Travis Thrasher's Blog, page 6

The Stars Are Falling From The Sky

You’re reinventing yourself. You didn’t ask anybody if this was the right way to go about doing this. You have legitimate friends who don’t judge and don’t convict. If you wake up tomorrow in this apartment without realizing you passed out, it’ll be okay. They won’t blink. 

It’s just another weekday night and you’re waiting for the video to premiere on MTV. Your friends’ television isn’t very big but it’ll do the trick. Just like the beer in your hand and the couple of cases in the fridge. Cheap stuff you’re used to. It’s like drinking water, except this stuff makes you gain weight and sometimes blackout.

You have a recognizable buzz. A familiar kind, the sort of feeling you might get when you see a kindred soul pass by on the sidewalk. A cheerful smile, an open and authentic conversation. Genuine laughter with no sense of loss. No one is diagraming your faults here. No one is demanding anything from you. Not in this safe place full of cigarette smoke and the sound of guitars echoing off the walls. 

This video about to play . . . you’re genuinely curious. This is the melancholy band who produced the misty October which haunted you in its loving sort of way. The group from Ireland who became so popular at the Christian schools you attended, who became the band to embrace if you happened to be a cool believer. By the time The Joshua Tree arrived, you no longer could take them. It wasn’t about the music—the sounds were inspiring and epic—but it was about the images and the aura. The lead singer who seemed so earnest, so serious. And it was about that smug Dutch prick with the locker next to you and his shiny new Doc Martens who acted like a fifth member of the group, proclaiming his love for this band. You didn’t want to love anything this guy loved. 

Don’t let the bastards grind you down . . . 

So it’s been a while after all the confusion of being with or without you and still not finding what you’ve been looking for. There was the movie everybody in high school except you saw. They probably all went together on opening night.

That was high school. 1987 turning into 1988 then into 1989. Now it’s October, 1991. You’ve grown to appreciate those songs and those albums. But you’re also dying to know what’s coming next.

Inspiration for you comes in Depeche Mode and The Cure and New Order and Morrissey. Sure, those are the groups from the 80’s, but you also love new genres of music. You’re part of the grunge scene, the angry sounds being made by Nirvana and Pearl Jam. But what excites you even more are these so-called industrial bands. Front 242. Nitzer Ebb. Nine Inch Nails. 

The music world has changed a lot since The Joshua Tree came out. So you’re eager to hear the first new song by U2 in the 1990’s. 

The video plays, and for a moment, you wonder if this is the actual video. 

What’s Bono doing wandering in traffic? Why’s he look kind of different? What’s with the sunglasses? And this distant sort of music in the background . . . is this the new material? 

Then comes the blast. The sound of a guitar waking up the dead. Cutting, electric, alive, chock-full of character. 

What’s this sound? 

Suddenly in the shadows emerge the band members. 

Who are these people? What’s happening here? This is really cool. This is no Joshua tree. 

The vocals—distorted, different. 

“It’s no secret that our world is in darkness tonight.”

Wait, what, huh? 

“They say the sun is sometimes eclipsed by the moon.” 

This sounds kinda sexy. The Edge looks seriously awesome. What is happening here?

You chug half your beer and think of this song in the context of your favorite groups. This doesn’t just belong. It seems to hover over them, hurdling the other sonics and images to this new, special place. 

“Love, we shine like a burning star we’re falling from the sky.” 

These lyrics, sung in falsetto. 

I can’t take all of this in. 

You finish your beer while watching the 24-inch television 

Seriously the edge looks really cool dark lights shadow cage sunglasses sequence televisions videos graphics sunglasses strobe lights frenetic cigarette ambition bites the nails of success zoo what’s up with zoo I keep seeing zoo in the background has Bono lost his mind everything you know is wrong I feel like I’m on a roller coaster dizzy delirious this is glorious who are these guys it’s no secret Bono smiles Edge looks angry. 

The stars have fallen from the sky and torn through this tiny living room. A soul suddenly feels ignited, stirred, shaken. 

It’s a new decade, and it’s a new U2. They seem to fit right alongside the new you that you’ve become. 

“Look I gotta go, yeah, I’m running outta change,” Bono sings at the end of the song. “There’s a lot of things if I could I’d rearrange.”

