Talena Winters's Blog, page 17

Work Afraid

Those of you who follow me on Facebook or Instagram already know why I’ve been so quiet the last several weeks. Our family took a wonderful two-week holiday to central Alberta, mostly to visit family, but along the way, I did two book signings and then, Jason and I left our kids and our 7-month-old Husky puppy, Hiro, at my father's and went to a 4-day writing conference in Calgary.

What you probably don’t know is the behind-the-scenes adventure that happened that weekend.

Gearing up the facial muscles for the extreme smiling marathon that's about to commence at When Words Collide. Joining me in the word geekery this year is my partner in, well, most things. If you're at the conference and see him looking freaked out and overwhelmed, be sure to go over and say hello. If a little causes the problem, a lot should be the cure, right? @rokclimer73 . (Jk. He's way more extroverted than I am.) . #wwcyyc18 #whenwordscollide2018 #writersconference #besthusbandever #writerscommunity #writerslife #amwriting

A post shared by Talena Winters (@talenawinters) on Aug 9, 2018 at 4:43pm PDT

For context, our boys are 15, 14, and 12, and are generally pretty responsible kids, but a couple of them are prone to bossiness. My dad still works a full-time job, plus has a part-time golf obsession/hobby, so we knew going in that the boys would be at his place alone a lot, but we weren’t worried. There were plenty of family and neighbours close by, and we were only ever a phone call away.

We didn’t expect them to need that phone call on the very first night.

Jason and I arrived at the hotel, settled in, had a fantastic happy-birthday-eve-to-me supper at the restaurant, and decided to take a walk to an ATM to pick up cash for the weekend. A block later, at about 8 p.m., my phone rang. It was Jude.

“Hiro found a porcupine,” he said.

Well. My husband and I have owned a lot of dogs jointly, but this is the first time any of them found a porcupine. We could hear the panic in the kids’ voices as we talked first Jude, then Jabin, then all three of them through what to do (with the help of the Internet). Jude estimated that there were at least 30 quills in Hiro’s snout and front paws, including one under his tongue (!). The first thing we said was,

“Don’t panic. Hiro will be fine. Stay calm, and you will be able to do this.”

And they did. They found the tools they needed to find, and between the three of them, they kept Hiro calm and pulled out every single quill.

This photo was sent after they'd already started removing the ones from his face. You can still see the one in his mouth, though!

At the end of it, Jason and I looked at each other and said, “Now they know that they can handle a crisis on their own.”

Okay, were they completely on their own? No. But if they hadn’t had us to call, they still had the Internet and, honestly, without that, I still think they would have managed just fine, though maybe with a little more panic.

For the most part, all we had to do was remind them to stay calm and take it one quill at a time.

Don't Panic

The interesting thing about doing a book signing is that you are a captive audience for anyone who wants to come to tell you their life story.

Fortunately, I generally love hearing someone’s life story, because people are interesting and have a lot to teach me. Sometimes, they teach me by their kindness, generosity, and example of being an excellent human being.

And sometimes, they teach me how not to act at someone else’s book signing. ;-)

But the ones that break my heart are the ones that come and, shaking and fearful or offhand and jaded, tell me that they always wanted to be a writer (or, more often, they have actually started writing something], but can’t/never finished because [insert excuse here].

The excuses are many, and some of them might even be related to actual reasons, but most of them? They can be boiled down to one thing:

Fear.

Too old? This isn’t a career in sports. There is no age limit on getting started. You may have limited your time for finding traction by waiting, but it’s not too late to start if it’s something you want to do.

Can’t find the time? Hmm. I’m pretty sure that each of us only has the same amount of time. The truth is, you have prioritized something else higher in your life, which might be the good and right thing to do. I’m not judging that. But you will never “find the time” until you take responsibility for how you use the time you currently have.

“You will never “find the time” until you take responsibility for how you use the time you currently have.”

For many years, I prioritized raising my young family and homeschooling them over my career. And I owned it. When someone asked me about the musical that I was writing, I would say “That’s on the back burner for now. I’ll get to it when my kids are all in [public] school.” (I never intended to homeschool them through grade 12.)

And when that time came and I decided that I’d rather write prose than music for a living? I owned that, too.

Taking responsibility for your time is the first step to taking responsibility for your life choices.

However, many people who say they don’t have the time to write are simply using that as an excuse because they haven’t decided to do it. There is something holding them back, and most of the time, that something is fear.

Here’s a secret: We’re all afraid. Every person who succeeds at something has had to confront fear at some point to get to where they are.

Everything is scary until you get good at it, and sometimes long after. I once heard a rumour (which I’m totally not googling to confirm, so consider this a rare foray into gossip for me) that Hugh Grant pukes before nearly every take. That was only a few years ago, after he had already had a long and illustrious career as an actor.

The trick is to Work Afraid.

Work Afraid

I haven’t written many books yet, but I can tell you that there is a little bit of fear that goes into each one. I’m taking risks in content, in putting myself out there, in investing a lot of time and energy into something I only hope other people will find valuable enough to pay me for—but they are the kinds of risks I feel I should take.

I took a risk to start pursuing a career in writing. Before that, I took other risks in business and in my personal life, and they usually paid off.

I came to recognize that feeling of fear that accompanied something I knew that I needed to do, but that was on the edge (or slightly beyond the edge) of my comfort zone.

I also soon recognized that Working Afraid was where the most reward could be found.

“Here’s a secret: We’re all afraid.”

Every time one of these wistful people—not just writers, but anyone who tells me that they didn’t pursue their dream because [insert excuse here]—shares their story with me, I want to take them by the hand and say, “Don’t panic. Take it one step at a time. If you just start, you’ll get through this, and then you’ll discover that it wasn’t as scary as you thought. You’ll also know that you can do it again.”

Unfortunately, the voices in these people’s heads are usually louder than mine, the stranger who “doesn’t know me, so she can’t know what she’s talking about.”

Don’t I?

I’ve had some natural advantages, but I’ve had a lot of disadvantages thrown at me. And I haven’t let them stop me.

And for every disadvantage you’ve had piled on you, there is someone out there who has had much worse handed to them, and they’ve still done what it is you want to do.

To do this and make it look easy, you have to embrace the fear. Or to do anything else worth doing. Photo courtesy of tnn103eda / 123RF Stock Photo

Prove me wrong. Go looking for someone in your field who has achieved success and has not overcome a huge mountain of adversity. If you can’t find anyone, I’ll probably tell you what I tell my kids when they can’t find any clean pants in their drawer when I seriously just finished the laundry yesterday are you kidding me—you aren’t looking hard enough.

But I bet that finding that person will actually be the easiest part of the research into your desired career.

