Y o u r W r i t e r s G r o u p

Writing like Mr. Rogers Lived

Just this.

 

How do you want to be remembered? Just stop for 10 seconds and consider how your words are liberating others today.

Editor to Author: Letter to a Memoir Writer

Dearest Author,

I've been thinking about worth lately.

What's your story worth?

At a recent writers conference I taught a workshop on how I saw publishing changing. Modern publishing, the only time in history when we've had separate "markets" for books, has begun to fracture and redistribute. I've shared several times about how The Shack has shifted things. It isn't just a book, of course, it's a bridge. And those bridges are inevitable because it isn't only spiritual people or Christians who recognize God as creator.  

Blue Like Jazz came well before it and created connections between the Christian and secular markets. Lauren Winner's memoir Girl Meets God made some connection points before that, similar to how Eat, Pray, Love did more recently, from the other side of the spiritual divide. Several spiritual/worldly, secular/sacred books have become best-sellers as bridges in the long history of such books since the beginning of print, and some people have traced this line back to the best-selling book of all time: The Bible.

The Secret. The Purpose-Driven Life. The Alchemist. The Celestine Prophesy. The Late Great Planet Earth. Pilgrim's Progress. Books you've never heard of have sold over 30 million copies: Steps to Christ by Ellen White, In His Steps by Charles Sheldon, late-19th century Congregational minister and advocate of the ever-intriguing idea of "Christian socialism." Even Nikolai Tesla wrote about his life a true spiritual man and world-renouned scientist in My Inventions. The Canterbury Tales, The Odyssey, and The Divine Comedy by Dante, written in 1304, has "sold" more than anyone knows and we have no idea how it or any of these books have changed readers and the history of spiritual thought, becoming seeds for the trees of countless theologies.

But of course, we know this is what books are--seeds. And this is what they do: define life and defy death.

"So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

So this story that's a part of you, that is you, that defines your work and all of your effort and sacrifices to share it completely (or as completely as possible) for others to use--what's it really worth?

Don't answer. You can't. Simply try to see the fullness of the question clearly. Continue on...

Do you know where your worth is really found?

Yes, in God's ownership of the life and love he's created you to embody (1 John 4:7-12). His ownership, creating, protecting, guiding and infusing of his great, unchanging spirit into us. He dies that we might live (parents always understand this principle). And we die that others might live through our sacrifices. This is the daily work of writing.

Do you know what that is really worth?

Intimately known and held, seen and heard and helped in every way, this knowledge is invaluable, isn't it? We can talk of worth and value, and shift our understanding of that from copies sold to readers influenced, but it's the knowledge a reader will have by the end of your story that makes what you're doing truly valuable. And this understanding of how God fills us and dies for us is the greatest wisdom, the most valuable in the world. And if you are practicing that, that makes what you're doing invaluable.

I want to give you, as a witness of your discovery of that unchanging love, my invaluable opinion on it, my affirmation that you've been seen and heard and that what you've written down is completely worthy. And with your assurance that it's been well established and others will see it and respond, you can continue, knowing it's incredible and invaluable. 

So do you see what your story is really worth?

Because there's no true price tag you can put on it. There's no proper estimating the value of my work, my seeing it, or others' receiving it either. It's in-valuable. We have to simply trust together that whatever comes of it is just a small piece of its fullest value as a seed for God to use, and not at all connected to the worth of what you've written, or what I've done to help. I know you've sacrificed and given for your story, and I've been brought into the processing of it, but regardless of how it will be published and the realities of our modern marketplace, you must know:

What's your story really worth?

I remain your solid co-laborer in the process of delivering these invaluable words. Never assign its worth to money, public perception, publication, or anything else. Your heart is here, and that's established and it's something you have written definitively, and just as we have agreed together at the outset here, others will when they read it.

We don't know how it will all play out. But I'm on your side and not looking for specific outcomes big or small. Don't think in terms of what's "fair," but decide you will pay with your life what's necessary to give to this project. What you give is directly proportional to what that seed will be able to produce in readers. And in terms of return and profit, I believe Cohelo is right: the universe will conspire in our favor.

So what's your story really worth?

 

Your Loving Editor,

Mick

Writer Imperatives 101: Let Them In

I don't recall learning to read, but I know I was still pretty young when I first started retreating to my room to read. I remember Robinson Crusoe, The Chronicles of Narnia, and A Wrinkle In Time, looking up words in my paperback dictionary, and basically sealing my fate as a book nerd for the rest of my life. It didn't help that I was musical and played piano.

