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This is a guest post by author Matt Mikalatos.  For a review of his book, “Imaginary Jesus”, check out yesterday’s post.  Now take it away Matt!

Embracing Your Inner Weird

I finally had an agent on the phone.  He loved my proposal and hated my sample chapters.  “I can tell you’re a deeply weird person,” he said.  “But you’ve given me the typical Sunday School book that’s the same as everything else out there.”   He didn’t want to represent me, but would look at the next draft to let me know if I was “on the right track.”   Determined to prove that I was as weird as my proposal suggested, I set out to embrace my Weird – that singular place of absolute uniqueness within each person where all of our deepest and strangest skills, thoughts and passions reside .   Here are four lessons I learned along the way about letting that Inner Weird out of your basement and into the living room.

NUMBER ONE: Don’t give them what they want. My first book proposal was written for the wrong audience.   I had attempted to extrapolate what I thought agents and publishers would want to see.   This is not correct.   Agents and publishers don’t want what they want… they want what the audience wants.   If agents and publishers were buying what they wanted it would probably be comic books with no words because they read slush all day and they are tired and would just like to look at some pictures for once.   On the other hand, do you know whose desires are awfully close to the audience’s?   YOURS.   So stop writing what you think other people want and start writing something you enjoy.

NUMERO DOS: Severely damage your internal editor. Studies show that the number one cause of Non-Embracing-Of-Inner-Weirdness-For-Writers is an overactive internal editor.   This is the little voice which says, Hey, should you really be putting a colon in the middle of that sentence? and also Let’s be serious, you know that there is no such thing as a talking cat.     Don’t kill your editor, you’ll need him later.   But you need to at least tie the editor up and stick him in the broom closet until your first draft is done.   Stop re-writing the same page over and over.  Stop asking should I include this? and just write it down. You can always come back later.

NUMBER C: Embrace your inner Weird. You know that apathetic feeling that comes over you at a bookstore sometimes when you are looking for a new book but can’t find one you want?   You are (secretly) thinking to yourself, “I wish someone would write a mystery novel/romance where the main character is an Amish vampire, darn it!”   You should write that book. Other people are wishing for that same book (even if they don’t know it yet). Stop spending time trying to figure out what is hip and what is selling.   By the time you figure it out, it will have changed.   Here are some books no one knew they wanted until they read them:

Endless thousands of pages about an orphan boy learning to be a wizard.

A series of books about Jesus being an inter-dimensional lion.

A book about God living in a shack in the woods and making pancakes.

A semi-autobiographical comedy/theology novel about destroying imaginary Jesuses with the help of the Apostle Peter , a talking donkey and a friendly atheist.   Yup, that one’s mine.

Roman Numeral IV. Be a professional Weirdo. Being a weirdo is not enough.   Just ask Gonzo from the Muppets.   Did he settle for being some sort of bird thing with a crooked nose ?   He did not.   He sharpened his skills until he could teach twelve chickens to water ski while bawking out The William Tell Overture.   Present your weirdness with top notch work.     This is where you can let your internal editor out.   He will say, “GREAT CAESAR’S GHOST WHAT IS THIS MESS?”   That’s fine.   Set him to work, but keep him on a tight leash.   Write your best, re-write diligently, and be polite when you communicate with agents and publishers.

Afterword: Weird love. As for me, I wrote a novel that looked like C.S. Lewis, Dave Eggers and G.K. Chesterton got in a fight and then turned their notes over to Kurt Vonnegut.   I had a blast writing it.   I sent it to the agent who didn’t want to represent me and my phone started ringing the moment I hit send.   A few months later we had two offers on the table to publish the book.   I thought people would be waiting in line to smack me in the face once they read the book, but au contraire, the book I wrote for my deepest self spoke to a lot of other people, too.

Now stop reading blogs and go pound out that Amish Vampire Detective novel, because we all want to read it!

Matt Mikalatos works full time for Campus Crusade for Christ, and his first novel, Imaginary Jesus, came out earlier this month from Tyndale/Barna Books. He is hard at work on his encore presentation, which is the weirdly titled “Night of the Living Dead Christians.”  If you would like to WIN A TRIP TO PORTLAND to hang out with the weirdo and win a bunch of swag (Amazon Kindle, iPod, a hundred bucks to spend at a local bookstore, etc.), then check out the writing contest at http://myimaginaryjesus.com.

