Tag: writer’s life

Life, the Universe, and Everything, Publishing Miscellanea, Writing Craft

On Writing Irreligious Books

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One of my minor hobbies is ferreting out corners of the internet dedicated to people who want to think about the intersections between Christianity and art, and about how both the consumption and creation of good art are immeasurably beneficial to faith practice. Finding new iterations of this crossroad is always lovely and a little disorienting. Lovely, because these are things I dwell on a lot, and it’s nice to find other people doing the same. Disorienting, because there is a definite tendency in groups like this to focus on a very specific sort of creative as a model for the Good Christian Artist.

By which I mean, the sort of creative who makes explicitly Christian art.

Don’t get me wrong. I love some explicitly Christian art, by which I mean art that proclaims itself to be about Christianity, rather than discussing faith more obliquely (if at all). I have consumed many an inspirational romance in my time, and grew up haunting the church library (but I also haunted the public library and my school library–I am an equal opportunity library haunter). I was raised on CCM (contemporary Christian music, for those who aren’t In The Know) and spent countless hours on the school bus playing Steven Curtis Chapman and Jaci Velasquez on my CD walkman. The Christian Fantasist’s Holy Trinity (CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, and Madeleine L’Engle) are the bedrock of my existence as a speculative fiction author–though one could make a case that their fiction work is only rendered explicitly Christian in light of their nonfiction writings.

But I also love a lot of art that very definitely does not fit the explicitly Christian framework. My current favorite fantasy series, The Lumatere Chronicles, couldn’t be considered allegorical, even if you squint. Virginia Woolf’s work helped me get through my teens and did more to impact my own literary voice than anything else. When it comes to television, I’m still off-base, as my favorite comfort watch is Star Trek in its many forms. No one would call music by Noah Gundersen or Ingrid Michaelson or Sleeping At Last explicitly Christian, either. And yet I find so much of goodness and truth in all of these things, despite the fact that they contain no stand-in figure for an omnipotent deity. No hands raised in the name of Jesus.

And then there’s me. A person who, as aforementioned, thinks a lot about the interplay of faith and art, and who makes art for a living, but who doesn’t do it in the manner of Good Christian Artists. I don’t write for a primarily Christian audience, or work for a religious imprint–I publish for the secular market. My books aren’t allegories–they don’t even mention any sort of higher power, much of the time. At the end of the day, though, there is this: I am a Christian, making art to the best of my ability. Does the way in which I choose to do so and the audience I choose to render my work accessible to preclude me from being a Good Christian Artist?

I hope not. I’ve never been much good at preaching to the choir. Or preaching to anyone, for that matter.

The conclusion I’ve come to is this: that as a Christian, you can create religious or irreligious art, but both can be done in faith. Religious art is the explicitly Christian kind–the sort that says “Yes, there is an answer to your questions, and this is it.” It’s instructional by nature–a signpost in the wilderness, a map that points to the road out, and tells you what you’ll find at the journey’s end.

Irreligious art, created in faith, doesn’t offer answers so clearly. Irreligious art is about comfort on the road. It’s not a signpost or a framework, but a friend along the way. A companion who says “I know you’re lost, but I think you ought to keep going. I believe there’s something beyond this, and that you haven’t yet fully become what you’re becoming. I trust you’ll get there in the end, though, and I’d like to walk beside you for awhile.” It is, in the literal sense, an act of encouragement. If a piece of irreligious art is truly Christian, the one who’s taken it in should feel a little stronger, a little more hopeful, a little more fit for the journey. They may not have been told what they’re looking for, or why, or how to find it, but they’ll know that the search itself and the act of struggling for transcendence are profoundly meaningful.