Soon, I realized just how different I was. And so began the defending.

Now I know it isn't unusual. The natural world is not always hostile, but it isn't protective either, and everyone and everything is compelled by their vulnerabilities to require defenses, shelter, and security to ward off the assaults of the environment and attackers. We vary in degrees of sensitivity, but even naturally tough people (and extroverts!) need protected space.

Frank Peretti's The Wounded Spirit has helped many people learn to value themselves again. Elaine Arron's identifying "highly sensitive" people has also provided tools for defense. But then a couple I've known my entire life, two lifelong friends of my parents'  and now mine, helped me understand bonding and attachment and I was able to acquire and edit their books for WaterBrook Press. If you're a human, and you'd like to know how humans work, I believe you'll find their help some of the best that money can buy.

I was still young when I realized that great books can be like theirs--life-changing treasure maps built of a lifetime (several lifetimes) of knowledge, wisdom and refinement. And one of the greatest advantages of our modern age is that these treasure maps are very nearly, or at least right up next to being, absolutely free. 

Do we realize how lucky we are in the history of the human race?

Well, no. Most people don't. Because we have never known different. I imagine the kids born into this information superstore and I wonder how they're going to value anything. Thankfully, new sensitive people are born every day, book readers and idea-seekers, and there are still some adults engaging to help guide them.

But being married to another extremely sensitive book nerd and pianist, we have two fairly different kids. I watch them grow and I don't think they'll struggle too much to let people in. They're confident that though their feelings and thoughts might be different, they're valuable and important to share. I wonder if this means they won't be writers. I'd be okay with that. At 5 and 8, they do really love books, so you never know.

But all of this is rattling around in my cranium this morning, thinking about letting people in and how that can be such a struggle for anyone, especially if you've been hurt for it. And most have. Writers are those who are compelled to fight back. And somewhere in the midst of writing down the words, the truth emerges, and we see a bit more of who we really are, and who everyone really is. And that makes the world look a bit brighter. A bit more promising of wonder, beauty and joy.

So fight on today, friend! Be brave and drop the shield. Write into the heart of the fear and don't ever doubt the wisdom of letting them in. It's for your own good, too, after all.

Thoughts on Beauty, Joy, and Suffering: an Easter Reflection

It's a glorious spring day here. The birds are serenading the sun as it warms the grassy marsh beneath the berry vines with their new bright green growth, reaching up, creating new perches.

I open the door and let in the warm breeze, the first of the new year. And a glorious discovery wafts in: here, the Pacific northwest, spring arrives well-dressed and on time to present Easter.

After months of preparation under cover of low light, the burst of contrasting colors brings readily to mind how new life and growth take place.

The drops of rain like words stored up, each arranged to their proper use, set to their infusing, slow work, the time finally arrives, and the connecting and reconnecting of relationships renews and revives, revealing the deeper purpose behind winter's seeming cruelty.

Sacrifice does finally produce the greater. 

But it's the waiting that hurts, the true, soul-starving reality of deep need and gnawing want, the inescapable suffering of those who embrace the long process involved. There is no denying how much the preceeding pain is required before the joy. And eventual is a hard, insufficient comfort. "Eventually, this, too, shall pass." How to rejoice in the waiting, the becoming?

Belief is the only way. Faith in the principles, the process. When you know and remember, when you see the testimonies, the longing takes on purpose, builds the anticipation, makes the hoping sweeter and sweeter still.

Yes, the soul says, this is how it works.

And this is the thought I have in the open door moment, the sun finally bursting in, the clouds finally falling away. This kind of rejoicing is on the other side of the suffering, the result for both the struggling writer becoming, and the believer believing.

It's Easter in the morning. We believe, though we don't yet see. We trust in the principle at work, the long, dull gray finally producing sharp vibrant contrasts. Light from dark, life from death.

He will come. He will rise. And we will be made joyful again.

Ice Cream, Writers Websites, & Making Your Calories Count

Tillamook ice cream is one of the true pleasures of our moving to Portland.

I know I risk outing myself as a closet ice-cream freak, but I don't care. The way they pack so much lactocine goodness into every delicious spoonful is enough to make me want to move here all over again, just to have the pleasure of realizing I now, once again, have access to the greatest ice cream in the universe.

I am not proud of this. But I refuse to be ashamed of my obsession any longer.

