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A Walk, a Brainstorm, and a Discovery

Tracey Dyck 29 Comments
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I mentioned in passing that I’m currently redrafting The Prophet’s Key (sequel to The Prophet’s Quest). What I didn’t say is that this novel is being a petulant little child.

I’m over twenty thousand words in, and something doesn’t feel right. That’s one of the worst feelings as a writer–that uneasy sense that something is wrong. It’s when your spidey sense, which grows more and more accurate the more you write, tells you that something isn’t working, and then you need to figure out what that something is so you can fix it ASAP.

This dull alarm is even worse when it comes for a story that’s very near and dear to your heart. Journeys of the Chosen is a big project for me. It’s important. I’ve invested a lot into it. So I want to be ‘in the zone,’ as it were. I want to be head over heels in love with this book I’m writing. That’s what drafting is for! (And then I’ll fall out of love during editing, only to fall back in again. It’s how the cycle goes.)

So on Sunday, after lazing around and devouring half a novel (I can’t remember the last time I read so much in one sitting–it was glorious, folks), I decided to take a walk to stir up my creative juices so I could make use of some writing time. And, let’s be honest, I was falling asleep on the couch, so some physical exercise was a good idea.

Walking is a great time to contemplate things, specifically writing things. Marching along, hands stuffed in my sweater pockets and hair tossing in a brisk wind, I stewed. What’s the problem? I asked myself. Why haven’t I clicked with TPK yet? I ordered my wandering thoughts into a list.

  • Is it drafting doldrums? Drafting can be massively fun–in fact, it often is for me–but I know I usually go through bouts of wishing everything was already on paper so I could just fix and fiddle. So am I struggling to manufacture new words?
  • Is it prolonged editoritis? When I transition between editing obsessively (*cough* The Brightest Thread *cough*) and creating something new, it usually takes a bit for my left brain to settle down and shut up enough for my right brain to freely and messily explore things. But if I’m 20k in, I shouldn’t still be feeling like this.
  • Is it because chunks of my plot are shaky and not yet researched? There’s some stuff I haven’t mapped out yet, and some of it is potentially tricky. Writing oneself into a plot wormhole is never a pleasant feeling.
  • Or . . . is it something else entirely? Maybe I haven’t yet connected to the heart of the story. Maybe I haven’t hit upon the reason I’m rooting for these characters and this book. Am I in love with the book yet? And if not . . . why?

In Ted Dekker’s writing course that I’m slowly going through, The Creative Way, he teaches that in order to write powerful, transformational fiction, you need to take that journey of transformation yourself, along with your characters.

So I asked myself, “What’s my journey with this story? Where do my struggles and my characters’ struggles intersect?”

I know that once I figure that out, I’ll truly, deeply care about TPK.

As I walked, I turned that over in my mind. And I came up with some good stuff that resonates with me. One intersection of author/character struggles I thought about was that of homesickness. The paradoxical kind you can get even when you’re under your own roof. The longing for times past–good times, safe times–coupled with the bittersweet resignation towards an uncertain future. I’ve experienced that, and it’s something my characters are going through in an even worse way. So in their journey through that homesickness, I need to take my own journey. Work through my own struggles.

I thought, “Let’s delve into that, Tracey. Make it poignant and palpable on the page. Grip the readers with that aching, that yearning. Make Aileen and Josiah hurt in their individual ways, so much that I feel the pain and the readers feel the pain.”

Oh.

Pain.

One criticism book 1 received from my editor was that I raised good challenges, only to let them fall away without much effort. I see myself doing the same thing now with book 2. Am I afraid of the pain?

I so badly want my protagonists to succeed because I so badly want to succeed in life. So is this too-easy conflict resolution my way of trying to make my own problems fall away with little effort? I’m scared of those dark moments when I have nothing but blind trust to lean on, and so I avoid putting my characters into those moments. Or rather, I put them there, but I don’t let them stay for long.

