Author: Shawn

Dear Jen,

These weeks pass by so fast, and I always find it hard to believe it’s time to write another letter. This evening was one of the few nights that our oldest four children were all home before 9pm—our 16-year-old has recently started working a few evenings a week, and with everyone else’s activities, we occupy the same space less and less. I’m starting to glimpse how it will be possible for each of our children to ease away and begin a life of their own. It’s a wonderful, scary, somewhat tragic, rewarding feeling. As you already know.

I have to say that I can relate with your parent-on-Facebook story. My Dad, after forgetting his Facebook password, has (multiple times) created new accounts, so we don’t even know who to tag anymore, because there are so many Merrill Smuckers on Facebook! Hmm…social media has splintered my dad into multiple, indistinguishable personalities, resulting in a sense of connection that is not, in fact, genuine…it seems like there’s a parable in there somewhere.

You mention all the extra responsibilities that have come along with publishing books—it is ironic, isn’t it, that the further you get in the writing journey, the more things you have pulling at you that involve everything but writing? There’s really no season like writing that first book, so full of hope and trepidation, unknown, without anyone interested in your endorsement or backing. I can relate with, in the midst of my own busy season, trying to hold onto my why: the love of stories, the passion for the craft, and writing a novel simply because I feel like I have been created to tell stories.

I wonder if this is the beginning of my answer to your question about vocational holiness? After all, if “holy” means “dedicated or consecrated to God or a religious purpose,” there must be something about the work we do that sets it apart, and maybe what sets it apart is not simply financial gain or something transaction-based but that the work remains close to the why that drew us to it in the first place.

But I think there is also something about doing holy work that sets us apart, not in a pretentious way, but as the result of accepting an invitation to live and exist differently. This brings me back to all the new tasks we as budding writers are often expected or asked to do—writing forewords, endorsing, reading ARCs, speaking, blogging etc etc etc. Maybe part of our work in attaining some sort of vocational holiness means not being dragged into countless activities we feel pressured to do, but in maintaining our focus on our vocation (which for both of us includes not only writing but creating a home and raising children)? Should I be saying (a polite) “no” to the things that distract me from this work I’ve been given to do?

At the end of the day, though, I think your idea of paying attention might come the closest to vocational holiness, and I have a much less religious reason for that. When I was a kid, running barefoot around the farm where we lived or fishing in the Pequea Creek, I got into the habit of using exclamations like “Holy Smokes!” or “Holy Cow!” or “Holy Cannoli!” whenever I saw something incredible. My dad, as a pastor, wasn’t crazy about this use of the word “holy.” But these phrases always leapt from my mouth when I was amazed, surprised, impressed, or basically caught off guard by something unexpected.

Maybe our vocation attains a level of holiness when we are able to draw people’s attention to something sacred that they haven’t seen before? Maybe vocational holiness simply comes about as a result of paying attention, noticing something sacred, and then drawing the attention of others to that thing?

I found your last letter neither rambling nor whiny—only honest and transparent. Thank you for going deeper into these topics with me. You have given me so much to think about. I wonder, where are you finding vocational holiness, in your writing as well as your homemaking? Any tangible stories to share on the topic?

Kind Regards

Shawn

* * * * *

What began as a Twitter conversation between two writers on creative work and family life has become an exchange of letters. Here is a list of our prior letters for Postmarked:

Postmarked: Dear Shawn (1)

Postmarked: Dear Jen (2)

Postmarked: Dear Shawn (3)

Postmarked: Dear Jen (4)

Postmarked: Dear Shawn (5)

Postmarked: Dear Jen (6)

Postmarked: Dear Shawn (7)

Postmarked: Dear Jen (8)

Postmarked: Dear Shawn (9)

Dear Jen

You ended your last beautiful letter by asking if the fair is over, so I’ll begin my reply by telling you that I’m typing this while sitting in a lawn chair under a massive tent in the middle of the Frederick Fair in Frederick, Maryland. It’s the second fair I’ve been to this fall. My youngest sister is sleeping, stretched across two lawn chairs. We are all pretty wiped out. My four weeks of fair life are nearly at an end—only two more days of sales, one day of cleanup, and I’m home free. I’m so ready to return to my quiet, simple, writing life.

Your last letter, where you wrote about your father, how he died when you were a freshman in college? How you took the time to read the things he had written? Well, that paragraph in particular made me take in a sharp breath, and I could feel tears gathering. I’ve been feeling such tangible reminders lately of my mortality, and to hear you speak of it in such a way, when it could someday, very easily, be my own children looking through my own writing after I am gone, felt like a prescient glimpse into my own not-too-distant future.

Maybe it’s because I’m in my early 40s, but I find myself peering into the cloudy haze of the future every so often. These words of yours spoke to me: “I wonder how much patience I have to build something whose rewards I might never enjoy, rewards reserved for people I might never meet? I think about that with my writing, wondering if any of it will go on speaking after I’m dead.”

And then I was reminded of something Ann Lamotte wrote in her book, Bird by Bird: “You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So, part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won’t really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we’ll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won’t wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be.”

Is that why I write? Because I don’t believe the ocean will wash it all away? I wonder. It resonates with me, with how I feel about my books, with the hopes I have for the stories I’ve written. Do I want my stories to be useful? Do I want them to make others laugh and cry the way good books have made me laugh and cry? Do I simply want to be remembered? All of that? I can’t say, for sure, but it seems an important thing to consider, the why behind the writing, especially seeing that it’s something to which I’ve committed my life.

