by lcelum@yahoo.com | May 18, 2013 | Creativity and the Writing Process, Uncategorized
I began reading The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa this morning. Halfway into chapter 1, I felt myself sliding into a well of despair. All I could think was, this sounds just like MY book, The Healer of Ennicy.
I’m not kidding. The premise is the same: all of humanity is enslaved to a non-human type race. The protagonist is a spunky young female. There’s even a public execution at the beginning. The only difference between Julie Kagawa’s premise and mine is genre. In her story, the dominate races is vampires. In mine, it is the fey.
I was sinking into a black, sulking funk rather quickly, so I put the book down and went to take a shower, half-facetiously planning my NEXT story, because I didn’t want Healer to look like it was inspired by The Immortal Rules. Fortunately, the shower gave me time to think and helped me clear my brain, allowing me to remember something very important about creativity:
There is nothing new under the sun.
This concept is widely known. It is found in the Bible (Ecclesiastes 1:9). It is quoted by Ambrose Bierce. It is the controlling idea of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 59. And it was even spoken to me, once, by a wiser-than-I writer friend who phrased it like this: While my ideas may have been used before, they have never been used before by me. They have never been presented the same way that I would present them, and that is what makes them unique.
Think about it. How many times have you read a quote on the back jacket of a book that said, in effect, “This story is just like that one told by (insert name here)”? Or how about when you finish reading a fantastic story that made you actually want to go live with the characters but, since you know you can’t, you go to the bookstore instead, searching for a book exactly like the one you just finished reading? For that matter, how are genres built?
The focus of creativity is not the uniqueness of an idea itself, but the uniqueness of how that idea is presented.
I grudgingly accepted this thought and, because I can go without breathing before I can go without reading, returned to Julie Kagawa’s book after my shower. Boy, am I glad I did. Turns out her story IS nothing like mine, despite the initial similarities. And that gives me hope because, when people finish reading her fabulously written story, they will want to find another one like it.
Which means I better get writing.
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/kiermacz/4515120671/”>uLightMe</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>cc</a>
by lcelum@yahoo.com | Feb 8, 2013 | Inspirational/Devotional, Uncategorized
One of the fabulous things about being THE English teacher at a private high school is the opportunity I have to form long-term relationships with my students and watch them grow. I pray for them often and, as I was praying for one in particular this morning, I began to form a metaphor in my thoughts and prayers.
I was praying that the Holy Spirit would work in the heart of this particular student, that God would plant a seed that would take root. Now, this student is one that may or may not be a Christian. It is hard to tell. So as I was praying for this student, my prayer began following this route:
Sometimes, the ground where a seed falls is hard, like concrete. Yet the persistent, hearty seed can find just enough dirt and moisture to take root, like grass in the cracks of a sidewalk. All that seed needs is just enough. Once it begins to sprout, it sends out roots into the hard dirt, breaking that dirt up. As the dirt begins to break up, it allows more moisture in and begins to soften. Pretty soon you have an environment that’s friendly enough to send up a plant. In the case of grass, it begins to thicken and spread. In the case of a tree, it begins to sprout. Since the Bible talks about our lives bearing fruit, I abandoned the grass metaphor at this point and began following the tree.
So the tree begins to sprout. As it grows, the roots around it begin to soften the dirt. How, then, does the tree not fall? The root system continues to grow, expanding in size and complexity, anchoring the tree. The more nutrients the tree receives, the better the fruit it bears. The better our souls are anchored in the Holy Spirit, the greater our root system, and the more fruit we bear. Now the image in my prayer looks like one of those cut-away views where you see the entire tree from top leaf in the air to bottom-most root in the ground. A pretty healthy tree.
Have you ever noticed that the root system of a potted plant will take on the shape of it’s container? This thought spurred another image in my mind, a network of roots in the shape of a heart. Now the image that I’m following in my prayer is one of a tree on top with a heart-shaped root system. In my mind, this has become the perfect symbol of a life well rooted in the Holy Spirit, blossoming and producing fruit.