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If you are new to this site, have a look around! Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are generally dedicated to the topic of identity and purpose, Tuesdays are usually occupied with highly controversial top ten lists, and Thursdays, like yesterday, carry book reviews.  If you don’t know where to begin, click here for my most popular post.

“You’re so afraid of your imagination,” Pete said. “You never use it for good things because you’re worried you’ll end up imagining something pornographic. You need to get control of yourself. The imagination can be purified like any other part of you.” -Imaginary Jesus

As some of you may know, on Thursdays I generally review a book.  So when my friend the literary agent Wes Yoder sent me an email and asked if I would review a book for one of his clients on my blog, I of course said yes.  After all, he said he would send me the book for free, and most of you that know me know I’ll do just about anything for a free book.

Seriously.  Anything.

But I’ll also admit, although I’m not sure why, that I didn’t have high hopes for the book.  I don’t read much contemporary fiction, much less contemporary Christian fiction.  Isn’t most of that about the Amish?  Or just really cheesy? It was a terrible underestimation of Wes, for which he will probably never forgive me (in which case he should reread Think No Evil, the book he represented for us about forgiveness).

ANYWAY, I didn’t read Wes’s email that closely, probably due to my elation at receiving a free book, so by the time the book arrived I had forgotten the title.  But when I saw the package I knew exactly what it was and tore it open.  Inside the padded, manilla envelope I found

Imaginary Jesus by Matt Mikalatos.  That got my attention.

Hmmm.  Sounds interesting.  I read the back of the book, including the sentence: “That all ends when a fishy stranger walks in and PUNCHES JESUS IN THE FACE!”

That really got my attention.  Even if the Jesus that got punched isn’t the real Jesus.

Matt takes a theological idea, that being our propensity to create imaginary Jesus’s that support our view of the world, and turns it into a flesh-and-blood adventure story with the narrator racing through Portland streets, tracking down the Real Jesus. The Jesus who lived and spoke and breathed and smiled. The Jesus who wants to mourn alongside you when this world tries to wrench the life out of you.

Still not convinced you should buy this book? Here are three more reasons:

1)  Chapter One (which comes after Chapter Zero) has a chase scene where the narrator and Pete are trying to catch Imaginary Jesus.  This is reminiscent of one of the greatest literary/spiritual chase scenes of all time which takes place at the end of GK Chesterton’s book The Man Who Was Thursday.  If you like GK Chesterton, you should read this book.

2) About halfway through, Imaginary Jesus takes a turn from zany to the sort of reflective that feels a bit like a punch in the gut.  A good punch in the gut.  If you’ve experienced pain in your life, and it’s affected the way you view Jesus, you should read this book.

3) My wife and I are notoriously early-to-bed folks.  If I see 10:00, it’s a rarity.  But on the two nights I was reading this book I didn’t stop until well after 11:00pm.  That’s right, PM.  If you like well-written stories, books that make you want to keep reading, you should read this book.

So there you go.  Imaginary Jesus by Matt Mikalatos. Click here for a link to buy. So easy?!

Tune in tomorrow for a guest post by the author!

I feel it’s time to give another shout out to all you mom’s out there, and specifically to the one that keeps this house operating.

From dawn ’til dusk you are washing clothes and dishes and faces.  You make food, and by the time you have it cleaned up it’s time to make more.  You deal with a lot of crap.

A LOT of crap.  Literally.  By the handfuls.

You have to be able to soothe and discipline, sometimes in the same sentence.

Perhaps worst of all, for those of you who decided to breastfeed, you have to deal with babies that eventually get teeth.  I cringe and have to stop typing so that I can put my hands over my nipples, just thinking about this.

You probably have a lot of other things you wouldn’t mind doing now and again.  My wife is a wonderful writer and just can’t find the time.  My sister is an awesome photographer but with four kids and a husband running his own business, how do you follow your passions that don’t crawl or toddle or walk?

Well, from a guy who just a few nights ago struggled to get all four kids to bed without mom at home to help, I say “thank you!” In under two hours I – changed Sam‘s diaper, gave him a bottle and put him to bed -gave Abra her medicine, brushed her teeth, put on her pjs (actually her older brothers pjs, rolled up, because her pjs were in the room where Sam was sleeping) and rocked her to sleep -read Indian in the Cupboard to the older two -gave Lucy her medicine and covered her in Vicks and set her bed up in the living room so she wouldn’t wake up the baby with her cough -put Cade to bed then fed him an hour later when he wandered out of his room, hungry, after everyone else was asleep

All of this in a few hours.  And you do this almost non-stop every day.

