Come on you guys!

Posted on January 23, 2012 12:00 AM MST by Sara Richardson

Okay. The title of a book is so incredibly important. It has to communicate something profound in just a few words. I had a ton of votes, but still can’t decide. I know it’s subjective, but I really need to decide on a title by THIS FRIDAY. We’re running out of time. I spent the whole weekend immersed in editing, and thought of a few new titles to throw out there. I took the highest scoring titles from last week and added the new ones. Pick your favorite! The one that speaks to you. The one that makes you say, “Wow. I want to read that book.” If you have strong feelings about one, leave a comment.

Yes, I know these are all over the place. Just go with your gut.

Comments

Help me write my novel! Vote on the title.

Posted on January 19, 2012 12:00 AM MST by Sara Richardson

Okay, okay. Before you say anything, I know what you’re thinking. You haven’t blogged in over two months! Yes, it’s true. I committed one of the blogging world’s seven deadly sins. But in my defense, I will just say that I didn’t have any profound words to share. Every profound thought, sentence and word I had went straight into the current book I’m writing and I simply didn’t have the energy for more.

Part of the problem is that I never know what to blog about. Writing a novel is different because it’s so structured with the character arcs and the plot arc and the research. Believe it or not, writing a novel is so much easier than blogging. If I had a blog theme, that would help. Except I’m not sure what that theme would be. A lot of blogs offer advice or wisdom on certain topics, but I have decided that I am not at a place in my life where I can offer sound advice to anyone. Besides, the only advice I give or follow since becoming a parent can be summed up in these two words: whatever works. There are only so many ways one can say that.

The last two months, I’ve used the time I would have spent blogging to write my latest novel. And then something occurred to me. I’ve been struggling with some details, from the title of my book to character traits to setting details and on and on. Sometimes writing feels like solitary confinement. I always find myself thinking, I would give anything to have a room full of creative, opinionated people to brainstorm with. I need feedback. I love collaboration. Then it hit me. Why don’t I create a room full of people on the blog? I can ask poll questions, solicit feedback on characters and plot points and research, get reactions to certain scenes. Because, really, who doesn’t love sharing their opinion?

So that’s what I’m going to do on my blog posts. I’ll ask a question relating to my current work-in-progress, and I will count on you to help me shape the story. I’m hoping I’ll learn a lot from the feedback and discussions and make a lot of new friends in the process. A whole room full of creative and opinionated friends.

If you’re willing, I will post my first poll question below. Please choose your favorite title for my novel. If you have a better idea, post it in the comments. And if you want to share why you voted the way you did, please explain in the comments. I would love the feedback!

I will only give you a very basic idea of what the novel is about because I am most interested in your reaction to the title. So here is all you need to know in order to vote: the novel is about a woman who is lying about her identity for a good cause. It is mainly set in Aspen, Colorado, but also has scenes in Chicago and Paris.

Without further ado, here are the titles I have considered:

Comments

Lessons in Storytelling

Posted on November 4, 2011 12:00 AM MST by Sara Richardson

One of my greatest passions in life is story. I love hearing stories, I love watching stories unfold, I love telling stories. Stories have the power to encourage, enlighten and inspire us. They speak to the heart. That’s why I have devoted the last ten years of my life to learning how to tell stories, first in journalism school, then through a career in marketing/PR (that’s all branding is…telling the organization’s story), and now through writing. Even with all of my professional experience and my addiction to books, I still have so much to learn about how to tell a great story.

In preparation for a possible ghostwriting project, I am rereading my favorite memoir of all time: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. There are a number of reasons why this is my favorite memoir, and since I started rereading it (for the third time), I have studied what makes the author’s storytelling technique so effective. Here is what I am learning from Walls about how to tell a great story:

• Learn how to delve into the full range of human emotions. The best stories make you laugh and cry and get angry. They are desperately sad, but at the same time redemptive. There is an emotional depth in the writing that elicits a response from the reader. While reading The Glass Castle, I have gotten seriously angry with Walls' parents, but they have also made me laugh. I have teared up at the bonds between the siblings, the way they fight for each other and stick together. There is great balance in what could have been written as a tragic story. The moments of comic relief and the universal truths give the story a redemptive quality that leaves the reader feeling both hopeful and inspired.
• Learn how to share truth, but never try to tell the reader what to do with it. I naturally gravitate toward books that make you think about truth, but if they ever feel preachy, or try to tell me how I should interpret the truth, I will instantly put them down. I can’t stand it when an author uses a story to guilt people into going to church or into to stopping a certain behavior. A story will never change someone’s heart or behavior. It can only challenge them to think. What they do with the truth is up to them. That is another thing I love about The Glass Castle. Walls doesn’t use her story as a soapbox or a crusade to end child neglect. She doesn’t rail against a system or write from a victim’s point of view. She simply shares her story as she lived it, and that in itself challenges you to consider the deeper issues of poverty and alcoholism and child abuse and neglect.
• Learn how to be honest. Good storytelling is always honest, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction. I can’t imagine how difficult it was for Jeannette Walls to write that book. It had to be deeply painful. Not only because she likely had to relive many of those memories, but also because she deeply loves the characters in the story. They are her family, and she took a great risk revealing their secrets to the world. Honesty often costs something. Even for a fiction writer, sometimes you have to relive painful experiences in order to bring truth and life to the page. Story is most often based on experience, maybe not in the action of the story, but definitely in the characters and in the true heart behind the story.