I’m not much of a mapmaker, myself. I still feel pretty lost most days, even if I’ve glimpsed the journey’s end. I’m not exactly sure how I’ll get there, and sometimes my faith in the outcome turns to doubt. But I’m a good walker. I can put one foot in front of the other and just keep going, in spite of doubt or darkness or moments of despair. So that’s what I bring to the table, as a Christian who makes art. Not a signpost, but a piece of my own stubborn soul. A companion for the journey–a fellow walker who may not be sure of the road, but who’s headed further up and further in, and wants to pass some time side by side.

Craft Advice, Life, the Universe, and Everything, Publishing Miscellanea, Writing Craft

Four Tips to Break a Reading Slump

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A standard piece of publishing industry advice is that you need to read voraciously in any genres you plan to work in, or already do work in. If I had a dollar for each time I’ve heard this, I wouldn’t be precisely rich, but I’d certainly have enough ready cash to take my family out for a very nice dinner.

This is a maxim that used to make me feel like a failure as both a reader and a writer.

Why? Because for the past eight years, I’ve been in the mother of all reading slumps. It started not when I had kids, but at the time that I started juggling working as an author with having kids. Parenting is a singularly all-consuming endeavor. Writing for publication, likewise. And they both involve a LOT of reading. Reading Goodnight Moon fourteen times in a row (or in our family’s case, an infamous storybook called DW’s Guide to Preschool). Reading your own novels fourteen times in a row, your sense of enthusiasm for them withering into disdain with each successive pass (I always say that the best part of publishing a book is knowing I never have to read it again).

Like I said. Both parenting and publishing require a lot of reading, but not the sort that exactly sparks joy. More the kind that progressively saps your will to live. So for eight years now, I’ve been in a reading slump so vicious that I was lucky to read four or five books in a year, outside of those roles. Mostly I stuck to magazines with glossy pictures of immaculately-maintained English countryside gardens. That was, for a very long time, the only form of print that didn’t make my brain feel like imploding.

And throughout it all, I felt really bad about the fact that I didn’t read more. I wasn’t current on the big, highly-praised break out titles in my category and genre. I wasn’t even current on books my own author friends wrote. At the end of the day, if I had an hour or two to spare, the last thing in the world I wanted was to pick up another book. I gamed instead, or watched Star Trek, or juicy costume dramas.

I’m here to tell you that if this is where you’re at, there is nothing wrong with you. And you don’t need to feel pressured to undertake an activity that feels so off-putting you’d rather sit and stare at a wall. Sometimes, we’re just not in a reading season of life, even as self-proclaimed bookworms. Sometimes, we’re in a season of life where we have to read so much for reasons beyond our own pleasure that choosing books for fun is out of the question. None of the fun is left. It has all been sucked out of the pages.

But it will come back. And there are some gentle ways you can implement to hasten its return. I know, because this year, I set out to break my reading slump. To a degree, I managed. Here are the steps I undertook to do so.

Log Every Book

If you read to your kids, or for professional development, or in some sort of work capacity, log it. Those are valid reads. They don’t suddenly fail to count because you undertook them for a reason outside of personal pleasure. This year, I hit that magical place where my kids are older enough to follow more complex chapter books, and was able to introduce them to a lot of stories I absolutely adored as a kid. Was I technically reading them for myself? No. But I read them, and I logged every last one. My favorite resource for this is Storygraph, though your logging system can be as simple as a pen and post-it note.

Visit Uncharted Territory

If you are required for any reason to read in a particular category or genre, do not, and I repeat, do NOT, try to force yourself to read within it for pleasure as well. My sainted Oma Bergmann was fond of saying that a change is as good as a rest, and as usual, she was right. This year, I managed to maintain interest in books I was reading just for me by staying completely outside of YA as a category, and speculative fiction as a genre. I read a couple of adult novels (women’s fiction). But mostly I read nonfiction. I’ve always loved a well-crafted nonfic, and diving down rabbit holes related to whatever my passion of the moment happens to be is one of my defining traits. Right now, I’m super interested in creating an enriching and rewarding home education experience for my kids, so I read a lot of books on that topic.

