For the last few months, Maile and I have been working away at a new idea, something we’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Today it becomes a reality.
James Street Review is here.
It’s a site where children around the ages of 10 – 16 review books written for kids. In other words, kids reviewing kids’ books. The exciting part for me is that we’ve got children from all over the country contributing reviews to the site, hopefully creating a fun place where kids can go to find their next book.
Check out James Street Review HERE and then share it with all your friends! Help us get this website off the ground!
We walked through the wet grass and the rain that fell was the kind that doesn’t fall all the way, just sort of drizzles around in windy droplets. It felt cold for May. We sat in white chairs on very green grass under a gray and moving sky.
They got married there, under the gray sky and the massive sycamore tree, the same place he had asked her out for the first time, the same place they had had their first kiss, and I couldn’t help but wonder about that tree. How old was it? 100 years? 200 years?
I wondered about when it had started to grow, how close it came to being trampled underfoot or overgrown by other trees. Was that area a forest when the tree was a seedling? Did anyone nearly cut it down? Had lightning ever struck close by?
Every tree, every marker in our lives, ever significant event or person or happening, is only there by the thinnest of margins, the most unlikely of occurrences. 100 years ago, no one could have looked at that tree and thought, there’s a tree someone will fall in love under. There’s a tree someone will get married under. There’s a tree where people will say, “For better or worse.” Such a solemn vow. Such a sacred covenant.
I think of these things now, as I walk under a tree or play with my children in the park or wander the city with Maile. It’s a wonder, isn’t it, how this world has been prepared for us, how the trees have been planted, maybe for hundreds of years, the very trees that will mark the passing of our lives?
There’s something humbling about it, and encouraging, this idea that the trees or the buildings or the roads that will witness our very best times have already been planted or built or straightened, and they’re all out there, waiting for us to find our way to them. Our best times are waiting for us. I find that to be a comforting thought.
You said you cried as they cut down the tree
in our backyard, the one Sam liked to climb,
the one stretching up into the wires overhead.
But the arborist told us there was no use
in trimming this kind of tree – it would only grow
faster in the direction of its brokenness. So they came
early in the morning with their chainsaws and
their ladders and their chipper, dismantling the branches
first, then working top to bottom until there was only a
stump
so small it is not even worth standing on.
And I think about how there have been things in our
life we tried to save, trimming them back, only to find
we, too, grow faster in the direction of our
brokenness.
It is a sore lesson to learn,
this idea that sometimes a thing
must be taken all the way down to its stump.
I think about this in our dark room, in the middle
of the night, Abra on the floor beside our bed, her
breathing labored, asthmatic. I think about this
while listening to the fan in Leo’s room, the one that drowns
out the noise. I think about this while lying on
our old mattress, the one with the valley in the middle,
another broken thing, but one that draws us
steadily
closer together.
Almost three months ago, my wonderful literary agent Ruth began approaching publishers about my book The Day the Angels Fell, the very same project that you all helped fund on Kickstarter almost a year and a half ago. Ruth read it and loved it and thought she might be able to find a home for it, so we sent out a book proposal to publishers. Initially, the response was strong. One publisher was immediately interested. I thought it was going to get picked up. I thought my longest-held dream, of being a novelist with a publisher, was about to come true.
But then the weeks passed. We still haven’t heard back from the first publisher. In the mean time, I received a kind rejection from one of my favorite publishers who said “the writing is absolutely beautiful, but…” Always “but.”
Right now there are two houses still considering it.
Can I be honest? I’ve felt a lot of disappointment in this process. The waiting has nearly paralyzed my creative ability. The weeks of silence and the few rejections (and even the vast, empty nothingness of no reply) rip at some raw place I didn’t know existed in me. I went into this feeling like a relatively self-confident person, someone who could take or leave whatever might happen, but I’m learning a lot about myself. I’m learning I’m not as confident as I thought I was. I’m not as independent as I thought I was. I crave this “one last” approval more than I thought I did.
And then, Maile. My wife is perfect for me. We had a long talk the other day about who I am as a writer, the kinds of things I want to put out into the world, the fact that I want to write literary YA that might not fit into today’s marketable mold. I told Maile I could sell out, write a fast-paced book that reads at a 5th grade reading level where the protagonist flirts with sex and drugs and makes fun of their parents. Maile laughed and said, “No, you couldn’t.”
And then there are my writing friends. People who remind me this book is good. Friends who remind me the only way is forward. Friends who tell me that The Day the Angels Fell made a tangible difference in the lives of their children and is a book their kids will hand down to their kids. Friends who remind me there is an eager audience waiting for book two, an audience who doesn’t care if it’s traditionally published or funded through Kickstarter.
