The cliche “There’s no such thing as bad publicity” certainly has been stretched lately. Twitter seems to have no shortage of these moments. Young Adult lit is under constant fire (I will attempt to address that tomorrow). The book “Go the ____ (expletive) to sleep” is being discussed. And one certainly cannot miss the latest saga in the “Harry Potter has made me rich” threads.
Now – personally – I think young adult lit has some positive and negatives. I do not believe in using profanity in my writing and would never consider reading that book to my son. And quite frankly the whole Harry Potter line bores me – I read the first book and found it to be dull at best.
So – I don’t buy those books.
I know! It’s a ridiculously simple solution and it probably isn’t controversial enough to garner any followers. But here’s my take on it. If I demonize them – as many people I know do, it makes them more popular. The succes de scandale approach just gains momentum, polarizes people, and gets nothing accomplished.
What do we do then?
Put your money where your values are. I see very few movies in theaters. As one who is hard of hearing, I find them to be frustrating venues (as one who is short of money, I find them expensive). But when a movie seems particularly good – such as The Chronicles of Narnia series – I make a point to support them. We need to spend less time fighting what is controversial and more time supporting what is good. As a Biblical example, there’s a reason Paul tells his young pastor “Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels” (2 Tim 2:23).
So – as a matter of shameless self-promotion – if you don’t like swearing and sex in young adult lit, if you want something that shows Biblical values in an exciting urban fantasy – complete with supernatural swashbuckling – try to find someone who writes such a monster and would love to have your support. (Hint: it’s called ShadowLight).
But if that’s not your thing, don’t buy it. That’s the brilliance of having so many books from which to choose.
Life isn’t always perfect. With all due respect to Ed Harris’s character in Apollo 11 … failure is always an option.
As a central Ohioan and a former Ohio State student (albeit for only a year), I am a die hard Buckeye fan … particularly when it comes to football. I did say die hard – not die impossible. The last several years have been marked by notable problems on and off the field. On it, they playing has been adequate, led by a man who can throw and run with the best of them, but who fails miserably when it comes to leading that team. He has left the field early on more than one occasion and can often be seen seen sitting by himself rather than cheering on his teammates. Now I’m not a Terrelle Pryor “hater” (as I have often been accused), but I do believe that his quarterback skills leave much to be desired.
This has recently been displayed in the news as a series of NCAA violations, a 5 game suspension of many major players, and the resignation of Coach Jim Tressel have unfolded. What OSU needed during this dark time was a leader – someone who would take command, own the mistakes, and push forward, rallying the troops along the way. What they received was someone who ran away.
I’m not here to debate these events or the merits thereof. I simply want to draw a parallel for my writing friends. We have to allow our characters to fail. If there’s no failure, there’s no story – nothing at stake. But here are some hints to failing well.
1) Failure reaches far: grace is often too cheap in literature. Just as Pryor’s (and the other players) failing affected many other people – coaches, players, and the university, our characters failures can affect more than just themselves.
2) Failure hurts deep: While they are great entertainment, the days of the impervious hero are far gone. Failures hurt. Ask yourself how you would react to your characters failures. One of the greatest examples I have seen is one from the Bible. In the book of Acts, the first Christian martyr is a man named Stephen who is stoned to death at the approval of a young zealous religious ruler named Saul. Saul later converts to Christianity and is known by the name Paul, but one can only imagine that his warnings against having zeal without knowledge is directed towards a younger him.
3) Failure demands action: people react to their failure. They face it and become stronger or they run from it and it pursues them. Don’t let a character fail just to fail. Let it drive them. Paul wrote to the Romans: “We rejoice in our sufferings, because suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope (Romans 5:3-5).
Take stock of your characters. Let them fail – and fail big.
Those who have arrived here from Twitter have no doubt seen the flood of responses at Meghan Cox Gordon’s controversial editorial rant in the Wall Street Journal. If you have not read it for yourself, please do so here before proceeding.
All done? Thoughts? Opinions? There’s a lot of them floating around
Ms. Gordon’s multipronged attack is enough to send any reader’s head spinning. Censorship. Freedom. Social issues.
My thought as a teacher, writer, and parent is that this is an indictment against bad – or lacking – parenting skills. I have seen over and over again that my students who read are my best ones. I do the entrance testing for my school and EVERY time a student has brought a book to the test, that student does well.
