On Talents

Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.

 (Henry van Dyke, 1852-1933, educator, clergyman, author of "The Hymn of Joy")

When I taught middle school English, I used to make my students memorize one poem each month. Recitation seems to have fallen out of style in the world of education, but I loved that part of my upbringing. Committing to memory the music of language and thought made me feel rich inside.

One of the poems I regularly taught was Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing." Whitman capitalizes on the variety of songs: those of the mechanics, the carpenter, the mason, the boatman, the shoemaker, the wood-cutter, the mother, the young wife, the girl sewing or washing, the party of young fellows--all common folk, the fabric of Whitman's America. Opera stars and Broadway celebrities did not rate mention. How different from today!

Even then, I daresay common people didn't sing because they were good at singing. Few listeners, if any, would likely have paid to hear a common person sing. If they're not very good at singing, why do common folk bother?

Singing springs from us when we're happy, when we love what we're doing, when we revel in the world around us. We sing about things heartfelt or funny or sassy or wistful. We sing together to feel connected and uplifted. We sing when we're healthy. Whitman seems to suggest the strong melodious songs make America itself strong.

Singing is akin to writing. What would happen if only the best writers exercised their skill? We'd miss the unique blend that individuals offer, the rich views of lives different from our own. Therein lies one justification for continuing to write. I may not be much good, but my voice joins the multitude of noise-makers and makes the woods (the world) more interesting, more melodious.

Snidely Whiplash, Villain

Truly evil -- that's what an effective villain is supposed to be. And that--I have realized--is another area I need to develop. Plot is based on conflict--the good versus the bad, for example.

I'm still reading Plot and Structure, and the author James Scott Bell paraphrases Alfred Hitchcock on page 53: "The strength of a suspense story is equal to the strength of the villain." I've known for quite some time that I haven't fleshed out my villain (the red-bearded Savino) as well as I need to do. I suspect that's why my plot rambles and drags--the villain driving my plot is riding a tricycle. 

Can you picture Smaug riding a tricycle around the Great Hall of Thrain, chasing the burglar Bilbo Baggins? Or the White Witch ruling Narnia from a little red wagon pulled by a dwarf riding a bike with training wheels? Or Darth Vader racing after Luke SkyWalker in a pink Barbie PowerWheels with foot pedals?

There shouldn't be any sugar-coating for a villain. We all know that, and yet creating a truly evil villain requires work--thought, discussion about evil intent, the creation of backstory. Why is my villain so evil? I think I don't know because I'm too lazy or too afraid to dwell that long on evil intent.

Sometime ago, my son Caleb and I were discussing an article on comic books. The author of the article asserted that to create a really good story, the comic book hero (e.g. Spiderman) needs to be equally matched in strength and ability with the villain (Dr. Octopus). It's struggle that makes the story interesting, and if opponents are not equally matched, the game between them suffers. The difference between the two, the article explained, is that the hero is moral, while the villain is not (good versus evil).

I mentioned to Caleb that in my experience in life, most people I've met are a mix of good and bad. Often even the people who fall squarely in the bad category still have some element of conscience that can be evoked in certain circumstances. It was my thought that complex characters are more interesting, that characters who grow and change (and are thus a bit more unpredictable) capture readers' attention. Take Snape, for example (in the Harry Potter series).

At that point, my son was rolling his eyes. "Mom, I know you. You're going to try to redeem the villain in your book, aren't you?"

Well, the writers of Despicable Me did just that, didn't they? But no, I know better than to try something that complicated. Who do I think I am? J.K. Rowling? Snape often played the role of an under-villain. Redeeming the under-villain is one thing. Redeeming the real villain is quite another. There's simply no redemption for someone like Voldemort, and J.K. Rowling knew that. Yes, questions about hamartiology and soteriology arise. Is there such a thing as an unpardonable sin? Haman, Judas Iscariot, Goliath--is the blood of Jesus Christ efficacious to save even them? These topics may be debated in seminary, but in classic story-telling, I'm guessing there's a hands-down NO response.... not if you want a good story.

So my villain needs a make-over, a make-over suitable for a children's novel. Hmmm. I should send him to school. The red-bearded Savino needs a mentor. Maybe I need to re-read Wormwood's letters to Screwtape before I try to write Savino's resume.

Plot and Structure

Yesterday, I started re-reading a book that I had bought years ago: Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell. I bought the book because I fail miserably in the areas of plot and structure. I find characters, setting, and dialogue much easier to write.

