Filling the Well: Movies to Inspire Creativity

Last week, I talked about some writing books I've found inspiring and helpful; this week I thought I'd share some movies that always serve as a creativity jumpstart for me.

Shakespeare  In Love: (1998) This film, written by Tom Stoppard and directed by Mark Madden, won Best Picture in 1998, and gives the "back story" of the writing of Romeo and Juliet. With fantastic performances by Joseph Fiennes, Ben Affleck, Gwyneth Paltrow (she won her Oscar for this movie), Geoffrey Rush, Judi Dench (who also won an Oscar for this movie), and Colin Firth, it may not be based in reality, but it's a wonderfully funny film, especially if you're a Shakespeare fan. The costumes are sumptuous as well.

The reason it inspires creativity is because the basic premise of the movie is that Shakespeare (Fiennes)  has writer's block--and he solves it by falling in love with Lady Viola (Paltrow), who is, alas, already engaged, to Lord Wessex (Firth). The movie takes us into Will's world, both onstage and backstage, and demonstrates that writers can't just write good things at the drop of a hat. This is an excellent movie for when you're facing any sort of creative block.

The Hours: (2002): OK, guys. This movie is not for everyone. But if you're interested in the life of Virginia Woolf, this is a great movie. Nicole Kidman won her Oscar for her performance as Woolf, and the film was also nominated for Best Picture. Every time I watch this, I'm motivated to dive back into my writing and journaling. And the music, by Philip Glass, is incandescent. The novel is also on my list of favorite books.

The Red Shoes (1948): Not about writing, but about dance, and art in general. Nominated for Best Picture, the film is a retelling/adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's story The Red Shoes, which compel the wearer to dance to death. In this case, the story revolves around an up and coming ballerina (Moira Shearer), the impresario who becomes infatuated with her talent, and the composer whom she loves. The film demonstrates the physical effort involved in creating beautiful art and the extremes that are to be avoided in its creation!

Babette's Feast (1987): This shows creativity in the kitchen. If you've never seen it, please do so, but eat first. This is the story two single sisters, who live quite lives stripped of luxury, until their devoted cook, Babette, wins the French lottery and wishes to cook a meal for the sisters and their friends. The film is based on Karen Blixen (Out of Africa)' s short story. A wonderful fable of hospitality and virtue, but also creativity: watch how carefully Babette prepares the course of her meal, in every stage of its development.

Becoming Jane (2007): Of course, this one. This biopic, based on Jon Spence's Becoming Jane Austen, focuses on Jane's (Anne Hathaway) relationship with the young lawyer Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy), and the writing of Pride and Prejudice.

Writing On Vacation

Summer is prime vacation time for most of us, and for me, it's also prime writing inspiration time.

There are the usual thoughts on this, that getting outside of your normal environment can help spark creativity, and exposure to new things does the same. But I find that any sort of travel, even if it's to places I know well, can be inspiring in multiple ways.

For example, a recent trip to Washington, D.C. familiarized me with a part of the town I hadn't really experienced before, and added new depth to my knowledge of the city, which is useful. Details--from coffee shops to what people are wearing, to traffic patterns--can make their way into future novels and pieces, making my imaginary store of places richer. (There was one restaurant in particular that I loved). This is also when keeping a journal comes in handy. I have an instant place to record my observations and details I want to keep in mind.

For new cities, of course, there's always much more that I've never seen before. When I go to Charleston in a month, I'm fully expecting that I'll be writing a lot in my journals about the city and details about the people and places we see.

I always get the itch to write when I travel. Usually it's in my journal but if I have my laptop with me, sometimes I'll do sketches or write the first few paragraphs of what I hope will be a larger piece. The larger piece may not appear, but just the practice of writing regularly can be reinvigorated by a new setting and new experiences.

Do you notice your creativity grows when you travel? Tell me about it in the comments!

Yarn Along No. 26

Let's talk yarn and book, shall we?

In the last Yarn Along, I was working on a lot: the scarf for the VA, and the last of the housekeeping gift of washcloths. I'm still working on both projects.

So the scarf is on the left and the newly started final washcloth is on the right. This yarn was sort of a bear to knit for the first few rows, and I don't know why this yarn (Comfy worsted from Knit Picks) can be so back and forth when it comes to starting projects.  It gets easier as I progress, but sometimes it's really smooth right off the bat, and sometimes it's not. This color is called blackberry, and it's on the harmony rainbow needles.

