ferries and planes—are better big.