It comes down to trust. I have trouble trusting that God will come through in my valleys. But I need to live bravely. And like my dear friend Christine recently said, we need to write bravely too.

This, then, is my journey. A journey of trust, of faith in the blackest darkness and of clinging to hope when all other handholds are washed away.

I must make my characters suffer. Chip away at their resolve bit by bit until they fall into a deep valley from which they see no way out.

Pain.


Heartache.


Doubt.


Make their lives a living hell, so to speak (progressively worse in each book as I raise the stakes and whatnot), in order to discover alongside them how to trust the King and believe He’s still there and still in the business of rescuing lost hearts. This is my journey just as much as it is theirs. When my own heart recognizes the ‘valley of the shadow of death’ for just that–shadows–and trusts in the light, that transformation will be apparent in the story too. What I bleed onto the page will transform the characters. In turn, it will transform the readers.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a book to write.

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Grace (Part II)

Tracey Dyck 14 Comments
[See part one HERE.]

[Fair warning: today’s installment got longer than intended, and went places I didn’t expect it to. Read on.]
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At the dawn of the world, mankind enjoyed perfect bliss with their Maker. There in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve literally walked with God every day. There was nothing between them, nothing to detract from the perfect peace of their intimate friendship.
And then they broke the one commandment given to them. That peace shattered. Because God is holy and perfect and cannot tolerate sin, something had to be done. Adam and Eve found themselves banished from Eden, cursed to toil under the sun, destined to struggle for survival.
Generations passed. Each one succumbed to their own sins, and consequences followed.
A covenant was then forged between God and mankind, commandments written in stone. If the people obeyed, blessings would follow. If not, curses would befall them. “Obey me,” God said, “and I will be with you. I will bless you, conquer your enemies, prosper you in abundance. But if you refuse to listen, you will be destroyed.”
The only way for broken, sinful humans to have any sort of relationship with a holy God was to align their behavior with His perfect standards. Read the Old Testament to see how they fared. You’ll see generation after generation circling through the same patterns: a time of following God, and then a sudden, violent tailspin into the morass of humanity. One godly king’s reign of glory, followed by decades of chaos. Over and over again.
The concept was simple. Do good, get good. Do bad, get bad. And so it continued for millennia.
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Until the story we all know so well: the unassuming entrance of a Savior into a world of pain. As someone just as human as the rest of us, yet paradoxically God, He lived a life that completely fulfilled every one of those commandments. On a wooden cross, He carried on His shoulders the crushing weight of the sin of every. single. person. Everyone who had ever lived, all who ever would live–their failures were heaped upon Jesus. The wrath of His Father God crashed down on Him. And He died.
The commands were fulfilled. The law satisfied. Forever.
No longer were we holding to a tenuous covenant based on our efforts and performance. Now Someone had stepped into our place, filling that old agreement to the brim, and replacing it with an unshakeable new agreement purchased with sinless blood. And this new agreement had nothing to do with us.
Don’t you see? We’re not in control anymore. We tried–and failed–to obtain peace with God through our own striving. When that didn’t work, He forged a brand new covenant that no longer depended on us. Rather, it is between God and Jesus, on our behalf. Because Jesus’ obedience was perfect, what flows toward us is never going to be curses and destruction, but blessing and peace and abundant life. Does Jesus deserve to be blessed and healthy and prosperous and full of peace? Of course, you say. Anything less would be blasphemous.
So it follows that we get to experience that in our own lives. Not through anything we did to deserve it (goodness knows how impossible that is to reach, never mind to maintain for any length of time), but because Jesus made it possible for us. He took the curse of the law upon Himself, and gave us righteousness (right standing) with God. Once and for all.
I see so many people balk at this. They protest that this kind of grace (but really, is there any other kind?) gives us permission to sin. After all, if our actions no longer matter, then we can do what we want, and we’re forgiven anyway. Right?
Well, God will forgive you, but your family likely won’t. Your friends and neighbors won’t. The government won’t. Sin still sends waves of destruction throughout our horizontal relationships, even if it can no longer touch our vertical relationship with God. There are consequences for our actions. There’s no way around that. If you murder someone, you’ll serve your sentence. If you cheat on your spouse, you’ll have the pieces of your shattered family to pick up. If you withhold taxes, the government won’t take kindly to you. The kind of misery this causes for yourself and people around you is horrible.
But think about it. Please. Even if this whole post is rubbing you entirely the wrong way and kicking at the support posts of what you’ve always been taught, just stop for a minute and give this consideration.
If this kind of wholly undeserved grace is yours, do you even want to do wrong? If God lavishes such extravagant love and mercy upon you, if He literally died for a chance to have you close to Him, do you really want to run away from that?
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Tell me, truthfully: if I had the capability to come to you with open arms and say, “I don’t care what you say or do, I love you completely and always will,” if I could physically promise you unconditional love . . . would you scorn me? If you knew that you could spit in my face, curse my name, and leave my heart in a bleeding mess on the floor, but I would still love you just the same–JUST. THE. SAME.–would you have any desire to do those things? Of course, being human, you may do those things in times of weakness. But you probably wouldn’t truly want to do them.
When confronted with such amazing grace, I am utterly humbled. I did nothing, absolutely nothing, to merit a drop of this. And yet my Father gives it to me. His Son sacrificed everything so that I may have life. I did not master this on my own or create it with my two hands. He bought it for me with His very blood. Jesus, on my behalf, paves the way to the Father.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9, NIV)


