The Little Things

A few weeks ago, I was stressing out about how much cleaning I had to do.  Work was "putting my through the wringer", a phrase I had to use often to politely but accurately describe my mental and emotional state at my job, and I just felt overwhelmed.  Every room in the house needed attention: the bathroom, the kitchen, the office, the bedroom.  Spiders and ants were finding their ways inside, the toilet bubbled when I ran the washing machine, and I kept opening up my drawers and felt like I had nothing to wear (oh, first-world problems).  


I opened the fridge the other day to try and figure out what I could concoct for dinner that night and found a plastic cup full of wonderful sugary goodness with a post-it note declaring that I was special to someone.  The hubby had picked me up a caramel iced coffee.  I'm a weak-sauce coffee drinker, but I'm incredibly addicted to the dessert kind.  This was the perfect thing to sip on while cooking dinner. 


Another day, I had a business meeting to prepare for, which means waking up earlier in the morning (eww) to blow dry my hair and put on make-up, something I don't normally do.  It's just too much effort for me.  What do I wake up to?  The smell of eggs and bacon.  At my bedside.  

I opened my eyes to see a small ciabatta sandwich with egg and bacon and a pumpkin spice latte.  One of the first of the season.  I think the smile on my face stayed permanently with me all day.  The hubby had waken up early, driven to Starbucks, driven back, and artfully placed my sandwich one of our Food Network dishes (which, by the way, make every meal look professional just because the plate is SQUARE).  


Even though those two occurrences aren't "little" in any respect, I've begun to appreciate the little details that my husband takes notice of because of them.  The thoughtful decisions he makes, big or small, illuminate his thought processes and heart.


It's the start of the holiday season.  I'm an avid celebrator of all things Christmas.  But one of the more important aspects of this season is taking notice of the little things, both in your actions and others.  Not only is it inspiring in your writing and will help develop stronger characters, but understanding brings such a richness to one's life that cannot be attained any other way.  

Moving

Almost four-weeks into Marriage.  I'm loving it, but also moving out and learning to live with someone new brings about a lot of adjustment.  You are constantly shifting your weight as you attempt to balance on this new board which has different weights and sensitivities.  I'm having to learn to say, "ours" instead of "his" and "Mom & Dad" instead of "Mr. & Mrs."

The symbol of this change: boxes.  In these boxes is everything imaginable from childhood trinkets to adulthood necessities.  The "razor" for my Shaving Ken doll, really just a plastic stick with a foam pad on the end.  The child size T-shirt that says, "I'm in the middle."  An unopened curling iron because I can't take the one at my parent's home with me.  A purple wedding planning book with bent pages and a dented cover from being dropped on the ground from desk-level.

The boxes form an impenetrable wall before our sliding glass door, stacked three or four high, depending on their size.  They are labeled with department store logos, leftovers from wedding registry gifts.   They are haphazardly sealed with scant pieces of packing tape.  There are light cob webs growing between a few as they have not been touched in a few weeks.  Everything needed is already unpacked.

Sitting proudly on the bookshelf are dozens of photos of smiling sisters and proud parents.  Those were out of the boxes first.

Life Lessons

You guys are probably sick of reading about weddings.  I'm sick of thinking about weddings!  But alas, in this special and unique period of my life, I find myself without time to write and learning a gazillion life lessons.  As a result, I feel I must record some of these changes and transitions.  They are too valuable to not get down somewhere. 

So, here are some tidbits of what I've been learning recently, complete with writing prompts for fun (since life lessons = good stories).

#1 - It's your big day, AND it's not all about you.
If you notice, there is a comma before the conjunction in that sentence, meaning that the two statements are independent clauses.  That is true because I feel like these two ideas are the most popular wedding mentalities present in today's brides.

The fact of the matter is that they are both true.  The day IS your big day and you should plan it as it will make you happy.  If you just have to have that photobooth or you'll always wonder how fun it would've been, book it.  However, it is also not just about YOU getting married.  The purpose of a wedding is to give your guests (who are super excited for you) the opportunity to celebrate your marriage.  Believe it or not, they are there for you (at least most of them).  Honor them and respect them with a ceremony & a reception that demonstrates you appreciate their love, affection, and best wishes.

