Beth Troy's Blog

Pine, et al. 38.

There’s a spot on Miami’s trails that look just like Maine, smell just like Maine. I took a friend there this past weekend for a hike. We walked along, exclaiming about the tall, tall pines and blanket of pine needles crunching under our shoes, but then I’d catch a drift – sharp and clean. You might think “candle,” but I think “Maine,” and just like that, I’m at my grandparents’ camp. I kept punctuating our walk with whiplash stops, wanting to stay in that memory. I was unsuccessful.

In high school, I hung out with this nerd group who thought studying together was fun. At one point, a member of the group read a study about how scent evokes memory, and we thought it worth the try. I donated my Pier 1 room spray to our experiment, and that night’s study session became a spritz-and-flashcard fest with just enough left in the can for the next day’s test. Our teacher, the Indomitable Mary Jane Roberts (who has not received enough play on this blog for being the world’s.best.history.teacher.ever) questioned why we were spraying up her classroom with pumpkin spice, but she allowed it, and we did well on the test? I’m not sure. I don’t remember that part as well as the smell. It stings in my nostrils. It probably gave me cancer.

Another smell is Smoke & Butter – a heady combo I discovered in my grandma’s kitchen. She had this step-stool counter chair (that I want back), and I’d perch there, happy to watch her cook and hear her monologue while she alternated drags of her unfiltered cigarettes with stirs of whatever was in the frying pan (pierogies, mostly). I suppose I could re-create this one, but again, cancer. I miss it, though – enough so that I don’t mind the odd moments I catch a whiff of someone smoking outside. I just wish they were frying something, too.

The last is my parents’ cologne. Thankfully, they’re static in this preference. I don’t know the brands, and I can’t describe the smell, but I recognize it instantly – most recently at this past Christmas. They emerged from their room in their green and red, smelling as they always have, and I’m there and way back when – safe and loved.

Tommy turned 8 this week, Jesse turns 13 in a month, and Ezra turns 10 this summer. As I’m flipping through my 40, I’m wondering what the boys are storing and whether it will serve them as these memories of people and place have served me. I have no cabin in Maine to take them to every summer. I used the last of the Pier 1 spray in 11th grade. I don’t smoke, and I don’t wear cologne. I do fry with butter. So, butter. And maybe coffee and fires in the fireplace.

Of course, the smell isn’t as important as what they will do when it wafts their way. Will they shoo it away? Or, will they stay, trying to hold onto what was good for longer than the breeze allows?

Reader. 39.

My mom said I struggled to read as a little girl, but all I remember is reading. From whatever age the letters became words, reading has been my go-to, my escape, my luxury, my learning, my door, my hobby, my gluttony. My preference.

Reading is why my first job was at a used bookstore, alphabetizing (and smelling) old books. It’s why in pre-marital counseling, my chief concern with Matt was that he would crowd into my reading space. It’s why libraries were the only place I felt steady as a new mom, picking books I knew my boys would like. It’s why two years ago, when Tommy asked me to read Elephant & Piggie, assigning each of us a part and acting his out in full-body play, I had my first (of what would become many) exhales. He was and will be fine. He has an imagination.

Because that’s the deal with reading. If you can’t translate the words on the page into mind scenes, it won’t be your jam. As a writer, I rely on the reader to meet my imagination with her own, and it was in writing that I started to appreciate how good of a reader I am. I’m not talking test scores; I’m talking the attention I give it. The imagination I bring to it.

It’s 110% – a real problem when you’re raising small children and literally can’t hear them going Lord of the Flies in the next room because you are reading. I think I knew this was coming when I was pregnant with Jesse and making choices to read through the biggest fiction I could find (And Ladies of the Club, Atlas Shrugged). I knew my reading days, as I understood them to Age 27, were numbered, and that I was soon to become like my Grandma, who in the rare times I saw her with a book, that book was open on her chest and she was snoring.

It’s an image I guess I’ve presented enough times to Jesse that he took to heckling me, and like any good mother, I challenged him to a reading competition. Looking back, I should not have measured this by page count, or if I did, I should have established ratios to equalize the discrepancy in font sizes. I didn’t, and by the end of that first week, he was beating me so badly that I quit, draping myself in the Mantle of Mommy Martyrdom.

Of course you won. Look at all your freedoms! You’re reading Rick Riordan while I empty the dishwasher. My paycheck, which I earn by working while you’re reading, will pay for the inevitable late fee of that library book you will inevitably lose under your bed. And by the way, I literally taught you how to read at MY breast while I fed you milk from MY body, so I would wipe that smirk off your face.