The truth is, most people who achieve success in any field have had to overcome more challenges than anyone else. Yes, “lucky breaks” are a thing, but they are the rarest things. As the saying goes, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

“For every disadvantage you’ve had piled on you, there is someone out there who has had much worse handed to them, and they’ve still done what it is you want to do.”

I’d love to tell you personally—with either a gentle, confirming hug or a smack upside the head, whichever would be more effective in your case—that it’s time to forget the excuses. It’s time to take responsibility for your dreams. Think long and hard about what it is you really want.

Maybe you like the idea of success in a certain field, but you are not willing to put in the work. If that’s the case, stop saying, “I always wanted to, but…” Just stop.

Take ownership of what you really want, take responsibility for your reality now, decide if you want to change it, and what you are truly willing to do to do that. But no more excuses.

If you think about it and realize that what you really want is to be able to cozy up on your couch and watch Netflix five nights a week, and hang out with friends the other two nights? Well, sorry, you don't really want your dream. If you aren't at least willing to Work Afraid (or just plain work harder than anyone else you know), you are probably not ready to be an entrepreneur.

But if you decide you are willing to put in the work to achieve what you want, you need to embrace that fear. And once you start, you'll find that you're not truly on your own. There are others on this road, and they are willing to help you out, show you it's possible, and calm you down with a "Don't panic" now and then.

The problem is, if you’ve been letting your excuses hold you back, you will never know what you are or are not capable of doing.

Not until you try.

The Benefits of "Escapist Fiction"

This past week, I was tagged in a challenge that's been going around on social media to post seven books—one a day for seven days—that have impacted my life.

Needless to say, narrowing down to my top seven choices is impossible. However, I gamely began searching my memory (and my bookshelves) for the stand-out books that affected me in some way during important periods in my life, or perhaps influenced my thinking or fired my imagination. As I did, I decided I needed to narrow the field a little, so I deliberately chose to post only fiction, with a bias toward books in fantasy or speculative genres.

Why, you ask?

Well, about a month ago, someone I love dearly and who I know loves literature told me (the girl who has nearly completed the first draft of the first novel in my first epic fantasy trilogy) that he was leery about writing fantasy, and implied that I was playing with fire. (NOT my husband, let's make that clear. He loves fantasy as much as I do.)

Me:

So, as I entered the challenge, I deliberately chose books of fiction, and especially speculative fiction, that had had an impact on me for whatever reason. I wasn't allowed to explain it for the challenge. But here, I can. However, I think I might save that for a future post. :-)

These were the 7 (+1 bonus that I snuck in) books that made the cut last week. (While searching for these, I found at least a dozen more I could have included.)

These are books that either helped me see the world differently, fired my imagination in a positive way, or helped me through some difficult times. These are the books that I often read and reread, and were the reason I fell in love with reading. But I could have listed many, many more.

Why I Fell In Love With Fiction

As a child, I always had an active imagination. I also grew up in a tumultuous household where verbal and emotional abuse were the norm, and the dynamic was that of control and manipulation, not a healthy give-give relationship like I talked about a few weeks ago.

So reading became many things to me: an escape from the brutal realities of my out-of-control life (I loved the predictable happy endings), a way to process what I was experiencing through the eyes of fictional characters overcoming their own problems, and sometimes, when the books were gifts from someone I loved or read aloud to me by someone, an emotional connection to a person, creating a wonderful memory surrounding the book quite outside the story it contained.

I could even joke that I was fated to love stories—after all, my first name actually came from a sci-fi/fantasy book series my dad loved. (Gor, by John Norman, if you're wondering. I don't recommend it. Nor the movie.)

But really, my own name aside, humans are made of stories. And, regardless of the "world" that a story may be set in, at the heart of every good story are characters who are overcoming difficult situations that must be relatable to the reader in some way, or the story would not resonate with us.

“At the heart of every good story are characters who are overcoming difficult situations that must be relatable to the reader in some way, or the story would not resonate with us.”

Why I Love Fantasy

"Fantasy" (a.k.a. "speculative fiction") is a label given to stories set in a world unlike our own in either small ways or big. In truth, every fictional story is a fantasy to some degree, because the world in that story exists only in the author's and readers' minds.

However, sometimes, the changes are more obvious, like a world where a man invents a working time machine, or where a team of the world's elite superheroes fight aliens over New York City to save the world.

But while the fantastical element of the story may make it unique and interesting, in the end, it's the human element that makes us love it.

The Time Machine (H.G. Wells) would have been pretty bland if the purpose were merely to sate curiosity or provide a thought experiment. Oh, wait. The book kinda was. But the 2002 film starring Guy Pearce, where the inventor is driven to create the time machine in order to change a traumatic event in his past, and learns a lesson about how we must keep moving forward? Much more interesting. I've watched that movie at least half a dozen times.

“While the fantastical element of the story may make it unique and interesting, in the end, it’s the human element that makes us love it.”

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings

By J. R. R Tolkien

Despite the title, The Lord of the Rings was not about an evil spirit trying to control the world by making magical rings that stole the goodness out of all who used them. Who would be able to relate to that?

It was about the most unlikely and weakest person available overcoming natural preferences, limitations, and impossible odds to do the job that no one else could do.

Because Frodo and Sam were brave and true, because they persevered and kept hope, it gives us, as readers, the chance to believe that we could do those things, too—in a real world that is both more and less scary than the fiery heart of Mount Doom and against foes both more and less intimidating than Sauron's unnatural eye.

Actually, my summary concept for The Lord of the Rings is applicable to a lot of fantasy novels. In fantasy, it is usually not the most qualified person who is the hero that goes on the quest. It is the least qualified, and often least willing, but who is most willing to stand up and do the right thing. Other stories like this that come to mind are Willow, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Moana. (Perhaps that is why so many fantasy stories star children or little people—the odds seem to be stacked higher against them than someone with more natural advantages. And whether it's a sports underdog movie or an unlikely hero leading his people to freedom, we love stories about overcoming impossible odds in any genre.)

“Fantasy lets us imagine a better world.”

In other cases, fantasy lets us imagine a better world. One that has found creative solutions to problems we currently face, or dares let us picture what is beyond what we can currently see. Stories like Journey to the Centre of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and even Star Trek let us stretch beyond what is known to picture subterranean ecosystems, submarine or post-poverty societies, or devices that make everyday life easier and that might even go on to inspire real inventions.

In fact, if we didn't have educated and imaginative dreamers like Leonardo da Vinci to visualize solutions to problems that most people hadn't even recognized as problems yet, our state of technological advancement would not be nearly what it was today. I might be writing this on a typewriter with the hope of publishing it in a newspaper instead of having the ability to hit "publish" and make it instantaneously available to anyone in the world with Internet access.

In fact, it is this aspect of fantasy that actually lets us have faith in something beyond the material realm. My friend Melissa had an excellent post a while back about our Sanctified Imagination, and how, without imagination, we couldn't even believe in God. Consider that for a while. (And go read the post. It's very thought-provoking.)

