From Me to You

From Me to You, Life, the Universe, and Everything

Touchstones and Retreat: A 2021 Retrospective and a Look Ahead

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Last year at the end of December, I wrote this post, taking stock of everything that had happened since 2020 began. I had chosen inward as my word of the year for 2020, and oh boy, did I get more of an inward turn than I bargained for! I selected inward out of an instinctive need for more balance in life and more margin, as over the previous years, I’d begun to feel increasingly stretched thin. But instead of the balance I expected to get–the kids starting school fulltime, enabling me to juggle work and life more effectively–we all received something else entirely.

Lockdowns, masks, vaccines, border closures. The chaotic personal and public responses to a pandemic that found us all wrong-footed. It was not what I expected from my year of turning inward. And it was a very, very hard adjustment.

So for this past year, now in its twilight moments, I chose a different sort of word. Touchstone. A reminder to focus on the things that ground me–that serve as a reminder of the beloved prayer all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. And my touchstone year, as hoped, has turned out to be a healing one.

My greatest touchstones of 2021 weren’t the ones I expected. I’d anticipated they’d be personal in nature–moments carved out to just dwell, revisiting books and music and films that I love. I envisioned a touchstone year being mostly about me, holding onto my own comforts for dear life. And in a way, 2021 has been about touchstones I love, but not about grasping them tightly. It’s been about holding them out to others.

2020 felt like the kind of year that had the potential to break me. 2021, in every meaningful way, has been no different. And yet I’ve rested in it. The isolation and seemingly insurmountable schedule of simultaneous work and school has shaken out into something…manageable. Something where I’ve been able to find incandescent moments of joy.

I didn’t expect homeschool itself to become a touchstone, and yet it has. It shapes our days, giving them structure and excitement and zest. We’ve found a rhythm that works, a range of subjects that sing for us. Long ago, homeschool was something Tyler and I considered for the kids, but dismissed as it seemed like it wouldn’t end up being a good fit. Well, it is. In fact, it fits like a glove. Monday has become my favorite day of the week, because we can get back to our schoolroom and our work of learning about the incredible, intriguing, endlessly lovely world we inhabit. Through the rocky start of going from public schoolers on a Friday in the middle of March to homeschoolers the following Monday, we’ve done a long, slow creative work and come up with something beautiful.

We walk (a lot–outside time is essential for cheerful spirits and healthy bodies). We read. We write. We problem solve. We craft and sing and watch and explore, query and measure and investigate and plan. But most of all, we follow our joy. Learning should be an activity founded on enthusiasm and excitement, not a matter of drudgery. And I love the opportunity to ensure that’s the shape it’s taking for my children.

The second greatest touchstone of the year for me has been books. And while I thought it would be primarily books I read on my own, the touchstone stories have primarily been ones the family shared together. This year, we got into a habit of bedtime read alouds. We’ve shared The Wind in the Willows, Charlotte’s Web, Farmer Boy, A Wrinkle in Time, Misty of Chincoteague, all of Narnia and Dinotopia, Jane of Lantern Hill, Stories of the Saints, and The Jesus Storybook Bible. It has been a marvelous journey, sparking imaginations and featuring several movie nights with popcorn to enjoy film adaptations of books we finished.

So. Those are the bright spots, and they have been all the brighter for shining at a time when the global state of being is bleak.

There have been pitfalls and fraught moments as well. Though I’ve managed to strike a tentative balance between homeschool and work, work itself remains an uncertain thing. No career in the arts is a safe bet, and I count myself lucky every time I sell a book. I want to do this forever–it is, without exaggeration, my dream job, and connecting with readers makes every moment of uncertainty worthwhile. But the reality is, that anything beyond the work of crafting an excellent story lies outside my control. I cannot in any meaningful way impact sales numbers or success. All I can control is the book itself–the characters and themes that rest between the pages.