Around here, we have a lot of live oaks. Funny thing is, when it rains too much, they can fall over. It’s one of the more inexplicable sites of nature to see a sprawling, healthy oak tree topple in the course of a long, heavy rain. The most interesting part of it is, those trees never have roots. When they fall over, their bottoms are exposed, and there is nothing below what was ground level for that particular tree.
I can’t help but wonder what causes a healthy-looking tree to lose it’s root system. I am not wise in the way of live oaks, and since this metaphor occurred to me this morning, I have not had the time to research the answer, but I find it interesting that this can happen spiritually, too. Every once in a while we see people who appear to be spiritually healthy just topple over in a storm. I wonder what happened to their root system?
All of this poured into my prayer for my student: that the Holy Spirit would take root in his/her life, soften the ground of his/her heart, sprout into a strong and sturdy tree that bears much fruit, and withstand whatever force it is that compromises a strong and healthy root system. I can’t wait to tell you how this prayer gets answered.
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/h-k-d/3074785871/”>h.koppdelaney</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/”>cc</a>
by lcelum@yahoo.com | Feb 6, 2013 | Creativity and the Writing Process, Inspirational/Devotional, Uncategorized
“O Lord, You are the God of the early mornings, the God of the late nights, the God of the mountain peaks, and the God of the sea. But, my God, my soul has horizons further away than those of early mornings, deeper darkness than the nights of the earth, higher peaks than any mountain peaks, greater depths than any sea in nature. You who are God of all of these, be my God. I cannot reach to the heights or to the depths; there are motives I cannot discover, dreams I cannot realize. My God, search me.”
~ Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
January 9
This quote speaks to me of an unnameable longing I have known all of my life. It is why I write… to search out and live the heights and depths, motives and dreams.
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/ashleyrosex/2450534945/”>ashley rose,</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/”>cc</a>
by lcelum@yahoo.com | Oct 7, 2012 | Uncategorized
I did it! I signed a contract to work with Sally Apokedek, of the Leslie Stobbe Literary Agency today. I still continue to have a sense of peace about chosing this option over the other, and am excited an looking forward to working with Sally for a long time.
Sally’s vision for our partnership involves three steps: first she will read and critique the manuscript, then I will make edits based on her critique and, when that is finished, we will give it one final polish and send it out to find a home.
I am so very excited.
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/kwerfeldein/2879955156/”>Martin Gommel</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/”>cc</a>
by lcelum@yahoo.com | Oct 1, 2012 | Uncategorized
I have been corresponding with a prospective agent regarding representation for my book. I told her, via e-mail last Friday, that I decided to go with the editor who offered me a contract because it was a guaranteed thing. She replied that she was very sorry to hear it, because she really liked my story and my voice and thought that I could get placed with a larger publishing company.
As soon as I read her e-mail, my stomach dropped through the floor.
I worried, thought, and prayed about this for the next several hours, even dragging my husband into a conversation about it. Eventually, I decided that the reason I was not a peace with my decision was because the Holy Spirit was prompting me to go with the agent. So I sent an e-mail to the agent telling her as much and requesting that she call me if she was still interested in representing me.
Not even five minutes later, my phone rang. We talked for two hours, and I hung up feeling more peaceful with this decision than I had with the other. The only problem was, I had all but signed the contract for the editor.
The confirmation that I had made the right decision came when I told the editor about my decision and he wished me well and said if things did not work out with the major publishing houses, please reconsider publishing with his house.
That never happens.
So now I am no longer getting published for certain, but am going to work with a literary agent and will begin soliciting a publisher once more.
by lcelum@yahoo.com | Sep 26, 2012 | Uncategorized
I’m pouring through the contract for my novel. My brain feels like mush. Legal-ese is a language all of its own. :S
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamneilward/4089715915/”>Adam N. Ward</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>cc</a>