On Wednesday of last week, something finally clicked. It was like I took a deep breath, came out of a trance, realized it is spring again. Spring always has a way of coming back around, doesn’t it? I started writing again, forging my way into book three, the final book of the trilogy that begins with The Day the Angels Fell and continues with The Edge of Over There (not yet released). I realized I have to keep writing through this process. I have to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Yes, I’ve been disappointed so far. Yes, if none of these publishing houses decide to take it, I will feel rejected and disappointed. But I feel like I’ve gone deeper this year into my writing life than I have ever gone before. I feel like I’ve found something there, long buried, something crucial. I’ve even discovered that I have a huge desire to make this book a success, with or without a publisher. That thought excites me. I can do this! (With your help, of course.)
And it all makes me wonder if we need to press in closer to our disappointment, if we need to get past the initial shock of it and ask why? Why is this disappointing to me? What does this disappointment tell me about what I think is important?
And is it possible that the location of my disappointment leads me closer to the location of my true hope?
Update: I wrote this post on May 12th, 2016. Four weeks later, I received and signed a 3-book deal with Revell to publish not only The Day the Angels Fell but also the sequel and a third book, yet to be determined.
For the last few months, Bryan and I have been working hard on a new project, Live Better, Write Better. It’s a six-week exploration of simple practices that will improve your writing and your life. We talk about things like the importance of finishing stuff (and how to do that more consistently), practicing silence, finding your community, and more.
– Six weekly videos in which Bryan and I discuss the Live Better Write Better writing practice for the week
– One to two emails each week expounding on the practices and encouraging you with practical ways to move forward
– Access to a private Facebook group (that Bryan and I will be active in) to further discuss the Live Better, Write Better practices and meet other writers.
– Other fun surprises
Thanks for listening. I’m actually kind of uncomfortable selling stuff in this space, simply because I love you guys as an audience and never want to take advantage of your time, but I’m really happy with the conversations Bryan and I are recording, and I think it will help writers improve their craft, be encouraged, and move forward. Soon, I’ll be back to my regularly scheduled posts, including an update on the publishing journey I’m currently on with The Day the Angels Fell. It’s been an interesting three months, full of disappointments and small sparks of hope. I can’t wait to tell you about it.
(Finally, if you have friends who are writers, would you consider sharing this with them or posting it on your Facebook page? Thanks!)
The saints in the stained-glass windows look down on us, somber and subdued. Outside, it’s a cloudy day. I get to the front of the line and Reverend Lauren hands me the wafer.
“The body of Christ, the bread of heaven.”
Then I turn to the person holding the cup. It’s my son, Cade, and he looks a little nervous. Our eyes are nearly level to each other now, our shoulders nearly even. He is far from the baby I watched slip into existence. He is getting closer to the man he will someday be.
“The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation,” he says, and I dip my wafer in the cup.
* * * * *
I am halfway through my 40th year. This is difficult to comprehend. I know those of you in your 50s and 60s and 70s will wave your hand at me and call me a “young pup,” but this 40th year is passing heavy and opaque, like molasses. It’s been hard to grasp. I feel so old and so young, all at once.
I had one genuine moment of panic recently, after my friend Nelson passed away, in which I thought, “No! I don’t want to get old! I’m not ready.” But for the most part, I welcome what these coming decades have to offer. They seem kinder in a way, these recent and coming years, less judgmental, less demanding.
When I was in my 10th year, it was 1986, and all I wanted to do was play down at the creek and make it to the Major Leagues. I wore tennis balls out by throwing them up against the side of the barn and chasing them down. There was a tree by the creek that became a graveyard for my fishing line. Life was simple and fun and I spent most of it reading on the large front porch of the farmhouse where we lived. I wonder what I thought about then. I wonder.
When I was in my 20th year, it was 1996 and I was finishing my freshman year in college. I knew less about myself in those years than at any other time in my life. To say I was finding my way would be a huge understatement. I was about to start writing in earnest. I was about to meet Maile. I was about to become my own person, separate from the household of my parents. I stood on the edge of an abyss, and I had no idea the depths of it.
When I was in my 30th year, it was 2006, and we had just come back from England, and we were starting a new life with two children. We would find community and friendships in Virginia that were so beautiful and crucial. And still, God was preparing us for the most difficult time of our lives, in 2009.
And now, my 40th year. Some things seem easier. I know who I am, I know what I’m to do. I have the beautiful and unconditional love of a fabulous woman and five (almost six) children. We have, somehow, landed on our feet, even after many lean years. I wake up everyday and do what I love to do: I write.
But some things seem more difficult, too. My children need me in ways they never needed me before when it was all diapers and baby food and middle-of-the-night wake-up calls. Maile and I are hitting the long stretch of a marriage, 17 years in, when you have a better understanding of love in its toil and its wonder.
Perhaps most difficult of all, I’m coming to terms with my place in the world. I’m not sure how else to say it. I’m not sure why that’s a difficult thing, but it requires a real working through, like a puzzle you’ve never done before, one you haven’t got a picture for, one without even the straight-lined edges to start with.
* * * * *
I will not soon forget being served communion by my son. I will not soon forget the way he tilted that cup forward, that cup of death and life. There was something in that small exchange that fit into this, my 40th year. There was something in that small exchange that holds the key to many things. I’ll have to think on it for quite some time. I’ll have to work through it.