Yeah, okay, there's Haagen Dazs. But that's not really ice cream. It's frozen butter. Of course that's going to be good. Dip a cold stick of butter in vanilla and sugar and go to town. It's tasty. It's also going to deposit you in coronary junction.

You think I'm kidding. Go ahead. Have your Haagen Dazs. We'll see who dies first.

But to bring this just a little bit nearer to my actual point, as I was preparing to indulge in my shopping day rendevous with a blissed-out ice cream coma, I came across a new ad printed along the plastic safety collar. You're familiar with these, and the same lawyers' work from tamper-evident seals on vitamin jars and baby toys. These same demons clearly made these evil little wrappers indestructible because they derive pleasure not from ice cream, but from making you convulse in frustration while slicing your hands on their cleverly-designed razor bands.

I could get scissors, but now it's too much like letting them win, so I decide teeth would be best and I bring the carton to my face to gnaw the daylights out of some shrunk-wrapped landfill.

And that's when I saw it. Little white printing in a playful serif font: "More ice cream per container." Well, I'll be chocolate-swirled.

That's it, I thought. Though even then, I wasn't quite sure what "it" was.

But something grabbed me in that claim that sounded vaguely similar to what I'm pulling together in my little corner of the information superflyway. Sure, you can go for those other writers sites and publishing packages that promise "editing" and thorough quality controls. But you'll get more ice cream per container with this site. And you don't even have to chew your way through uncertain danger to get to it.

I'm not big on self-promotion, so it can be tough to feel competitive against so many big guys who pump their ice cream full of air and diglycerides, just to make sure you think what you're getting is the good stuff. I also know I've been less than gracious about the end product of such. But "frozen dairy dessert" is not what I want for all my sacrifices in the supermarket of inspired dreams. Writers work hard for their visions. And no flashy ads or deep discounts from the other guys can supply the fullest experience my mouth and stomach deserve.

So I'm continuing on writing and designing the new site, hoping someone will notice the fact that there's more actual of the real good stuff shoved in here and that's what they really want. It's not going to catch everyone, but at least those who appreciate such things will know their calories are doggone gonna count.

How Authors Get Everything They Really Want: The Death of Traditional Publishing "Success"

What is “success” as an author?

This question has more answers than Carter has pills. (My grandpa liked to say this, which always made me feel badly for whoever Carter was. Who is Carter and why does he have so many pills?)

Ah, this is great. I'm munching some popcorn Charlotte, my 5 year old, just brought me from her mid-morning snack. She’s home today for teacher’s conferences, and this is way more information than you need, but I want to set this up first, to say how glorious it is working from home, and appreciate that beauty with me, but second, how instructive it is to have a kid around who comes downstairs with her big bowl and quietly sets it near you, careful not to interrupt the typing, and say, “You can have some of my snack, if you want.”

I mean, this isn’t the way I imagined it. I had no idea. But I take a handful and she smiles and tells me to get lots of work done and leaves.

And I will. With this popcorn, I will work like a factory-assembly-line maniac. Like Carter without his pills.

Now I don’t work for her affection. She gives it to me freely. I don’t do a thing. I could even deny my affection, work so I never see her and miss out completely on a relationship with her and she’d still bring me her own food to share.

Because this is how it is with love.

And this question of how we define success has so many different answers because so many people don't feel loved. Underneath what we say we believe, "success" always has to do with whatever we're seeking most. These are words I've treasured: When you first seek to give yourself to God's way, his higher purpose, you'll be given everything you desire.

I used to think this was a cheap trick because when you do this, your desires "magically" change—and how easy is it to give me what I want when he just changes what that is first? Come on! But there's a deeper principle at work that says when you seek the higher purpose beyond yourself, you get what you really wanted all along.

It’s not different from your original desires, it's just deeper, more real. And hense, more lasting when it's fulfilled. It's always better to give than receive. It’s always better to do for another what you’d want done for you.

And I believe it. But do I? Would I act differently if I really believed? Do I give my popcorn, or do I eat it myself? What’s success: having the biggest handful or giving the most away?

Affirmation and validation are big traps for authors. Most realize it’s a fool’s errand, but the exploiters still sell it: “Are you desperate to feel appreciated and worthy? Sign with PAI-YUP Publishing today!” So many authors say they know where ultimate love is, but they don’t seem convinced. If they felt it, they’d know, and they’d figure out it’s probably dumb to try and squeeze love out of a book contract. But they don’t want to look deeper.

That’s not me. I mean, I know you can’t derive your value from a car or a job or even others’ opinions....