The story and only the story, I’ve realized over the course of the past year, is my publishing touchstone. It is easy for things beyond that–platform-building and trade reviews and royalty reports and Best Of lists–to feel like they matter most. They don’t (or shouldn’t). What matters is me and the words, and that at the end of every story, I get to place a book on the shelf that I’m proud of. That I know got the best of me, right now, as I am.

That is why, for 2022, I’ve chosen the word retreat to define my year. Touchstone brought joy and balance and wonder to the mothering and teaching side of my life. Retreat, I’m hoping, can restore those things to the creative and the author in me. Here is the sense I’m using it in…

Retreat

1. an act of moving back or withdrawing
2. a quiet or secluded place in which one can rest and relax
3. a period of seclusion for the purposes of prayer and meditation

Retreat is both a strategic act and a sanctuary, and I’m hoping to tap into both those facets of it throughout 2022. In honor of my upcoming year of retreat, I’ve already taken a good hard look at how I spend my creative energy and engage in online spaces. I’m pulling back from platforms that I loved but where I felt an obligation to deliver a performance in service of selling a product.

That’s not me. I write books, and you can buy them or not buy them–I prefer you do the first, but I have no interest in spending my time cajoling you into it 😉 I have a great deal of interest in growing as a creative and working on my next projects. In becoming a better and more thoughtful crafter of words.

So I’m retreating to spaces that foster deeper and more meaningful modes of communication. This blog, my email newsletter, and a printed, sent-to-your-mailbox newsletter which will start up this spring and which I’m very excited about (sign ups are here). I am hopeful that this intentional withdrawal, coupled with some deep thinking about the whys and whats of my work–why I continue to create stories, and what I want to say with them–will have the same rejuvenating process for my creative existence that focusing on touchstones did for parenting and educating.

But whatever the outcome, I’m looking forward to seeing what the journey brings.

From Me to You, Life, the Universe, and Everything

Deep Magic and a Rosemary Tree

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As a teen, I was a witch.

Or what I understood to be a witch, and what, I think, a lot of people would understand to be one too.

I grew from a line of impeccably faithful evangelical Christians into someone who snuck out not to meet romantic prospects or to go to parties, but to wander the nearest forest with a kerosene lantern and undertake rituals in a clearing among the pines. I did not follow a book, or have any sort of guide. I did not call on dark spirits. All I knew was that the Earth and the things living on it had a voice, and that I wanted to speak with them. That they were a choir, and I wanted to join their music.

In my twenties, I was a Christian. Or what I understood to be a Christian, and what, I think, a lot of people would understand to be one too.

I grew from a teen who haunted forests into a young adult who craved structure and care–to be tenderly shepherded by an all-knowing and loving power. I spent my time not among the trees but in a sanctuary. I followed a book; I had a multitude of guides. All I knew was that the children of God had a voice, and that I wanted to speak with them. That they were a choir, and I wanted to join their music.

The children of God, as it turns out, can bite in ways the woods do not, and I am a cautious person. Once bitten, twice shy, was an adage coined for careful souls like me, and it is difficult to unlearn wariness when every day, the fold is shown to hold new wolves in sheep’s clothing. But I’ve never yet lost my faith in the shepherd I sought out–that, I’ll carry with me till I die.

I am trying to unlearn wariness. Wariness of my scars and wariness I was taught in the sanctuary, of opening myself to the world around me. Of listening to the Earth, and the things living on it.

Which brings me to the rosemary tree.


I brought her home last month, because I knew I needed her. Rosemary is a good and giving plant; a steadfast and nurturing friend. Rosemary, since she was made (“Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind”) has been for clearing the mind and body, for opening the same, and for protection. Mine is proving true to type, good and giving, steadfast and nurturing, a daily reminder that there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. That all nature sings as round us rings the music of the spheres.

There are two things I believe whole-heartedly, down to the core of my being: that the spheres are turned by a good and loving power, and that the universe we inhabit is full of beautiful aliveness. That the rosemary tree and I each give up glory when we fully and joyously live the lives we were made for. When we give, one to another; me tending her, her tending me, each as we are able. I worship, not just because of the rosemary tree, but with her.