You can’t choose the moment music will move you. It arrives at intersections and crossroads and dead ends and open doors. It greets you only when you allow it to. Tonight, you know you’re ready for what’s next with U2 and their upcoming album, Achtung Baby. 

Midnight

“Maybe the trailer you made oversold the story. Maybe you pitched another picture, only to be stuck and confused in the theater seat.”

I’m reading words I don’t recognize. 119,341 words, to be precise. They comprise a finished and now copyedited novel I wrote between 2013-2018 entitled Midnight. During an insanely stressful period of time when all I was doing was writing books, I managed to write and complete a novel that I think is pretty special. Much of the writing took place right around the time the novel is named after. 

A 120K-word novel. Written with no contract. No deadline. Not a cent offered to me. 

That is pretty amazing.

Like seriously. I don’t care if 90 percent of the novel is rubbish. I wrote it and finished it. Boom. 

I think 90 percent of the novel is brilliant. I do. And I promise, I haven’t been taken drugs tonight. I’m not inebriated. I’m just impressed with myself. This happens as often as a blood moon. 

Do I need others to be impressed with this novel? No. Of course I want them to be, but I don’t need that. 

Maybe ten people will read this and five will enjoy it. Honestly—and I’m being very honest right now—I think I’d be fine with that. 

“There are plenty of ghosts in our life that haunt us. They might be flesh and bone but it doesn’t matter ’cause they somehow see through us and manage to go bump in the middle of the night.”

In the busy blur of co-writing and ghost-writing and collaborating from 2013 to 2018, I was able to carve out a little something for myself. Sometimes I wrote out of inspiration. Sometimes, out of exhaustion. Sometimes it was cathartic, and sometimes it was simply to create. To concoct some sentences and some thoughts of my own. 

For those diehard fans and longtime readers, Midnight is a sibling to Sky Blue and 40. There are some really pretty parts. It’s poetic and experimental and different. 

I’m not trying to sell you on this, because honestly, I’m not sure how it will see the light of day. Perhaps an indie publisher will pick it up. Perhaps I’ll do a limited-edition printing. But I’ll get it out somehow and someway. It’s too good not to. 

I remember an author once sharing her frustrations with me at my former job at a publishing house. She said how desperately she wanted to write “the book on her heart”, yet it didn’t fit the publishing plan created for her. It didn’t fit her “brand.” I told her to write it anyway, and she responded by saying I didn’t understand, that I wasn’t writing for a living, that I didn’t get it. 

Well, I’ve been writing for a living, and I’ve been so far behind trying to catch up, and I still wrote the book on my heart because my heart desperately needed it. Writing this novel fueled the blood pumping through my veins. It reminded me of why I got into this in the first place. 

Writing has always been a way of coping, a way of understanding, and a way of healing. Midnight was no different. 

So it’s finished and maybe it’ll be available soon and maybe you’ll be curious to grab a copy. All I know is that I’m proud and happy to have this melancholy monument ready to share with a few people in this world. There’s some beauty in these pages. 

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Moonlight

             All I’ve said and done . . .

            The past sneaks in like some figure at night riding on a black horse. I hobble into the stale, shiver of light to see the heavy ripples. To see the weighted shadows.  

            The voices whisper. Warm against my ear, they tell me where to go and what to do. The icy pebbles peck against the window like they’ve done for the last twenty-four hours. Winter’s angry arrival is getting back at fall’s unhurried departure. The photo, small in its cheap frame, still sits there on the counter next to the lone toothbrush in a plastic cup. Last night there were two of them in there. 

            Where’d she go? 

            I can’t stop asking this. I know the why and the when, but I’m not sure of the where. 

            She took barely anything. I can hear the warning she once gave me.

            “Belongings only weigh you down,” she said. “In order to be ready to escape, you have to be lightweight. And you have to ready at any given moment.”

            “So how do you get to the point of letting everything go?” 

            “When you open your eyes.” 

            I hear these words again, this foreshadowing farewell, this soul’s declaration. 

            When you open your eyes. 

            I’ve been told to do this before. Time and time again. 