Try think outside the box when attempting to find reading material that suits. Foray into nonfiction, poetry, romance, mystery novels–whatever might actually get you excited about a book when that enthusiasm has waned.

Don’t Be Afraid to DNF

For those who aren’t familiar with the term, in book circles, DNF means “Did Not Finish”. I am a huge proponent of DNFing with abandon, and have been since before my current reading slump. Unless you are required to complete a book for some reason, life is just too short to slog through something you don’t enjoy! If the first chapter or first few pages don’t seem like your cup of tea, stop, and move to the next thing. The world is full of books–somewhere out there is one you’ll like better. But pay attention to patterns–if you keep DNFing books within a specific genre or category, maybe it’s just not for you right now. Maybe you should shift gears and implement Tip #2.

Having Fun Isn’t Hard When You’ve Got a Library Card

Acquaint or reacquaint yourself with the local library. If you follow the advice laid in Tip #3, you’ll need to. All that DNFing will get expensive if you buy every last thing you read! The library is a booklover’s buffet–there’s tons to choose from, and you can pick whatever looks good for you. But unlike a buffet, it’s free and you can return whatever you don’t like. If, like me, you’re strapped for time and your attention is fragmented while at the library (I go there with the kids, and library trips are primarily structured around their needs as readers), make liberal use of the holds system. Pick out a variety of titles that you think you might enjoy, reserve them via your library’s online system or over the phone, and then simply pick them up at the front desk at your next visit. This process, more than anything else, has facilitated my return to the domain of the written word over the last year.

Hopefully if you’re in a reading slump of your own, some or all of these tips and tricks will be helpful to you. But the most important thing is to be gentle with yourself–there’s no moral virtue implicit in finishing a certain number of books a year, or even in being a reader at all. While many books contain stories of great value, books are patient–they’ll still be waiting when you’re ready for them.

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.

Weymouth Cottage

New Kids in the Flock

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So I have these chickens.

I know, you say. Laura, you never shut up about your chickens. You’ve turned having chickens into a personality.

Fie upon you, I reply. There are many other aspects to my personality. I also garden and make soup and write books and am Mennonite. But this post is about my CHICKENS.

Then we cease to argue and I carry on with my post.

SO I HAVE THESE CHICKENS.

Six of them, to be precise. I had thought that after our move to Weymouth Cottage, I would not have chickens any longer, as the bylaws prohibit us from keeping them in our neighborhood. Being Chaotic Good at best and Chaotic Neutral at worst, raising contraband poultry wouldn’t have bothered me in the least. But Tyler is generally Lawful Good and I try to respect his Lawful.

It’s fine, I told him. I’ll get ducks. The bylaws don’t say anything about ducks.

But I really like your chickens, he said. I think we should just get chickens anyway. You keep them in a run and they don’t smell or bother anyone. Get some contraband hens.

So it was that we proved the adage about Chaotic company corrupting Lawful character, and also acquired a new flock of half a dozen very good birds.

This time around, I did something I haven’t done before with chickens. In my former flocks, I kept just one or two breeds. But this time, I wanted FANCY chickens. ASSORTED chickens. Chickens I could actually tell apart and give names to.

The obsessive perusal of poultry catalogs and websites commenced.

And in due time, I received the traditional spring box of frantically peeping day-old chicks, which people at my former, rural post office were just annoyed by, and people at my new, more suburban post office thought was COMPLETELY ENCHANTING. We’ll see how they feel in a year or two when I order a box of live bees.

BUT ANYWAY, I got the chicks, they lived in the house for two months, got gawky, ugly and stinky, and then! Began to look like actual hens! And were old enough to move outside, where hens truly belong.

Before this point, I had names in mind for them. Given the fact that I am cut off from most of my family by the Canada/US border, I wanted to give them comforting and homey names. Familiar names.

Family names.

So I named each fluffy member of this flock of hens after one of the women who are my elders on my mom’s side of the family.

