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My Daily Routine, and the Culprit That Throws Me Off

When we’re at home, Leo usually wakes me up around 6:15. Maybe 6:30. We wander downstairs and I grab him some breakfast before starting my morning routine. First, I read from Psalms, then a New Testament passage. After that I read for ten minutes or so from a book on creativity – right now I’m reading Cynthia Beach’s Creative Juices. I hand write an encouraging note and mail it to another writer, and by then Leo is usually working on his own drawings, asking me about colors. I make breakfast for the kids (anything from French toast to pancakes to get yourself a bowl of cereal), and try to head out the door to the gym by 7:45.

Recently I discovered that being active for 45 minutes or so while listening to one of my favorite books gives me a jolt of creativity, so I come back from the gym and try to immediately work on whatever novel I’m currently writing. The rest of the day I spend on the paying gig – co-writing and ghostwriting books for other people.

But there’s something that can really throw me out of my routine, if I’m not careful. Something that gets inside of my head and twists my thinking in knots. Something that leads me to waste time and takes my mind down unhealthy side trails. Know what it is?

Launching a book.

The problem for me with launching a book is that I start to feel like the success of the book will be completely determined by how obsessed I am with it. Have I shared about it enough? Checked my Amazon ranking again? Recounted my Goodreads reviews? Have I sent copies to the right people?

If it gets really bad, I’ll start to equate my book or my reviews or my success with me, who I am as a person, and if there’s a day where any of those things aren’t super-positive, I can feel the blue funk creeping in. The voices that question why I write novels and tell me I’m not a good enough writer.

So what helps me get back on track?

Get off of social media. For the love. And stop looking at reviews. Stop it! And stop caring what random strangers think of the books I’ve written. And write. Write. Write.

This is one thing I say in almost every handwritten letter I have written: The writing journey (aka life) is full of ups and downs, encouragements and disappointments, failures and the occasional success. But the only thing that remains, the only thing that remains true, is the writing itself. The writing will always be there for me. The act of creating, no matter the outcome, is always enough, in the end.

If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here. The discouragements and disappointments would have had their way. But the writing. Always the writing.

And so I keep going. It’s why I’m sitting here writing on the floor of the bedroom in the dark while Leo and Poppy fall asleep. It’s why I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and work on revisions for my next novel. The act of creating is what my life is built around.

And that has become enough for me.

* * * * *

While I was writing Light from Distant Stars, this book that’s coming out July 16th, I kept a daily journal that I would write in prior to working on the novel. In it, I talked about the difficulties I was facing, what I was trying to write, and just sort of my general process. If you preorder the novel now (which is one of the most helpful things you can do for a writer), I’ll email you the 51-page journal. Find out how to get it HERE.

* * * * *

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Regarding Father’s Day, Old Memories, and Writing a Novel About Fathers and Sons

The earliest memory that I have of my father is this:

I was three or four years old and we lived in a ramshackle trailer in the middle of what felt like a deserted little part of the world: Laredo, Texas. My dad was 24 years old, only a kid himself. My sister was two, toddling around. My dad made up a game for him and me to play in the trailer. I hiked him a foam football – it barely fit between my legs – and he would call out a play.

If he called play number one, I went long, into the linoleum-floor kitchen, between the table and the sink. If he called play number two, it meant a short route, turn and catch. Three meant hook left, four meant hook right. That’s all I remember: the two of us playing football in the living room of a mobile home, me running routes over and over again. There were lizards and roaches everywhere. The neighborhood pool was unusable, full of snakes. Everything was tan and the sky was a glaring light blue and I was terrified of the fire ants that marched along the cracks in the cement slab outside our front door.

Now that I’m older, I have to wonder what my dad was thinking about while he threw football with me. Was he considering the church where he had just become a pastor? Was he wondering why in the world he had left the northeast for that dust bowl? Was he overjoyed at having his own church? Was he worried about how he’d pay for rent and food for a family of four?

I don’t know. I can only guess. Maybe I’ll ask him, see if he remembers. All I know is that I was three or four years old, my bare feet running routes on the shag carpet, the cool linoleum. There was the feel of the football settling in my arms, and the chest-inflating pride whenever my dad smiled, said, “Nice catch!”

* * * * *

This week we dropped off Abra at the Y a few blocks from our house. We signed some papers and watched as she boarded a yellow bus, on her way to a week-long summer camp. I felt my throat constrict as I tried to say good-bye. I tried to say something to Maile but then I didn’t because I felt the tears catching.

I know in my head that we will say good-bye to each of our children, one by one, but I never knew it in my heart until Sunday afternoon at 2pm, when she gave me a cursory side hug and took those tall steps up into the yellow bus.