Is this not humbling in the best way possible?

Maybe one reason we react so strongly to this concept is that it means relinquishing control. It is so much easier to look at the problems in our life and assume that they’ll go away if we just pray more, read the Bible more, serve more, love more, be better Christians. The simplest answer, and perhaps the easiest to live with, when facing unwanted circumstances, is to think we brought them upon ourselves. We’re getting what our deeds deserve. Punishment or reward.

The matter is far more difficult to wrestle with when we consider that we did not bring this calamity upon ourselves–that this is not God’s wrath but the results of living in a broken world.* It’s harder to figure out where to lay blame. Harder to figure out what our response is supposed to be.

*I’m not touching on consequences of our own actions here. Sometimes the crap we deal with is our own fault. When I don’t keep a promise to a friend, or say something unkind to a sibling, I have to work out the consequences. If I gorge on unhealthy food and never exercise, I will experience health issues, yes?
This is part of “fighting the good fight of faith.” In those times of trouble, when shadows of death cross our path, we must choose to trust God’s grace. We must let His truth influence our circumstances, rather than use our circumstances to try adjusting His truth to fit our experience.
We no longer do good in order to earn God’s favor. We open ourselves up to the rushing tide of grace He’s pouring out, and it is this grace that gives us the power to beat sin. The power to do good. Then there is such joy in it, you see!
It is a response, no longer a hoop to jump through.
It is our heartfelt answer to a Love that will take a thousand lifetimes and more to comprehend.
It’s a beautiful mystery, this grace. An unending ocean. Will you dive in with me?
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Diced Tomatoes and Indecision

Tracey Dyck 25 Comments

It was summertime, and I was driving with my family to our holiday destination south of the border. Near the end of a long day of miles and flicker-by scenery and cramped legs, we stopped at Quizno’s for a bite to eat. I ordered my chicken breast and honey mustard sub, and the server started asking which condiments and veggies I wanted.

“Tomatoes?” he asked.

“Yep,” I said.

“Sliced or diced?”

I froze. “Um, it doesn’t matter. You decide.” My brain shrieked, You decide?! You’re ordering a meal, Tracey! YOU decide.

The guy behind the counter looked at me funny, then threw in a handful of diced tomatoes.