I think I made some good points. Breastmilk is a solid closer for any argument with men, but I saw something else in my list of grievances, which stretched much longer in the actual Farewell, You Won, but I Think You’re a Jerk speech to Jesse. I saw myself saying how much I loved reading but making choices to do other things. Empty the dishwasher, for instance. And, I saw that the choice to lay low in my reading so I could raise babies to boys, had expired. They were now, all of them, at an age where they could empty the dishwasher while I read on the couch.

Which is all to say that “read” makes my daily list now – not as an end-of-day sprint to sleep, but as a choice in the morning and afternoon on the weekdays and weekends. I want them to catch me reading. I want me to catch me reading. I want to win my next reading competition, and this time I’m going to establish font-size ratios and many chores to fill up the boys’ days. I am going to use my paycheck to fund a babysitter to move them through said chores while I go somewhere, read, and win this thing.

Because at 40, I’m thinking about legacy and what I want these boys saying about me.

She did okay.

She read a lot.

One time, she challenged us to a reading competition and lost.

The next time …

I WON! I better win.

Lordy. 40.

It is no surprise to the people who know me that I just happen to be writing this blog on my 40th birthday (with all birthday wishes in the form of comments, emails, texts, gifts, and checks welcome. I am equal opportunity in this way) and that I am writing it wearing the canary yellow sneakers my sister bought me for the occasion.

Circumstances of the past several months haven’t allowed for writing, or to put it more accurately, the sustained thought that writing comes from. Going deep into quarantine, job, homeschool, and the rest rendered me a bystander to the writing part of myself, and after publishing Louisa, I watched August turn to September and then 2021 without any desire to write a word.

I didn’t feel alarmed. I didn’t think it meant anything, and so maybe that’s something. Maybe I am ready for 40 in my yellow shoes.

That being said, can I tell you how it felt one morning a few weeks ago when I had a thought that sent me to the basement cupboard where we keep the half-used notebooks? I wrote the thought, and a few others, and from these came another that perhaps 40 is a time to account. The thought of finishing this notebook felt good, though I felt rusty while my right hand cramped and asked me to please pace myself.

I am rusty. I couldn’t remember my password for this site. Where do I store the numbered blog images that show up on the home page? I had to think about it. And now that I’m writing this post, I’m getting the sense that I’m not writing as well as I could or as I did, but I know if I put this off today, I will probably put it off for a year.

Because at 40, I’m starting to know myself.

There is a time to be present, and I’ve done it well this past year. There is also a time to step back from the present and figure stuff out. I do this through writing, most of which I don’t share because the words fulfill their purpose the moment they hit the page. And then there are some words that nag me until I share them. It’s like they know me. They know I like to throw stuff out – my journals, especially. I have a bonfire scheduled this Sunday to do just that. I think the words in my notebook know.

Still, I’ve never been a fan of what I drafted in that notebook – The Retrospective 20/20. Whenever an older person would see me grocery shopping with TroyBoys and stop me (because it was such a good time to stop me) to say You will appreciate this one day, I always said, Then you take them while I finish up. In my mind, of course. It’d make for a much better story if I’d said it out loud.

And it’s not the first time I would be committing a crime my past self said I would never commit, but in my yellow shoes on Lordy 40 I’m telling myself as I’m typing that it’s okay. I can write what I remember. I can share what I’ve learned. Because that’s what it is – a Write & Share! Not a 20/20, but it does need some branding.

Let’s call it a 40/40 for the 40 of my last 40, and maybe it will take the next 40 to get through it, and that’s okay.

Because I’m 40.

Spreading the Word

It’s funny I’d bring up a gardening metaphor right now (my front walkway is no longer navigable thanks to the Jungle Fever of the adjacent mulch bed) but writing books is like gardening.

There is no fast. There is the slow and steady and the things you do to tend the growth.

I’m thinking about this as I start writing Book 3. Right now, it looks like an hour a morning, five days a week. If I keep to this, I might just have a book to share with you all in the next few years.

Making books known is slow, too, though it might not look that way at first. Launch is a splashy week with a lot of noise, excitement, and sales, but if you’ve seen Toy Stories 1, 2, & 3 (4 was unnecessary) you know the drill. You hear the Sarah McLachlan song playing in the background. You see the dust bunnies cuddling the once-loved-now-forgotten book under the bed.

Actually, it’s not that sad – I’m just running away with my metaphors today!

In the past 3 years, I saw Lu move in a slow and steady way. I tried things that worked and things that didn’t work. I saw how peoples’ sharing took effect. Before we move on from the Louisa launch, I’d like to share TWO ways you can tend to this growth:

Write a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. The quantity of reviews can be the difference between selling 3 and 3000 copies of a book, and the more detail you include, the more it helps people decide whether it’s a right fit for their Saturday afternoon.Share your copy and share it often! My nightstand is teetered with recommendations and book shares from friends – it’s how I find the majority of my next reads.