For my reading, I'm working on Fr. Michael Gaitley's The One Thing is Three, which is about the trinity and a lot of other theological things, namely the Summa Theologica (which I'm studying in a group at church right now, so yay!). I've previously read his Consoling the Heart of Jesus and I'm going to be reading his 33 Days to Morning Glory later this month.

Reading About Writing: My Favorite Writing Books

One of the most common tips writers give to want-to-be-writers is to read a lot. This isn't something I've ever had a problem with, but there are certain books about writing that I've found incredibly helpful to me over the years, so I thought I'd share them with you.

• Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, by Natalie Goldberg. The chapters are short essays that motivate and inspire writing; there's a list of prompts toward the front of the book if you're stuck on the what am I supposed to write? horse. I found her writing very accessible and almost like she was sitting across the table from me at a coffeeshop. Goldberg is a gifted writer and her writing always inspires me to take another crack at my current project.

• Escaping Into the Open: The Art of Writing True, by Elizabeth Berg. This is my favorite book about writing. Berg gives a ton of unusual prompts and activities to really inspire creativity, and she writes about her own writing process and inspirations. I've got this book post-it marked, underlined, and bookmarked in many different ways.

• Make it Happen, by Lara Casey. This isn't a writing book, per se, but it's a book about setting and achieving your goals. I love it!

• The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron. The classic book on freeing your inner artist, this has helped a lot of writers I know, especially in the institution of Morning Pages. I'm working my way through this--very slowly. :)

These are my favorites. How about you? Do you have favorite books that inspire you to be creative?

Daybook No. 97

(it's back!)

Outside my window::

Sunny through thin white clouds. It's not going to be very warm today--well, warm for June--so swimming is probably out, but that's OK!

Wearing::

Jeans, a bright blue v-neck t-shirt, and flats.

Reading::

Working on Northanger Abbey. I finished Prodigal Summer yesterday, and man, I wish Barbara Kingsolver would write a sequel. It's that kind of novel where you want to stay with the characters for a long time, even after the book is finished. I'm reading The One Thing is Three for my spiritual reading. The rest of the fiction pile includes The Forsyte Saga and A God In Ruins, and then I've got What Matters In Jane Austen and Jane Austen's England. So a variety of things on the reading pile!

In the CD player::

The Light in the Piazza, celebrating Kelli O'Hara's Tony win.

Writing::

This week I'm doing something different with LA--I'm going back to doing the link-ups/weekly features that I've sort of been neglecting amidst the new writing plan. So tomorrow is the Yarn Along, Thursday I'm talking about Sketchbook Skool, and then Friday we'll have Quick Takes. I'm also going to get some things pre-written because I'll be in Pittsburgh until Tuesday.

The Dominican section of the memoir continues apace. It's sort of a complex section to write but the goal here is to get it down into a physical form on "paper" (or, in a Pages document). Then I can revise it. I'm hoping to have the section done by the end of the month so that in July, when I'm back from Charleston, I can start sending out queries and book proposals. (EEEEEK)

Creativity::

You'll have to come back tomorrow and Thursday to read about that. :) But really, it's been really interesting in this area lately.

Health stuff::

So yesterday was my Annual Clinic Day of Testing for Transplant Guys. :) Basically, all the yearly tests we do, I did yesterday. That involved lots of blood-letting, full PFTs (Pulmonary Function Tests--"full" meaning more than just the basic test I do every visit. We checked gas diffusions in my lungs and some other fun things), a CT scan of my lungs, bone density scan, and an abdominal ultrasound, which looks at my spleen, liver, kidneys, all that sort of stuff.

I lost five pounds "officially" in clinic (I told the dietician that I had lost 10 lbs at one point, but the loss doesn't want to stay there, sadly), and the PFTs went up four points. So win to that correlation. Everyone's happy with that. I haven't gotten the results back yet from the other tests. (Other than things like my regular chest X-ray, which looked fine and dandy--we saw that in clinic.)

Today I'm going to see my ENT so he can check out my sinuses. I see him about every six months, and about every two years, we do the sinus surgery. This is because even though my lungs don't have CF, the rest of my body does, so we still have to keep the sinuses happy. They tend to fill with the CF-quality mucus and that can be a huge breeding ground for infection. Fortunately, I don't have nearly as many sinus issues as some other CF folks I know.