Note: Show honor and respect to your family members, especially mothers and grandmothers.  It means a lot to them.

PROMPT: A bride-to-be and her mother are on opposite ends of the spectrum in regards to these two ideologies.  Write a conversation in which they are talking about wedding details/plans.  Try to not have the characters specifically mention their ideology but instead have their own agenda come through their dialogue.

#2 - Listen and understand to what people are saying.
As I've mentioned before, a wedding is both a celebration and a grieving process for family members.  The bride and groom create a new family and leave their old ones on their wedding day.  Because there are so many transitions going on, there is a lot of joy and pain.  There is a lot of stress.  While the stress is inevitable, how you deal with it is key.  Listen and understand where people are coming from.  You will not regret it.

PROMPT: Your first-person narrator is mute.  Write at least two pages of your narrator interacting with someone close to them.

#3 - Be specific.
After you're done listening, be specific when you voice your own opinions and emotions.  Don't use words like always or never.  Even something like "most of the time" should be avoided.  Say how you felt at a specific time because of a specific action.

PROMPT: Character 1 said something to Character 2 that hurt his/her feelings.  Write about how Character 2 approaches Character 1 about the situation.

Weddings & Characterization

I feel like every relationship in life is a gift because relationships teach us characterization...if we're paying attention.  As I've planned for my wedding, I've interacted with loved ones and acquaintances in stressful and awkward situations.  You begin to learn that weddings aren't all about being in the spotlight; all of these bridal festivities begin to be opportunities for people to show their love and support.  And if you are gracious, you begin to allow them to celebrate you and spend time with you.

Its these sort of observations of your friends and family that help you with the characters in your stories.  To really understand your characters, you have to be patient and observant.  You have to try and understand why they do things, not just what they would do.  Its important to ask what does a character's decision says about him or her.  Why did Jill choose to run back down the hill?  What does that say about her character?  What does that say about her priorities?

It is even more important that we ask these questions about real people: our friends and family.  If we can take that step back and try to understand those around us, it just might lead to more compassion and grace.

Guest Blog Post

I had the honor of being able to be a guest blogger on Angela E.J. Koh's blog.  Check it out!

http://angelaejkoh.com/2011/06/27/guest-blogger-cheryl-chen-on-the-writers-stereotype/

Musings on the Writing Life

Everyone is telling me that I'm at a unique stage in my life.  Some people say its the most exciting, many people say its the most stressful, others say that its a period of change.  All are correct in their own way.  Preparing for a wedding IS a big deal.  It is stressful, there is a lot to do, and a lot of things are changing.  I'm adjusting alright, I suppose.  Its hard to tell until after its over.

I have to admit that my writing has gone to the bottom of the priority list.  Between church, family (which has now expanded to include my fiance's family), church, wedding planning, and friends, I have had little time to work on my own writing.


Much of my creative writing education in college stressed, whether explicitly or implicitly, that in order to be a good writer, you have to make your writing the #1 priority in your life.  I'd have to say that right now, its a #10 priority, if that.  I have a ton of other things that I value more than getting my novel done.  Is that wrong?  For some people, it is.  They would say that my writing will be sacrificed, that in order to excel, I need to be drowning in writing.  Reading, editing, writing, workshopping, etc.  I need to be able to put my job aside, my friends aside, and concentrate on my writing.

I admit that many prestigious authors have lived this way of life and they have reaped the benefits.  But who is there to rejoice with them when they succeed?  If we put our family and friends second to our writing, in the end, who is going to be there to help us when we fall or cheer us on when we're nearing the finish line?  To me, there is no replacement for family.  And in my opinion, a self-centered act of writing (not selfish, just self-centered) should not be more important than the ones you love.


Perhaps I will never be successful in my writing.  Perhaps I will never be a great author remembered throughout time for intelligent, well-written stories.  I'm okay with that.  Some people aren't.  The balance is difficult, but I can see no other way to live my life.

