This is a journal I made a few months ago as a gift. There is a couple who is starting a new phase of life and a new journey. My prayer is that this helps them remember their steps.
Materials: Scrap leather, waxed thread, book board, unlined paper, a vintage shutter clasp.
I just finished reading a novel, which will remained unnamed because I don’t want to incur the wrath of true Literature Scholars whose tastes may be more refined than mine.
Anyways, one of the things I kept wondering throughout the length of the story was ‘When is something going to happen?’
That isn’t to say the story was without events, it just seemed to me they were all flat. They were the same events, of a sort, repeating themselves. The only change occurred at the very end. The heroine finds herself happily engaged to the object of her affection, and then she is too bashful to go into any details about their great romance. Up until this point, she had been for the most part static in her interactions with the rest of the world. She was either too ‘good’ of a person to stand up for herself when she was abused or too ‘simple’ to warrant needing anything from anyone. The one exception was the young man which she hoped to find herself engaged to, but whom she was too shy to truly pursue.
Simply put, the heroine was flat.
One of the reasons I give myself the luxury of reading novels (and watching too much Dr. Who) is because nothing teaches like the work of others. I come away from each completed novel with thoughts about how I can improve my own writing and storytelling abilities. I learned from this novel that characters who flatline are not very interesting.
Flatlined characters are difficult to relate to. Is there anyone you know who could really suffer the abuse of snobbish children for years on end without becoming either bitter or abusive themselves? Is there anyone who you know that really can hold their temper so well as to never lose it one frustrating defeat after another? Let’s try a different scenario, can you relate to someone who is always so angry that they never can be kind or sorry for what they have done? Characters who never admit they were wrong or (more likely) try to make up for it without admitting they were wrong? A character who is always the same in every situation puts up a barrier between themselves and the reader because the reader is either incredulous at their promoted goodness, or the reader is turned off by the character’s outlandish badness. Examples of interesting characters are ones who pretend to be good while harboring badness, or who is thought of badly but really has a heart of gold.
Besides being unrelatable, flatlined characters rob a story of interesting plot changes. For example, what if the frustrated governess completely lost her cool and gave her disruptive pupils a good thrashing? What would be the consequences? How would the story alter? How would she change? Most importantly, how would the reader view the change?
Since I finished the book, I have been thinking about my own characters and how little I actually know them. I have spent a certain amount of time with them in certain situations, but I have not begun to account for the gradients of circumstances which they may find themselves in. Are my characters different when they are relaxed on a beach compared to when they are fighting the evil of the world? A better question would be to ask if my characters could relax on a beach, or are they permanently put on edge? One of the skills I want to become better at, as a writer, is developing a deeper character before I start writing. I think if I take the time to practise developing characters first, and storyline second, I will find a wealth of possible plot points and interesting material to use.
What do you think? Do you like more consistent characters or ones who surprise you now and again?
Continuing the adventure,
Jess
Over the past few weeks I have been pondering a repeated question. It is simply this: do I love x,y, or z enough to do it no matter what?
It is one of the biggest simple questions I have faced in a while. What set me on this track has been a re-examination of my beliefs about God’s will, my motives for creating art, and whether or not I will ever be Luke Skywalker.
Let me explain.
I think somewhere in my growing process between “I hate myself” and “God made me with purpose”, I became sidetracked with God’s will and a desire for Destiny. As I have spent time working through some of the issues surrounding self-loathing and gaining a better mental health perspective, I have been seeking out God’s perfect will for my life. There has to be one right? Some magical fast track to the best possible life where I am skinny, creative, happy, and never ever fight with my husband. I just have to find that narrow and windy road to get there.
Recently, the Capt’n gave me a book titled Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung. Similar to my current dilemma, it is a small book which packs a wallop. DeYoung makes the point that while God cares very deeply about every aspect of our lives because He cares very deeply about each one of us, there are few decisions which He will make for us. God gives us brains to–shocker–USE them. It is time to stop throwing responsibility on God for every aspect of our lives and start making some decisions about where we want to go and how we want to get there. We should always be seeking God’s wisdom, but seeking His wisdom and waiting around for some miraculous sign of His approval are two different things.