I want to speak with the things whose voices I unlearned. I want to join the great music and the great dance. I want, everywhere, to see glory, and to reflect back what I have seen.

For you shall go out with joy, And be led out with peace; The mountains and the hills Shall break forth into singing before you, And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Isaiah 55:12

Most High, all powerful, good Lord,
Yours are the praises, the glory, the honor, and all blessing.

To You alone, Most High, do they belong,
and no man is worthy to mention Your name.

Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures,
especially through my lord Brother Sun,
who brings the day; and you give light through him.
And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
in heaven you formed them clear and precious and beautiful.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene,
and every kind of weather through which
You give sustenance to Your creatures.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,
which is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you light the night and he is beautiful
and playful and robust and strong.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth,
who sustains us and governs us and who produces
varied fruits with colored flowers and herbs.

Praised be You, my Lord,
through those who give pardon for Your love,
and bear infirmity and tribulation.

Blessed are those who endure in peace
for by You, Most High, they shall be crowned.

Praised be You, my Lord,
through our Sister Bodily Death,
from whom no living man can escape.

Woe to those who die in mortal sin.
Blessed are those who will
find Your most holy will,
for the second death shall do them no harm.

Praise and bless my Lord,
and give Him thanks
and serve Him with great humility.

St. Francis of Assisi

The book I followed has led me to other books. The room full of guides has given way to a history and a world full of them. I am caught halfway between two things–between the witch and the Christian I was. But I am convinced that there is no need to give up magic simply because you call it miracle. That the meaning and potency and importance of things is not diminished simply because the power they hold is granted by something outside themselves; by something greater.

But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?

Job 12:7-9

I keep the Holy Family on my window sill. I keep them there to remind me of magic: that the divine had a mother, a country girl with nothing to recommend her besides the depth and breadth of her faith. Of her openness to the extraordinary, because when her world was infringed upon by angels, her response was “let it be to me according to your word.“

I keep what I would have once considered witchcraft on my window sill, and what, I think, a lot of people would understand to be witchcraft too. It is a little thing, a bundle of cedar (for protection and cleansing) given to me as a gift, and clippings from the rosemary tree I am working and worshiping with. I draw in breaths of its resinous smell to focus, to help me find the still point, and to remind me of miracles: that I am alive in a world of bright living things. That the universe is full of wonders I will never understand, that I am loved immeasurably, and my sole duty is to love in return.


Whether it is the Holy Family or the rosemary tree that draws my focus and holds it, reminding me to give up glory, it is all worship. It is knowing that the children of God–in all their shapes and guises–have a voice, and I am speaking with them. That they are a choir, and I am adding to their music. And I think, in these moments, that I too, have the Spirit of God.

Amen and amen, and so may it be.

From Me to You, Life, the Universe, and Everything, Poetry

Multitude

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In January, geese fly overhead
Arrowing their way to the lake beyond the wood.
They pass over
And pass over
And again, they pass over
In their ones, their tens, their hundreds,
Until breathless, you realize, their thousands have come and gone.
They appear before dusk, when the clouds are soft and small, the sky pink like spun sugar,
And they sing as they go, that wild, ululating cry.

They know nothing of plagues, or how the world has ground to an unstable halt;
How in that grinding the Earth seems fit to tear itself apart.
They know only that it is warm in January–warm enough to feign a spring,
And perhaps they’re right.
Perhaps it is spring, and we have shifted the seasons as we grind down the Earth.
“Look,” you tell the small souls in your charge. “Look up from your books
And see what they are teaching you.
There is one,
There is ten,
There is a hundred,
And a thousand.”

They look up with wonder in their eyes, and no book could teach this–
How the finite can seem to last forever.

From Me to You, Life, the Universe, and Everything

Inward Journeys and Touchstones: A 2020 Retrospective and a Look Ahead

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In 2019, I experienced a lot of creative setbacks. I got to the end of the year feeling like I needed to reconnect with why it is I write, and what I want to give to the world, both through writing and through the ways I choose to live.