            The cold water feels good against my face. I turn off the faucet but forget the towel. The drops against my shirt remind me of the ocean where I found her, the waters we escaped from, the place where I captured her heart. 

            The fire is coming, but we’ll outrun it. We’ll never be undone. 

            Like dripping beads, my promises disappear on the ground. I couldn’t run with her. And I couldn’t stop us from being undone. 

            I leave the light on as I go and search for my keys. I have to find her. I have to figure out how to stop everything, or at least stop them.  

            Maybe I can help rescue her again. 

            Or maybe she can finally rescue me. 

Into the Surf

The wind knows

Pushing me on

To places unknown

Sacred the sound

Standing on solid ground

A place I’ll never own

Watch the whispers

Coming tonight

Telling stories

Sharing story arcs

Shaped in the dark

Cut from the seven seas

Waking with wonder

I start again

Something hidden under

Taps on the window

Begging to be let in

The waves know

Pulling me in

To the dark undertow

Hallowed the heart

Healing the broken parts

A place I’ll never know

Wait for worries

Coming today

Telling me to hurry

Ticking every clock

The ringtone shocks

Midnight becomes blurry

I wake with thunder

Promising to start again

Something hidden under

Touches my pillow

Bolstering all my sins

Standing on the cliff
Diving into every what if
A dizzying way to live
I cut through the surface
Into the surf again
Waiting for that goodnight kiss

To wake with my blunders
I start again
To get out from under
All the weighty lows
Nipping at my shins

Waking with wonder
I start again
Something hidden under
Taps an open soul
Waiting to be let in

All These Solitary Tales

The pain on the pages is obvious. The words wrapped up in a poetic form, some rhyming and some wandering. When read out loud by the writer, they take on a new significance. Especially to an audience of peers, newfound friends and kindred souls.

The hurt is evident, but so is the safety in sharing them.

This summer’s 2019 Masterpiece Camp was as always an incredible and unique week. It was the sixth camp I’ve attended where I’ve taught creative writing to teens. The location for our camp this year was different. Instead of being at a camp in the heart of Kentucky country, we were staying and meeting on the campus of Wheaton College. The spirit of Masterpiece still remained.

            During this week, something remarkable began to happen the very first night of our open mike, a time where the students can go before everybody else and display their artistic abilities. They might sing a song they crafted or show artwork they’ve made or read a poem they wrote. As the week goes on, more and more students become brave enough to get up and share something. At this camp, the vulnerability was there on opening night, and it continued throughout the week.

            After an emotional Thursday night at open mike, where some heavy burdens were shared by some of the students, I decided to share some thoughts the following morning in my creative writing studio. I normally don’t read portions of my own writing to the students. Heaven forbid. How self-serving is that? But I woke up early in the morning with a heavy burden for some of the teens, a few who were in my group of ten girls I was teaching.

I applauded all of the students on this Friday morning, not just the ones who shared at open mike during the week but also those who were being vulnerable in their writing in our studio. I told them when I was their age, I did the same, pouring my angst and my questions about life into writing. I wanted to show them that they can do something with this pain and hurt in their art. For me, I ended up pouring them into a teen series I wrote called The Solitary Tales.

It’s no coincidence that the last title is called Hurt. In a sense, that’s what the whole series is about. It’s also about where the hurt can and should go, something I wanted to remind them about on this morning. Yes, we all have brokenness in our lives, some more than others, and yes, sharing it to kindred souls is a blessing. But there has to be something else. We need to give them over to God.

I told my wonderful group of students that I wanted to share three chapters from three of the Solitary Tales books. Not only to explain how you can put pain onto the page in a story form, but also how you can convey hope. (Note: there are spoilers ahead, something I didn’t tell the students. So you’re warned.)

I first read from Gravestone, the second book in the series. This is from the second-to-the-last chapter, where a defiant Chris Buckley makes it clear where he stands on the issue of faith.

Chapter 111: A Fine Ending

            If this were a fairy tale or a story about a good person, then this would be his moment. The moment where he would seek the water for baptism. Where he would give himself up and finally give up. When he would embrace this thing that his father so fully accepted, this thing that Jocelyn so freely gave herself over to. He would stand in this flowing stream and kneel and ask for forgiveness and just let go.would be a good story and a fine ending.

