I just stayed up much too late to finish reading A Place of Brightness, by Keith Massey.
Have you read it? Read it! This is a must for anyone interested in the possibility of an Orthodox Christian literary genre. If you read it, we can talk about it! I’m eager to hear other views of the book and to discuss it.
I promise to avoid spoilers. Even without touching on the finer points of the plot (and it had some fine points!), there are many things to say about this novel. Continue Reading →
I must confess something important about my views on Orthodox culture, or indeed on any Christian culture creation.
It’s essential to keep our goals clear. There are some things that we can’t do. In my observation of Christian culture-makers of various denominations, I’ve noticed a viewpoint that shows up in every Christian context I’ve been in (and I’ve been in several). There is an impression, either conscious or unconscious, that it is within our power to change the world. If we just hit the right formula, the right combination of message and medium, we can turn the broader secular culture on its head and drive evil back from all its strong points in the world. Continue Reading →
That’s the title of my new book. It’s a novel, set in modern times, and although it wouldn’t be inappropriate for teens necessarily, it is primarily for and about adults.
So far, this publishing experience is doing its best to emulate the rosy dreams I had when I was in grad school, walking around next to formal gardens and old shade trees in Williamsburg, Virginia. In short, it bears no resemblance to real life. I love it!
The next fun event on this program is the photo shoot for the book cover, which is scheduled for later this week. I’m using the photographer who did the cover for Letters to Saint Lydia, which means that I’m already happy with whatever magic she’s going to work. Her name is Stephanie Platis, and you can see some of her incredible portfolio here.
But at the moment, I’m going to try sleeping before midnight, for a change.
Approximately two minutes ago, I sent the final draft of my second novel off to the publisher. PHEW!!!
Let me say that one more time. It really feels great.
PHEW!!!
This book and I have lived together for two years. There are fragments of the story scattered all over my life, appearing at odd moments like real memories. I’m starting to look back on it as if it happened to me, as if I were in it instead of writing it. I can’t proofread the text any more. I can hardly see the words on the page because they are almost committed to memory. I look right through the words to the people and places they describe.
So now, it’s time to say goodbye. The book is on its way, by invitation, to a capable and generous writing friend who started his own publishing company. By the end of this summer, it should be available in paperback, Kindle, and Nook formats.
All of which is like opening the front door of my house and watching a group of well-loved guests walk down the drive to the street, on their way to whatever comes next.
Today was a wonderful day, thundery and changeable, and crowned with a rushing shower of enormous silver raindrops. The air smelled like rain, which means that it smelled like memories of other long-ago summers, good moments curled up next to the doorway in my childhood house, watching the raindrops bounce off the driveway and surge down the roadside in impromptu rivers.
I made a decision today, about what to do with my second novel. I’m excited and full of brainstorms and curiosity. Because every time I put one thing in motion, life adds other motions and everything begins to move in new ways, like all the colored particles in a kaleidoscope. Shifting.
I got my start as a writer with a game called “Ghosts in the Graveyard.” It is a variant on hide-and-seek that my sister and I played with the neighborhood kids when I was 8. The game had involved one child being a tour guide, walking the others around the “graveyard” and telling spooky stories at different locations until the ghost jumped out, shouted “Ghosts in the Graveyard!” and started chasing everyone.
When I was the tour guide, I told stories about how the trees in a certain area had, over time, grown in such a way that their tops were very sharp so that they could impale parachuting skydivers in revenge for centuries of logging of their kind by humans. I was often asked to be the tour guide, and the encouragement made me want to be a writer.
Making a connection with the audience is both rewarding and challenging, especially with humor. All at once, you have to come up with something that’s relevant to your audience, it needs to have unexpected combinations that will cause mental fire drills in the heads of the reader (laughter) and you need to make sure you don’t go too far and offend people.
I got inspired to write Orthodox humor by The Onion Dome, which during its heyday was the Saturday Night Live of Orthodox humor. It had a lot of fake news and fake pastoral advice (hold your nose while walking in front of restaurants during Lent) and was a hoot. The creator of the site, Alex Riggle, brought together an assortment of writers to create a new genre that was both obscure and hysterically funny to the Orthodox people who followed it.