Thank you for washing our dirty underwear!

Thank you for cleaning out the crud behind the plastic lining of the high chair (okay, I usually do that but you sometimes do that)!

Thank you for smelling the butts of your diapered children nearly every day just to see if they pooped themselves!

And thank you for almost never saving a diaper for more than an hour, where poop has blown out the back, for us to change when we get home from work!

I know there are rewards.  I know these little children are pretty much the best thing we have going in our lives.  I’ve heard all the true sayings about how being a mom is the most important job in the world.  I agree with that.  But I also know that, from time to time, you can have a rough day, or wonder if you’re doing a good job, or wonder if it wouldn’t be best just to duck tape them to a chair.

But you are doing a great job, and you are appreciated.  (And I’d lay off the duck tape, at least for now).

Happy Pre-Mother’s Day Mother’s Day!

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Anyone who shares any of this week’s posts on Facebook, or Twitter, or starts following me on Twitter (@shawnsmucker) this week, or shares a link to this post pretty much anywhere except in the men’s bathroom stall at the Lancaster Border’s, will gain entrance to win a free copy of Matt Mikalatos’s book Imaginary Jesus (no, not the copy he gave me; I’m keeping that one thank you very much).  Each time you share a post you get an additional entry to win the book, so go wild (and comment somewhere on what you’ve done so that I can keep track).

Last week’s Top Ten Candies brought about some strong emotions.  Pretty much every candy I listed got trashed: Kit Palmer created his own top 10 completely ignoring all of my choices (diss!), and Bryan Allain not only trashed Sweet Tarts but went so far as to try to introduce candy cigarettes into the top ten.

This is a family blog folks.

So in the interest of providing a chance for unity and reconciliation, I present to you the Top Ten Ice Cream Flavors of all-time.  Surely there will be no disagreement when it comes to ice cream:

10) Turkey Hill Tin Roof Sunday – chocolate-covered peanuts in a fudge-swirled Vanilla ice cream.  And this one’s just a warm-up.

9) Haagen-Dasz Cookies and Creme – ice cream with anything resembling Oreo cookies has got to be a good thing

8) Rainbow Sherbet – is this really ice cream?  I don’t know, but it’s in the ice cream section, it’s cold, and I love it

7) Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby – seeing as how pretzels are my favorite snack food, how about a little Fudge Covered Peanut Butter Filled Pretzels in Vanilla Malt Ice Cream Rippled with Fudge & Peanut Butter . . .

6) Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough – many a time I’ve eaten an entire pint of this, garnering 1080 calories, 56 grams of fat, 176% of my daily allowance for saturated fat, and 60% of my daily calcium.  That last one keeps me coming back for more.

5) Ben and Jerry’s Fish Food – nutritional information about the same as the cookie dough variety, but in this one you get ripples of marshmallow . . . and little chocolate fish.

4) Turkey Hill Chocolate – the classic chocolate can’t be beat.  Wait, it’s number four.  It can only be beat by . . .

3) Baskin Robbins Rocky Road – almonds and marshmallows perfectly combined in a vat of chocolate.  Can someone clone this flavor and put it in brussel sprouts?  Or broccoli?  Or anything that’s good for me?

2) Cold Stone Creamery Mud Pie Mojo – a lot of Coldstone Creameries in the northeast are going out of business, so I support the one remaining store in our area with zeal.  You have to be careful though – sometimes I wonder if their cost cutting measures involve less mix-ins.  But a Mud Pie Mojo (coffee ice cream with Oreos, almonds, peanut butter, fudge sauce and marshmallow cream) properly made is chunky and delicious and nearly unbeatable, except by . . .

1) Turkey Hill Vanilla – that’s right, folks, Vanilla.  Not just for what it is, but for the opportunities it presents.  I tend to eat it with Cheerios loaded on top.  Or use it to dip pretzels or potato chips in.  Or sometimes, in the summer, I’ll douse it in grape Kool-Aid.  Nothing beats Vanilla.

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Anyone who shares any of this week’s posts on Facebook, or Twitter, or starts following me on Twitter (@shawnsmucker) this week, or shares a link to this post pretty much anywhere except in the men’s bathroom stall at the Lancaster Border’s, will gain entrance to win a free copy of Matt Mikalatos’s book Imaginary Jesus (no, not the copy he gave me; I’m keeping that one thank you very much).  Each time you share a post you get an additional entry to win the book, so go wild (and comment somewhere on what you’ve done so that I can keep track).