“Fantasy provides a buffer from real life.”

But quite beyond the ability of escapist fiction to develop empathy, solve problems within the safety of our comfy chair, or the potential real-world applications of fictional ideas, fantasy and fiction provide a buffer from real life. Thus the "escape" part of escapist.

I could have called this post "The Benefits of Fantasy and Speculative Fiction," and nearly did. But the truth is, fiction of any kind has always been my go-to escape when I needed a chance to stop thinking about my real-world problems for a while.

Image courtesy of melpomen / 123RF Stock Photos.

It started as a child trying to forget the troubling daily existence which I did not have the tools to cope with. After the traumatic loss of my son, resorting to the fictional worlds I created in my head and trying to sort out my character's problems helped me deal with my own trauma, and even helped me work through some of the issues carried over from my childhood. And, at times, they plain old helped my brain turn off when the PTSD threatened to overload me.

The summer we lost Levi, I read The Hunger Games for the first time. In fact, partly due to a sudden overabundance of free time and a deep need to turn off my traumatized mind on a regular basis, I probably read more fiction in the year after we lost him than in the twelve years before that, as well as watched a fair amount of escapist fiction on T.V.

Even though plot points like Rue's death, or other similar fictional tragedies poked my raw wounds, the benefits of using that time to buffer were far more beneficial. I had a big wound to heal, and fiction helped me do it, in more ways than one.

Fantasy as a Tool For Dealing With Reality














Inside Out (Bilingual)

Starring Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, Phyllis Smith

As a final plug for the potential benefits of fantasy fiction, I am going to mention a movie that actually hits on all three points I made above: the 2015 Disney film Inside Out.

God bless the makers of that film. We watched it exactly three weeks after Levi's death, and even though I literally cried for hours after watching it, that film alone gave us a very effective tool to talk about the process of grieving with our kids, who didn't really understand the emotions they were suddenly having to cope with.

It's a story that personifies the emotions inside the head of a young girl who moves from her childhood home—full of fond memories and friends she loves—to San Francisco, a much different environment, with none of her stuff (since the moving truck is late), and with seemingly no redeeming qualities to her pre-teen way of thinking. The storytellers did an amazing job of telling a story that both grabbed at your heartstrings (boy, does it ever), and also shows almost the exact process that happens as we let go of something (or someone) that we love.

Could we have read our kids a book about grieving and dealt with some of the same issues? Yeah, maybe. But which is more effective when your child is trying to understand why life suddenly hurts all the time—referencing a dry textbook-style "lesson" about how grief changes the relationship we have with the person we lost? Or talking about how Sadness actually made Riley feel better by mixing with Joy in memories that once held only joyful emotions—that the sadness honours the change that has happened, but doesn't make the memory worse, just different?

I don't know about you, but I know which one would help me more. And I'm an adult.

Going back to the beginning of this post, the conversation with my loved one came up in the context of me asking for feedback on the way I had made the "rules" for my fantasy world of The Mermaid's Tear work within the context of real-world faiths and mythologies, specifically Christianity. Perhaps he is concerned that an unorthodox way of looking at the metaphysical world might cause people to question what they've been taught to believe.

Maybe that wasn't his concern, but if it is, my answer is this: I hope it does.

I hope that we all, every moment of every day, question what we've been taught to believe and continually seeking out the truth so we know what we believe and why. This universe is built on universal principles, and that includes the spiritual ones. I don't think any one person knows everything, especially not me. But if a religion's central tenets cannot withstand the perspective of one person's imagination as depicted in a work of fantasy, perhaps those particular straw-man doctrines deserve to fall.

On the other hand, sometimes it is the unorthodox views, the outside-the-box radical thinkers, the Jesus of Nazareths and the Leonardo da Vincis and the Galileos, that lead us to truths that were there before us all the time, just waiting to be discovered.

Happy Monday, friend. Read with joy.

I Saw This Going Differently in my Head

In the world of writers, there are three types of people—pantsers*, plotters, and those who fall somewhere on a spectrum in between.

I belong to the third category.

When I wrote The Friday Night Date Dress, it was almost entirely plotted in my head. I really didn't know what I was doing, or anything about plot structure. I was working almost entirely on instinct. Because I was writing a short story with what I felt was a fairly simple plot, I thought I could get away with it.

And I did. I got to the end, realized instinctively that something was missing and added a scene that I now recognize as the all-important "Black Moment", when a character internalizes the lesson they needed to learn to overcome their primary conflict.

But still, I'd meant to write a 7,000 word story. It ended up at 27,000.

Um. Yeah.

Image courtesy of studiostoks/123RF Photo.

As I've grown as a writer, I've learned a LOT about plot structure. I've also learned that I still don't work well with having everything in a story or scene (or blog post) planned in minute detail before I begin. I need to know the basic conflict of a scene and where I want my characters to end up by the end, and away I go. Inevitably, there is always something that happens as I'm writing that surprises me. Sometimes, it surprises me a lot and makes me re-examine my plot to see if I can actually make that work or if I'm going to have to rewrite it to something closer to the original plan.

And sometimes, I still start blog posts with the first title that pops into my head and go from there. Okay, that's most of the time. (Ahem.)

I'm still a plotser, as I call myself, but I'm a plotser who understands storytelling enough that I don't have to do nearly the rewriting I used to do. And with longer projects like Finding Heaven or my current trilogy-starter, The Mermaid's Tear, I can't just think of a few great scenes and start writing. Neither can I manage to do a scene-by-scene for fifty chapters (or three books!) before I start.

I'm somewhere in the middle. I do a general 1- or 2-page outline that hits on all the major points of conflict in the overall plot, try to make sure I understand my character's motivations (which I usually get wrong until I've written at least a few chapters. I write the characters correctly, I just didn't understand them as well as I thought. Go figure, eh?)

Recently, I've been reading an eye-opening book called The Freelancer's Survival Guide by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. (In my last newsletter, I discussed a practical idea for staying positive that I had adapted from the book, if you're interested.)

I actually started out reading it on Kristine's blog, but, having read more than half and, finding what I've learned to be more than worth the bucks required for the book, I purchased it.

While reading it, I discovered that, as organized as I thought I've been with my time and business, I still had a lot to learn. I've basically been plotsing my career.

That's no way to become successful. Unless you are very, very lucky. And I don't believe in luck.

Yesterday, I sat and worked out how many hours I need to spend on each activity of my business in a week in order to accomplish everything I need to do, which came to about 54 hours/week. (Lately, I've actually been working more than that and accomplishing less, so seeing this written out was a huge relief for me.) I noticed areas where I'd been wasteful with my time, and could use that to be more productive.