Disclaimer

There is the phrase that goes, "Be careful what you do around an author.  You may just show up in their book someday."  or..."Don't ever date a writer. They'll turn you into literature."  Something like that.  I'm sure there are bumper stickers out there or something.

The phrases are true.  I'm sorry, but what else are we to glean from?  Our imagination can only go so far.  And even then, imagination is only creation based off of things that we've experienced.  For characters, any character we create contains bits and pieces of people we've observed or know.  It is not necessarily an insult or an honor to be portrayed in this way; I almost guarantee at least 80% of the time for the average writer the use of your character traits is entirely subconscious.

I wrote this for a writing exercise in college, and the paragraph still means a lot to me.  The exercise was to write a disclaimer for something, so I wrote a disclaimer for books or writing.

I have to warn you.  Most people think that when people write stories, they are fake, fiction, figments of zealous imagination.  But I’m telling you, and perhaps ruining the grand secret: our stories are most often based on truth.  Well, yes, we have to change that one thing, toss in new names, and flip that one pathway around, just to disguise the fact that we aren’t really all that creative but just intrigued by life and its intricacies.  But the hard part may be, for some of us, that our life really isn’t that interesting, so we take these nuggets of truth, little instances and moments, small handfuls of human existence, and try to contain it inside the confines of the written word.  So, what I guess truth in this story is that there is no such thing as pure fiction.  

I don't want to debunk fiction or to make it any less of a creative art.  Its just that I write because I love life.  Everything is so intricate and complex, yet increasingly simple at the same time.  The world is a paradox unto itself, and holds so many mysteries.  I like to create and to make up worlds that don't exist and people that don't exist but somehow are just as real to me as the chair that I am sitting on.  And yes, that was entirely cliché, but hey...I like well-timed clichés now and again.

Have fun gleaning information from people's lives (with respect and discretion, of course).  Ron Carlson used an entire lecture devoted to teaching us how to write examples from real life but disguise them so that the people involved won't be able to tell.  Asking permission is always great, but sometimes you just can't do that.  So change everything, every detail.  If it was set in the summer, put it into the winter.  If it involves a boy named Robby, rename him Edward.  If she has three kids, give her one.  Change all the details.

I think, if one has to define it, creativity is taking pieces of what God has created and fiddling around with them.

Some Personal Theory

So, you want to write a book (a story) that means something.  You want those deep, thought-provoking themes to reveal to the reader something about their own lives and hopefully encourage them to change for the better.

Then you get to writing class, and they tell you can't write toward theme because you will have a bad story.  They say you have to let the story to the leading and let the characters speak for themselves.

You are stubborn and try to write toward theme anyway.  You fail.  You realize that you have to listen to your teacher.

You try writing for yourself, but you are a theme person.  That is just how you are as a writer.  And you are trying as hard as you can to silence the part of your writerly self that wants to inject theme into every emotional conversation between two characters.  Symbolism!  Metaphor!  They are all dying to smear their faces on the page.  You do your best to hold them off, but bits of them creep in and get into the writing anyway.

Now, you're faced with your horribly written draft that is half a weak story that got shoved around by metaphors and themes and ideas and absolutes and ideals and half a poor soap box speech that has these weird characters with their own ideas (that probably and somehow conflict with the person that created them) getting in the way.

What do you do?

My first idea: Embed your ideals into the plot points.  Sure, let your characters do their own thing and hold the theme down.  But during the drafting part, you have to go through your draft and see what themes are popping out from the characters themselves.  If you don't like them, well, you're the author.  Get rid of them.  But the ones you do like, work with them.  They are there already.  But make sure that you make realizations or ideals presented or something like that a plot point.  They have to be integral to the plot.  If you could take them out and the plot would not have to change a bit, that won't work.  Your theme has to be so integral to the plot that it is a part of the characters lives.

Thats just an idea.  I don't have any experience really to back it up.  Ron Carlson, whom I studied story writing under for a year, would probably laugh at this blog post.  Either for my stupidity or for my simplification of something that he has been trying to teach me all along.