My humor book, “Heaven Help the Single Christian” got started as an Onion Dome article. I was inspired by a young man who had met a girl on one side of the country at a church conference. They got along well. A few weeks later, he flew to the other side of the country to show up unannounced on her doorstep with a bouquet of flowers. This delightful story spread around the girl’s group of friends – my fiancé (now wife) being one of them – and the extreme measures that he was willing to take to find a girl who believes in God really resonated with me. My first thought was to laugh at him mercilessly for his romantic pilgrimage, but then it occurred to me that I’d done the same thing, twice, before I met my perfect girl, only my pilgrimages involved buses, not airplanes.
When I was in the midst of the struggle to find someone to marry, I thought that someone needed to write a good book on the topic, but I was far too angry to do it. After getting engaged, I had a new joy in my life, but the memories of being single were still strong enough for me to write something lighthearted but engaged in the reality of the topic, and the book came together quickly.
Promoting your first book is a challenge. The recommended way of starting is to get invited to conferences, give talks, sign your books, and sell them out of a box that you bring. I’m still trying to figure out how to do that. I’ve also made some zero-budget advertising videos and put them on the Internet in hopes that they’d go sort of viral, and I’m writing essays based on parts of the book for magazines.
I’m trying to break out of obscurity, but it’s also important to try remaining humble at the same time, making being a writer a unique spiritual task for a Christian. I want to provide material that speaks to the reality that Christians face in their daily lives while also providing appropriate advice. The writer’s task is a lonely one, but the help of other Christian writers is necessary, both to help improve your work, and to make sure that what you write helps people with their salvation.
It has been my absolute delight to be working in the world of children’s literature these last—almost–twenty years. It started with writing simple stories, leading to longer ones with plot lines and chapter breaks. It blossomed when my first son was born and he was (still is) a child who gobbles stories, eating them for both dinner and dessert. His delight in a book is tremendous, and being a mama who loves words, and languages, it was a perfect naptime match—he napped and dreamt of other worlds, and I wrote.
Fast forwarding many years, and many stories. Now, I sit here at my desk, marveling at the winding road God has paved for me. Not a road of financial success and worldly gain, but a road where truths have been discovered, where my obedience has been tested, and where a longing for potato chips has become an obvious sign that I need to get back to work! It’s still true, after all these years, that I like stories, but it’s even more true that I like children, and it’s triply true that I love Christ. And as an artist, that is how I try to live out my days. Liking stories, but loving Christ.
For many years I had the honor of not only writing, but being part of a team that acquired, edited and produced children’s books. I was able to work with dozens of authors to help shape their stories. To me this was a little taste of heaven, and I’m grateful I had that time rooting others on. It taught me that Community is a powerful thing. That joining forces, producing a book, or doing any sort of work together, makes something better than what could be done alone. We are the body of Christ.
Orthodox children deserve beautiful words and images to inspire them, don’t you think? We should labor over every aspect of a book for these children who openly (or even reluctantly) are led into that land of saint or story. That is my joy, knowing the potential is there to inspire deeper thinking or change a heart. Yes, the heart! We must, as parents and guardians, as teachers and grandfathers, nurture the minds and hearts of children, with loving time together, and with stories that build deep faith in a little one…
Liking stories, but loving Christ. If we, as a community of writers and illustrators and book designers and publishers, can keep Christ before the story, then we will accomplish exactly what God intends. We will be part of a team that changes real, beating and feeling hearts! And in that work, my heart will also be changed. For the stories that flow from my pen are not mine alone. God helps, aids, teaches, inspires, gives me courage. His hand appears when least expected, and I try to keep a prayer begging for His presence on my lips when I’m working—it sounds a lot like this: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!
My ultimate goal is to be completely, fully, totally enveloped by Christ, and becoming the Jane that God has envisioned. And if there are still stories to write as I become that Jane, then you can bet that I’ll be here at my desk, praying the Jesus prayer, rooting on my fellow workers and their stories, and dreaming about little ones and their beautiful hearts.