I worked out a timetable that would allow me to still have a 48-hour weekend (from Friday evening until Sunday evening) and still let me get weekly town chores done and spend several hours with my family in the evenings.

And I did some salary math that allowed me to see how much per hour I need to be paid for writing time in order to make it worth my while. (This is an ultimate goal, certainly not yet what I have achieved, for my fiction, at any rate.)

This was all a very eye-opening experience. And, like the plot outlines I write before I begin a novel, will hopefully allow me to fulfill promises I have made to my readers. (Remember that knitting newsletter I haven't sent out in over a year? Or those promised patterns I haven't published? Or this very blog, that's had a schedule that could be described as "she tried?" Yeah. Stuff like that.)

In regards to blogging, I am now aiming for what I believe is a realistic goal of one post per week—instead of trying for two per week and being lucky to make two per month. And if I can maintain the pace I have set for myself, I should see an increase in the speed at which I can release new stories.

Lastly, I have set myself the rather ambitious goal of completing the last 30-40k words of The Mermaid's Tear in the next two weeks. I have been that productive one other time, when I was in the final stages of my last novel. And I hope to make that kind of productivity a weekly thing.

Now I've said it publicly. I have to do it.

So if you call and I don't pick up the phone? I'm probably writing.

Crazy Writer Lady is Crazy. Photo courtesy of darkbird/123RF Stock Photos.

Send chocolate.

It's midnight in two minutes, which means time to shut 'er down for me. (Yes, I've finally embraced my night-owl ways and allowed myself office hours that end at midnight instead of just working until then and then feeling guilty. See, "plotsing" is good.)

Happy Monday!

*pantsers (n) - someone who writes stories while flying by the seat of their pants

Adventures in Authoring

Being an author, I have discovered, is nothing like anyone ever expects it to be.

For instance, it is a profession with both stigma and mystique attached to it.

It's a profession that everyone who hasn't published a book could do "if they could only find the time," and yet almost everyone who does it for a living goes through long and frequent bouts of feeling like a complete and total fraud, at least for a few years.

When someone asks what you do and you tell them that you're a writer, you get reactions ranging from "Cool, a real author?" with stars in their eyes* to "Oh, that's nice," while they wonder what you really do or who pays your bills.

And no wonder. Most people who jump into writing full time are surprised when publishing their first novel doesn't lead to immediate fame and fortune--or at least cover the coffee they consumed while writing it. This now includes traditionally-published authors. And, while I may have had less illusions than some, it also includes me.

Meme from www.jweberle.com. Used with permission.

I worked myself into this "writer" thing slowly. I dusted off and published The Friday Night Date Dress in 2015, "as practice," I always say. And then I was pleasantly surprised at the consistently positive response from people who read it—even from complete strangers who had no reason to be nice to me. :-)

That was also the year I lost my son. There are few changes as major, that change you as much, and that make you re-examine your life choices as intensely, as the loss of a child.

Less than a year later, I knew I had to change what I did for work. At the time, I owned an online equine tack business that required nearly full-time hours for barely part-time income. (Like, I could have made more in a few waitressing shifts back in college.) After eleven years in business, my income was actually going down, not up (for various reasons, all of which were out of my control). And most of that time was spent doing accounting—possibly my least favourite thing in the world to do, right after mending clothes and dealing with dog barf. Or any barf.

I was also teaching a few students piano—something I actually enjoy, but not something I want to do forever, especially once my own children have graduated from school. Besides this, I design and sell enough knitting patterns to pay for my yarn habit.

By the beginning of 2016, I knew that what I wanted to do as a career until I couldn't do anymore was to write, mostly fiction, but I would be happy to write other things, too, if I could get paying work. Which I did.

I got a job writing for Move Up, a local quarterly magazine. I sold that soul-stealing tack business and took on more students (which I still enjoy!) to make up the difference, cutting my "day job" hours from 35+ per week to only about 15, a fraction of which was accounting, and actually increasing my available income.

And then, in the midst of grieving, I began to develop the habits that I knew successful freelance writers needed, the most important of which is Write every day. Last year, that paid off when I released my second novel, Finding Heaven.

I went into freelancing with business savvy, the ability to structure my time, marketing know-how (which I had already been studying specifically in relationship to being an author, besides my "regular" business experience, not that I'm "there" yet), and a fair amount of self-discipline and work ethic. I had a "day job" that paid well (enough) and a supportive spouse, willing to endure the long hours of work that I warned him would occur for several years with little-to-no pay while I got my fiction-writing career off the ground. Really, for someone diving into freelancing, I couldn't have asked for a better setup or expectations.

So what was the big surprise for me? (Besides star-struck strangers in bookstores, I mean?)

The surprise was that, by the time I produced a commercially-viable book, I'd no longer want to trust its fate to a traditional publisher.

Actual author career training. Image courtesy of joeziz / 123RF Stock Photo.

The publishing industry is changing, a lot. The archaic traditional publishing model (which is a dinosaur the likes of which no other business would dream of using, but that's the subject for another post. If you're curious, see this) is dying, as it rightfully should. And authors who are willing to take the risk and learn business and publish independently can actually make a better living than those who publish traditionally.

That's right. While authors like Andy Weir (of The Martian fame) created self-made platforms that brought them success and Hollywood movie deals (and publishers coming calling on them), successful traditionally-published authors are complaining that they can no longer make a living from their writing alone—all while the profits of publishing houses soar. That's right—instead of fixing their business model, publishing houses seem determined to commit slow suicide by squeezing out their primary sources of income: the writers.

“For someone diving into freelancing, I couldn’t have asked for a better setup or expectations.”

I published my first two books independently for a variety of reasons, none of which were because I didn't believe that I was good enough to submit, but because of other factors that I thought made them not good fits for the traditional publishing model. (Well, there were some confidence issues for the first one, before I started developing a fan base because of it.) Plus, learning the skills to self-publish didn't scare me.

Honestly? I love independent publishing—most of the things involved with it, anyway. It's a lot of work, but it's awesome. However, one of the lessons I have learned this year while marketing Finding Heaven is that some forms of marketing can give you a very poor return on investment, plus eat up a lot of the time that you could be using to write your next book.

So far, I have reinvested every penny I have made from writing back into my fiction career, because I am very much at the point where it is costing me money, not earning it for me. (Hear that, Russian pirates? You're stealing from the poor, not the rich. Not that either one would be acceptable.)

Because of all this, and knowing that my current project has the potential to be very commercially successful, I have been debating for nearly a year about whether or not to—

get an agent andsubmit to a traditional publisher

—despite the many horror stories I've heard and despite having to give up control of things I would rather not give up control of. But I have been tempted, all for that elusive carrot of REACH.

I've been praying about it, and talking about it, and researching it. And today, I have made my decisions about both.