Thank you for all of your support and encouragement, particularly in this past week. There’s other things for me to tend in big ways right now – college semester starting, Troy homeschool starting – so it’s going to be quiet on the blog for a bit, but I’ll be back sometime this fall with stories about it all.

Until then, happy reading!

What Is a Modern Faith Story?

Yes, but who wants to read that?”

Years ago, I had an idea about a modern faith story. Less bonnet. More grit. Less clean. Because people are messy.

I shared my idea with a friend. She asked the question.

“Yes, but who wants to read that?”

First, that’s a good friend.

Second, that’s a good question.

Third, it’s the question any woman who wants to start something different needs to answer.

What is a Modern Faith Story?

It’s a story about how God is real and deals with real people. It’s a story of faith lived in real ways. It’s a story written in words real people use.

It doesn’t moralize. It doesn’t pretend.

It doesn’t apologize, and it doesn’t excuse.

It presents as plainly as possible what it means to be human and the rescue we all have in Jesus Christ.

“Yes, but who wants to read that?”

The hope of one girl spread to a couple and then to many. Louisa, the sequel to my debut novel, Lu, hit as the #1 New Release in Contemporary Christian Fiction and Inspirational Fiction this week.

And it’s still on sale today – for 99 cents through this Sunday. Get it!

Louisa: Behind-the-Scenes

Louisa took me three years to write, and I started with the last chapter. Then I wrote the first seven chapters. Then I wrote the last 6 chapters. Then I wrote the middle chapters. Writing books in sequence is so passe.

My favorite chapter is Chapter 42, and it has been ever since I wrote it a couple of years ago. I wish I could talk more about it right now, but … spoilers. Feel free to ask me about it after you read it, and I’ll jaw on for awhile.

The cover (designed by Emily Perry) is both an allusion to the stained glass of Lu but also the quilts of Penny Thrift, Grandma Pat’s shop, which plays a central setting in Louisa. Quilting is my favorite art form – feminine, skilled, scrappy, utilitarian, approachable, and infinite in its combinations. It’s no wonder I chose it as the logo (designed by Grace Weaver) for everything else I do.

What is a wonder is what I didn’t see in the cover. “It’s cool how there’s a cross,” my sister said after she saw it. “There is?” There is!

I appreciated readers asked for a sequel, and I never felt pressured by the question. Even when COVID hit, and I needed to push back the launch date, it felt okay. It was an open hand I’d wished for but couldn’t force. Some things we just need to grow into, I guess.

The Beth who wrote Louisa was not the Beth who wrote Lu. There’s a vulnerability and opening to Lu in this second book that I needed to understand as a woman before I could write about that woman.

What stayed the same is my editing process, and it worked like a charm again to share along the way. There’s so much to benefit in sharing our work, but I’ll boil it down to two. First, I never feel alone in what is an inherently solitary pursuit. Second, each share strips away my ego, which is good for me and the reader. Readers don’t need my ego. They need a good story.

That being said, I’m sure there are still errors. If you find them, please send them my way! They take a hot second to fix.

The biggest writing challenge I took on in Louisa was telling several chapters from Jackson’s perspective. Though I love the character of Lu, I wasn’t all that excited to write another book from her point-of-view. Could I write another character as fluently? Could I write dude? The idea of answering those questions excited me, and I went for it.

I don’t know much about characters until I write them. Even at the end of Lu, Nana Bea was mostly mystery. Why did she move in with Lu’s family after her husband died? What’s under the quiet? I explored her character in Louisa, and it reminded me how everyone has a story. They just don’t always tell it.

The hardest character to write was Jackson’s girlfriend, Rebecca. No one wants to like her, I wasn’t super interested in getting to know her, and in the first go-round she was two-dimensional. And then I thought, but what if she is cool? What if in some ways, she’s better than Lu – the better woman and the better fit? It was an adulterous, interesting thought. I revised accordingly.

The biblical anchor to Louisa is the story of the Abraham – both a patriarch and a man growing into a patriarch. They don’t make it into the book, but these verses from Roman 4:20-21 are constants for me: Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

I love writing dialogue. Every piece of dialogue between Lu and Gracie was gold for me because there’s nothing like two girlfriend finishing each other’s sentences.

I still feel like there needs to be a chapter between Chapters 30 & 31, but honestly, I was tired. I let it go and let it be an exercise in good enough.

I do think Louisa is the better book, storytelling-wise, and it reminds me of the sense I had when I finished Lu – that I had written the best book I could with the time, energy, and skill I had. It set a good baseline to develop a healthy relationship with writing and treat each work as an artifact instead of a penultimate.

The books have different playlists! Here’s the one for Lu and the one for Louisa to celebrate launch week.