But we all still do it. And we close our eyes, rationalize it and make it “all right.”

Why do so many books get printed? Why do so many people work so hard when the only pay off is more attention and more work? Ask anyone “important”: more importance = more problems.

I know what I want to say with my work, and it is a way to give back, but I think I need to look harder at how what I’m writing is directly pouring into who is receiving it. This is a critical step in the process for anyone looking to share a book of true lasting value. I need to spend some more time picturing those outstretched bowls and me pouring from mine that’s been so generously filled...

So what's "success" to you, that is, what do you think is most important? Are you writing to “give back” or is it more about what you want to say?

How to Write What Matters

People still ask if I'm doing okay and I tell them I've never been happier. Sure, we're starting to recognize the gray insides of the silver lined clouds, but mostly, we're amazingly okay despite my decision not to return to analog publishing. 

Speaking of old publishing, feast your eyes on these libraries.

Oh, where will we bookies be in 20 years?

Incidentally, being let go in a big corporate layoff is a pretty good way to go, given the alternatives. But I've chosen to embrace the change and take my opportunity to move into the digital age. And I'm not concerned with the destruction of print so much as I am with the destruction of great writing.

I suppose in some ways I’m just more proof of the publishing implosion, the faint whispers of hope turning to rumors of impending doom. But I don't believe that. Publishing is alive and well; it just doesn't look the same as it used to. And I'm excited about the future books and what will emerge in the newly democratized land of the free.

And there's even a team spirit in the air, a widespread group of dreamers taking up the colossal fight to pull together and keep believing in great books. Part of our hope is that books can be created, shepherded, published and sold in ever more ways. And knowing that creating books is such a valiant, incredibly difficult battle, we're excited because it also makes for close friendships and complementary shaping. All of us may have different battles in this glorious fight for books and we all meet it in different ways. But we're exactly the same in heart and spirit.

The cause will go forward.

And as much as everything has changed, nothing is any different in the deep abiding love writers and book people have for great books. We may whine about how difficult it is to produce a respectable, not to mention decent-selling, book. And if you're a new author, your chances of being respected, let alone rewarded and allowed to grow are rather small even as the current publishing system expands.

It will always matter who you are and who you know.

But important books are still published every day, many by top traditional houses, some by boutique imprints, and even in the self-publishing sphere. And there are many excellent fresh voices among them. Not nearly enough. But again, that's what makes the fight so rewarding.

One characteristic anyone associated with this industry has is a joy for, or at least a pride in the struggle for books, fighting off myriad disappointments while clinging to dwindling shreds of sanity and perpetual hurry-sickness and information-saturation. I love my incredibly talented and principled friends who keep their corners of this industry pumping. And I see how their dedication involves difficult trade-offs and I hurt with them.

It matters what you write. It really does. It makes all the work worthwhile, in the end. These books that require so much more than one person to be born, if writers could only see how many hopes and dreams ride on them, maybe they'd dedicate more readily, more completely. Maybe they'd hold off accepting someone's offer to publish it before it's been critiqued and edited by someone beyond Mom and Aunt Hazel. Maybe their book would outlast the others being written that are too much like it and don't really speak of the deeper truth inside that will go unrealized and unnoticed.

Cue the ominous music...

Meanwhile, I remain hopeful that the support in bookland is there, and we're all continuing to believe and fight together.

 

Why Writing Must Not Be Used for Love

"Don't Use Writing to Get Love"

The title comes from Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. Not a bad book, and several of her thoughts are useful. One is something I've seen in writers, especially of fiction, obviously because I've seen it in myself, this idea that we writers are curious creatures who can't live the way others do. Some of us come to believe we don't give and receive love like normal people and our best relationships should be pretend, inner worlds often substituting for the outer. It can be easy to forget that everyone has to eat real food, even writers, and that means finding the real food of love in the real world.

"Writers get confused," Goldberg says. "We think writing gives us an excuse for being alive. We forget...that life and writing are two separate entities. Often we use writing as a way to receive notice, attention, love. 'See what I wrote. I must be a good person.'"

Where do successful writers find the love that says, "You are of value, regardless of what you do?" The same place all fully nourished humans do. But writers are special and many times this leaves us without a guide to remind us that we aren't any different in this basic human need, or where it is and how it's found.

Most guides aren't much help on this point, I'm afraid. But the great truth is, this fuel doesn't automatically come from inside you. And that's a great truth because the source of that love frees you from any responsibility. You don't have to muster it up or perform well, or even wait until you understand it. No, you don't have to write to be worthy of love.