Get an agent? No, thanks.
Put my hopes in the traditional publishing system? Thanks to this article in The Guardian, No, thanks.

I personally know many independent authors who are on the slow path to success—being their own bosses, shouldering their own costs, taking their owns risks—and you know what? They are succeeding. Without agents, without publishers, without advances.

One of my professional friends, P.D. Workman, works a full-time job as the sole bread-winner of her family, volunteers with her church, exercises, and usually cranks five thousand words per day. (For laypeople, that's about 20 paperback pages, or several hours at a word processor). She publishes in multiple genres and puts out many books per year. She helps other writers by teaching classes and giving advice. Many of her books are about serious issues, the kind that require hours and hours of research. She's been publishing independently for almost five years (though she has written prolifically since she was a child), and she told me a few months ago that she hopes to be able to completely replace her day job income in another year or so.

Is this the easy road? No. Is it risky? Yes. But can it be done?

YES!

So this is the day I commit. I am not a fast writer (yet). My career may not look like a P.D. Workman's, Steena Holmes', or Adam Dreece's (yet). But it could. And I'm determined to find my own path to success as a fiction writer.

Because if they can do it, so can I.

Still plenty of room at the top. Image courtesy of mihtiander / 123RF Stock Photo.

Now that that decision has been made, stay tuned for more about my next book, The Mermaid's Tear, as I start putting together marketing materials for it over the next little while.

All this to encourage you—it's never too late to dream big. It's never not worthwhile to take the hard road to get you to your dreams. In fact, most things worth having are difficult to get.

“If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that amaze you.”

— Les Brown

Happy Friday!

*I kid you not, I had more than one person at signings this year hang out and talk to me, not because they wanted a book, but because they had some starry-eyed notion that a real author was someone exciting and famous to talk to. Ha! My favourite was the guy who dragged his young daughter over—"Look, honey, a real author!" She was much less interested than he was. Lol.

How to Make Yummy Homemade Ketchup

How to Make Yummy Homemade Ketchup recipe - make it in minutes from only 5 ingredients!

Baby, it's hot outside! Which, in my tin can of a house, means it's even hotter inside most nights, which means cooking over the fire or on the barbecue outdoors is my favourite way to make supper these days. (Or it would be, if our barbecue worked. Lots of hot-dogs-roasted-on-the-fire nights around here lately. Current temperature in my house? The thermostat's topped out at 30 degrees C.)

One of the easy switches I made in our eating many years ago was to begin making my own ketchup. And every time we have people over for a wiener roast, someone asks for the recipe.

So, here it is

These ingredients plus 5 minutes is all you need to make your own delicious, healthy ketchup.

Yummy Homemade Ketchup

Makes approximately 2 cups

1 480 ml/15 oz can tomato paste
1/3 c maple syrup
2 garlic cloves, pressed or mashed
2 tsp. sea salt
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

Mix all ingredients together well. Can be used right away, but it's best made several hours in advance to let the flavours mingle. Keeps in the refrigerator for several weeks.

Throw it in a bowl, mix it up, and voila! The ketchup recipe your guests will be asking you for. :-)

Feel free to pin and share!

This recipe is based on the one found in Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig. This book has a lot of excellent, tasty recipes for whole food eating. I highly recommend it.

Making Love Work

My husband and I recently celebrated our eighteenth wedding anniversary. We did it without a lot of pomp and circumstance—we were supposed to go camping as a family, and those plans got changed by rain. No big deal. We went for a walk on the dike instead.

Why wasn't it a big deal to take a simple walk together instead of a big, elaborate plan? I often see posts or hear women express the expectations they have of their spouses, sometimes quite demanding ones. But that's not how we roll, Jason and I.

My sister-in-law is getting married on Saturday, and thinking about that has me pondering what it is that has made my marriage to her brother work so well. Why are we so happy?

I could chalk it up to commitment—we were both "all in" from the very beginning—but you can be in a fully committed marriage for years or for life, and still be completely miserable. To quote Jennifer Aniston's character in Mother's Day, "No one goes into marriage expecting to get divorced. You just can't do that."

I know there are hundreds of books written on this topic. I've read some of them. They helped, especially in those early years when we were figuring out how to be together.

But this post isn't about that. This post is about the top, stand-out things in my marriage that make it healthy, happy, and helped us survive some of life's greatest catastrophes—and gave us a foundation that will keep us going strong for years to come.

It's how I hope my kids approach their future relationships. And I hope it helps you, too.

Photo courtesy of Lightstock.com.

1. Make No Demands

I wish this went without saying, but I have seen the "expectations trap" in many relationships (not just marriages), in varying degrees along the spectrum from "I need to get my husband to do this for me"  to "If you don't do this/tell me this/fulfill this expectation, I'm out the door."

No one can be free to fully participate in a marriage (or friendship) where their participation has a condition that must be met or expectations that must be filled. Beyond the basic vows we made to each other ("forsaking all others" being a big one), my husband and I have learned the art of letting the other person be, and expecting nothing that the other hasn't voluntarily committed to. To let them be themselves, make mistakes, and just say, "I love you. I'm not going anywhere. We'll figure out this mess that [one of us] made together."

We've both made messes. We've both made mistakes. But because we had the freedom to do that, knowing that our marriage wouldn't hit the rocks because of it, those mistakes usually turned into opportunities for us to draw closer to each other and become better people instead of driving a wedge between us.

In a friendship, you have even less claim upon a person—expecting them to "forsake all others" would be foolish and needy and constricting, for example. No matter what relationship you are in, real love doesn't put people in a cage, even a pretty one.

"Are you saying I shouldn't ask for anything?"

Not at all. In fact, most spouses (my husband and myself among them) appreciate it when our partner lets us know how we can bless them. Because we love that person, we want to give them the desires of their heart. But there is a big difference between asking for something that would please you, and expecting that that person will fulfill your request simply because you said something about it. Or, worse, expecting them to fulfill a desire you NEVER asked for. But that would probably be the topic of a different post.

Ask without expectations, and you will never be disappointed.

“Ask without expectations, and you will never be disappointed.”

And, the bonus? Your partner will feel free to love you in a way that might even surprise you.

Making demands is a fear-based way to communicate. We think we won't get what we want unless we take control of the situation. We are afraid to see how our partner reacts to a simple request—what if they ignore it? What if they forget? Does that mean they don't really care about me?

Usually, the answer is no, that's not what it means at all. If they don't do the thing you asked, does it mean that you should throw it in their face?

That leads us to my next point:

2. Give Them the Benefit of the Doubt

This is something I had to learn the hard way. For many years, I was convinced that if I had asked my husband to do something or take care of something and he didn't do it, it was some kind of intentional slight—either he hadn't made remembering a high enough priority, or he remembered and had decided that my request wasn't something he wanted to put in the effort to grant.

