Journaling, Day 29 of NaNoWriMo

Total Word Count So Far: 40,003

Yes, still behind, but catching up. All I have to do is write 10K words in two days... with one of those days being Friday, my busiest day of the week... okay, so maybe I am in trouble. But I'm not going down without a fight, so we'll see what happens.
At present my story is in complete disarray and I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen next or how it's going to end. My main character Thaddeus is currently out of commission and being nursed back to health by his wife after suffering from some pretty severe smoke inhalation. (We burned down the textile factory after we broke into it. In our defense, it was an accident.) Since he's supposed to be the main character, that leaves the story in a bit of a lurch, especially when one considers the fact that Reuben Clark, the boy Thaddeus and Fu-han are supposed to be protecting, is still missing after being kidnapped by James Wells, who we thought was a good guy but wasn't. So, Thaddeus' current state leaves Fu-han to rescue Reuben with the help of Jen Qiao, the woman who has the connection to his past that neither of them want to tell anyone about.
I'm hoping maybe they'll use the opportunity to work out some of their issues... I just hope they do it in English, since the only words I know in Chinese are their names. I suppose we'll just have to see.
So on that note, I'm off to write.

Oh - but before I forget - today is C.S. Lewis' birthday! If you're like me and woefully behind on NaNo, you probably don't have much time to spend the day celebrating the life of the man I consider one of Christianity's most influential writers (and who is my personal all-time favorite writer). But, I am going to make time today for a nice big cup of Irish Breakfast Tea and re-read a few of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes, since I feel I would be remiss if I did nothing at all to celebrate. I'm currently reading That Hideous Strength, the third book in his Space Trilogy, for the first time too, so maybe I'll take time out from writing to read a chapter or so.

How about you? How has the life and/or work of C.S. Lewis influenced you? Do you have a favorite work or quote of his?

Share it in the comments box! And for those of you frantically struggling to catch up on and finish your NaNo... don't give up!

God Adventures

I'm currently reading Perelandra, the second book in C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy. I'm not very far into it yet, but one line in particular really grabbed my attention:

"A man who has been in another world does not come back unchanged."

This really resonated with me, because it made me think about my writing and how, as a fantasy writer, I have the privilege of 'voyaging', in a sense, to other worlds. Take Reyem, for instance. Reyem is the fictional world of Son of the Shield and the series following it. I've been discovering, exploring, and writing in that world for five-and-a-half years.

And I don't have to think twice to know that it's changed me.

Because of the time I've spent working on, thinking about, and praying about Son of the Shield as well as the overarching plot of the Adelfian Prophesies series as a whole, I have had to spend huge amounts of time studying and thinking about things like God's grace, His forgiveness, His sovereignty - all elements necessary to the story, that I wanted to be sure I was communicating well. Had I not written Son of the Shield, I might never have thought about those things as much as or in the specific ways I have.
While writing in Reyem I've lived through the losses of loved ones, personal disappointments and stresses, and financial struggles. I've also seen God provide comfort, solace, hope, peace, courage, as well as physical and financial needs, without fail. All of that has, in one way or another, entwined itself with my writing. Sometimes the situation I was living in helped me work through part of the story. Sometimes an element of the story that I had already worked through and poured prayer into turned out to be God's provision, ready for me even before I knew I needed it. Sometimes it was as simple as knowing exactly how to describe a character's feelings, because I had experienced them myself.

My 'voyage' to the world of Reyem and the time I have spent there have been well invested. I believe it is an adventure that God has invited me to take part in, at least partially for the purpose of teaching me more about Himself.
That's the thing about 'God adventures': they're always for a purpose, and they never leave us the way they found us.

Rethinking the Concept of Platform as Christian Writers

Writers, ever feel overwhelmed or confused or just plain lost when it comes to trying to build that mystical 'Platform' the experts are always telling us we need? Me too.