And it was Father’s Day, so of course I thought of my dad, how he pulled to the side of the road and cried on the way home after dropping me off at Messiah College, when I was 18 and he was four years younger than I am now. I thought of what that will be like, when our kids leave our house, one by one, for good. There is an emptiness now, with Abra away. I feel like I’m constantly waiting for something.

* * * * *

The hardest part of writing my upcoming novel, Light from Distant Stars, was working through the main character’s relationship with his father, because, well, it was pretty lousy. Unlike the relationship I have with my dad. Sure, there were similarities – there was the baseball that connected them, the fact that the dad was a pastor, and … well, that’s pretty much it.

But there was one other similarity, because this novel is really, at its heart, a novel about how kids and parents lose each other at some point in life, and then spend the rest of their life trying to find each other (or not). When I left for college, things changed, and then I got married and moved away for ten years, and I think I’ve now spent the rest of my life growing closer to my dad again.

This is the natural path that parents and children take, although for some it is much more dramatic and severe than others. Some leave because they hate their parents. Some leave because their parents force them away. Sometimes it’s just the passing of time that eases the wedge in.

But this is what I loved about writing Light from Distant Stars: the idea that children and parents can somehow rediscover each other, all those years later, even after the most difficult of circumstances. Even after someone has died.

Anyway, a belated Happy Father’s Day to you, and I hope that if you’re still trying to rediscover one or both of your parents, that it happens for you. Keep searching.

* * * * *

While I was writing Light from Distant Stars, I kept a daily journal that I would write in prior to working on the novel. In it I talked about the difficulties I was facing, what I was trying to write, and just sort of my general process. If you preorder the novel now, I’ll email you the 51-page journal. Find out how to get it HERE.

 

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A Look Inside the Writing of a Novel

Photo by John Sanderson of Sanderson Images

It happens in long stretches of disciplined days, where much goes according to plan. It happens in late evenings when the children are finally asleep and Maile is writing in the bed beside me. It happens while I’m waiting at long athletic practices and on the front porch and sometimes in the early mornings when it’s only Leo and me sitting at the dining room table.

This is how a novel gets written: in the cracks and crevices of an ordinary life. In both scheduled and unexpected bursts, until 100 words pile up to 1,000 words, and chapters form and arcs are fulfilled and characters emerge while 80,000 or 90,000 or 100,000 words come together, like atoms gathering.

When I wrote Light from Distant Stars, I decided to keep a journal every day. I wrote a short entry each morning before my novel-writing time, sometimes about life, sometimes about writing. It was a warm-up for me, a time to stretch my mind before diving into that day’s work.

I would like to give this journal to you – all you have to do is preorder Light from Distant Stars from any of the following book sellers:

Aaron’s Books, Lititz, PA – call 717-627-1990
Amazon
Baker Bookhouse
Barnes and Noble
Books-a-Million
Christianbook.com
Hearts and Minds Bookstore 
Indiebound

Then, enter your information here:

http://eepurl.com/guv5kb

…and the PDF of my journal entries will magically appear in your inbox. It’s not available anywhere else. You can’t buy it. The only way you can get it right now is by preordering Light from Distant Stars.

Also, everyone who preorders will be entered into a drawing for a $50 gift card to the bookstore of their choice and a signed copy of four of my other books: The Day the Angels Fell, The Edge of Over There, Once We Were Strangers, and How to Use a Runaway Truck Ramp!

I hope you enjoy the journal! Here’s a little excerpt:

Is there ever a perfect time to begin writing a novel?

For at least the last month or two, I had today, January 8th, earmarked as the day I would begin writing my next novel. Mondays and Fridays will always be difficult days for me to get my writing in – I’m in between co-writing jobs at the moment, which means I need to drive for Uber and Lyft on those two days to make some extra money. Making enough to feed six children is no joke. But I planned on getting up early, writing my at-least-1000-words for the day, and then moving on to ridesharing.

Is there ever a perfect day to begin writing a novel?

Our younger two took longer than usual to fall asleep last night, so I didn’t fall asleep early, as planned. Leo was up multiple times in the night. My (ambitious for me) plan to wake up at five o’clock faded quickly. I had imagined the perfect morning – me, sitting in a quiet living room, children asleep, radiators hot, my fingers gliding over the keys. Instead it was a chaotic morning, making breakfast, waking up the older kids, folding laundry, and trying to get out the door to an 8:30am meeting with a friend.

Is there ever a perfect day to begin writing a novel?

I’ve never run a marathon, but is there ever a perfect day to run a marathon? Do you ever wake up to perfect temperatures, zero mental and emotional qualms, a body that feels ready, all after a perfect night’s sleep? I suppose it happens. I suppose there will be days that go perfectly during the writing of this novel. I suppose.