            But this forest doesn’t belong in a fairy tale, and standing in this stream is no good person.

            I hold an old backpack containing the items I have to offer.

            A Bible that once belonged to my father. One he claimed had answers for me. A Bible I gave to someone else to use, only to receive it back with claims that echoed my father’s statement.

            They were both wrong.

            Also inside is a leather band once given to me by someone I had just begun to know. Something that meant the world to her. It was like the Bible, a present a parent gave a child, a present with deep meaning.

            Then there’s the picture of Jocelyn and me, a faded color printout of another time and another life.

            Faith is believing in someone or something. And this is my moment of finding faith.

            You want me to make a choice, Iris? So be it.

            I know what I believe now.

            I believe in anything and everything that I can do.

            I believe that the world is messed up and that there’s evil and that there’s madness and that there’s mystery.

            But there isn’t a God up above. He can’t be watching, not with all this madness around me. Not with everything happening. It’s okay if He wants to abandon me, but there are too many others for Him to not abandon. Too many. If He is up there, He abandoned us a long time ago.

            I lift the bag and then chuck it over the falls.

            If the dead can be raised, then so can other things.

            I stand and look out to the surrounding stranglehold of woods.

            I believe that I can and will be free.

            No more sadness and no more sorrow. No more secrets and no more spying.       I’m tired of trying to be a hero in a story I don’t belong in.

            So here I am. Here I am.

            I’m a new person, a new soul. And this soul is open and free and ready to start living.

            And if God is up there, then it’s up to Him to hunt me down. 

I explained to the students how remarkable it was to have a Christian publisher not only publish a young adult series but to allow me to have the main character remain a non-believer through three books. This last scene is always the most chilling because Chris is telling God to come after him, something that God does in a dramatic way.

Then next scene I read was at the end of book 3, Temptation.This is a pivotal scene where Chris finds faith after having experienced loss and death and destruction. God has Chris’ attention.

Chapter 108: Remorse

            The L-train shakes and hums and I don’t want to get off. I want to stay on here all night. I want to stay inside here the rest of my life.

            I feel a deep ache inside of me. Something worse than how I felt over Jocelyn or Lily. Because this ache is because—and for—me.

            I’m tired. No, I’m beyond tired. I’m exhausted.

            I just want some peace.

            But Mom is missing and I know that peace is a long ways away. I’m scared for her and scared to find out the truth. I know I have to go back and know this is the nice little message they’re sending to me.

            I’m alone in this seat, and there’s nobody watching. Nobody prying. Nobody bothering. It’s just me. Just me and my Maker.

            I know now that God is above, watching. But in many ways, I’ve always believed He was there. I had doubts and I could laugh it off or shove it away, but I sorta always still kind of believed. When Dad finally announced that he had made a big change, it felt all wrong. Of all the people in my life, it was Dad? The man who I didn’t know, who had been out of our lives, the man now saying he had found faith. That made me decide.

            But deciding is one thing.

            This ache—gnawing, twisting, hurting—won’t go away.

            I’m seventeen and oh am I stupid.

            I’m seventeen and oh am I so silly.

            I feel the weight of my problems and mistakes and sins spiraling inside of me.     A teen is supposed to have problems and make mistakes. But sins? Really?   But I know.

This isn’t for show and isn’t out of guilt. I’m not a kid anymore. A kid moved down to Solitary, but that kid grew up.  

            Now, inside of this empty car, the boy who became a young man sits there. Without any doubt, but unsure of how to move on. Unsure what to do next.

            “I tried,” I say out loud.

            And yes, I did try. I tried to do it my way.

            I even dared God to come hunt me down if He was up there.

            Well, Chris?

            I feel a shudder go through my body.

            Well?

            I feel warm and cold at the same time. The world circling around me without the help of a drop of alcohol or caffeine.

            “What do You want from me?” I ask Him. “What do You want me to do?”

            I feel tears blur my eyes and I let them stay.

            I feel so heavy, so hard, so stuck.

            “I’m sorry. Okay. Is that what You want to hear?”

            I think of the words my father said:

            But He is there, and He does love you. And that love—there’s nothing like it, Chris.