This, at center, is Helen. She is a Speckled Sussex.

Helen is named after my maternal grandmother, a woman of devout faith, possessed of an excellent sense of humor, who loved fine china, the royal family, and giving all her money away to the impoverished. She had an incredibly traumatic childhood and somehow came out of it very emotionally stable. Miracles do happen. Helen, fittingly, is the most stable hen of the flock, and a general good influence upon the others. She’s not a busybody, but not shy. She lives up to the legacy of her namesake.

This is Barb. She is a Double-Laced Barnevelder.

Barb is named after my mother, one of my most favorite people in the entire world, who has gone through some stuff in life but grown immeasurably since I was young. I trust her more than anybody, and she is the only person I send first drafts of my books to. Barb the Chicken looks shockingly like human Barb, but has Avian Anxiety (sorry mom). Her security blanket is Helen the Stable Hen. As she is a very anxious bird, it’s hard to get a picture of her. HOWEVER, this morning the chicken whispering vibes were strong in me, and I was able to get a decent shot of Barb. Poor Barb. Go hide under some goldenrod now.

This is Beth. Beth is a Dominique.

Beth is named after my Aunt Beth. She and my Uncle Harold and cousins Sean and Breanne all lived five minutes down the street when I was a child, and Breanne and my sister and I were back and forth from each other’s houses constantly. Accordingly, Aunt Beth was the aunt I saw the most of. She is clever, precise, kind, and takes no nonsense. In a word, the ideal aunt. I really enjoy getting to see and chat with her now that I’m an adult, and it was from her that we received Darcy, the Witless Wondercat. Dominiques are my favorite chicken breed and have the intelligent precision and hospitable nature of my Aunt Beth.

This is Ruth, in the foreground. Ruth is a Cuckoo Maran.

My Aunt Ruth is a very forthright person. She’s a staunch defender of those she feels need her help, and generally interested in everyone and their lives. She also very capably managed a household composed of four (!) boys while I was growing up, while still finding time for a dazzling succession of fascinating hobbies. Accordingly, I named my Cuckoo Maran Ruth. Ruth the Hen is flock manager. If you enter the chicken run for ANY reason, Ruth is the first to approach and investigate, and will shepherd you about with great diligence. When not herding people, she herds the rest of her feathery companions. Without her, the flock would be considerably more directionless. You go, Ruth the Chicken and Ruth the Human!

This is Diane. Diane is a Gold-Laced Wyandotte.

When I was nineteen, I moved across Canada to live with my Uncle Harold and Aunt Diane (yes, I have two Uncle Harolds. Yes, it is an improbable name to have repeated twice in your family). Aunt Diane thought this was a great idea. Aunt Diane thinks most things are great ideas. She is a boundlessly cheerful, thoughtful, and attentive person who is up for pretty much anything. Thus, I named a very go-with-the-flow hen after her. Diane the Chicken is a happy-go-lucky creature, content to wander with the rest of the flock and happily scratch about. She never causes problems, and is just generally enjoying her chicken life. A fitting counterpart for my easygoing aunt.

Last but very much not least, we have Maxine. Maxine is a Silver-Laced Wyandotte.

Uncle John and Aunt Maxine live out in Canada’s west, along with Uncle Harold and Aunt Diane. Aunt Maxine is a gracious and elegant woman, who thinks deeply about her role in our world, and who’s raised two incredible daughters. So her poultry alter-ego is Maxine the Hen, the flock investigator. Maxine the Hen’s mental wheels are always turning. I have about a hundred more pictures of her than of the other hens, because as soon as she sees something new and interesting, she wants to sort it out. What is it? How does it work? What does it mean for me, and for my flock?

Anyway, I’ve gone on for far too long now, rambling about chickens and the women of my family. Here are the rest of the creatures for a change of pace.