But this morning was a good reminder to me. I must fit the writing into not-so-perfect days. I must find a way to write through the self-doubt and hesitations. If I am going to write this novel, there can be precious few things I put ahead of it. So, even on a morning that doesn’t go as planned, I push everything else back. Everything else must wait until I get my words written for this day. This is the cost of writing a novel. This is the price I must be willing to pay for the next three months. Four months. Six months.

Now, I begin. And beginning a novel is one of the most wondrous things in the world.

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What Stories Have Done for Poppy (and What They Might Do For You)

Maile calls for Poppy, summons her from some other place within the house, and she doesn’t have good news.

“Poppy!” Maile says, trying to keep her voice light. “It’s time to brush your hair!”

Poppy is nearly three, with long, light-brown locks, and she doesn’t like keeping it up, so it’s almost always a snarly mess. Brushing it brings tears rushing to the surface. But recently, when Maile calls for Poppy to come have her hair brushed, Poppy has a new response.

“I want Daddy to brush it,” she says, pouting, her big brown eyes full as two moons.

And there is a reason for this. It’s not that I am able to brush her hair without inflicting pain, and it’s not that I’m particularly good at the brushing (though I did have three sisters to practice on). The reason Poppy calls for me is because, recently, I’ve started telling her stories while I brush.

* * * * *

“Where did you find the dragon this time?” I ask Poppy, taking a rope’s width of hair and running the brush through it.

“At Mimi and Papa’s,” she says, referring to her grandparents’ house.

“Oh, interesting,” I say, moving the brush through the tangles, taking another handful. “And where exactly did you see it at their house? Was it under the deck again?”

“Yes,” she says, and there is mischief in her voice, and curiosity.

“And was the dragon hungry, or did it already have food?”

“It was hungry,” she says, lifting her shoulder to ward off the brush when it sticks in a knot. But I pull it back and start in a different spot.

“What kind of food did you decide to give it?” We are halfway.

“Ice cream,” she says, and I can hear the grin in her voice.

“Oh, that’s yummy. Did the dragon share with Leo or keep it all to himself?”

“He shared,” she says, matter-of-fact, and now I’m brushing the area right behind her ears, where it always seems to hurt the most.

“After the dragon ate the ice cream, he came out, and he was feeling so much happier, because you shared with him, and then he shared with Leo. Isn’t that amazing? So he took you both on a flight around the neighborhood, and dropped you back at Mimi and Papa’s, and then he flew away.”

She turns to look at me, her eyes sparkling.

“All finished,” I say, holding up the brush, as if it was magic, and I had nothing to do with it.

* * * * *

I recently read an article about Neil Gaiman’s 96-year-old cousin who, during the Holocaust, hid a copy of Gone With the Wind behind a brick. She would stay up late every night reading it, and then the next morning she’d tell her friends what had happened. This way, the days passed, and they got through one of the most difficult times in history.

Neil Gamain went on to say, “Helen’s story – this story – made me realise that what I do is not trivial. If you make up stuff for a living, which is basically what I do, you can feel kind of trivial sometimes but this made me realise that fiction is not just escapism, it can actually be escape, and it’s worth dying for.”

Stories are good for us, for so many reasons. Sometimes they help us see the world differently. Sometimes they give us something to live for. And sometimes, every so often, they even help to make the hair-brushing a little less painful.

* * * * *

What have stories done for you?

* * * * *

Just a reminder that one of the kindest things you can do for the author you love is preorder their books! Check out this page for places where you can preorder Light from Distant Stars.

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Please Give Her Back! We Shall Keep Asking You

Photo by Cherry Laithang via Unsplash

“When we held Owen Meany above our heads, when we passed him back and forth — so effortlessly — we believed that Owen weighed nothing at all. We did not realize that there were forces beyond our play. Now I know they were the forces that contributed to our illusion of Owen’s weightlessness: they were the forces we didn’t have the faith to feel, they were the forces we failed to believe in — and they were also lifting up Owen Meany, taking him out of our hands. O God — please give him back! I shall keep asking You.”

A Prayer for Owen Meany

* * * * *

The man stood in the middle of the lecture room, haggard and breathing oxygen through a small plastic tube perched under his nose. When he paused, we could hear that gentle wheezing in the microphone. The room was overflowing, so that many who had come to hear him sat on the floor behind him, or at his feet at the front, or stood in the corners, or listened from the hall once they stopped letting people in.

This man, Walt Wangerin, author of some of my favorite books, gave a long, wide-ranging talk that was part sermon, part poetry, part creative reading. He told us the story of his cancer diagnosis, the various reactions of his children, how one of them vanished into sadness, and what it was like to journey into this wilderness, a place the Bible referred to in the original language as “a nothing in a nowhere.”

“And when I die,” he said in a gentle voice. “I will become that nothing in a nowhere.”

Sobs broke out at various places in the crowd as we contemplated the death of this precious man. The silence was a blanket. There was loud sniffling as we pulled back tears.