            I think of the words Kelsey said:

           Jesus says for anybody who’s tired and heavyhearted to come to Him.

          And then I think of Jocelyn. This girl who knew she was on a one-way track like I am toward one single destination. And yet she still could find the way to say that she believed in the place she was going. That there was only good in that place, that she didn’t have to fear anymore. Or have regret. Or apologize.

           What do you want?Pastor Marsh asked me. 

            I look at my hands.

            Everything feels so heavy.

            All I want …

            “I want the hurt to go away,” I say in a loud voice.

            I just want it all to go away.

            I want to bottle it up and throw it out into the ocean.

            I want to set a fire to it and watch it drift out into the night sky.

            I want something to soak it up and then leave me dry.

            I want someone to take this heavy hurt inside away.

            He’ll give you rest.

            I tried running, but I guess He hunted me down after all.

            I shiver.          

            “If You can, Jesus, take this—take all of it—take every little drop of it and take it away. Please.”

            This whole dark world needs hope.

            That’s what Jocelyn said. It was a year ago when she died. And when some important part of me died with her.

            Or so I thought.

            I hold the seat in front of me and stare down at the floor. Then I close my eyes.

            “Take this hurt and replace it with that same hope that beautiful girl had, God. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for trying not to believe. I’m so sorry for being so stupid.”

            I open my eyes and then look ahead. I wipe them and see the night outside.

            I know that there is unfinished business back in Solitary, and I know I need to go back.

            For my mom’s sake. And for my own.

            I just know that if I do go back—no, when I go back, that I need help on my side.

             Help and hope.

            And maybe, just maybe, God above will be kind enough to take some of the hurt away. 

The students were all shocked that I revealed a big spoiler in that text. I apologized and laughed at the same time. I told them they needed to hear this. There was very real pain that I put into this story, so I wanted them to see how I wrote about it.

The last scene I read to my group was from one of the last chapters in the final book, Hurt. I wrote this for myself, for the teenager I used to be and for the grownup I’d become. I read this to my group, hoping they could hear these words and have them help with all the things that had been going on this past week at Masterpiece.

Chapter 138: Tornado

           You will have questions for the rest of your life.

            But you’re not alone.

            You will question yourself and your actions all the days you breathe air.

            But you’re not abandoned.

            You are only one and nobody else is like you.

            But your life is not solitary and never will be.

            You will keep hurting until your last breath.

            But believe the hurt can be taken away.

            Reach out for more because more is there. Reach out and believe with a heart as soft as the air flowing through your open fingers. Reach out and know that I’m there.

            Reach out and touch faith, Chris.

            Stare up in the eye of the storm. Don’t let the tornadoes blow you down.

            Don’t ever stop.

            Grow and question and wonder and cry and laugh and try and fail.

            But don’t ever stop.

            Continue on.

            As many days and weeks and months and years as you have.

            Blinks, all of them, in light of the good grace you’re given.

            Keep going.

            Look back not with fear and bitterness but with love.

            Look ahead with the same love. 

  After reading this, I told the students that in so many ways, Chris Buckley and his story represent my teenage years. No, I never moved to a Satanic town and discovered people being sacrificed and underground tunnels. But the isolation and loneliness and questioning and brokenness are all things I went through. Four high schools and moving and change can do that to you. So can love and loss and faith and frustration.

Writing for me has always been cathartic. Always. But at the first Masterpiece Camp I attended, I realized there’s a place where I can put these portions of my pain. Where I can sacrifice them as an offering. Where I can put the pages onto an altar and burn them up. Where I can watch the smoke and ashes of hurt drift up to the Heavens.

Put them before God. Let Him take the hurt and fill you with peace and love.

Once again, Masterpiece was a reminder for me to keep doing that. It also made me think with pride of The Solitary Tales. If you knew me well, you’d know pride is not something I have to struggle with when it comes to my writing. God always speaks to me during this week of camp, and He always tells me to keep going. To “Just keep following the heartlines on your hand,” as the Florence + The Machine song goes.

Chris Buckley would like that particular quote.

 

 

 

 

A Fellowship of One

“So comes snow after fire.” J.R.R. Tolkien wrote this at the end of The Hobbit. It seems fitting today.

