Category: Books

Most of the work I’ve been doing on my novel has been between 10pm and midnight, when the four older kids are asleep and baby Leo is drifting off, either in his swing or his crib. The city is quiet then, and the fans are on, and the air coming through the screens feels like October.

Sunday night was one of those late nights when the stories were alive. I took a break from revising to think about the front matter of the book – what kind of quote or poem or lyrics would set the tone for the story? At that moment, the chorus from one of my favorite songs played on my writing playlist: Over the Rhine’s “Poughkeepsie.”

I’d ride on the backs of the angels tonight.
I’d take to the sky with all my might.
No more drowning in my sorrow,
no more drowning in my fright,
I’d just ride on the backs of the angels tonight.

That’s perfect, I thought to myself. Not only does it depict a major theme in the story, it almost illustrates one of the important scenes. I typed it out in the manuscript, centered on a blank page just before chapter one. Then I thought to myself, Wouldn’t that be nice?

I looked up Over the Rhine’s website and saw they have a licensing agent. I had wanted to write them directly, but instead I wrote the agent a short email explaining what I wanted to do.

I didn’t expect to hear back. I’ve written and co-written other books where we’ve wanted to use musician’s lyrics, and usually we never hear back, or if we do they want $1,000 in exchange for us to use their lyrics in the first 2,000 copies.

I went back to revising the novel. Then I went to bed.

The next day, around 11am, something strange happened. Over the Rhine liked one of my earlier Facebook statuses where I mentioned they would be headlining the playlist I listen to while I’m writing. Maybe you didn’t read that correctly.

OVER THE RHINE LIKED ONE OF MY FACEBOOK STATUSES.

That’s strange, I thought.

Then, a minute later, I heard the little !ding! that signifies an email magically flying through space and landing in my inbox. It was a name I recognized… Over the Rhine’s licensing agent. I felt sick to my stomach as soon as I saw his name – surely if he got back so quickly it was with some kind of a standard rejection email. I didn’t want to open the email. I sighed. I clicked it open.

I nearly fell out of my chair.

Dear Shawn, Thanks for your note.  Over The Rhine is granting you permission to use this song in the specific way you described below on a gratis basis. Kind Regards, Michael

What?

Wait, what?

It may seem like such a small thing, but to me, in that moment, it felt like I had just received one of the kindest gifts possible. And, this may sound even stranger, but it felt like the tiniest of affirmations from the universe that I actually SHOULD go ahead and publish this book.

Thank you, Linford and Karin. Thank you.

(Support one of my favorite bands of all time by purchasing their albums HERE.)

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Here is an update on the novel, and then a request for your feedback.

I’m planning on launching the Kickstarter at the end of September, and it will run for 30 days. I’m using that method to hopefully raise around $3,000 to pay for the editing, cover design, marketing, and the creation of the digital formats of the book.

For those of you not familiar with Kickstarter, you, the reader, will have the opportunity to purchase advance copies of the book as well as some other cool rewards/services (I’ll be offering some of my other books, some writing coaching, even one package where I’ll help you self-publish your very own book)…but none of the money that people donate comes to me unless I raise the entire amount. Stay tuned for more on the Kickstarter campaign.

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Now for the question. I’d like to get your feedback on a few different titles I’m considering. I know this is kind of unfair because you don’t really know what the book is about, but maybe in a way that’s good because I’d like to know which title sounds the most intriguing to you, the title that would make you pick up a book and consider reading it. So here are a few titles I’m considering. Let me know in the comments which you prefer and why, or what your general thoughts are on the matter.

The Day the Angels Fell

Samuel Chambers and the Tree of Life

The Last Amarok

I’m so excited for my friend Nish Weiseth – her book Speak was released just a few days ago. The first question on the back cover sums it up nicely: “How would your life be different if you shared your stories rather than your opinions?” These are whirlwind days, these days just after the birth of a paperback, and this week’s #100Words are from Speak: How Your Story Can Change the World:

Here’s the reality: Some people are living the lives Hollywood movies, great novels, and stage productions are made of. Some people are living absolutely fantastical lives, to which I say, “Well done!” But the flip side is that most people aren’t living lives full of extraordinary events and circumstances. Most people are living life by daily fulfilling the obligations set before them. To most, these lives don’t seem like anything to write home about. And though you may be living what seems like an ordinary life, faithfully doing what God has placed in front of you to do means you are actually living an extraordinary story.