Yet, he very rarely, if ever, held me to that standard or brought up my personal failings and errors in the same way. It was from him that I learned this valuable relationship lesson: Give the other person the benefit of the doubt.

There are a lot of nuances to how this works out in an actual relationship situation, but throwing it in their face is never the right answer. Communication has ended the moment someone attacks.

“Communication has ended the moment someone attacks.”

Love listens. Love asks questions, it doesn't make accusations. And love also realizes that one's partner's life doesn't actually revolve around you, though you are probably the most important part of it—they have more than one plate in the air, just as you do. So if they can't or don't do that thing you wanted within the time frame you'd hoped?

If it's urgent, get it done another way (preferably with your partner's knowledge and agreement).

If it's not urgent, let it go. Remember all the things that your partner does because they care about you—those are probably why they were too busy to do what you asked in the first place.

For instance, if the issue was a household chore that my husband hadn't gotten to yet, I learned to do things myself or hire a pro, when the budget permitted. He works pretty hard. Why should I condemn him for not coming home and working for another six hours when I'd much rather he took that time to spend with me and the boys, or even to refresh himself to tackle everything again the next day?

3. Give Without A Balance Scale

This is pretty easy to do in the early stages of a relationship. Your new romance is magical and your partner is perfect and of course you want to do things for them because you want them to be happy and mostly, you want them to be happy with you.

Wait. Isn't that, in itself, asking for something in return?

The answer: Yes.

You know that saying, "If you love something, set it free, if it comes back, it was meant to be, if it doesn't, it was never truly yours?"

This is where that comes in.

When you love someone, you can never keep a ledger. You must give because you love your partner and want to serve them and fulfill their needs—not so that they will fulfill yours in return, but just because you love them. And in a healthy relationship, your partner does the same thing.

“When you love someone, you never keep a ledger.”

"But I give everything for my partner, and he/she never does anything for me."

Okay, this is different. This is not a healthy relationship, and the dysfunction usually exists on both sides. The chronic giver is usually trying to buy approval and love and control their partner with how much they give or use their unreciprocated actions to feel better about themselves in some way, and the taker is selfish and is probably controlling their partner through neglect in some way. And that is the subject of a different post.

That's not how real love works. If you see yourself in either of the roles I just described, you need help setting boundaries. Take a look at this post: Drawing the Line: 5 Loving Reasons to Say No. And go get the book Boundaries (or one of the more specific books in the franchise) post-haste.

5. Stand Up for Each Other

Whether it be with your children, your best friend, or your mother, you are always "Team [Partner]" first. There is a time and a place for asking for help with relationship issues—but there is never a time and place for gossiping about your spouse.

When you need to discuss some of your partner's negative qualities, it should always be in the context of asking for help to find creative solutions to overcome the barrier those qualities presents between you, not to gripe. In other words, the purpose needs to be constructive, not destructive.

"The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands, the foolish one tears hers down." (Proverbs 14:1 NIV)

“There is never a time and place for gossiping about your spouse.”

This goes both ways, though I find women do tend to be more guilty of this than men.

In our house, the best thing ever is when someone tells me about something my husband said about me that was bragging me up a little.

Plus, when he wears this shirt:

Yes, he bought it for himself and just surprised me. What's not to love about about a man like that?

6. Communication, Not Manipulation

Don't use manipulation tactics as a tool in your relationship. And don't let your children do it.

Manipulation is a form of control, and control is fear-based, and fear has no place in love. The loving thing to do is to present your thoughts, feelings, and desires openly, like an adult who knows that your partner is probably not a mind reader like you and probably isn't quite as perfect as you, either. Oh, wait . . .

Kids are master manipulators, and more so if they see it modelled in their parents.

In our house, the number one crime is lying. The number two crime is trying to get a different answer from one parent than the other, or in any way playing us off each other. Our kids know—if one parent says no, the answer is no. If we disagree with our partner's decision, we address it privately and if it changes, the parent who gave out the decision in the first place talks to the kids about it.

“Manipulation is a form of control, and control is fear-based, and fear has no place in love.”

I was over half done this post when my husband showed me this video for fun. Let J.P. Sears and his significant other, Amber, show you how not to communicate in a relationship:

Remember, if you wouldn't want your partner to treat you that way, they probably won't like it, either.

4. Forgive Fully—Let Bygones Be Bygones

I wish I didn't have to explain this, but again, bringing up past issues is another way of controlling your partner. When an issue arises, deal with it.

Some issues will come up more than once, because as humans, we have weaknesses and tend to make the same mistakes over and over. This is where we need to give grace. If our partner is trying to change, is it constructive to bring up the other times they have made this mistake? (The answer might be yes, but it all depends in how you present it. Attitude and intention is everything.)

I am not recommending for you to turn a blind eye to addictions or abuse or any such thing like that. If you are affected negatively by your partner, or in danger because of your partner's actions, you need to set boundaries to protect yourself.

You can't control your partner. You can only control yourself. And trying to control your partner by unforgiveness, manipulation, or any other fear-based tactic is not love, and is a recipe for relationship failure.

If their actions are continually hurting you or affecting you negatively, you need to set a boundary to protect yourself, and that looks like different things in different situations.

“Trying to control your partner by unforgiveness, manipulation, or any other fear-based tactic is not love, and is a recipe for relationship failure.”

Just remember that boundaries are never about control of others. They are only about taking responsibility for yourself.

7. Never Take Them For Granted

Again, early in a relationship, it is easy to feel grateful and amazed at every little thing your partner does . . . but that can be difficult to maintain as time goes on.

Practice gratefulness. Do this with everything, but nowhere more than with your relationship with your spouse.

This is something that needs to consciously happen. Sometimes, it is harder than others. That means focusing on what you love about them instead of what drives you crazy. And remembering what they do for you because they love you instead of what they don't for whatever reason. And remembering that of all the people in the world, they chose to be with you, and you with them.

That doesn't mean that everything about your relationship is a given, so be grateful for the things you love about it.

“Practice gratefulness.”

Jason has been my favourite person to be with since we became friends in 1998. That's twenty years of figuring out how to love each other.

And it just keeps getting better.

I hope that these seven "tips from the trenches" help you, especially if you are in a place where you are trying to figure out how to heal a broken relationship or establish a healthy foundation with a potential life partner.

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.”

— 1 John 4:18 (NIV)

May you love well, friend.

Missing You

My boys. September 18, 2014.

Most days, most times, I do okay now. In fact, I can honestly say, I'm doing well. I have joy, and hope, and purpose in my life.

But right now, today, on the three-year milestone after we lost you, I'm putting aside the things that I use to keep me busy and sitting in the sadness, Levi.

One year closer to seeing you again. May I use the time I have until then to love well.

Healing, One Bite at a Time

There is an old joke that goes, "How do you eat an elephant?"