A dark cloud battled inside of me yesterday. Some days my sensitivity stays under the surface, bashing against my soul like tectonic plates wanting me to quake.

Okay, so I just wrote that last paragraph quickly, and rereading it makes it sound like I’m trying to be all literary with alliteration. I’m not. Suffice to say, yesterday sucked.

I won’t go into details, because this is absolutely not the place to wallow in self-pity or to spew out annoyances. But sometimes, I really wish I had some fellow artists to commiserate with. Not online, where you receive ten words of encouragement from strangers. Those are meaningful, but there are times you need someone to listen to a half hour of your ranting. That’s all. Then to not try to fix anything, nor offer any advice since sometimes there is no advice to be found.

Sometimes, you simply need someone to listen and know the frustrations you have as a writer making a living writing.

“Writing, at its best, is a lonely life.” Ernest Hemingway said this. It’s very true. And this is coming from a man who became a celebrity, who became legendary. That doesn’t matter, because you can’t bring friends and fame to your job as a writer. Ultimately there is only one person sitting there facing the page and filling it with words.

Every sentence is a decision. Every paragraph a choice. Every chapter a direction.

Some decisions could be better. Some choices become regrettable. And some directions are headed in the wrong way.

My job over the last decade of co-writing and ghostwriting hasn’t been to construct brilliant prose or to create moving metaphors. My key role, as I’ve always seen it, has been to finish projects. To come alongside someone and help them put their ideas and stories onto the page. Most of the time, the difficulty is getting to the finish line on time.

Some books become battles of endurance, where some basic things need to be abandoned to simple finish. And most of the time, nobody will know how painful the journey can be. The few tied together to the project are usually too busy and too burdened by the load they’re carrying. So then, when the book is finally released, I hear a vast and inexplicable silence.

Sometimes, the silence can lacerate your soul.

Yesterday, I took my anger and frustration to the bookstore. I went there to prove a point, to never forget this day. To accentuate the pain.

It’s always a strange thing to buy a book you wrote. Even stranger is when you’re seeing it for the very first time in a bookstore, and you’re paying for it because you don’t have a copy.

The silence has become the norm, but still . . . Every now and then, I’d love to get some little bit of appreciation. My love language is words of affirmation, and I live in a silent world where the only words I hear are my own.

Ah, yes, the self-pity. I apologize. I am very, very, very blessed. God has given me so much. So I must stop this.

There are things I sign up for where I know the drill. This is part of the deal. This is the price you have to pay. You don’t do these sorts of things for praise. You deliberately stand out of the spotlight. Your place is in the shadows, in the silence, working alone.

“So comes snow after fire,” J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, “and even dragons have their endings.”

Yes, they most certainly do.

Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt Stop #15

Welcome to the Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt! If you’ve just discovered the hunt, be sure to start at Stop #1, and collect the clues through all 27 stops, in order, so you can enter to win one of our top 5 grand prizes!

The hunt BEGINS on 3/14 at noon MST with Stop #1 at LisaTawnBergren.com.
Hunt through our loop using Chrome or Firefox as your browser (not Explorer).
There is NO RUSH to complete the hunt—you have all weekend (until Sunday, 3/17 at midnight MST)! So take your time, reading the unique posts along the way; our hope is that you discover new authors/new books and learn new things about them.
Submit your entry for the grand prizes by collecting the CLUE on each author’s scavenger hunt post and submitting your answer in the Rafflecopter form at Stop #27. Many authors are offering additional prizes along the way!

It is my honor to host Stephanie Morrill for this scavenger hunt!

Here’s a brief summary of her latest book:

Within These Lines is the story of an Italian American teenage girl and a Japanese American teenage boy torn apart by racism during WWII. With tensions running high and their freedom on the line, Evalina and Taichi must hold true to their ideals and believe in their love to make a way back to each other against unbelievable odds.