“But then, in that deep darkness, Jesus will call out, ‘WALT,’ and I will be.”

* * * * *

I sit in stunned silence in front of my computer. Rachel has died.

* * * * *

I told this story once on Twitter, when I first heard that Rachel was in a coma, and I told it again yesterday on Facebook, when I heard of her passing. But I will tell it here for you one more time, if you will listen.

Eight or nine years ago,Rachel Held Evans was in Lancaster researching her second book, and a friend of mine was hosting her. So we all had dinner together at our house one evening. From the moment Rachel and Dan pulled up in their old clunky car, they were both so kind and generous. Rachel was full of life and eager to listen. Dan was quiet and kind and looked at her the way husbands do, when they are amazed that they have found themselves traveling through life with someone remarkable, someone who loves them more than they thought possible.

I know this look. I am always looking at Maile this way.

The next day Rachel and I had coffee together, and when she heard about all the books I had co-written, she looked at me with a smile and asked, “So when are you going to start writing your own books?” The question disarmed me. I can honestly say that question sparked something in me that I needed, an additional motivation to pursue my own writing. In the next few years, she allowed me to guest-post on her blog multiple times, even as her blog became more and more popular.

We didn’t stay in regular contact, but every so often she encouraged me on Twitter and Facebook to keep writing.

* * * * *

It seems that one of the things Jesus did on a regular basis was to call people into their true being. Waking the little girl who was “sleeping.” Asking the man if he wanted to be well. Naming Peter. Calling to Lazarus, deep in the grave, to come out and be.

I realize now that this is what Rachel did. Yes, she wrote and spoke beautifully. Yes, she is one of the smartest people I know. But these things alone were not what made her special – it was her ability to call us into being that was perhaps her greatest gift. Countless stories have emerged this weekend of people who Rachel, with some word, some act, some unlikely invitation, called into their true being. There were voices, previously unheard, who she propped up with her platform, and at no gain to herself. There were women, who after feeling Rachel’s nudge, pursued their calling to preach, to go to seminary. There were writers who had been silent for years, who she encouraged to pick up the pen.

So many of us responded to her gentle call. So many of us, deep in the darkness, feeling like a nothing in a nowhere, heard her voice encouraging us to be, and suddenly we were.

* * * * *

I am heartbroken today, mostly for Dan and their two small children, and also for those who were much closer to Rachel than I. I think of the words at the end of CS Lewis’s The Last Battle and have such a desperate hope that there is indeed a Great Story and that Rachel has finally entered into it. Could it be true that we will see her again? Could it be true that when that great nothingness comes for us, a voice will call our name, and we will, in some previously unknowable way, finally be?

“And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

* * * * *

Even now, those of us who knew Rachel even a little bit keep praying, O God — please give her back! We shall keep asking You.

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What Mohammad Told Me About Their Next Child

Now that my friend Mohammad has moved to Michigan, we don’t see each other very often, but we still chat on the phone from time to time, and every so often I’ll get a text message from him.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2019

or

Hi, Shawn, how are you?

or

My friend Shawn I want to tell you that Moradi is pregnant with child.

I received that last one in October, so we’re closing in on the arrival of their fifth child, another boy! How I wish they still lived here in Lancaster, where we could take them food and hold the little one and watch the other boys dote on their new brother.

Sometimes, our friendship almost seems impossible, like a long-ago dream. Could it have been that Mohammad and his family lived her, that he and I would sit on the front porch and look out over James Street at night? Could it be that I sat in his living room after his father died, sharing a meal with all of his friends?

But friendships can survive even long distances. The other day I received this text from Mohammad, and after I read it, I held it up for Maile to read while tears gathered in my eyes.

Hello my friend, Mohammad wrote, when he is born we will call him Mahmoud in Arabic and in English the name Shawn.

There is a friend waiting for you in the most unlikely of places. Perhaps in a group of people you currently can’t understand, or people you disagree with, or even in a group you hate. There are human beings there, on the other side of your convictions, on the other side of your opinions. There are friends waiting to be found, meals to be shared, and perhaps even a new generation of children who might one day affectionately bear your name.

I know, now, that this is why Jesus emphasized enemy-love and loving your neighbor. Not so that we can feel religious and righteous, but so that we could experience life to its fullest.

Who is your neighbor?

* * * * *

Even more exciting news! Mohammad and I were asked to share our story of friendship at the upcoming CWS annual Community Appreciation Breakfast on May 9th at 7:30am at Westminster Presbyterian Church. Mohammad is coming into town just for this event! There is no cost to attend, but if you could sign up so they have an idea on how many are coming, that would be helpful. The Facebook link is here.

If you haven’t had a chance, please check out the book that Mohammad and I worked on together, called Once We Were Strangers: What Friendship with a Syrian Refugee Taught Me About Loving My Neighbor.