Jane G Meyer is a children’s book author and editor. She lives in Santa Barbara, California with her husband and three children, where they attend Saint Athanasius Orthodox Church. Her next book due out is The Hidden Garden: A Story of the Heart, and will be published by Conciliar Press in the fall of 2012. You can see more about Jane on her website, www.janegmeyer.com —she also blogs about bread baking at www.janegmeyer.wordpress.com, hoping to inspire others to stretch and give just a little more, and she welcomes you to be part of her community of friends on Facebook, where she shares her blog posts, snippets of her life, and photos…
When Melinda asked me if I would be interested in writing a blog post about writing, I thought, “Well, I am an author, I self-publish my books… Oh! Sure. I’d be glad to contribute.” But then it occurred to me, “Oh, she wants writers: people who ‘write.’ But, I don’t really ‘write.”’
You see, my background is in art. I have a Master’s degree in sculpture, and furthermore, my experience lies along the lines of conceptual art. After all, I went to the University of Illinois at Chicago during the ‘80’s.
That’s what we did there and then. I have ideas.I make things. Making art and teaching is what I am “qualified” for. But, regardless, the truth is, over the past 10 years I have found myself doing quite a lot of writing.
What got me into this position, where I needed to express myself this way, is that I had an idea for a series of history notebooks: the History Portfolio books. 
These are books which the children build by adding written work and images according to the provided outline, and in the end function as a record of their history studies and a keepsake. 
Part of this original vision included publishing books for Orthodox Christian children as well, and so several years ago, I published a book called Journaling Throughout the Liturgical Year, which is a notebook as well. You see the theme? Making things. The initial idea and the production of the Portfolios didn’t require much writing, just the original vision, tons of research, and artistic decisions. Concepts, researching, making. These were areas I was familiar and comfortable with. But what happened next was that I needed to explain how to use the books, write introductions, web content, etc. And, further down the line, I wrote Teacher’s Guides for each of the books. So, it’s snowballed.
But, “how did I get here” is not what I want to write about today. I want to write about “here I am,” and how to make the best of it. One of the first things that came to mind when gathering my thoughts about this blog post was sharing a couple of revelations I’ve had about “here I am.” About 11 years ago, I became very involved with a consuming project with our church. With the blessing of our Bishop, our group had just purchased a temple which needed to be remodeled. At this time, I had just my two oldest children. Nearly every day from May – September, for some part of the day, we went to work on the church. I remember, one day, sitting in the church in the mess of lumber and dust and half-painted projects, and the letters of St. Theophan the Recluse came to mind. In this book, The Spiritual Life: And How to Be Attuned to It, St. Theophan replies to a young woman’s recent letter.
“What has happened to you? What kinds of questions are these? ‘I do not know what to do with my life. Should I be doing something in particular? Should I define some particular purpose for myself?’ I read this and I was dumbfounded; where could such odd thoughts have come from?” (87)
The chapter continues, and he makes it clear that she is not to waste time on these questions, but to do the work which God has put before her! This resonated with me because at this time I was personally a little conflicted because I had left other projects at home. But I looked around and thought, I did not look for this, I did not choose it, but it was put before me. And, I was so thankful for the work which had been put before me, and thankful that I didn’t have to choose between projects or be the navigator.
Earlier this year, I had another experience which reminds me of the experience I just described. I was listening to the radio, while alone in the car. As a homeschool mom, let me tell you, this occurrence is rare! But, I heard the story of a man involved in some charitable organization, who was working in a faraway land bringing roads and, as I remember, communication capabilities. I thought, “Oh, I’d love to do something like that! It’s so meaningful!” For just a moment or two I contemplated this. But, I quickly turned my mind to something more constructive and thought, “Well, what would I do, if I could?” And, I thought, envisioning a faraway land, “I would like to teach… to work with children… to somehow touch their lives with books, good books…” and as I narrowed it down, I realized… “That’s what I do! I’m doing it! I am living my dream!” It was a very delightful surprise. And, again, I was so thankful for the work which has been put before me.
Sometimes, I clearly have jobs before me, and the work is rich and full of challenges. But, there are plenty of times that I flounder in my work. I recently heard a Russian proverb, “Pray to God, but keep rowing to shore.” In the lull between projects, or in the middle of a project which seems to be feebly coming along, I feel the need to gather some kindling to get the fire going. Back in my art school days, we had a guest visit by a curator of a gallery, and she gave some advice which I think is applicable here. She said, “Everyday, you need to be with your art, working and thinking to some degree. Some days will not be as productive or creative, and on those days you need to at least be in your studio cleaning your brushes or preparing your work space.” With my writing, I may not have the same tools of the trade as a painter or sculptor, but I do find that the more I stay away from my craft, the more distant I feel from it, a chasm opens up, and the less inclined I am to plunge in as soon as an idea strikes me.