"I don't know, how do you?"

"One bite at a time."

The not-so-hidden truth in here can be applied to so many things—projects, goals, ginormous meals. But today, I'm going to talk about how I have found this to be true when tackling emotional hardship.*

Photo courtesy of saravutwhanset / 123RF Stock Photo

Three Steps to Healing

I'm not a psychologist, nor a doctor, just an avid student of the human experience. And, being human, I've had some of those. Some of them were harder than what others might experience, but my hardest experience would be considered a cake walk by many thousands of people in the world today.

I have found that, regardless of the degree of hardship, there are certain things that seem to true for many people who become resilient as a result of their experiences instead of brittle and hard or weak and prone to breakage.

Or at least, it was true for me. You could try it. (What have you got to lose? :-D)

1. Accept that where you are is temporary.

Since I'm all about cliches today, "the only thing certain in life is death and taxes." That means everything else is subject to change.

When I'm in a good place, I have often feared that impending change, because I thought it could only get worse from there (and my expectations have sometimes produced those results).

But when I'm in a bad place, such as the depths of grief and loss, that promise of change has been a lifeline I've held on to. Even in my hardest moments, knowing that it wasn't something that would last forever gave me a bit of hope, and a reason to look for the "light at the end of the tunnel." (Cliches. Told you. Also, see "addicted to silver linings" in my home page profile blurb.)

2. Expect that the healing will come.

This is an extension of number one, but much more intentional.

I believe that we can "create our own reality," in a sense, by what we believe to be true. (Think that's ridiculous? Wait, have you never heard of the placebo effect?)

While it's true that every circumstance on earth is temporary, to one degree or another, we can create a general atmosphere that pervades our life by what we expect to happen. (The opposite is also true, so beware!)

Despite my penchant for cliches today, this is not a recommendation that you walk around like Bill Murray in the 1991 comedy What About Bob? saying, "I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful" when you don't, at all. In fact, I would posit that denying the feelings you currently have is rather unhealthy.

Maybe it's just that I have a deep discomfort with lying, even to myself. I don't trust people who tell you that your subconscious can't tell the difference between truth and a lie. If I tell my subconscious I feel great when I feel like I just got driven over by a truck, it will either smack me upside the head (e.g. get angry), or sulk and ignore me (e.g. feed the depression and negative thought patterns I am experiencing). Either way, it will stop trusting anything I say.

I'm a writer. I heavily rely on my subconscious to do my job—which, one could argue, is "coming up with interesting lies." But the thing is, those are the ones my subconscious gets to collaborate on. It thinks those are a wonderful idea, plus super-fun and the both of us can hardly believe we get to do this and get paid. But I never try to tell it, or anyone else, that my fiction is actually fact, and my subconscious is down with that.

There are people I have lost that I will grieve for all time. We are coming up on the three-year anniversary of my son Levi's death. While the sunshine has returned for me most days (I believe, in large part, because of the active role I took in my own healing), there are still times I get PTSD flashbacks, and there are days when I can feel the sadness piling up and I know that I need to let it out. But I make the conscious decision to embrace that sadness instead of deny it, and I expect that, after a good night's rest or doing some soul-feeding activity, like spending time with friends or being creative, that the heaviness will pass. And I'm usually right.

3. Positive actions, not positive affirmations.

When Bob Wiley, the neurotic protagonist of What About Bob?, goes to see a therapist about overcoming his issues, he had already taken several positive actions toward doing so. He knew that there was a problem (or a dozen of them!) and he knew he couldn't handle it/them on his own.

So when Dr. Marvin recommends a book about taking baby steps to tackle his life, he is ready to give it a try.

Now, in the movie, he doesn't necessarily handle it well at first, and frankly, neither does his therapist. (Thus, the reason for the dark comedy hi-jinks that ensue.) But there is something to be said for focusing on small things, especially when we feel overwhelmed by a big problem—like life plans, crushing debt, losing weight, or overcoming depression, trauma, and grief.

When I was grieving hardest, I did small things that I knew would help me process my grief.

I read books that dealt with the deep, troubling questions that I was wrestling with. Also, I prayed. A lot. Even though I felt farther from God than ever before, I trusted that he was with me and that it was just my own emotional numbness that kept me from feeling him.I spent time with others when I felt able, and felt okay with protecting myself and retreating when necessary. (If you need help setting boundaries like this, check out this post.)I did things for other people as much as I felt able, including organizing a fund raiser and, eventually, returning to my volunteer positions at church—not to mention continuing to care for my family.I set myself a photo challenge for a year which required me to look for positive, beautiful things in the world, find quotes that fit them, and write about them. (See my Photo Friday series.)I allowed myself days where breathing was my biggest achievement, and that was okay.

In other words, I made healing a habit by taking small steps each day that gave myself space to do that.

“We are creatures of habit, and habits are formed with small steps, choices, or actions.”

No matter what situation you find yourself in, or what emotional garbage you have to deal with, start now with one small change that will eventually lead you to a different place. It might be as simple as practicing gratefulness. In fact, take a moment right now and think about something you can be grateful for. If you can't think of anything, focus on the fact that you are still breathing, which means you still have a chance to make your life better.

"Where there's life, there's hope."

Baby Steps, Single Bites, and You

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single baby step"—or something like that. :-)

Ha! I got one more cliche in.** But there's a reason these things are cliche—it's because they're true.

We are creatures of habit, and habits are formed with small steps, choices, or actions. Our brains are very plastic, which means we can choose to change habits and make new ones—more positive ones—that will change our life. And it starts with small, actionable changes, which you engage in over the long term to turn into habits.

Don't let the big picture overwhelm you. Start small.

Just remember:

This is temporary.Expect that you will get better. Wherever you are at right now is just a stage in that process.Take one small step right now that will change things for you, even if it's just practicing gratefulness for the blessings you currently enjoy.

These three steps aren't going to solve all your problems. But over time, they can help you cultivate a different state of mind. It will not be instantaneous—but it will work.

Because "slow and steady wins the race."***

* Let's let all the elephant-eating be metaphorical, okay? They're endangered.
** No cliches were harmed in the making of this blog post. And "no stones were left unturned" while digging them up.
*** Boo-yah! Cliches forever!

P.S. If you are dealing with some serious, big stuff, and you need a much more in-depth, hands-on road map for digging deep into healing, I highly recommend my friend Melissa Keaster's handbook Ten Tools For Inner Healing, which you can get for free by signing up for her newsletter. (And of course, you can unsubscribe any time.) It's a quick read, but full of powerful truths and practical things to help you work toward healing and freedom. You can sign up to get the Tools on her website, www.melissakeaster.com.

Whirlwind Road Trip

Last Thursday, I was sitting with my grandma and told her about the road trip that my mom would be leaving on the next day. The trip would take her to Seattle to see my sister and back to Peace River within a five-day period.