Yesterday I started reading a book called The Narnian: the Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis, by Alan Jacobs. I'm only on Chapter 2, but so far it's amazing and I suspect you'll be hearing much more about it before I'm finished.
But while I was still reading the Introduction, something jumped out at me and really made me stop and think. The author, Jacobs, was talking about the "mixed bag" of material that C.S. Lewis wrote - science fiction, fantasy, literary history, literary criticism, apologetics, and theology.
For any author today - being hounded from every side by 'experts' to stick with a single theme and build a solid platform on that theme and whatever you do, don't step outside that theme - a repertoire like Lewis' looks like a big no-no.
But, as both Jacobs and Lewis point out, throughout all of Lewis' work "there is a guiding thread" (Lewis' words, quoted by Jacobs). That guiding thread is, at least in part, Lewis' desire to simply do what needs to be done and say what needs to be said. He became a novelist because no one wrote what he wanted to read, so he did it himself. He wrote a defense of John Milton's poetry simply because he cared about Milton's poetry. He defended and argued for and promoted Christianity because he was convinced of its truthfulness. He simply said what he felt God wanted him to say. Every time I read something by C.S. Lewis, whether for the first time or the fiftieth, I find connections to his other works - whether it's finding a connection between Mere Christianity and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, or between The Silver Chair and a deep Biblical truth, that 'guiding thread' is everywhere.

What can we take away from this? Writers, I'm guessing most of you wouldn't want to face the challenge of trying to create a platform, according to today's guidelines, that encompassed all of C.S. Lewis' work to the experts' satisfaction. It would be murder! According to today's guidelines, Lewis didn't really have a platform. All he had was that guiding thread, that need to say what God had given him to say. When his message could be said best through a theological treatise, a theological treatise was what he wrote. When his message could be said best through a children's fantasy story, a children's fantasy story was what he wrote.
Writers, I know what the 'experts' say. I've heard it too. Platform, platform, platform. But what if our concept of platform became less about the genre/sub-genre/story-type we write, and more about just saying what God has given us to say in whatever way is best to say it?
Interestingly enough, literary agent and expert Rachelle Gardner has a post on her blog today that expresses a very similar idea. Click Here to read it. She encourages writers to write what they know - not just about experiences or circumstances they're familiar with, but about truths they know in their hearts. Isn't that what Christian writers are supposed to be doing anyway? Maybe God is trying to tell this generation of writers something.
Man-made rules and molds and cookie cutters were made to be broken (or stabbed by a spiky shoe). Let's not let them scare us into trying to confine our work inside a pre-made box. Instead, let's start looking for that guiding thread.

Do you struggle with the concept of platform as a writer? Do you know what your guiding thread is? How do you approach this issue? Feel free to share in the comments box.

Book Review: The Man Who Created Narnia

For thirteen years now - ever since my mom handed me The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and told me to write a book report on it, I've been a diehard C.S. Lewis fan. Over the years, as writing became a bigger and bigger part of my life, Lewis became a role model for me. And as my faith has grown and deepened, my admiration for Lewis' non-fiction works has grown as well.
So, imagine my delight when I found this -


-at my local library sale.
It's definitely not the most thorough or in-depth biography I've ever read, but nonetheless I truly enjoyed it. In fact I couldn't put it down. Okay, to be completely precise, I read the entire thing in an hour and a half.
The book is written in a very laid-back style and contains numerous photographs of Lewis, his friends and family, and significant locations such as Oxford and The Kilns, throughout his life. Together, these factors made the book a very easy read and I'm sure they contributed greatly to my enjoyment of it.
A few of the subtle, passing remarks made by the author lead me to wonder whether he is a Christian or not, which, considering the subject matter, is bound to cause some skewed perspectives in a book like this, but fortunately it didn't prevent him writing an absolutely lovely overview of C.S. Lewis' life.
As a hardcore Lewis fangirl, I found that this book only whetted my appetite and has probably driven me to the brink of yet another Lewis craze (anyone up for a Narnia marathon?). For anyone wanting to do serious research on the life of one of Christianity's greatest modern minds, a world-class writer, and a founding father of the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy genres, The Man Who Created Narnia would need to be read in concert with other, more in-depth works, but would nevertheless be an excellent volume to have on hand.
And if by some wild, evil twist of fate you know nothing about C.S. Lewis and his writings, well, this book would be an excellent place to start. Immediately... if not sooner.