I could try to make all kinds of excuses for why I never got past chapter two of the Plot and Structure (full-time job, laundry, time with the grandchildren, and so on). The busy-ness of life makes such a wonderfully legitimate reason for almost anything, doesn't it? Ha! But it doesn't write books, or sell them either.

So I started reading the book again. Ideas and encouragement are indeed helpful: 

• I realized that I need to take some of the backstory from Penny and the Seer's Ballad (the first children's adventure novel that I started working on) and infuse it into the introduction so that the dilemma draws in the reader. 
• I figured out that my style tends to be more literary; I tend to focus on setting and character more than action. No wonder I've let myself get side-tracked writing backstory for my fantasy land: Legends from the Land of Hoi. Hopefully, the seven short stories I've finished will come in useful sometime in the future.
• Surprise! I learned that to keep readers, I need to move the story along much faster. That fact spread woefully across my son's face when I button-holed him over the holidays and asked him to read the plot summary for the sequel Penny and the Song of Seven. The good thing is that his reaction made me pick Plot and Structure off the shelf again.

Time will tell whether I can persist in reading about how to plot without becoming overwhelmed with all the things that I need to change. Hopefully, you'll hear more from me!

David encouraged himself in the LORD his God. (1 Samuel 30.6 KJV)

David is a character--a writer--who's always amazed me. In the throes of adversity and despair, he calls out to God regularly. In distress, he cries so vividly that I feel his agony despite the millennia that divide our souls. David experienced plenty of trouble, some clearly of his own making.

Yet hard on the heels of his suffering, he turns without failing to look outside himself, to remember God. That ability to encourage himself, to find strength in the character of God (in His lovingkindness and forgiveness) buoys David's spirit. He dares to hope. His confidence grows so strong that he inspires others (in Psalm 130, David accomplishes the transformation of heart in eight short verses).

Oh, how I wish I possessed the unfailing ability to turn my thoughts to God! Too many times my thoughts stick to me. I bemoan the fact that my writing doesn't catch the eye of an editor or snag the heart of an audience. I despair that I've never really been published (not by a publisher who would actually pay for my work, that is). I, I, I....

As if I am the point of my writing career! And that, you see, is the problem. I am stuck on myself--certainly not very attractive. I need to be like David, who was stuck on God--the Ancient of Days who's infinitely fascinating and so full of goodness and grace that people can't help but wonder at Him or about Him.

Trusting God, as David did, doesn't come naturally. The act of trusting involves the submission of will, of my will to God's. Jesus talked about the simple trust of a child (Mark 10:14-15), and for me, that brings to mind a hymn I learned in my childhood, when my family attended a Missouri Synod Lutheran church.

The little white chapel was relegated to the three-to-five-year-olds. Heavy curtains sectioned off the room into six little classrooms. The light gray curtains with white flowers woven into the pattern did little to muffle the sounds of nearby teachers. I don't remember much about the classes, but afterward, the teachers swept the curtains aside, and we'd meet as a group.

The group leader was a lovely white-haired woman with a round, smiling face. She taught us a hymn, and we'd sing it together. I sang it easily back then. I sang with my whole heart, possibly even at the top of my lungs (as little kids are wont to do):

I am trusting Thee, Lord Jesus,
Trusting only Thee....

Here's the tune:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STQDajJsW30 (the music)


Teach me, Lord, to make much of You!

Memory feeds imagination.  - unknown

Hunchback Girl

When I was young, we lived next door to a silver-haired, hunchbacked woman. "Grandma Bloyer," we called her--though she bore no relation to us. I remember her distinctly, for she barely stood taller than I was.

Grandma Bloyer had spent most of her life working as a nurse. She had met all kinds of people, and her smart sense of humor served her well. In my mind's eye, I can still see my mother sitting at Grandma Bloyer's massive dining room table with a cup of coffee, chuckling over a story and shaking her head in disbelief at what a character Grandma Bloyer was.

My mother used to tell me that as a toddler, I displayed a peculiar knack for persistence, prompting Grandma Bloyer to dub me "Miss Determined." Apparently, my get-it-done attitude permeated my bedtime prayers, which ended with a childish and emphatic "A-MAN!" With her quick sense  of humor, Grandma Bloyer would mutter, "You'll get him, Katie. Don't worry!"