If you’ve read The Glass Castle, I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you haven’t, make sure you do! It’s an incredible example of skillful storytelling.

Comments

Change: Truly terrifying!

Posted on October 28, 2011 12:00 AM MST by Tiffany Kinerson

Before my youngest son forged his path out of diapers, I admit I didn’t really want to push him into potty training. I mean, he and I had a system down. Sure I found myself up to my elbows in mess sometimes. But at least I didn’t have to worry about accidents messing up his clothes. Or mine. Or car seats. Or furnishings. And how would I go through the hassle of training a little boy … on the toilet? The way I figured it, I had a pretty good thing going with diaper duty, so why change things?

My son, being a fully-reasoning and regularly-developing young man, finally took charge and decided to potty-train himself. Boy did he do a beautiful job of it—and, wow, he did it all in one day! It was miraculous and wonderful. So much easier than I expected. And you can bet I found a new lease on life unburdened by the 2-ton diaper bag and all its necessary trimmings. I felt ridiculous, really, when I thought back on how little I wanted to change my life before potty-training (Up to my armpits! In mess! What was I thinking?) especially when I compared it to how simply my life actually developed.

Change is often the most terrifying thing I, as a living, breathing human, can go through in life. Perhaps that’s because I really, really think I know what the future holds when I actually don’t.

I’ve come across many people lately struggling with my same kind of change-fears. One friend just completed her lifetime dream with a fanfare parade of congratulatory debt. Another lives day to day inside a dying marriage enveloped with anxiety about “forever”. Someone else is about to have her first child yet has no idea what happens once she gets home with her kid. And yet another will go back to work after years of mommyhood. What will the future hold for us?

Imaginations are powerful things. Mine can concoct sugar-coated houses…or blood-soaked chambers. But it certainly doesn’t predict the future. In fact, most of the time I’m flat-out wrong about my future’s outcome. And a lot of the time, I feel silly for having been frightened in the first place. 

The thing is, I constantly find that change indeed happens—whether I want it to or not. But my job in the midst of change is not to defy or fear it, but rather to take a step into it today—just today and only today. When dealing with grief or fear or any of the other residual emotions brought on by change, I’ve learned to close my eyes to the future and only look today in the face. Because I can deal with one day...or at least the next hour. It's that vacuous forever-sized Tomorrow that threatens to topple my world. 

With intentional present-mindedness, I've grown in my ability to face trials of change. Thankfully this also means I've found myself less often up to my elbows in mess!

Comments

Duped!

Posted on October 11, 2011 12:00 AM MST by Tiffany Kinerson

I have a friend who’s had serious marital issues. After counseling, she received a few tips on polite habits she could develop in relating to her husband. They are simple things such as chatty small talk in the morning and discussing the day’s events over tea at night.

I wish I could tell you these techniques have been the key to a turnaround in the marriage, but instead it seems my friend’s husband watches her attempts with a suspicious eye. What if she’s just playing a game with him, and she pulls away the polite just when he started to believe in her? 

At what point do we decide protection of pride is worth more than dispensing love? I mean, really, how old are we when we decide not to get “duped” anymore?

As adults, we seem to pray with that same type of wary eye. What if we believe God is a certain way but then find out He never really cared about us in the first place? And what if we stake everything on Him only to find out in the end we were foolish romantics, betting our lives on a sappy story in which The Knight on a white horse actually wins the battle for His bride? How could we handle that kind of heartbreak?

To fully believe takes a massive amount of courage. We must tune our minds against the odds, against the white noise of other adults, against a culture so confident in a person of independence it laughs at those who depend. Faith is scary.

I think the scariest part for me is the fact that I hear this little whisper in the back of my mind when I attempt it. “You will probably play the fool on this one. You are childish to believe. Grow up, God doesn’t care about you.”

The thing is, Jesus tells me to look to children when I want to learn about powerful faith. Kids haven’t been jaded, yet. They still believe—with everything in them. No voices, no fear. And, you know what? They are right to do so. What father wouldn’t catch a son if he leaped to his arms with eyes closed in faith?

This week, I read the prayer of a young man that I wanted to pass on to you. His is the prayer and the faith that I want to learn from:

My 6th grade teacher … slipped on water and broke 1 of her wrists and   sprained the other. So I prayed for her, "Lord if there is anything that you can do for Mrs. Brown, could you please heal her as fast as possible. I love you Lord with all of my heart and please heal her." The principal said Mrs. Brown would probably not recover until the next week. But since I prayed to God, she healed one week earlier. PRAISE BE TO GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! --Parker, age 11

Do you see his love? His confidence? His willingness to risk his reputation on an assured faith in an omnipotent God? 45 exclamation points! I want that kind of excitement in my every day. I want that love and that kind of faith.

Teach me, God, to believe like a child today. Let me risk my heart to love You and others with everything in me. Squash the thing in me that fears getting duped because I know that is the lie, while You are the Truth.

Comments