To keep moving along, or stoke the fire, it has proven to be a good thing for me to take up small projects which are just above my comfort level. This forces me to keep learning new things. Many of these projects are teaching opportunities, giving me the reason, and deadline, to create new activities along the lines of the Portfolio and the Liturgical Year Journal. Speaking or presenting workshops has been an area which has given me the opportunity to collect my thoughts, and write. Definitely outside my comfort zone, but good for me. Deadlines and accountability can be good. I just take each opportunity as a challenge to develop.
To really keep a good fire burning, I have found that, for me, a good length of time for a big project is about 5 or 6 months. I love to really live in a project for a while, immersing myself as much as I can, and then gaining that sense of completeness when it is done. Once I get some distance on a finished project, I find that if I can look back at my year and know I’ve finished something, it seems to provide a semblance of order, and satisfaction. Of course, completing a project… raising the curtain on the show, presenting myself and my work as if saying “this is the best I can do,” has its own problems. It can be hair-raising at worst, and humbling at best. I have repeatedly watched myself delay the end of a project, not wanting that creative fire to end. Apparently, my thinking was, “It was safe working on this project. I have a job to do, I have a clear direction, I know what I’m doing. And… when this project is over, what am I going to do?! Oh no, I’ll have to come up with something all over again, and it’s going to be messy!”
Mess or not, writing or building, it can’t be helped. It’s what I do. I make things.
Barbara Shukin is an Orthodox Christian mother of five children from ages 21 down to 4, and has homeschooled since the beginning. After receiving her MFA in sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she taught for several years at the college level, and was concurrently the director of a college art gallery. She continues to teach through local homeschool co-ops, and by offering art classes for homeschoolers. Barbara is the author and publisher of the History Portfolio Series, the Nature Portfolio, and Journaling Throughout the Liturgical Year, offering a notebooking approach to the study of history, nature study, and the Orthodox faith.
Writers are not like eggs in a carton, each one identical and interchangeable, the same inside and out. They are more like snowflakes in the sky, no two of them the same. We are each one of us very different from the other.
Take for example Melinda, the author of this blog. Reading on her blog about her writing life, she seems to be a Watcher, someone who stares with a child’s wonder at the wide world around her, watching every raised eyebrow, every subtle gesture, every misapplied make-up stroke, and then strives to make artistic sense of it all. (As a child of the sixties, I think she would make a great spy: Melinda Johnson, the Writer from U.N.C.L.E.) I, however, am not as keen an observer of God’s world. I am not so much a Watcher as a Preacher. Don’t get me wrong. I like watching people (with the exception of daytime television). But ever since my conversion to Christ through the Jesus People movement, I have been seized (some would say “afflicted”) with a desire to preach.
Early on in that movement, I learned about the power of God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures, and this has left its mark on me. (I could’ve learned it from the Orthodox Church back then too, I suppose, but it kept itself pretty invisible, as if as well as wearing a phelon, each priest also wore Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility.) And being marked by the Holy Scriptures, I needed to keep delving deeper into them. It was like an addiction, except that it led to freedom, not bondage, and I had no desire to recover. I still suffer from the addiction, so that every year at Orthodox Writers Week in Rockaway Beach, Oregon, I drag down there a suitcase full of Bible commentaries and Greek and Hebrew interlinears, and spend the week reading, chewing, pondering, and then putting the results into the margins of my Bible. It means that each evening I have nothing to share with the assembled group, but I have fun, and they are very understanding. Such addictions are not totally fruitless however. Conciliar Press has published ten of my New Testament commentaries so far, the so-called “Orthodox Bible Study Companion Series”. (Note: this is a plug.)