So for my 2020 word of the year, I chose “inward.”


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER, WEYMOUTH

Look, I have gone inward in 2020. I have plumbed the depths of my own creative despair, been in buildings other than my house a grand total of 6 times, homeschooled my children, and had nearly zero contact with extended family and friends. I could not be more inward-facing at this point. I am VERY VERY ready for my year of turning inward to end.


The thing is, I chose “inward” for 2020 because I started the year feeling pretty much at capacity. I’d started to wonder if my words and being had actual worth; been pushed to what I thought was the edge of myself time management-wise; and I knew (or thought I knew) that 2020 would bring me a long awaited turning point. In the fall, both my kids would be in school for full days, and, for the first time since my oldest was born, I’d be able to routinely write during daylight hours.

The plan (in my folly, I love making plans) was to turn inward for the first half of the year–to weather the remainder of a busy half-day-preschool-and-full-day-first-grade schedule. And then in autumn, when school started again, I would burst out of the inward sanctum of my creative chrysalis, renewed, reinvented, reborn. I’d turn outward again. I’d expand my writing to categories beyond YA. I’d volunteer at the kids’ school, and build more community where I live, and…

Yeah.

Instead, this year was a struggle at every turn. And I know we’re all struggling, so for the most part on social media, I try to put peace into the world. I try to focus on and capture the moments of serenity. But it was hard. At every turn, it has been exhausting, and while I’ve turned inward through necessity, it was not the rejuvenating inward turn I envisioned. It has been about survival, not renewal.


In the midst of that, though, I recognize the accomplishments I made, the victories I won. I sold two YA novels, getting myself back on the publishing a book a year schedule I’ve always aimed for. I kept my kids happy and healthy and academically on track, in a much more stable way than they’d have experienced if I’d sent them to school (which isn’t to say that the decision to send kids to school this year is a flawed one–it simply would not have been best for my kids, who thrive on routine and don’t do well with distance learning). I have, finally, towards the end of this year, begun to be kind to myself once more, and to rest when I need rest, to stop when I need a pause.

It has all been hard. Every minute has been hard. I’ve experienced some adversity in life, and while there were moments of explosive crisis or great difficulty, I can’t recall a year that was as relentlessly draining and demoralizing as this one. There were those who suffered so much more, but I’ve never been a fan of scales of suffering. If you felt this year to be grueling and demanding, if you felt like you’ve left pieces of yourself behind, you deserve to sit with and process those emotions. Your experience is valid, even if there’s no definitive moment of overwhelming trauma to point to.

So. This year was for surviving, and I am far too cautious a person to claim next year for thriving, in any sense of the word. But I was in bed last night, in that half-awake place where moments of startling lucidity sometimes strike, and thinking about my children.

I thought about how, when they wake up, they come to me. It’s not because they need anything, necessarily, or because I can give them things they couldn’t get from around the house on their own. It’s because right now, at this age and stage, I’m their touchstone. It is not vanity but simple fact, to say that I am the small axis their world turns on, the defining feature of it.

Touchstone:

1: a fundamental or quintessential part or feature
2: a test or criterion for determining the quality or genuineness of a thing
3: a black siliceous stone related to flint and formerly used to test the purity of gold and silver by the streak left on the stone when rubbed by the metal

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

And then I thought of other touchstones–of the books or films or poems or places or experiences or people that have become defining parts of me, that prove or remind me of my own worth and quality and genuineness, and spur me on in the pursuit of personal betterment. Those things I return to, over and over again, because they serve as a litmus test for the presence of goodness and endurance and hope. I would, it is no exaggeration to say, be lost without such people, such words, such places and experiences.


That is what I want to ponder and explore in 2021. Touchstone people, touchstone moments, touchstone things. The little axes my universe turns on. What it means to live in such a way that you yourself can function as a touchstone for others, when necessary.