3 Surprising Facts About The Incarceration of Japanese Americans During WWII

By Stephanie Morrill

Before writing Within These Lines, I knew hardly anything about the U.S. government imprisoning Japanese Americans during WWII, so I learned a ton. Here are the three most surprising facts I learned:

Yes, these were concentration camps: I’ve always thought of Hitler’s camps in Germany as concentration camps, and the U.S. camps for the Japanese as internment camps. Actually, they’re both concentration camps, a term defined as, “a guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of aliens, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents, etc.” While our concentration camps were definitely not death camps like Hitler’s, being able to say, “But we weren’t as bad as Hitler” is hardly something to brag about.
Of the 120,000 Japanese Americans who were removed from their property and sent to live in the camps, approximately two-thirds of them were American citizens. Many of the other third would’ve become American citizens, but it was illegal for Asian immigrants to be naturalized.
How little privacy the Japanese Americans were given … even in the bathroom.While I assumed the camps weren’t exactly nice to live in, I didn’t realize just how crowded they were, and how no consideration had been given to their privacy. Multiple families, often who had never met, shared a 100 feet x 100 feet living space with no interior walls or insulation. Bathrooms were in a separate building, and had two rows of six toilets, back-to-back with no partitions. Showering involved standing in a big room with shower heads fixed to the walls and no dividers.

While this is an embarrassing chapter in the history of a country that prides itself on freedom, I’m proud of the government for preserving so much of the history at former camp sites, like Manzanar National Historic Site in Independence, California. Hopefully by acknowledging these mistakes and taking steps to educate future generations, this is a chapter we won’t repeat.

STEPHANIE MORRILL writes books about girls who are on an adventure to discover their unique place in the world and is the author of several contemporary young adult series, as well as the 1920s mystery, The Lost Girl of Astor Street, and the WWII era romance, Within These Lines. She lives in the Kansas City area, where she loves plotting big and small adventures to enjoy with her husband and three children. You can connect with Stephanie and learn more about her books at StephanieMorrill.com and find her on Instagram as StephanieMorrill.

Here’s the Stop #15 Skinny:

You can order Stephanie’s book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, CBD or at your local bookstore! 

Clue to Write Down: books,

Link to Stop #16, the Next Stop on the Loop: Stephanie Morrill’s own site! 

MORE PRIZES TO OFFER!! If you like my Facebook page and post that you’re part of the scavenger hunt, you’ll be entered to win a copy of my latest novel, AMERICAN OMENS. I’ll be giving 3 copies away!

American Omens: Behind A Name

Every name I ever give a character in one of my novels has a reason. Sometimes the name alludes to their personality, or maybe it’s a play on a real person’s name. Sometimes I’ll pick a name simply because I love it. Occasionally I’ll use a first or last name of a hero or heroine of mine. (In the case of In Care Of, one of the novellas in Three Roads Home, I chose two of my writing heroes and combined it into one name: Stephen Conroy. Yes, that wasn’t subtle at all.)

When the idea for writing a novel/series about the future persecuted church came from the publisher, I had to think of a storyline quickly. This also meant creating characters right away. Without knowing the book would be published, I ended up making one of the main characters a father of three young girls, just like me. Then I did something else not so subtle: I gave this character MY name. Will.

Yes, that’s right, my first name is Will. Actually, it’s William. Before I was born, my parents considered naming me William Leonard Thrasher the 3rd. But they chose not to name me after my grandfather and father, and instead made my middle name Travis. This is the name they would use and have everybody call me.

Thank goodness I wasn’t a new student at a different school every year, being introduced with my first name and then having to correct the teacher.

“Class, let’s welcome Bill to first grade.”

“Um, sorry, my name is Travis. I go by my middle name.”

Picture a class full of first graders looking at me in confusion.

Oh, wait . . . yes, I was a new student at about a dozen schools. So this became a regular tradition.

“Listen up, sixth graders. William is joining our class.”

“Um, my name is actually Travis. I go by my middle name.”

Picture twenty-something 6thgraders giggling and thinking I’m weird.

“All right, all right. Everybody stop talking. Billy and his family just moved up to Illinois from North Carolina. Welcome to Timothy.”

“Yeah, thanks. Actually, I go by Travis. That’s my middle name.”

Picture a homeroom full of juniors in high school glaring at me with faces that say, oh what a pain this guy’s gonna be.

Yes, thanks Mom and Dad for the middle name saga.