I love not only what Nish writes about in this book but also what she has created over at Deeper Story, a site where dozens of writers share powerful stories.

You can find out more about the book or purchase it by clicking HERE.

Today marks the release of Atlas Girl by Emily T. Wierenga. Here’s a short section of what promises to be an excellent book:

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Chapter 2

Leaving Home: CANADA, Edmonton, Alberta

September, 1998

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” ~ Lao Tzu

 

Mum had said to sit close to the bus driver, so I sat as far away as possible.

And now an Ojibway man in a red bandana and stubble cheek was snoring on my shoulder.

He smelled like communion wine, the kind my father served in glass cups which we slid empty into the pew’s tiny cup holders.

He smelled like beer, like the late August summers when I was entering puberty, cleaning up the Corn Fest fairgrounds in my Sunday dress with my family. The beer cans all clanging like empty songs against each other in their black garbage bags, and it was what good Christians did. Cleaned up after sinners’ parties and marched in pro-life rallies and it was always us, versus them. And all I ever wanted was to be them.

But always, we were taught to be kind to them, and so I let this man sleep on my shoulder in the Greyhound bus headed west while I tucked up my legs and tried to shrink inside my 18-year-old frame.

Tried to close my eyes against the cold of the window but it had been two days since I’d hugged my younger brother, Keith, and my sisters, Allison and Meredith; since Mum—whose name is Yvonne, which means beautiful girl— had held me to her soft clean cotton shirt and her arms had said all of the words she’d never been able to voice. The Reverend Ernest Dow, or Dad, had loaded my cardboard boxes full of Value Village clothes onto the bus and kissed me on the cheek and smiled in a way that apologized. I was the eldest, and I was the first to leave. But then again, I’d left long before getting on that bus.

Emily T. Wierenga is an award-winning journalist, blogger, commissioned artist and columnist, as well as the author of five books including an upcoming memoir, Atlas Girl: Finding Home in the Last Place I Thought to Look (Baker Books). She lives in Alberta, Canada with her husband and two sons. For more info, please visit www.emilywierenga.com.

Today’s #100Words comes from another book that definitely falls into my list of top five novels of all time. The Brothers K by David James Duncan is a beautiful story of baseball, family, and the tragedy of war. Here are the first 100 words:

Papa is in his easy chair, reading the Sunday sports page. I am lying across his lap. Later he will rise to his feet and the lap will divide into parts – plaid shirt, brown leather belt, baggy tan trousers – but for now the lap is one thing: a ground, a region, an earth. My head rests on one wide, cushioned arm of the chair, my feet on the other. The rest of me rests on Papa. The newspaper blocks his face from view, but the vast pages vibrate in time to his pulse, and the ballplayer in the photo looks serious.

If you’re looking for a summer read, this is it. Duncan also has another incredible book, The River Why.

Enjoy!

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In case you missed it, I posted a fictional short story last Friday, and I’ll be continuing it in a post this coming Friday. You can read the first part HERE.

I’ll also be reading some material at a writers’ retreat at God’s Whisper Farm in southern Virginia in the middle of July. You can attend the entire weekend or come just for the reading on Saturday night. Check out details about that HERE.

Today’s first one hundred words comes from one of my favorite books of all time, Crossing to Safety, by Wallace Stegner. Stegner also wrote another incredible book, the epic Angle of Repose. If you’ve never read anything by Stegner, I highly recommend starting with Crossing to Safety, and if you like it, move on to some of his other work.

Without further ado, here are the first #100Words:

Floating upward through a confusion of dreams and memory, curving like a trout through the rings of previous risings, I surface. My eyes open. I am awake.

Cataract sufferers must see like this when the bandages are removed after the operation: every detail as sharp as if seen for the first time, yet familiar too, known from before the time of blindness, the remembered and the seen coalescing as in a stereoscope.

It is obviously very early. The light is no more than dusk that leaks past the edges of the blinds. But I see, or remember, or both…

(Crossing to Safety, Wallace Stegner)

Previous #100Words:

Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning
Found by Micha Boyett
Spiritual Misfit by Michelle DeRusha