Now it’s time for me to say, along with all your friends at Weymouth Cottage,

Farewell and Be Well.

xoxo Laura

From Me to You

Thoughts on Turning Inward

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It is autumn. The air is cooler, and often scented with rain, and we’ve already found the first few gloriously gold and orange leaves from our spreading maple trees. Autumn is nothing if not a season of transition and contemplation and turning inward, and I’m trying to find ways to honor that. By making time for rest and leisure (a thing my achievement-oriented brain sometimes strenuously resists). By teaching myself to say, come nightfall, “today I have done enough”. By learning not just to say it, but to believe it.

The thing is, for the last few seasons of life, and for the first half of the pandemic, I’ve been very outward-focused, at least when it comes to work and the internet. In a bid to feel a little less out of control during a time when we’re all out of control, I seized at every opportunity that came my way, worked punishing hours, and poured myself into a variety of different online platforms. Unsurprisingly, none of it worked. It didn’t leave me feeling as if I had more agency over my job or my online presence. Instead, it left me feeling like Bilbo after his many years of bearing the Ring–that is, “like butter, scraped over too much bread.”

Obligatory bread picture. You cannot simply mention bread and not *show* bread

So I took August to regroup, and to think about what would actually give me the agency and feeling of security I’d begun to crave when working online. The internet can be a minefield, where ill-wishers wait for you to say the wrong thing, and where, in spite of yourself, you demonstrate the worst of your own personality in the heat of the moment, or in the course of a few thoughtless keystrokes. I’d rather not fall prey to any of the above.

Whenever I’m feeling harried, my first and best instinct is to slow down and turn inward, my own personal rhythms shifting towards a quiet and rejuvenating winter of the soul. So what would that turning inward look like online, I wondered? It would look like finding spaces where I can spend more time contemplating what I’d like to say before I say it. Where I manage the space and the narrative and the tone. It would mean being less present in many places in order to be more fully present in a few.

So I thought over my priorities, and what it is that I really love to do online. I love to write. I love to connect with people. I love to share glimpses of my life. And I know the readers and writers I’ve built friendships with online appreciate those things too. The things I don’t love are feeling pressured to respond to things the moment they happen, because it takes me a long time to process. I don’t love interacting with people who enter a conversation without goodwill and good faith. And I don’t love (or know anyone who does) feeling as if my words might be taken out of context, or twisted to mean something I never intended them too.

So I decided that this fall and winter, and for the foreseeable future, I’ll spend more of my time and energy on platforms that I control, and where I can move more slowly, and choose my words more carefully. Hence the website makeover–this is going to be my primary online home, and I wanted a new, simpler look and to be able to alter and update and keep everything current all on my own. I’m hoping to blog here more often–if you were a follower of my Patreon, it’ll be shutting down, and the sort of content you enjoyed there will now be available here, for the low, low cost of free 🙂

I’m planning to revisit my newsletter, too–during the last year I’ve let it slide, while chasing other forms of engagement. But I enjoyed composing it for all of you. It will now be releasing seasonally–on October 30th, January 30th, April 30th, and July 30th. (If that’s something you’d like to subscribe to, you can do so here.)

A little peek at what’s coming in October’s newsletter!

As far as actual social media goes, I’m limiting that. I’ll still be on Twitter a little, but not to the same extent as before. Goodbye to Facebook (which I hardly used anyway). Goodbye to Instagram (which was always more stressful than enjoyable). But I’m definitely keeping Pinterest, which I really love and find relaxing.

Yes, I have an entire row of boards that are just puns and cute animal pictures, I refuse to apologize for that

And that’s it. That’s the lineup I’ve come up with that feels best, and like I’ll be able to cultivate a balance between my own health and security, and the personal connections I enjoy making with other writers and readers. Besides that, I’ll be spending the fall as I always do–crafting earthy soups, baking yeasty things, writing wistful books, and teaching two little people that there is magic in the world if you only know where to find it.

If you’re interested in any or all of the above, I’ll be here, telling stories at the edge of the forest.