I do like stories that end before they’re finished. I like where Louisa ends. However, I see how readers might want an epilogue. I didn’t include it in the book, but I have it for you! Just sign up for my email list (if you haven’t already) and I’ll send it out on Monday.

Also, the Kindle version of Louisa is on sale all week for 99 cents … because she’s Midwestern and likes a bargain. Buy one, buy many!

Louisa: A Modern Faith Story

So, did I ever do a cover reveal for Louisa on the blog? I think I meant to, but that’s not the same thing, is it?

I suppose Launch Day is as good as any. Here you go!

Emily Perry, the mastermind behind the Lu cover, did it again with Louisa, and they play well together, don’t they?

It’s pretty enough to buy, and you can buy it right now. Louisa picks up where Lu left off – same day in fact – and continues her story in understandable and unexpected ways. If Lu was a story about how a modern woman might find God, Louisa is a story about what happens after – how a woman identifies with what she’s found.

I mean, can you see Lu shouting Jesus! at the four-way stop in Dunlap’s Creek? Me, neither. It was fun to let her NOT do that. It was fun to let her be uncomfortable. It was fun to let her figure it out. What made for fun writing I think also makes for fun reading.

Here’s what one review says:

Every once in a while, an author comes along whose storytelling is so refreshing you have to stop and savor each word. Beth Troy is one such author, and on the pages of Lu and now Louisa, she challenges our perceptions, kicks down walls, and presents the most authentic faith journey I’ve ever read in fiction. Louisa is the sequel I needed, in ways I never anticipated, and Troy once again engaged all my emotions from page 1 to the very end. I love love love Lu, and I really hope this isn’t the last we see of her. She is exactly what Christian fiction needs right now, and so is Beth Troy.

Carrie Schmidt, Reading Is My SuperPower

This week, I’ll be sharing more about Louisa – some behind-the-scenes stuff, ways you can help spread the word, and … I’m not sure what else, but I’ll think of something. How about you tell me? I’m always up for petitions.

But today is for sitting back and watching the launch. Cheers, everyone! Thank you for your support. Happy reading.

T-1 to Launch

3 years since the Lu launch, 1 day until the Louisa launch, and I’d like to share a little something I’ve learned about God.

The lines keep getting redrawn. Of what I think I understand. The more I know, the more comfortable I am with the mystery of Him.

The abstract doesn’t make the true any less true, and how God loves isn’t abstract. He gave us a clear picture with his son, and it is here I want to end, and from here, I want to go.

That I am not my own but belong body and soul, in life and death, to my faithful savior, Jesus Christ, who has paid for all my sins with his previous blood, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willingly ready to live for him.

– excerpt, Heidelberg Catechism

T-2 to Launch

3 years since the Lu launch, 2 days until the Louisa launch, and I’d like to share a little something I’ve learned about women.

We need more imagination.

We operate in two worlds – the seen and the unseen. We live best in the seen when we interpret it through the unseen.

Ephesians 1 talks about this – how we are blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. We are chosen. We are holy and blameless in God’s sight. We are loved. We are adopted as daughters of the King. We didn’t earn this. God was pleased to do it. Grace, redemption, forgiveness, wisdom, and understanding – they’re all ours.

All of this is true.

But we need imagination because the seen is loud. It’s pushy. It contradicts the unseen blessings, telling us we need to prove, compete, and repeat.

In this world, I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

In Christ, I’m saved.

Imagination cuts the thruway to truth in our mind, making the unseen seen. Where we put our mind, our heart and soul and strength will follow.

You draw from an abundant well. What you draw, you can carry. What you carry, you can give. You can give because you can draw again.

So do the thing! Do it increasingly. And do it with love.

Louisa releases August 10. Check my Insta this week – I’m doing daily, fun video Q&As on all things Lu, life, writing, and faith

T-3 to Launch

3 years since the Lu launch, 3 days until the Louisa launch, and I’d like to share a little something I’ve learned about writing.

I like it.

I like it for itself.

I can say that because I don’t get “much” out of it, at least not by the worldly triad of recognition, money, and power.

The other day, someone took a jab at self-published books as not being real, and I laughed.

“Well mine feel pretty real.”

She felt bad (she didn’t know), and I told her it was okay. None of us can wait for universal consensus or accolades. They aren’t real.

What is real is the basement writing room I go to every morning. I’m happy to arrange and rearrange words in the time I have. And I leave, satisfied.

We all have our space. Imagine you, unleashed, working for the glory of God Louisa releases August 10 and we’re pre-gaming with a flash Lu sale of FREE. On Kindle. Through August 7. Score your copy + copies for everyone else you’ve been thinking should read the story. Also, check my Insta this week – I’m doing daily, fun video Q&As on all things Lu, life, writing, and faith