I received an early look at the cover for my next novel, These Nameless Things, which comes out next summer, and I felt the same old thrill. It’s a good feeling, that sense of so much work made suddenly tangible, along with the hope that maybe this is the story that captures the imagination of millions of people, the story that “makes it.” I’m just being honest! But there is also the tempered hope that comes with having been a writer for a long time, the awareness that much of what I’ve already written has already been forgotten by most people. The tide has come and gone on those castles. All that remains is the symbol of them in my mind.

But they were so much fun to build! And maybe that, too, is part of why I write—because I seem to have a way with words, and I enjoy stringing them together.

I remember after my first book came out, how I felt so strongly that God was telling me to tend my garden, tend my garden. Over and over again this was confirmed to me in so many ways. Don’t worry about the endless fields others have been given to harvest—simply tend your own small garden. To me this meant, Write the stories I have given you and engage with the audience you have.

And that is where I find joy. In tending my own garden. In the writing itself. The rewards—good reviews, sales, the respect of fellow writers—come and go. But the joy of writing remains.

I would love to read your father’s writing someday, if there’s anything digital that you are able and willing to share. And I like the sound of your street in Toronto, the construction of the subway line, the growth of trees in your backyard that might go on growing long after you are gone. I like the idea of your husband and children coming home to that place, the home you’re building, the years accumulating around you all like layers of top soil, covering the seeds you are planting (sometimes unawares), preparing a harvest you may not see for decades. Or perhaps a harvest others will bring in, long after you and I are gone.

It really is a good life. There’s so much more creating to be done. So much more building. So much more home-making.

What are you writing these days? What sandcastles are you building, even though the tide is coming in?

Kind Regards

Shawn

* * * * *

What began as a Twitter conversation between two writers on creative work and family life has become an exchange of letters. Here is a list of our prior letters for Postmarked:

Postmarked: Dear Shawn (1)

Postmarked: Dear Jen (2)

Postmarked: Dear Shawn (3)

Postmarked: Dear Jen (4)

Postmarked: Dear Shawn (5)

Postmarked: Dear Jen (6)

Postmarked: Dear Shawn (7)

Dear Jen

These Fridays, and our letters, seem to come quicker now that August and September are here. The days are noticeably shorter, and darkness hangs on the morning for longer than it did just a few weeks ago. Our small city is bustling at dusk–everyone seems to want to sit on their porch, or shout across the street, or cruise down Prince Street with their windows open, their music throbbing. It’s a wonderful time of year, especially when I think of how the winter will bring quiet, deserted streets and people walking quickly from here to there, shoulders up around their ears, breath clouding out in front of them.

During this time of year, from the end of August through the middle of September, my family has one thing on our minds: the Great Frederick Fair. Let me explain.

Sixty years ago, my maternal grandparents decided to set up a small ham and cheese sandwich stand at the Frederick Fair in Maryland, about 100 miles south of their Lancaster County home. They were Amish at the time, and would remain so for about ten more years. This was the late 50s, my mom was a baby, and I don’t know all the logistics of their fair operation, apart from the fact that the concession stand did very well for them, and so they continued going to the fair every fall.

Eventually, the tent where my grandfather sold his sandwiches and baked goods expanded to where my parents could set up their own hand-rolled soft pretzel store under its canvas. This was 30 years ago. 20 years ago, my parents took over the operation from my grandmother after my grandfather passed. And now we’re all sliding towards the year when I someday take it over from my parents, the third generation. My kids have all grown to love it, the fourth generation.

The Frederick Fair has always been as much a part of our year’s final months as Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. When I was little, I moved along the aisles inside the tent, foraging for fair food. My grandfather would slip me $10 bills–big money in those days–and I’d spend it on carnival games, bringing back gigantic candy bars or stuffed animals. On those late fair nights when the air was cold and smelled of cotton candy and popcorn, my parents would make a bed for me on a lawn chair under one of the tables, and I’d fall asleep to the sound of my father’s voice shouting out his wares, drawing customers in.

So, how does my family’s history at the fair have anything to do with our ongoing conversation? I guess it’s all of our talk about building things that brings it to mind.

I don’t believe that when my grandfather started selling ham and cheese sandwiches 60 years ago, he had any idea he was building something that would financially supplement his children and grandchildren for decades to come. It makes me wonder what I’m doing, if anything, that will last through the years, that will go on speaking after I’m dead.

What are we building?

But after your letter, I’m asking a new question: could the thing I’m building, the things I’m creating, be constraining me in a good way? You wrote,

“I think of little Poppy out of diapers and off to kindergarten in a couple of years. I think, with joy, about the space that might open up for Maile with the kids off to school and the house suddenly quiet. No matter what might come of that space for her, whether more committed writing or paid work outside the home, I wonder if she and you will feel as I do: that part of what you’re building is a home. This might always prove to be a constraint. A very good one.”

Wow! What a thought, that the things I find constraining might actually be benefiting me and my family. I have been thinking long about this ever since I read your letter a week ago.

So. I guess this is what I’m wondering this week. Yes, we are building a home, and this bears more serious consideration as Maile and I continue to live our lives. We are also building something with these seemingly absurd, annual trips to the fair–tradition, family ties, a sense of seasons.

The question I’m left with today is in regards to writing, and specifically my fiction–what am I building with that?

And for all of us creatives, for you and Maile and me: what are we building with our writing?

This is no easy question to answer, but I would appreciate your thoughts on the matter.

Warmest Regards

Shawn

* * * * *

What began as a Twitter conversation between two writers has become an exchange of letters. Here is a list of our prior letters for Postmarked:

Postmarked: Dear Shawn (1)

Postmarked: Dear Jen (2)

Postmarked: Dear Shawn (3)

Postmarked: Dear Jen (4)

Postmarked: Dear Shawn (5)