Pondering::

I normally don't talk to many--if any--other patients when I'm at Children's. Part of that is because I don't really talk in waiting rooms, at all, and partially because a lot of the time, I'm alone. In clinic, I'm in my own room, and in radiology, the transplant/cancer patients sit in the radiology hallway itself, not in the general waiting room, because of concerns about sick people.

I'm really familiar with the radiology hallway. It used to be main radiology for the entire hospital, so I've come here as an ER patient, as a CF outpatient, and in the days after transplant, at 6 AM, before the hospital was really "up", so I the chances of me running into a sick person (or anyone else) were really slim. I know all the radiology techs really well, and know some of them by name.

There are three chairs set up outside the main waiting room door for transplant/oncology patients. Sometimes it's me and other transplant patients who are being seen that day (we all have the same routine--blood work, x-rays, clinic), but mostly it's just me.

Yesterday there was a small family: a boy, a girl, and the mother. The kids looked to be in high school. I knew the boy was a transplant patient because 1) he was wearing a Dash for Donation shirt (it's the annual Lifeline of Ohio race), and 2) he had a mask on. Most of us wear masks in the hospital. I hate wearing them so I generally don't. (yeah, I'm a rebel.)

But the boy looked so sick. I couldn't tell if he was pre or post-transplant. He was so thin I could see the ligaments in his legs around his knees, the tendons popping out. His shirt hung on his, and he was in a wheelchair. He didn't really look anywhere, other than vaguely at his lap. His sister was plugging away at Facebook on her phone, but he just sat there, vaguely thinking about something.

I knew that look. I'd been there. It's the look of not really having the brain power to do anything else but tend to the function of your body. Breathe, sit up. Breathe.

He went back for X-rays, and I talked briefly to his sister--small things, about the waiting area, her sparkly phone cover. Her brother came back quickly and they were gone, heading up to clinic.

The radiology technician called me to a room. "He's rejecting," she told me.

"How far out is he?"

"Five years."

Ah, five years. Five is a magical number. About half make it to five years--it's a little less than that, for girls. UNOS (United Network for Organ Sharing) doesn't even have 10 year stats on their website, yet, for lung transplant patients. At hitting 10 years, I'm sort of a statistical anomaly. Five years is becoming more common, but 10 is still out there, and the people I know who are 15+ years have had two transplants.

I am extremely, extremely lucky. And it could all change, but right now, the fact that I'm this far out, and that I'll be celebrating my 10 year mark in a month, is incredibly fortunate. I am incredibly fortunate.

Plans for the Week::

I have a Summa Theologica class at church on Wednesday--this just started last week--which means I have to read Question 2 of Part 1 today so I'm ready to talk about it tomorrow. :) On Friday I have another doctor appointment and then I leave for Pittsburgh on Saturday!

(note: that lovely photo of bluebells? Elizabeth Foss took that. :) I hope she doesn't mind that I borrowed it from her website! It's just so gorgeous.)

Writing Updates--June 8, 2015

• The first installment of the Jane Re-Read is up on the blog. A new post will go up every other week throughout the summer. First was Sense and Sensibility, and next is Northanger Abbey. Come join us!
• The Dominican Part of the Memoir is being written. The timeline is important here, and after this part is down I'll need to finesse how it works in the manuscript as a whole, but this is an important part that's been missing.
• Remember the NaNo novel I abandoned last year? I think I might have a new way into it, which excited me, but I need to play around with it. Right now it involves moving from a third person to first person narration, and possibly adding more points of view, instead of the limited third person I was going with before. But we'll see if that helps.
• Coming up on the blog this week: travel tips and Sketchbook Skool!

Seven Quick Takes No. 78

I.

mmmm. Summer Friday. Those are beautiful words in the English language, no? :)

II.

Since it's summer, more people read. You can, of course, join the Jane Re-Read (Sense and Sensibility is what we're talking right now). I'm still reading Prodigal Summer and Northanger Abbey. I just finished I Believe In Love, about St. Therese of Liseux and how she can lead us to a deeper spiritual life, and I really liked that one. There's a lot to ponder and I'll definitely be reading it again. (Who am I kidding. I read everything again....unless it's Moby Dick or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Shudder!)

I keep debating if I should read Girl on a Train. Yes? No? Thoughts?

III.