To me it is a word about guiding and illuminating, remembering and looking forward. And I am, albeit with some reservations after the difficulties of 2020, interested to see where this touchstone year leads.

Craft Advice, From Me to You, Writing Craft

It’s a Process

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The other day on Twitter I was asked about my writing process, and realized that I’ve never really talked or written about it before. Mostly because it’s always been less scientific than intuitive for me, but I’m going to try to list some of the things that are constants.

The Initial Spark


One of the first and most common questions writers get, both from other writers and non-writers, is “where do your ideas come from?” My ideas come from what I think of as an initial spark–something that sets off a chain reaction of “what ifs” in my brain that all coalesce to form a scene. That’s always how my books start–with a particular scene. It’s not always the opening, or the end. It can be anywhere in the story. But it gives me a glimpse of the world and characters and their dilemma, and serves as the thing I build around.

For instance, with The Light Between Worlds, the initial spark was reading a tweet where someone in publishing wished for a book about Susan Pevensie post-Narnia. I started thinking about what Susan’s life would have been like, and how a story like that could be framed–it couldn’t be about Susan herself, given that Narnia’s copyright hasn’t expired. But it could be about someone like Susan–someone in similar circumstances. At that point, the first scene struck me–of a lovely, put-together girl being approached by a stag in the middle of Trafalgar Square. That scene occurs at around the 75% mark of The Light Between Worlds, but it gave me the basics I needed to build the story–I had Philippa, her longing, her world in London, and the character of Cervus the stag, as well. Everything else grew out from that meeting.

With A Treason of Thorns, the initial spark was, of all things, a Twitter bot (I promise not everything I write starts on Twitter). It’s a fabulism-type bot which generates tweets about a mysterious, somewhat Gothic English garden. On a whim, I wrote a microfiction based on one of the tweets, about a girl in a sentient garden, waiting for suitors with a very odd friend. That scene became the basis for Violet and Burleigh House and Wyn.

Other sparks have been walking my dog and coming up with a scene in which a character is traveling on foot to a distant mountain, inhabited by a fearsome being her community views as a god. Nursing my oldest as an infant and imagining the first meeting between a queen and the wet nurse who would tend her children. Considering how I could reframe the fairytale The Wild Swans and being struck by an image, of a girl with black hair walking into the sea to beg for the lives of her missing kin.

The sparks that can kindle a story are all around us, so long as we view the world with curiosity, an openness to possibility, and consider that all-important question, “what if?”

Building a Framework


Once the concept for a story exists, I build the framework, or structure. This is where the well-known authorial designations of pantser, planner, and plantser come in (a pantser is someone who makes up stories as they go–flying by the seat of their pants. A planner plots everything prior to writing. A plantser does a combination of the two, planning some of the framework of the story, but leaving room for adjustment and embellishment).

I myself started out as a pantser. I’d use the instincts for story we all have, as individuals living in a media-saturated world, and craft a narrative that just felt right. Now that I write under deadlines, I’ve become that combination of a planner and a pantser. It’s easier at this point, to revise the structure of a story before I’ve gone to the trouble of writing the whole thing. I do, however, still write at least a few opening chapters before planning out the entire story. This lets me get a feel for the characters and world and central problem, which gives me a better grasp of the different forms the narrative could take. How much of the story I write before plotting can vary–anywhere from three or four chapters, to the entirety of the first act, though getting the whole first act done is my preference.

While I plot somewhat in advance now, I still do a lot of the creative work organically–I come up with the narrative in my mind, usually on country drives or walks–and then write a synopsis that covers all the key plot points I devised. My favorite resource for plot structure is the Save the Cat beat sheet, which you can find here. Once the framework of the story is complete, I revise the synopsis about eleven billion times with my agent and editor, until we come up with something that feels true to my initial concept of the book, while being sufficiently fast-paced (pacing is my Achilles’ heel, I would write books with no plot to speak of if left to my own devices!) After this, I draft the remainder of the story, staying more or less true to the synopsis. There’s still lots of room for filling in the blanks and finding surprises within and between the planned scenes, which appeals to the former pantser in me.