One evening, Grandma Bloyer came over to stay with me while the rest of my family was away. I have no recollection of where my parents and my older sister and younger brother would have gone without me, but I do remember having Grandma Bloyer's full attention. How often does that happen for a middle child? We played a game of checkers. She let me win, and she made me feel important that I'd done so.

I'm sure that the memory of Grandma Bloyer prompted my creation of Grandmother Upstairs on some conscious or subconscious level. I suspect that most people underestimate the magnetic attraction between the very old and the very young. The boundless energy and curiosity of youth fascinate and delight old folks: they bring back fond memories of being lithe and carefree. Conversely, the very young devour the attention and seemingly infinite knowledge that the very old bestow on them: they need the encouragement and validation of someone accomplished.

Even before she met Grandmother Upstairs, Penny learned about her from the loose-lipped doorman at the hotel where the old woman resided:

One of our best clients – a wealthy old woman who keeps to herself most of the time. Rather plain and a little deaf, I think. You see how tiny and hunched over she is, but she is rather spry for all that—an amazing old woman. Most everyone knows her as Madame Qiao. A flighty old woman—I mean that she comes and goes at odd intervals.

Long before I finished the first draft of my novel, I asked a friend with three children if she and her family would be willing to read and comment on the story as it was shaped at the time. They did so and informed me that the story line dragged at first; however, after they met Grandmother Upstairs, the children didn't want to stop reading:



The cat and the girl continued to climb until they reached the top flight. On the eighth floor, the sixteenth flight–the very top of the stairwell–Qiao Miao led Penny to a pair of large carved wooden doors on the landing. The doors swished open at their approach, and Penny was swept into the waiting arms of Grandmother Upstairs.

“Well done, my dear!” the old woman exclaimed, gazing fondly at Qiao Miao. She hugged Penny warmly as if she were greeting an old friend. Relief flooded through Penny’s being. She clung to the old woman, who stood no taller than Penny and was nearly as thin, except for her hunchback.

“Now, dearie! Oh, you must be exhausted, dear girl, so we’ll save the conversation for the morning. You’ve eaten, yes?”

And so Penny steps into another world and begins to unravel the mystery of her mother's absence and her family's secret ties to the land of Hoi. In Grandmother Upstairs, she finds a valuable friend and ally. She finds a woman who looks at the world from a different perspective, a woman who knows with a certainty things that others have dismissed or denied. The power of their friendship permeates the story.

"You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats." - Colonial proverb

Oriental Cat: Inspiration for Qiao Miao

The summer before my daughter entered middle school, we acquired a kitten. My daughter named him Meowbert Mallory George III despite the fact that he had no predecessor. We called him "Meowie" for short. Like most cats, he proved highly intelligent despite the fact that he worshiped the great god Refrigerator (he adored raw eggs).  


One day, when I was struggling to develop Penny's adventures, a cat walked in unannounced and neatly rescued Penny from her dilemma (and me from mine--I had only finished two chapters, and already I was stuck). Penny had just escaped from the men who made her sister vanish; she had hidden under the tables of a spice shop. Enter, Qiao Miao--the clever cat full of himself and his own secret wisdom. (I don't speak Chinese, but his onomatopoeic name intrigued me). 

When my younger son read that chapter, the antics of Qiao Miao evoked memories of Meowie--and I felt supremely satisfied. Isn't that what writing should do?  Make us feel and experience and remember? I felt lucky that a curious oriental cat would stoop to make an appearance in my story. 

I fear, however, that even now Qiao Miao is giving me a look--that same incredulous and disdainful gaze that Meowie bestowed upon me at 3:00 one morning when I swooped him up, set him on the edge of the kitchen sink, and sternly charged him with fulfilling his sole household duty--to kill the mouse trapped in the stainless steel basin.  

Meowie's look said it all: "You're kidding! You don't know how to do this yourself? You mean I actually have to demonstrate? Oh, all right, if you're really that dense." Then with one efficient stroke, he caught the mouse with the claws on one paw, snapped the spine with his teeth, and departed with an air of disgust, leaving the carcass behind.


I shall always be grateful--both for Meowie and for Qiao Miao. I am sure that Penny was grateful too, to  such a friend:



The sight of a cat startled her. It sat straight across from her, beneath the spice stands, staring at her curiously. Its almond-shaped green eyes shone like jewels in the slatted shadows from the bamboo shade. Its large ears twitching at Penny’s gaze, the cat turned its wedge-shaped head toward the bamboo shade, as if peeking between the slats to see if anyone was watching. Penny admired the cat’s fine, straight nose. Entranced, she drew another picture–one of the cat looking through the slats of bamboo, its whippy-pointed tail flicking in the air.