Joking aside, I actually love my name. It’s one of the few parts I’m proud of. People have often asked me over the years if Travis Thrasher is my pen name. Especially when it’s been on the covers of thrillers like Ghostwriter and Solitary.

So going back to naming, as I created a character in American Omens based on a father and husband like myself, I decided to go ahead and call him Will. I don’t think I’ve used Will for a main character before. I wanted to wait until the time was right. Until I was writing a very big book and needed someone like this guy.

Once again, I wasn’t sure if American Omens would actually be published. So I figured why not use my own name.

There’s also another reason I used Will. I don’t know if this was a conscious decision at the time, but once I started getting into the story and this character, it was a perfect reason for using the name. It’s the very definition of the word “will.” I thought it fit this character. The definition for the verb is “intend, desire, or wish (something) to happen.” This sums up our Will in the book very well. He wants and needs and wishes and hopes for things to be happening in his life, yet he continually has been asking himself when WILL they happen?

For those of you who have read the novel, one definition of the word “will” is fitting as well: “A legal document containing instructions as to what should be done with one’s money and property after one’s death.” Think about Will’s father. Again, this sorta fits.

Once I gave Will his first name, I wanted to have his last name have an “everyman” sort of feel. I wanted it to be a common surname in order to stress how Will is like any man or woman in our country. Ordinary. He’s really not a hero. He’s just a guy living his life and suddenly thrust into this complex story. So once again, I chose not to be subtle and I gave him the last name of Stewart based off one of my favorite actors and one of my favorite movies. Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life.

So that’s the scoop on Will’s name. There are reasons behind the other names, too, such as Cheyenne, Jon Dowland, and Hutchence. And there was a lot of thought that went into the nickname of “Reckoner.” I might cover those at another time.

Exits

Sometimes I wonder.

Sometimes it seems like everything I think and start to do and begin to plan suddenly seems to be known and monitored.

Sometimes it feels as if someone’s watching me, waiting and wondering when I’m going to push the button. Waiting for me to act. Wondering what I’ll say and whether I’ll be outspoken.

Do you know? Do you see?

Surely you can feel the signs. They pass you by like the signs on the side of the highway.

You don’t need to slow down. Maybe the point is to speed up in order to get to the next exit as fast as you can.

Are you dreaming?

Are you scheming?

Maybe possibly perhaps you’re hallucinating. This very notion of this very dream of this very happy hope is an utter foolish sentiment. You’ve become Pavlov’s Dog. Reacting to every action.

Tell me something. Do you hear the noise?

Do you hear the echoes?

Do you hear the shadow?

Tell me something Don’t let go. Don’t hesitate. Don’t start to hate, just keep going, just keep running, just keep racing. Don’t stop seizing all the things impossible to take and seize.

Where are you? Stop and suck in and breathe and look out to see.

Where are you?

Stand. Sit. Stand again.

Yes.

You’ve made it.

But what do you believe?

What do you believe?

The impossibility is beginning to seep in those seams.

We keep secrets in our dreams. Maybe they know. Maybe they should scream.

I’m sorry.

It’s impossible to tell the fools how the world is impossible.

The flowers upside down.

I see you everywhere and I know and I feel and I continue to keep all these secrets.

So tell me something.

Wake up and know something.

All these places and all these ways we race . . .

The exits are covered and we’re not going anywhere.

Can we enter a place to start to understand?

The world is solid but it’s upside down.

Hover and hesitate and hover and hesitate.

Begin again and start over.

You’re only born once and you’re not born a loser.

Tell the cemetery it’s not time yet you’ve got time to kill.

Tell the maps you’ve got places to go you haven’t yet filled int.

And everything and everyone and every single entity can burn this bridge fitting to tomorrow.

1-22-19

We watch but don’t wait

We rush without further reading

We talk without hearing a thing

We type in total silence

We taunt in total secrecy

Stepping out is hard enough

Standing still even harder

Listening is a lost art

Online you can simply mute everyone else

Face to face is often a fantasy

A scene is simply one more soundbite for today

A post or share or like can’t sum up a soul

Beliefs can’t be tossed like grenades in hearts’ bunkers

They are shared in safety, heard side-by-side

(Thanks for photos. Top photo by Fabrizio Verrecchia; Bottom photo by Korney Violin)