Later, I told the story to my family and had a good laugh. I realized the silly answer produced by my travel-weary mind was my default response at home. When miscellaneous leftovers are being divied up for Saturday lunch, or we have two kinds of dessert to split among the six of us, I don’t have an opinion on what I would like. Or I do, but I don’t vocalize it. It’s only food. Let my younger siblings have what they want, and I’ll take whatever is left. It’s no big deal to me, but maybe Miss K prefers brownie or my mom would rather not have that leftover lasagna.

It’s such a trivial matter, but maybe it reveals something deeper.

When I graduated high school and realized that full time authoring was not a practical career path to take right away, and that I needed a fallback career, I was faced with the decision of what else to pursue. (Still working on that one . . .) And as I’ve contemplated that choice over the last several months, an ugly realization has dawned on me.

I’m scared of making the wrong decision.



That branches off into all sorts of other thorny vines. With some decisions, I don’t want to make one displeasing to someone else. Mostly, though, with the big stuff, I’m afraid of choosing anything less than best. I’m pretty confident I won’t do something drastically terrible to my life, but what if I pick something mediocre or just okay? Something good but not BEST?

For whatever it’s worth, my INFJ personality type is supposedly most terrified of his or her life not meaning anything.

Sometimes I wish God’s specific will would be written down, that we could all have a personalized page of the Bible saying where to go to school or who to marry or what to do. (Not really. That would probably be a catastrophic idea.) But you know what I mean? When you’re following God’s principles for life, that makes a lot of things clear, but not nearly everything. Because there are plenty of situations when you have lots of good choices in front of you, none of them wrong, and it’s up to you. Situations where God says, “Any one of these things could be amazing. So go ahead. Pick.”

Which is freeing . . . unless you’re frozen by indecision.

But maybe God is a bit like a GPS. Make a wrong turn, and that thing recalculates. It doesn’t matter how many wrong turns you take, if you keep trying to follow the GPS’s directions, it’ll get you there eventually. God is a God of second chances. And third and fourth and three hundredth chances. And He’s a master at making beauty out of brokenness, at putting purpose into a meandering road.

So I can use the brain He gave me, evaluate each situation (knowing I can’t possibly gauge all the pros and cons), ask Him for direction, surround myself with wise counsel, and go from there.


That GO is an important verb. Not sitting still, forever analyzing and agonizing. Do what you can, then decide. Just decide.

And if you find out further down the road that you made a wrong turn, just know it didn’t surprise God. He loves you too much to let you wander aimlessly. He’ll redirect you. Truly.

The wrong turns are never, ever a waste either. He uses all things for our good.

I don’t want to be crippled by fear anymore. I’ve seen what indecisive people look like in their old age–I don’t want to be them. I want to keep moving forward. It’s a lot easier to steer a moving vehicle than it is to steer one in park.

Decide.

***
I drafted this post a few weeks ago, and recently felt there was something to add, but as I brush it up right now, I can’t find a good spot to insert it. So here’s my little afterword:
I have some major decisions right in front of me. Right now. I’ve had some time to chew on them, to wrestle with them. To, yes, agonize. And to work a few stones out of the soil of my heart in the process. I can feel myself coming to grips with things, making up my mind.
And the old skin I’m shedding likes to latch back on exactly at those moments, whispering doubtful second guesses in my ear.
But tonight I’m making one of those choices, one that sits right. It makes me gulp because of the investment it requires on my part, but it also makes me excited because of what may come of this. This is a decision that sprang up suddenly, leaving me very little time for contemplation. But surprisingly, I have been impatient to make a move, rather than wishing uselessly for more time. Anyway, the choice is made, and all that remains is for me to act on it this evening. I feel satisfied because I decided. And I didn’t procrastinate (much). I just said yes.
That being said, there is another big decision rapidly approaching, regarding school. I’ve had almost two years to think on this one, so it’s definitely high time to move forward. Old fears still grasp for a hold. I choose to shrug them off and walk on. (I shall most likely share how this particular choice goes, once things are settled. So stay tuned.)
Well. I feel like this postscript kind of stole the neat, conclusive ending the original post had! But it was important to tell you how this whole battle with indecision is going in my own life.
What decisions have you faced? What choices are you facing now? Do you struggle to pick a path too, or does it come easily for you?
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Write Anyway