The question stands, what should students read? My answer is anything a parent reads. There’s a balance that needs to take place – certainly children do not need to see violence and horror glorified, but neither do they need to think that the world is rainbows and butterflies. The root of the problems address in Ms. Gordon’s article is that we have set up a youth subculture that is totally removed from any guiding principles. There are those who attempt to guide – school boards, librarians, and book sellers (by the way, capitalism is still alive and well - if people quit purchasing objectionable literature, then authors will quit making it)
So do parents need to read everything a teenager does? That’s up to the parents. If they trust in their own skills and can keep open dialogue, teens can be trusted to make good decisions. When a parent needs helps, I highly recommend some of the following resources:
Don’t forget to find writers that you can trust to agree with your beliefs as well. On my spirituality page, I share some of my worldview so that my readers know what to expect.
And … if you want a book that shows some of the dark side of humanity in conjunction with the brightness of love and sacrifice, then may I suggesting taking a trip through my novel, ShadowLight.
Today I had the honor of delivering the benediction and sending 32 seniors from Gahanna Christian Academy on their way. In trying to find the right words, I borrowed some from St. Francis of Assisi.
May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.
I may have claimed that St. Francis was a classmate of mine. The rest of the jokes I held to myself. He was a huge football fan – always rooted for New Orleans. He had a dog – big old one with a barrel on his collar. We called him the St. Bernard of Assisi. The man loved all you can eat pizza – wasn’t uncommon to find St. Francis of a Cici’s.
You might think that I’m digressing from the topic of my post … I am.
In the Bible, Jesus gives a commission to His followers – to go and make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20). It takes some time and preparation for the disciples to embark on this quest. When they begin in Acts 1, they are surrounded by 120 men and women ready to see them succeed.
For you writers out there, remember that characters do not exist in a vacuum. They have siblings, parents, and friends … usually. My earlier writings suffered from a lack of this knowledge. Nearly every character had deceased parents – my own parents wondered if I suffered some repressed anger. Nonsesnse … mostly.
How do other ancillary characters react to your main character’s journey. Happy? Sad? Both? As an infinitely wise man (*cough* my boss) said today, “every mother bird has to kick her baby out of the nest … some just kick a little harder.” Setting the journey against this backdrop will emphasize the hero’s journey and help the reader identify with him more.
In ShadowLight, the main character, Jonah, must take on a call to fight back a vindictive warlord, Angel. In trying to do that right thing, he puts his brother in harm’s way.
This is a great lesson to learn. I hope that my earlier-mentioned friend would be impressed. I remember him before he did all that great stuff … back when he was just St. Frank of Assisi.
Last Saturday, the half of the Creative Minds Collective not at MARCon, gathered at Java‘s Cafe in Gahanna in the name of discussing our writing craft
We discussed the Bones series finale (sucked hard boiled eggs through a twisty straw), books we’ve read (previewing a novel for a Tweep), and … oh yeah … some writing stuff too. We talked about “proper critiques.” One of our visitors mentioned that reviewers of her work often gave her the cursory “that’s nice” critique – a word that is as useful as a paper mache jock strap. The converse, which I have had the joy of receiving, is basically the critique that say “you suck, stop writing, and focus on breathing so you don’t accidentally stop.”
The internet is full of good critique advice, but I wanted to focus on one aspect of it – using the truth to help and not to harm. I have partially blame this phenomena on the like of Simon Cowell -a man who has perfected the snide insult. This is great entertainment for millions of viewers and usually hurts only one. It’s a fair trade from anyone’s perspective – except the recipient.
In the Bible, Paul writes a letter to the believers in Ephesus and states they are to speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15). Its a great reminder that we must do both aspects. We cannot blow proverbial smoke and give cursory “that’s nice” remarks. If something needs attention, call it out. Give constructive feed back .. “If you fix this…” or “I think I’m misunderstanding this.” Truth is important. However, love is important as well. Offer hope whenever you can. Give praise where it is due. Every writer – or every artist – has things that he or she does well – and things that need attention. Fair and honest reviews help this.
And in retrospect, I should probably change the “Bones” review I mentioned at the outset to “great surprise ending … but the plot seemed to drag after the previous episode’s excitement.” That would have been nice.