As I have been processing how to take responsibility for my decisions, it has lead me question my motives for what I do. I mean, when I was blindly searching for that elusive narrow path of ‘God’s perfect will’ my general assumption was that if I found it, He would financially bless me for finding it. If God designed me with a purpose, why wouldn’t He bless me for finding my precise niche? However, if we look at that statement from another angle, the question then becomes, am I seeking God’s will because I truly believe His will to be the best? Or am I trying to find it so He will bless me with comforts and what I think is best?
Interwoven in everything is a skewed longing for destiny. I want to find God’s will because I want to be the heroine who saves the world by using the force, I mean, ‘my giftedness’. This sense of a destiny which is waiting to be found increases my self absorption factor, and has me looking inward for a savior instead of up to Jesus. Instead of looking to the work which Jesus already did on the cross to provide my salvation, I continue to seek out a destiny of works which will get me into heaven. I need to give up the idea of being Luke Skywalker and learn to just rely on Jesus.
This is how I cam to the question of no matter what.
If I strip away the idea of ‘God’s perfect plan’ and start taking responsibility for my decisions, if I let go of financial motivations, and I look to Jesus to be my Hero, nothing is left but simply the task of doing the work. This is what creates the question. Do I love to be writer enough to have words on a page be my entire reward? Do I love creating mixed media art pieces enough to let the process of painting, gluing, and scribbling be the reward? Is practicing the craft of bookbinding enough if all I have in the end is a place for my thoughts?
This is what I mean about the question of no matter what: do I have enough passion to carry me through the journey no matter what the outcome is? Can I do the work for the sake of doing the work and the enjoyment of it?
This isn’t to say I believe it is wrong to want to make a career out of these things, or that God cannot use me or that He did not make me with design. My point is, I need my focus to be on going through the process rather than the outcome. I need my focus to be on the journey rather than what I might get out of the destination. Which is why this is such a big question: do I love these things enough to make the long journey for the sake of the journey alone?
Continuing the adventure,
Jess
Life has taken a few tumultuous turns over the past few weeks.
As I look guiltily at the date of my last post, I struggle with the same heavy question I have whenever life takes my attention out of the blogosphere for a while…how do I break the silence?
Do I make lame excuses? Do I make false promises to be more disciplined in the future? Do I confess everything which has been going on in a vomit of text?
Or, do I just write the first words and trust the ether to welcome me back into the fold?
Here’s to breaking the silence.
Continuing the adventure,
Jess
PS. Meet Brownie, one of the many changes in my life.
This came rambling through my brain this morning.
I feel like Peter drowning
When I look away
When I let my eyes fall upon the waves
And Your face is swallowed by the haze
I feel like Peter drowning
When I try to walk alone
When my journey crosses liquid
And my identity becomes twisted
So, shine bright in the midst of the storm
Call me home with a shout resounding
Reach out and pluck me from the gray
Because I feel like Peter drowning
When I look away.
Saturday morning I woke up with a kink in my neck. The kink became progressively worse on Sunday. After two days of wincing every time I looked at him, Abe (and his wife Rowe) made me an appointment for a massage.
Now, this was not a girls weekend out and relax type of massage. This was what Jacob, my massage therapist with Muppet hair, called a ‘fixer upper’. Jacob worked my back, neck, and shoulders in a way I didn’t know was possible. He found muscle tissue I didn’t even know I had. However, the pain was worth the end result when I regained a range of motion lost to me for the last four days.
As I laid on the table, I began to wonder when was the last time I had given my soul a massage. When was the last time I let someone else probe through the skin of heart to find the tightly wound places which hindered me? I couldn’t really remember. This used to be a common practice for me, but has given way to the business of life, and I think I am beginning to feel a kink.
During the massage, Jacob–who has fingers I believe to be made of steel–would find a place of tension and push, holding the pressure there for an uncomfortable few minutes. Then a magical thing would happen, the tensions would start to melt away, leaving freedom to move in place of the knot. Now, I can’t undo weeks of damage and neglect to muscles in one hour, just like I can’t undo the tension in my soul in an hour. I can, however, begin the process of asking for help and letting others start the work of unknotting my soul.
Who massages your soul?
Continuing the adventure,
Jess
Jess Boctor 