Do you have a favorite biography of C.S. Lewis, or your favorite author? What's your favorite C.S. Lewis book?

The Resurrection and the Wardrobe - "There are only 3 possibilities."

"Logic!" said the Professor half to himself. "Why don't they teach logic at these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know she doesn't tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad. For the moment then and until any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the truth."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Over the last couple of weeks my Sunday School teacher, Dave, has been talking about apologetics; specifically, evidence for the resurrection. This week's discussion focused on the five hundred+ people who saw Jesus following His resurrection, before His ascension.
Skeptics are willing to concede the fact that the disciples and others did have some kind of experience with someone they believed to be Jesus, after He had been killed. However, they don't consider the accounts to be accurate.
Dave pointed out that there are only three possibilities concerning the encounters people claimed to have had with Jesus after His death:

1. Everyone who claimed to have seen Jesus was lying.

2. Everyone who believed they had seen Jesus was either hallucinating or dreaming.

3. The people who said they had seen Jesus were telling the truth.

The notion that these people were all lying makes no sense. Look at the political scandals and cover-ups throughout history. There is always a leak somewhere. Humans are simply not good at keeping secrets under any circumstances - let alone when they're being hunted and tortured and killed as the early Christians were. If the encounters with Jesus were lies, someone would have spilled the beans.

The idea that all 500 people were hallucinating or dreaming also makes no sense. One night, a few years ago, my dad and I both dreamed that our great-aunt had passed away. It was kind of spooky, both of us dreaming the same thing on the same night. But, even though the basic dream was the same, the details were all different. And it was only two of us, not five hundred. No way are five hundred people all going to have the exact same dream or hallucination where all the details agree.

So logically, Dave concluded, we have to assume that the early Christians were telling the truth.

Hmm... I thought. I've heard that somewhere before!
While it's a well-known fact that C.S. Lewis was a theologian and apologist in addition to being a writer, we don't always notice how one bleeds into another. The Professor's conclusion that Lucy is telling the truth about finding a magical country inside a wardrobe is an essential part of the story, forcing Peter and Susan to consider for the first time the possibility of something they regarded as incredible. But it's also an example of great apologetics, a lesson to be learned.
Peter and Susan still weren't convinced by the irrefutable logic of the Professor's argument, and all the evidence and logic in the world isn't going to convince someone who isn't willing to accept the resurrection. That's the job of the Holy Spirit.
Aslan eventually convinced Peter and Susan by letting them through the wardrobe into Narnia. The Professor didn't have to convince them that it was real. He simply told them what he knew, and let Aslan do the rest. Our job isn't to convince an unbeliever, it's simply to tell them what we know and let the Holy Spirit show them the way through the wardrobe door, if they're willing to be shown.
For me, it's lessons like this - gems embedded so deeply into the story that they often go unnoticed - that set a truly great work of Christian fiction apart. For me, whose writing role model is C.S.Lewis, it's awesome to be able to see his beliefs and apologetics techniques at work even in his fiction, and it's my hope that my own writing will be influenced and sculpted by my faith in the way Lewis' was.
And the next time someone asks me how I know the resurrection really happened, I might just have to casually sit back and say "That is a point which certainly deserves considerations; very careful considerations..." (I wonder if I could pull it off without a British accent!)
Afterwards, I'll make myself a cup of tea and muse about "What do they teach them at these schools?"

What do you think sets a great work of fiction apart from the pack?
Do you have a writing role model?