Probably the worst thing anyone has said about “ShadowLight” is that they didn’t expect the ending. Now, I don’t want to give away the ending, but a huge theme of the novel is “sacrifice.”
Sacrifice: To forfeit (one thing) for another thing considered to be of greater value.
Our lives are marked by sacrifice. Students sacrifice their time for a better education. Parents sacrifice money, effort, sleep, time, comfort, etc. for their children. And, on this Memorial Day, we honor those who sacrificed their lives for a greater freedom. While I cannot serve in our military, I appreciate those who do. And I honor them the best way I know how – with my words.Two soldiers have touched my lives, amongst the myriad who have served and died – many of which I will never know their names.
John Landis Morgan, Jr. 1926-2010
The first is an old man – the son of a preacher who joined the U.S. Navy, fought and survived through WWII, came home married and had a family. He worked for Rockwell International. And most importantly, he’s my grandfather.
He loved us kids every day. He teased us without mercy. He stuck out his false teeth to make us smile. He called us little girls. We will never forget the endless string of Camptown Ladies couplets – most of which are not fit to print. And I will forever know why everyone calls me Matthew … because that’s my name. Oh and I almost forgot – he also taught me that the belly button is the screw that holds my butt on.
Grandpa lived to see his three children grow. He got to meet his seven grandchildren. And he met four great-grandchidren. He never had the chance to see my son born – but he knew that he was on the way. We found out my grandfather passed away from a stroke just a few days before we found out we were having a boy. We named our son “Michael Landis” – the middle name an homage to his grandfather.
Grandpa’s life affected me profoundly and I will always be grateful to him.
Marine Cpl. Jacob A. Tate, 1990-1/2/2011
The second soldier that affected my life is a former student. Marine Cpl. Jacob Tate. He was just Jacob when I had him as a junior and senior in high school … though I more often than not referred to him as “darnit Jacob.” He was a wild child and could always be found making mischief wherever he went. But that was who he was. He knew it and embraced it. He married his teenage sweetheart and fathered a son. He served his country bravely and died during operations in Afghanistan.
Jacob’s funeral affected me far greater than I expected. As a teacher, we are not supposed to go to student’s funerals – it should be the other way. But as a new father, I couldn’t imagine the loss his parents felt. The worst feeling was when I saw his son and realized all of what Jacob and Jax would miss out on. Jacob and his family sacrificed much.
I remember coming home from the funeral and hugging Michael, knowing that I should never take that for granted. None of us should.
On this memorial day, let us say thank you to Jacob, Grandpa, and countless others who have sacrificed much for our good. Thank you all.
Don’t Press the Button: it seems to be a fitting lesson for my first blog. Having spent the last 3 days trying to redo my website from scratch following a complete and total catastrophic destruction of the old one. I blame it on someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing playing around with the various buttons in the cpanel. He pressed the wrong one, rewrote the site, and whoop – there it went.
So – I began my quest to rebuild. With an appreciation of ease and flexibility, I explored the world of WordPress and found it to get some favorable reviews. And the best part is that my webhost, Hostgator, has a button that I can press that automates the install.
Oh crap. Another button.
It’s always scary to repeat the same situation in which one has failed. I thought of the Biblical example of Caleb in Joshua 14. He had failed to lead the Israelites into the promised land 45 years earlier. Now, having lost an entire generation in the wilderness, he’s faced with the same challenge. He’s just as ready to undertake the challenge – and is successful.
After arguing with myself on the merits of pressing another button, I took the plunge. A few seconds later, the installation was complete and I was up and rolling. The process was simple and painless – and quite intuitive (read: I didn’t have to read the instructions). I’m sure there’s still more I can learn, but for now, it’s nice to have a functional site. Feel free to cruise around it and tell me what you think. Just … try not to press any buttons.
Hmm.. I wonder what this button does.
Postscript Note: I have to give mad kudos to the tech support at Hostgator – they were fast, friendly, and not at all condescending (to my face) about the problems. I’ve been quite impressed by them.
The old website underwent a catastrophic crash when a certain writer though himself to be website designer. Steps are being taken to rectify the situation. The writer has contemplated firing the website designer, but does not want to be homeless at the moment.