When she had finished, the cat walked daintily toward her and inspected the drawing in a disinterested fashion. Then it licked the fur on its neck and resumed its post. Not knowing what to think of its behavior, Penny stuffed her belongings into her backpack and took another sip from her water bottle. The cat cocked its head politely to the side and cast a questioning look in her direction, as if to ask, “May I?”

Penny smiled at the thought of the cat talking to her. How silly! But she set the cap of her water bottle on the ground anyway and filled it to the brim with water. The cat closed its eyes and nodded once, as if in thanks. Then it walked with precise steps to the cap and lapped up every drop. Penny held up the bottle to refill the cap, but the cat shook its head once and walked off, swishing its tail high in the air.

"Then God said, 'Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us... So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them. Male and female he created them." - Genesis 1:26-27

Reading those words brings me joy. I'm created in God's image! As a woman, I'm not a derivative of a derivative (man). No, I was created directly in God's image, an equal, complementary partner.

God is the designer and creator of the universe, the source of all wisdom and language, the righteous judge of character and actions. Because God created me to be like Him, I possess the ability to think and create, the desire to communicate with others, and a capacity to distinguish good from evil.

Writing high fantasy literature lets me mimic God in several ways.  Like God, I become the architect and engineer of a new world (see the map of the land of Hoi, above) and of unique characters (such as Grandmother Upstairs and Whimsy Gatan). Writing provides me with a way to connect and communicate with others, to share and sharpen my understanding of the world. The heart of the story demands a struggle between good and evil. In essence, I--like God--become the Begetter. From the viewpoint of my audience, I'm a supreme and invisible over-king.

When I first started writing Penny and the Seer's Ballad, I toyed with the idea of making the Begetter an actual character in the story (something like Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe); I also toyed with creating a triumvirate to reflect the Trinity (Grandmother Upstairs to play the part of the Father; Yo He to play the part of the Son; and Qiao Miao to play the part of the Holy Spirit).

Then I realized that logistically I would have problems creating a believable story line: Where is the conflict--the struggle--if an omniscient, omnipotent being is always there to fix things? And so the Begetter had to recede into a vague and elusive obscurity of sorts. He is a character of mystery, and it pleases me to reveal His uniqueness in stages. After the Begetter's name crops up several times, Penny learns the following:

“My family came from a faraway land ruled by the Over-King, the Begetter," Grandmother Upstairs began. "Perhaps you have heard of him?”

Penny’s eyes grew big, and she moved her head with a quick short nod.

“Good,” said Grandmother Upstairs. “The Begetter is not someone that anyone sees in person very often—at least not anymore, but nevertheless, he is a dear, dear friend of mine. I grew up with him as a child and came to love him with all my heart. He has strange ways that are nothing at all like our manner of doing things. We still keep in touch after all these years, though I often move from place to place. He sends his messages through the birds.”

“Like a carrier pigeon?” Penny asked.  “Gigi did a report on them for school.”

“Well, something like that,” replied Grandmother Upstairs.

“How do you know the messages are from the Begetter?” Penny asked.

Grandmother Upstairs laughed with a trilling tinkle. “My dear, I simply recognize the manner of his message. You would too, if you had spent some time with him.”

“But how?” Penny asked.

“How?” Grandmother Upstairs echoed. “It is something like your drawing of me, Penny. You captured something unusual about the way I looked. Neither Qiao Miao nor I had to ask you whose picture you had made. We both knew – we recognized that unusual manner. It was that way with the message yesterday morning.”

“Yesterday morning?” Penny asked. “When I was on my way to school?”

“Yes. It was quite urgent too. He insisted that I quit making banana castles and go immediately to the spice shop to rescue a small package of peony. I see now that he meant you. He has quite a sense of humor; it is one of his traits that delight me the most.”

“He knew about me?” Penny asked, astonished.

Grandmother Upstairs nodded. “Now, I assume that since he specifically said to rescue the small package of peony – that something important happened to you yesterday. I am most curious to know what.”

Although the first draft of my novel is basically finished, I have a lot of work to do to make this part of the story line consistent and cohesive. It's not easy playing God. It's actually lots of work!