Tracey Dyck 24 Comments

As I sit in my PJ’s and begin drafting this post between breakfast and a writing project and work, I feel the swirl of words sliding through my veins, begging to spill out. (Or maybe it’s the coffee I had this morning providing me with a boost of energy. Either way.) The writing mood has hit me again. If I had my druthers today, I would not open the front door. I would stay parked in my chair, fingers on the keyboard, and I would wing my way to another world.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the time. In less than two hours, I’ll head to work. Before then, I need to shower, pack a meal, and maybe work on a little nonfiction project because I have a deadline. The writing mood may linger, but with no outlet, it will settle in the back of my mind and wait for inspiration to stir it up again.

When I come home at 8 pm, my brain will likely be too tired to string together pretty sentences. And so I hold out hope for tomorrow, during which I may have a few spare hours in which to write.

But there is no guarantee that I’ll be in the mood.

During high school, I found ways to write even when the week was full of schoolwork and youth group and chores and other things. I thought I was busy then, but I made the effort to write anyways. I loved it too much to not write.

I feel even busier now. Twenty- to thirty-hour weeks, blogging, social outings, family time, and all the random bits of life . . . Writing happens less often now. I’m coming to accept that, but it does mean that if I want to write at all, I have to utilize my spare time–whether or not I feel like it.

I don’t know how you feel about writing, whether it’s a hobby or something you want to do for a living. If you, like me, want to make it a career, then we must treat it like a job. Not in a joy-sucking, “I’m obligated to do this” sort of way, but in a persistent way.

Your muse isn’t cooperating? Doesn’t matter. Write. Lacking inspiration? Just write. Your thoughts are too bland and listless to arrange themselves nicely on the page? Write out those bland and listless words anyway. Some days you have to give yourself permission to write junk. At least you’re writing.

“I have forced myself to begin writing when I’ve been utterly exhausted, when I’ve felt my soul as thin as a playing card . . . and somehow the activity of writing changes everything.” -Joyce Carol Oates

Of course you need breaks. I’m not saying go burn yourself out. You may need that evening off to watch your favorite show, or that week to just read and sketch and wander through the trees and refill your well of inspiration. Please put the writing aside when necessary.

But a lot of the time, when you feel like doing anything but staring at a blank page, that’s exactly what you need to do. The act of putting pen to paper or fingers to keys may be just the thing to wake up the ideas. Muses are flighty creatures. Yours may be off sulking in a corner right now, but if you start writing, it might get curious and slink up to your shoulder again. Then again, it might not. But if you write long enough, whether it be minutes or hours or days or weeks, the inspiration will come back. By writing consistently, you’re forming a habit. The mood might start arriving more consistently then, too.

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” -Louis L’Amour

For me, I’m realizing that ‘consistent’ does not–cannot–mean something like, “On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I will write for three hours,” or “I will write a minimum of 100 words a day.” I wish it did. But the way life is right now, very few activities land on the exact same day at the exact time, every time. My schedule morphs on a daily basis. So although it’s harder to hold myself accountable under these circumstances, I have to take stock every day and determine if/when I have time to write. And then I aim to do it. Sometimes other tasks take longer, or I discover upon reaching my writing time that I truly don’t have anything to put on the page. And sometimes I read blogs and check email when I should be writing. I’m human. Discipline is something I’m learning.

The important thing is to show up.

And show up again.

And show up again.

Write. Write glorious pages upon pages of flowing script, or write one measly paragraph that clunks onto the page like an unwieldy cement block. Write passionate, inspired scenes, or write the most boring chapter you’ve ever penned. Whatever it looks like today, write anyway!

(Editing, after all, fixes everything. But that’s another post altogether.)

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