'Round about the third time explaining that in a ten-minute time frame (Grandma's memory is mostly gone), it occurred to me that, with very little rearranging of my schedule, I could go, too. Oh, happy day! I haven't been to my sister's since 2015.

A few phone calls and about half an hour later, it was arranged.

The trip went via Abbottsford, BC so that my mom and uncles and aunties could attend their aunty's funeral. (I never knew this particular great-aunt and was only acquainted with one family member, so I skipped the actual funeral in favour of more time with my sister, Katrin.)

It was a lot of driving, but so worth it. Here are a few of the gazillion photos I took on the trip.

Completing a family tradition at the David Thompson Resort.

A new perspective at the Giant Cedars Boardwalk near Revelstoke, BC.

Giant Cedars Boardwalk. Spring is springing!

Beautiful moss.

Lovely light.

Aunty Joy marvelling at the trees.

At the Bellevue Botanical Garden, Washington.

So much beauty!

I took far too many photographs of flowers. Wait, scratch that. It's not possible to photograph flowers too much. :-)

Entrance to the Yao Japanese Garden of the Bellevue Botanical Gardens.

I literally can't even.

This confirmed my suspicions... faeries live here.

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While I'd substitute "tea" most of the time, it was coffee that morning! Pretty good coffee, too, served with a smile. :-)

Beginning a 1.3 mile/500 foot elevation hike with my mom, sister, and uncle at Twin Falls, Washington. It turned out that I was in much worse shape than I thought. :-P

This was a view of the falls from the bridge at the end. Only, we didn't know it and went for another half of a fairly steep mile. Yes, I hurt the next day.

Maidenhair ferns are ubiquitous here.

Towards the end, the sun came out and made the hike even more beautiful.

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This photo was taken at about the .8 mile mark. The circled part has the teeny-tiny bridge that we hiked to in it. If you really blow it up, you could probably see people on it. Only, we had to go down and back up a long ways to get there. It was awesome.

This was also great "research" for my book, because my main characters live at the top of a steep mountain about this far from the bay. Now I know how they stay so thin. :-)

More lovely light.

On the way home, we stopped to stretch our legs at this lovely little spot near Pincher Creek, Alberta, called Lundbreck Falls. I never knew it existed until Tuesday. The water was roaring pretty good with all the spring runoff. Definitely worth stopping (and maybe even camping) again!

(P.S. I also made progress on a new knitting design. That was a nice change. :-D)

Insanely Optimistic

Some days, writing fiction for a living feels like walking through sludge in a mudstorm. You can't really see where you're going, you aren't sure if where you've been has brought you any closer to your goal, and every step forward takes every ounce of strength you can muster.

And that's just writing the book. If and when you get to the point where you have a book in your hands that you are half-decently proud of, there's another blacker, colder mudstorm to walk through to try to make any money from it.

But one thing at a time.

Right now, I'm in the "easy" part of the process with my next book, or rather, trilogy of books. I recently had some breakthroughs while plotting and writing The Mermaid's Tear (which I think will actually be the name of the first book, so now I have to think of a trilogy name) which have made the plot way cooler, answered a lot of the questions I had been asking of myself while I researched, and made it possible to work in even more nifty worldbuilding and interesting characters.

The thing is, it also asks some pretty big questions about faith, slavery, the human condition, redemption, love, and relationships.

I'm going to be honest—I spend a little bit of every day wondering if I'm actually going to be able to pull this off.

If I succeed in making this into a cohesive story that hits all the right notes, it will be not quite like any other fantasy book I've ever read, which is very exciting to me. Even if no one else "gets it," I will love it and be proud that I was able to make the whole thing work. (But of course, some part of me is hopeful that it is the kind of story that will make other people identify with it and get excited about it in a Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter sort of way. I write because I love it, but I do want to make a living, too.)

The problem is, in order to do all that, I'm messing with some pretty serious things—namely, the closely-held religious beliefs of millions of people around the globe. And not just Christians, though I have taken the most liberties with how Christians perceive the spiritual world, I think (in the sense that I'm drawing on the Judeo-Christian system the most, so people with very different faiths will probably look at it more as a fantasy construct, whereas Christians might be like "What the heck did this blasphemer do?"). I have been working with characters from multiple faith backgrounds, so I have to make my "system" jive in some way with how other religions perceive the spiritual side of our universe.

Preferably without making anyone want to throw my books across the room. Or burn them. Burn them all.

I want to be respectful to all of these people while illustrating the truths I'm trying to get to. I want to make readers sit and ponder what I have to say with an open heart, being ready to receive real-life personal revelations, without watering down the message of hope that I hold dearest, and without turning off large swaths of people because of how I interpreted certain aspects of their faith in the framework of my fantasy world.

Do you see why I feel a little bit anxious about this?

And why I keep asking myself—is this even possible? Or am I committing career suicide?

Plotting and puzzling have a lot in common. Anyone who's tried both will know what I mean.

Today, I read a very interesting, cerebral, and massively-long post about career choices on the blog Wait But Why. As an example for one of his points, author Tim Urban talks about how, to achieve success in a field, you have to get good not just at the skills required to do the actual job, but the entire "game" required to achieve success. Non-traditional careers such as the arts require a different set of assets than traditional ones like being a neurosurgeon.

He used acting as an example, because to achieve success as an actor, you have to be more than good at acting. You also have to find ways to make your own luck (he was much more specific, so read the post if you're curious), and you have to possess "insane optimism."

This holds a lot of parallels to a writing career.

Later in the post, he talks about how, in our careers, we only need to focus on the next point or "goal," not on the entire series of steps we need to take to get to the end goal we have defined as "success".

That goes along with one of the very first Scripture verses I ever memorized:

“Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”

— Psalm 119:105

God knows that we can't handle the stress of thinking about our entire future at once. There is too much unknown. We don't even know what the puzzle pieces are yet, let alone how they will fit together. So he only shows us one step at a time—just the amount that a lamp would illuminate.

I think I need to remember this as I'm writing my book. Yes, I have a general outline, and some basic ideas of what I'm trying to say and what my characters will do on the way to their goal. But as to whether or not I can make the plot work in such a way that the message will be heard, and accepted, by others? In other words, that I can write the story without the heart of it completely imploding?

I'll have to figure that out one step, and one piece, at a time.

As one of my mugs says, "It's only cold if you're standing still."

So I'll just try to keep my insane optimism, even on sludgy days, and keep moving forward.

What are your thoughts? Have you ever tried something that made everyone, including yourself, think you were completely insane? How did it turn out? Do you think I'm completely insane with what I'm trying to do with this story? Are you offended by the very idea, or excited to see how this might work into a fantasy world?

I'd love to hear from you!