The Voice of the Bird

Photo op

The biblical clouds of Corsica. Just sharing our wild weather for your visual pleasure.

Ouch. Thanks, God.

Everyone likes to know their prayers are being answered. "Make me a good writer for You," I said. And in what I thought was an unrelated request, "Make me humble." Ever efficient, the Good Lord immediately found a way to cover both of these areas at once: He just sent me the results of my first fiction-writing critique.

Several weeks ago, I started a course in Christian fiction writing with the Christian Writers Guild and I couldn't be happier with the quality of the text and the challenge of the exercises. My fiction writing, such as it is, has always followed the splatter-gun technique: random descriptions, notes, dialogues, and assorted vignettes splashed on bits of paper and stored in ancient folders I keep shuffling through but can't figure out what to do with. This course is giving me the leverage I need to smush the splatters together into a few good blobs.

My mentor is a very capable and attentive man, but because he has a life of his own, I finally decided (to his great refief, I'm sure) to deploy reinforcements in the form of a critique group through the American Christian Fiction Writers.

For my first trial run in my new crit group, I submitted my latest completed assignment for the CWG, a scene that was intended to reveal as much about my characters as possible without relying on internal monologue or narrative description. This meant writing lots of action and dialogue, which I found to be really fun. My characters and storyline are each just beginning to reveal themselves, and writing a complete scene was rather like jumping off a rooftop and not hitting the ground, but not fully understanding why not. I worked hard on this assignment and I have to confess that I was pretty pleased with myself.

Until I saw my critique. The critter had marked her comments in red and I was blinded when I opened the document. I read through her observations with my heart in my throat. I decided that this woman (who is the published author of an astronomical number of books) didn't understand my style, had no sense of humor, and knew nothing about my subject. I began plotting graceful ways of fading out of the crit group. And I watched doubt begin to spider out like a drop of paint in a glass of water.

Then it dawned on me that God had me precisely where He wanted me.

When I woke up this morning, the first thing on my mind was "Following Christ and learning to write (in that order)." You may notice the change in my blog description. I went back yesterday and reread the critter's observations. I mulled them over for the rest of the day and realized that most of them were very valid and the rest deserved considered attention. In other words, I was finally open to what she had to say. Today I'll write to her and thank her for her good work. Then I'll set to again, learning to write.

Critiquing is never easy, and accepting a critique is worse. We know that both halves of the process are necessary in learning to write--or paint or draw or sculpt or weave. But the most important function a critique serves is in learning to live. I'm not the only one who's ever suffered the blows of correction. This isn't my first critique and it won't be my last. My prayer of thanks today is to those brave souls who are willing to speak the truth about our work when we ask them to. May we remember to take it with grace and humility. It's a gift.

"Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go:
Keep her; for she is thy life."
(Prov. 4:13)

What I'm listening to at the loom these days

No affiliation--I just love it. Randy Travis' Glory Train.
A word of warning if you're a weaver: Weave something simple.

Why The Voice of the Bird?

It's an image that jumped out at me from the pages of the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes.

The author of that book is sharing his wisdom concerning the impermanence of this world we live in. He writes that whatever we do in our busy human lives that is not anchored in God is worth less than the dust we will all return to. In fact, the whole of Chapter 12 describes the ending of a life in old age, perhaps also the ending of Time, but certainly a moment when the things of this earth are revealed as bits of fluff in comparison to the Spirit that created them. I was reading along this rather depressing passage, with words like "tremble" and "darkened" and "shut" and "low." Very dismal indeed.

Then suddenly I read "...and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird..." and then more dark images followed.

I'm sure that by this was meant the singing of a bird in the morning, awakening even the old. But nevertheless, here it is, a musical note like a high bright promise in a sea of low hums. In the midst of the crumblings into dust and the fadings away of earthly pleasures is heard the voice of a bird. It links us to the heavens on its way to the sky, and surely, no matter who is dying, the birds still sing their songs. I can't interpret much in the way of Scripture, but the poetry in this passage lifts my heart from a field of faded, dying gray to one sunlit tone that reaches up to God.

So here I am, singing my little heart out in a blog about trusting the Lord and writing stories that glorify Him. There are more challenges and pitfalls in this wonderful path than I have time to tell right now. But I'll be back, and more regularly than before, I hope. I'll introduce you to my work in progress, my oceanographer, and a truckload of good-hearted fictional (sort of) hippies.

By the way, here is the heart of the promise of Ecclesiastes:

"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."

Same person, new MEDIUM!

A couple of months ago was a difficult time for me as a creativity coach. I had a ton of baffling of questions about God, surrender, and creating one's own life. If you'd like to read more about that, you can find it here.

Today, I'm happy to say I'm returning as a writer of fiction.

Although some important things have changed in my life over these last two months, much has remained the same: Will and I are still trying to sell our house in Corsica and move to Vermont, and that means we're still teetering on the edge of packing up everything we own at any moment and sailing off to the New World. My personal creative process has not stopped and is just as twisty and turny as it always has been. I'm still weaving (again) and I'm still trying to paint (sigh). And I'm still smiling.

What has changed is that I've surrendered my path--in fact, my entire life--to the Lord, utterly and completely, for the first time in my life. I now wake up every morning in the arms of God. I have purpose and direction, even if I haven't got a clue as to what He's got in store for me that day. I have joy in my heart and know that I am loved with an everlasting and unfathomable Love.

I've decided not to coach anymore, and I'm abandoning the paths that coaching was taking me along. Instead, I've been led to relax into my day job of translation and called to write Christian fiction. Durga's writing a novel (and no one is more surprised than she)!

Hence, this little blog. There are tons of good resources out there on the topic of Christian fiction and I'm not going to muddy the waters with my imperfect understanding of either the craft or the status of the industry. But I will pass along the links I find that shed light on writing in general and Christian writing in particular and simply good books to read.

Writing novels is unexplored terrritory for me and I do remind myself of a deer in the headlights. Although I've been visited by lots of ideas for stories over the years, now for the first time I'm creating substantial characters, plotting action, doing fiction research. It's a process of making visual images with words (even while I weave up yarn in the shed!); of watching flat character outlines develop into rounded individuals with pasts, presents, and futures, right before my eyes; of finding the story that's waiting to be told. It's creative process and I'm bedazzled by it. I want this blog to reflect the process I'm experiencing, but it's now a process led by God--not by me and not even by the medium.

Much more important than all this, though, is the real reason for this blog. There is nothing more essential than living for God. I'm offering these words, like the song of a bird, to praise Him.