Three EXCITING (and quick) announcements (then a story about fingernails):

1) I met Matt Mikalatos this week (in the cyber sense) and read his book Imaginary Jesus

2) a review of his book is upcoming, as is a guest post by Matt – stay tuned for the details on that

3) Anyone who shares any of this week’s posts on Facebook, or Twitter, or starts following me on Twitter (@shawnsmucker) this week, or shares a link to this post pretty much anywhere except in the men’s bathroom stall at the Lancaster Border’s, will gain entrance to win a free copy of Matt’s book Imaginary Jesus (no, not the copy he gave me; I’m keeping that one thank you very much).  Each time you share gets you an additional entry to win the book, so go wild (and comment somewhere on what you’ve done so that I can keep track).

So, anyway . . . now for my random thoughts on fingernails and God chuckling at me.

Maile was trying to cut Samuel’s finger nails on Saturday night – you know, the little guy whose naming became my responsibility?  He is almost 10 months old and loves to tear us (and himself) apart with those Wolverine-like razors.  His finger nails grow faster than Pinochio’s nose at a presidential debate.

And he hates having them cut.  You would think Maile was cutting off his actual fingers – which it becomes very difficult NOT to do, with all the squirming and flailing and rolling involved.

I was thinking to myself, man, Sam, just sit STILL for a second, will you?  Getting those fingernails shortened is not going to kill you – in fact, it’s going to keep you from scratching yourself the way you always do.  It’s going to keep you from hurting yourself.  And me, too.

Then, somewhere not too far away, I heard God chuckling to himself.

What’s so funny? I asked.  Then he asked me a question.  He always answers my questions with questions.

He asked me why I squirm around so much when he’s trying to take off my sharp edges. 

I don’t know, I said.  Probably because I’m scared you’ll hurt me.  Or maybe I like using those sharp things as weapons to defend myself.

That’s interesting, he said.  But you know, it wouldn’t hurt you to just be still sometimes.  And trust me.

I guess in some ways it was easy for me to get serious about finding out who I was, and then going after it – nothing else I was doing was working anyway.  Business was just getting me further into debt and the faltering ecomony made it more difficult than usual to just step into a career.  In many ways I was very blessed to get pushed out of the nest.

In the months following my discussion with my two friends, Maile and I began to see all the ways that our current life was falling apart.  For the first time we did some serious exploring around the structure of our life – lo and behold the foundation was rather sandy.  And shifting.  In fact, it didn’t take much of an inventory to realize the whole freakin thing was about to cave.

That’s what led to the decision, and the drive north, and my revelation about the naming of our fourth child Sam.  I had a few potential clients who wanted me to write books for them, and I thought to myself, maybe this is it.  Maybe this is the jumping off point.

And in the months that I have spent dedicating myself completely to what I believe is my identity, the reason I’m on this planet, I’ve got to tell you: I’ve never been happier, or less stressed, or more content.  It’s not the money (we’ve never made less) and it’s not the stuff (our two minivans have a combined 350,000 miles and our budget has been slashed).  It’s the days, the moments, the evenings.  It’s the commitment that Maile and I have made to stop wasting life, to focus on doing what we’ve been called to do.  There is an immense satisfaction in this.

At this point I have to throw out a disclaimer – the last thing I’m trying to advocate is that people throw their careers or businesses out the window and do whatever they want to do.  I’ve heard a lot of sales pitches, and seen a lot of heartbroken people who jumped without thinking, so I know that there isn’t one path for everybody.  There’s not one plan or sequence or decision that works across the board.

But I’ve also seen too many people out there living their whole lives like it’s one big timecard.  Just punching in and punching out.  If that’s you, I’m not saying you should stop anything (don’t stop working or taking care of your family or paying your mortgage).  But I would say this: START something.

Start doing something that excites you.  Start doing something that your passionate about.  If it’s writing, then write.  If it’s music, then play.  If it’s business, then start something small on the side.  If it’s helping hurting people, then start volunteering.  If you love your career then stop doing things halfway and commit.

I PROMISE you that the more time you spend doing what your passionate about, the more opportunities will come your way, and the more likely it is that someday you’ll be doing that for a living, and not just in your free time, or as a hobby.

I love this quote by Natalie Goldberg from Writing Down the Bones: “I used to think freedom meant doing whatever you want. It means knowing who you are, knowing what you’re supposed to be doing here on this earth, and then simply doing it.”

*****

For the next part of this story, click HERE

For the very first part of this story, click HERE