Writing then, for me, is like preaching, except that I use my keyboard, not my voice. (It also means that I can polish it up some, and erase and redo any verbal missteps, which luxury I am not allowed in a homily.) My experience of producing words feels like what is described in Jer. 20:9: “If I say I will not speak any more in His Name, there is in my heart a burning fire, shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in.” For me, reading the Word produces this fire in my bones, and the result has to come forth from my mouth—or my keyboard. The challenge as a writer or preacher is to reproduce in others the same excitement I experience when reading the Scriptures; my goal, to be a clear conduit for the power of the Word. People don’t need to hear from Fr.
Lawrence (they can get their podvigs elsewhere)—they need to hear from God. Like Jeremiah and every preacher throughout the centuries, my task is simply faithful transmission of what I have heard.
It is not automatic, or easy, and sometimes I mess it up, so that people hear more of Fr. Lawrence and less of God than I would like them to. This is where the so-called “creative writing process” comes in. For me, this involves seeking God, usually while taking a long walk. Having absorbed the Scriptures, I start a process of pondering and chewing, a kind of inner groping after what God would have me say, rather like feeling your way in your own home in the middle of the night when the lights are out. When I have found it, that’s when I hit the keyboard.
C.S. Lewis once described the process of writing as being “in book” (i.e., like being in labour), and compared book-writing to childbirth. I appreciate the comparison. Finishing a written piece, or a sermon, brings a certain relief. But the preacher’s addiction to the Word is a strong one, and soon enough I find myself back at it again.
Fr. Lawrence is the pastor of St. Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church, in Langley, B.C., Canada. He is the author of a number of New Testament commentaries and a commentary on the Divine Liturgy, published by Conciliar Press, and an number of Akathists, published by Alexander Press. He lives in Surrey, B.C. with his beautiful wife Donna (who is also a published writer), two daughters, one son-in-law, two grandchildren, and one beloved but useless cat.
Years ago, as a teenager, I became disillusioned with the Orthodox Church and decided to stop attending. When certain events led me back to the church as a young mother, I was hungry to learn more about the faith I took for granted. I devoured as many books as I could find. One of them was Father Arseny.
Part of the reason I left the Church was because I couldn’t find that personal connection of what Orthodoxy meant to me. I wanted to do more than just show up on Sunday and go through the motions. I needed something more, and somehow I just wasn’t finding it.
When I came back to the Church, Father Arseny was a comfort to me. Added to the icons and the hymns and sacraments of the Church, the book gave me a sense of the life and sufferings and amazing selflessness of a not-yet-canonized saint. I read in awe about a highly educated man who became a priest and was imprisoned in the Russian labor camps during the Communist regime under Stalin. Somehow, Father Arseny managed to stay alive by the grace of God while dodging starvation, bitter cold temperatures, regular beatings, and an inhuman workload designed to kill prisoners. In the midst of all this, he often gave up his food rations to other prisoners, cared for the sick, and never stopped praying and glorifying God.
Crossing myself openly in church, or anywhere for that matter, took on new meaning. Kissing the icons hanging throughout my house brought me a new sense of gratitude. I didn’t have to worry about Communist prison guards beating me, or about being turned in by someone who I thought was a friend. Instead of skimming a collection of short paragraphs on saints, I was reading about real-life accounts of an amazing man who turned to God under the worst circumstances, and blessed and touched countless other lives. Suddenly, I felt so much more aware of how blessed I was to pray and live freely as an Orthodox Christian in this country.
Reading Father Arseny was a part of my journey back to Orthodoxy. It made everything so much more meaningful for me. Recently, though it had been many years since I had read it, I found myself referring to it often when talking with my children about spiritual miracles. One day, I picked it up off the shelf and started reading it to my thirteen-year-old daughter. Soon, the stories started coming back to me. The hardship, the struggles, and the amazing Christ-like love that Father Arseny shared with so many.
Now, when I go upstairs to kiss my daughter goodnight, she gives me that familiar inquisitive look and asks, “Father Arseny?” which means she wants to read another chapter. And so I read one chapter, and then I find myself turning to the next page and saying, “OK, just one more chapter.”
Christy Pessemier is an award-winning freelance writer who has written numerous articles for South Sound Home | Garden | Life magazine. She also worked as a reporter for the Eatonville Dispatch Newspaper, and continues to work as a copywriter for local businesses as well as 425 Magazine. Christy lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, two daughters, and their Beagle-Basset, Scout.