I'm pondering that today. It's meant for me and all writers. The love you need, to be happy and whole and free of using writing to get it, is bigger than you, beyond your understanding, in that real place you can only travel to by faith. Where our minds leave off, the heart picks up and while writing can help train our minds to escape into that world through faith, it can't bring us the food our hearts ultimately need for the journey.

Writing must not be used for love because it isn't the food. It's your bowl.

Everyone has a bowl. And when you know you're a writer, the words are how you share the food of love. But you receive it by simply accepting it from God as he fills the bowl  and makes it more, a hundred times over. And with that love, you can hold out your bowl as it's filled and pours overflowing, always more, never empty. Yes, you will find your hands full and it will become hard to carry. And yes, you may even find yours so full you can't carry it alone. But as you learn to adjust and walk with care not to spill it, he'll still be there to help you handle what's poured out. He decides how much to give and as long as you keep giving it away, there's always more when it's needed.

Don't try to hold your writing hostage to bring you love. Trust and be all there in the writing today and simply let yourself be filled. Don't work hard to reason out the process logically, just believe.

And hold out your bowl.

Why Absolutely Everything Is about the Story

I had this thought yesterday:

Everyone who lives with barriers to belief who has made a conscious negative response about faith has fully misjudged God.

The realization of that stopped me. Somehow I knew it was a glimpse of God’s perspective and his true love for those he misses. And so I stopped and considered it. And no more than a moment later, a fuller picture emerged. And it shocked me:

With unbelievers, there is no other category.

No other category! To know him for who he truly is always = loving him. And that love changes anyone who encounters it. But anyone who has trouble believing or loving, it is  misunderstanding that's to blame. And it's this misunderstanding that's constantly used as our excuse, evidence that he doesn’t exist or isn’t what we want or need. The lack of evidence about God becomes our weapon to use against him.

Can you see the problem?

So what's the solution? Reconnecting. God wants to reconnect. And any writer working to write a true spiritual story has the greatest advantage: story! The method God himself has used to share this vitally relevant truth.

I'd like to humbly propose that reconnecting the disconnected is the grand story of all humanity. It's what it's all about. This is why everything is about story because we're all a part of it, his story of coming and reconnecting. Story is all about the one who overcomes unbeatable odds to achieve what seemed impossible. And it's happening every day, all around us if only we could see it.

Do you ever think about that? Maybe if there was time you would. But I'm wondering if there's time to think of anything but this.

This story thing is so powerful when you think of it as the way God's created us to reconnect. And because it's his, absolutely everything is a part of it, what he created, his world, the lives he spoke into being, the narrative he placed us in. We all want to read his words and know how he reveals himself and reconnects with us. Every true spiritual story is one more piece of the larger unfolding story of reconnection, as infinite as the universe, more evidence that one day it will all be reconnected. Can your story reconnect others with him, show him for who he is? How many need to read it to be reconnected and add their line in the bigger story. And how many of these stories can we find?

Authors of faith, you are royal daughters and sons of the great Reconnector. See your tool clearly. You must tell the story. Provide the escape. End the misunderstanding. Deliver the inspiration.

Crush the lack of evidence.

Open the eyes.

Write for one.

Some YourWritersGroup.com Nibbles and Bits...

So, obviously, the new website is not here yet. And I'm really fine with it. Honest...

Blast you, cursed warden of my inspired hopes and dreams!

When I first dreamed up this website I've been alluding to since last October (or was it September?), I knew there'd be a catch. But it turns out these masterpieces of technology and beauty take time. As it is, I'm only mildly miffed--or inactively irked.

If I cared more about marketing and sales, I'd probably be really upset. But alas, it isn't done yet. 

In the meantime, I thought I'd introduce you to one idea I've had: the soon-to-follow daily inspirational thoughts I'm cooking up for the big release. I haven't decided what to call them yet--maybe Daily Meditations, Mantras for Writers, or Quotable Nibbles and Bits--but I've been using them on my run every morning and they're good for focusing my mind on what's really important before I come back and sit down at the helm to write (Yes, of course I shower first).

I especially like the two parters--they seem to bring a rebalancing effect. One of the first I used was, "All for others, nothing for self." You can reverse them and create new nuances of meaning: "Nothing for self, all for others."

I'll be sharing some more soon--once I have a name for them, and a venue. But start with this one and see how many things you can apply it to in your writing. I like its rhythm. Though it's not perfect, it seems to work well with labored breathing.