Research Rabbit Holes


I write primarily historical fantasy, which is absolutely wonderful because I get all the trouble and frustration of ensuring historical accuracy AND crafting a consistent magic system and mythos. I am, if nothing else, a glutton for punishment.

In order to make life somewhat easier, I tend to choose historical settings I have at least a passing familiarity with. This usually allows me to do an initial first draft with minimal research–just some fact-checking along the way to be sure of dates and distances, etc. But sometimes, I run into areas that need deeper study. Thus far, my most research-heavy book by far was The Light Between Worlds, thanks to my decision to set much of the second half in London’s National Gallery. I spent hours upon hours studying the Gallery’s history and learning the nuances and process of art restoration. At one point, I even reached out to a wonderful archivist at the Gallery, who provided me with floor plans for the Gallery in 1951, when The Light Between Worlds is set. When researching, feel free to go deep if that’s your preference–there are always details I know I can fudge because of the unlikeliness of any readers realizing I’ve done so, but for me, the knowledge that I’ve been as accurate as possible is a great feeling. I’m willing to put in the work for that.

The Disaster Draft


Once a story is fully drafted and the research primarily done and incorporated, I get feedback. Depending on what I wrote a piece for, this can be from critique partners or my agent or an editor. I always hope not to have to make massive structural changes–that is, after all, why I now write a synopsis to be critiqued and revised in advance. But even without overwhelming changes to structure, there’s always a lot of work to be done in the Disaster Draft.

The Disaster Draft feels like ruining your book.

There’s really no way around it. You take your first draft, which felt good and exciting and new and relatively cohesive, and tear bits of it out and Frankenstein other bits in, and it gets clunky and stops flowing nicely and you lose all perspective and spend a lot of time lying on the floor in despair, convinced you’ve wrecked everything and are a failure and will never meet your deadline.

……………………………Or at least I do.

However, the Disaster Draft is not ruining your book. I like to think of it this way–when the Old Masters painted, they created beautiful sketches to work from. The sketches were lovely and works of art in their own right. And then the Old Masters ruined them. They put blobs of paint on. They blocked in color. Everything began to look messy and unfinished and like a disaster, as they filled in the framework they’d created. But once the color was blocked in and they began to add detail, the painting took shape and became Art again. It never would have got there without that messy in-between stage.

So persevere–this too shall pass, even if you need to spend a lot of time on the floor to get through it.

The Magic Draft


For me, the Magic Draft is where everything finally comes together. All the Frankensteined bits and pieces are ready to be smoothed together, the stitches hidden, the details added. The Magic Draft is when I start to think, again, “Hey, I did pretty good! This is actually a great story!”

Depending on where you are in your growth as an artist and especially depending on the book, you may need multiple Disaster Drafts before you get to the magic. That’s okay, and normal. If you still believe in the story at hand, keep pressing on. Eventually, it will all come together. I have one concept which is incredibly dear to me that I’ve been trying to shepherd through the initial framework-building stage for *checks calendar* seven years. Obviously if you have a hard deadline to work through, you can’t let things breathe forever, but if that’s an option, take the time you need.

Eyes on the Horizon


One thing that will help maintain your forward momentum is to always have ideas on the backburner. I keep a file of story concepts, which I write out as three paragraph pitches built out around that initial spark and scene, and save for when I need them. At any given time, my preference is to have a minimum of one story being drafted, one being revised, and one for which I’m doing the cognitive work of planning–developing the story framework in my head. If the publishing fates smile, this allows for a seamless transition from one project to another, as you just move things up the list/to the next stage of development as progress is made. This is a practical application of the old adage about eggs and baskets–don’t pin your hopes to a single story idea. It’s not one story you’re building, it’s yourself a writer. There are always more concepts, even if you have to lay a dear one to rest.

And I think that’s all! Hopefully some of this was enlightening or helpful! If anything stood out to you in particular, or you have questions, feel free to let me know in the comments.