My 10 year transplant testing appointment is on Monday. To put this in perspective: UNOS (the United Network for Organ Sharing, which "does" transplants in the U.S.) doesn't even have 10 year survival rates on their chart. The last one they have is 5 years out, and for women, that rate is 46.1%. I read somewhere that 10 year survival is around 30%, but I forget where. So, for ONCE, the odds have been playing nicely with me. I rejoice in this. The actual 10 year date is in July, but we do the testing in June, usually.

IV.

I've discovered that a lot of women don't know basic maintenance things. This sort of scares me, ladies. You should know to put gas in the car (and what kind of gas), how to jump a car battery, how to use tools, how to unclog a toilet. Even if you're married, your husband isn't aways around to fix things! I'm amazed at how many women I know who can't do any of these things and I want to be like, girls. Come on now!

V.

My brother's girlfriend sent me this photo of him at Disneyland, and I just love it:

As Br. H said, "How many Evil Empires can you fit in one picture?"

VI.

I've started swimming again--yay! But man, the muscles feel it when you swim hard for the first time in a season. They rebel the next day. But it's so good to be in swim season again, I do not mind at all.

VII.

Almost time for Edel 2015 in Charleston! I'm so excited!! I've never been to South Carolina and I can't wait to meet all the amazing women who will be there!

The Great Jane Re-Read: Sense and Sensibility

We're doing this slightly out of order--I read S&S first this year, so we're starting there.

Since this is the first post on the Jane Re-Read, let's do some basic ground rules:

1) Yes, she's Jane here. I can't call her "Austen" like I would "Dickens." Jane just seems like a friend to me. Hence, Jane.

2) Abbreviations: S&S--Sense and Sensibility; P&P--Pride and Prejudice; MP--Mansfield Park; E--Emma; P--Persuasion; NA--Northanger Abbey; JA--Juvenilia, (not her initials. :) )

3) In each entry--which will come up every two weeks--we can talk about anything related to the book. I'll post links to other things I've written about the particular book, and I'll also post my favorite movie version of each book (there are multiple versions of every book except NA, I think.)

4) I won't summarize the book. You can google it for that. I'm assuming you're going to read (or have read) the book. So it'll just be notes. So, if you haven't--spoilers, y'all.

Ready, y'all? Let's start with Jane's "darling child," S&S.

I wrote two pieces about S&S here and here, and my favorite version of the movie is the 1995 one, although the BBC's latest effort is more faithful to the book, overall.

S&S was originally titled Elinor and Marianne, and Jane took time off between the first draft and the published version we know as S&S. She wrote the first draft when she was younger, but it wasn't published until several years later. Her family relocation to Bath, the death of her father, and the fallout from that made for a peripatetic life. Finally, her brother Edward settled Jane, her mother, and her sister and best friend Cassandra , at Chawton Cottage in the village of Chawton. It was there that Jane revised S&S, P&P and NA, and wrote MP, E, and P. 

Much of S&S deals with a topic Jane was intimately familiar with--what happens to the wife and daughters of a man when he dies. The Dashwood women do not fare nearly as well as the Austen women did. Jane's brothers all pooled their resources to provide for Jane, Cassandra, and Mrs. Austen. (Cassandra was engaged, but her fiance died in a shipwreck.)  Regency society was very hard for unmarried and widowed women, and that's illustrated well in the novel. Without Sir John's easy rent terms for Barton Cottage, the family would've been very hard pressed to find anything near their former situation. While the Dashwood women now live in a cottage instead of handsome Norland Park, they still have at least one maid and a manservant, and are able to live in an approximation of their former life (none of the women have to work, for example, to earn money). But their lives could've been much easier if John Dashwood had kept his promise to his dying father.

The closeness of the two sisters is also true to life for Jane. Jane endowed Marianne with several of her qualities: Marianne adores Cowper (Jane's favorite poet), and shares some of Jane's personality; also, Jane was the younger sister (and second youngest child in the Austen family). It is easy to imagine Cassandra as Elinor, especially since Elinor is an artist, as Cassandra was. The closeness of sisters is examined in many of Jane's novels, but particularly here and in P&P (with Jane and Lizzie). In Persuasion, Anne Elliott isn't close to either of her sisters; Fanny Price in MP is close to one of her younger sisters, and Emma's older sister, Isabella, is a sort of non-entity since she is married and lives in London, not Highbury, with her husband and children.

It's interesting that only MP deals with brothers--Fanny is very attached to her brother William, who serves in the Royal Navy (as did almost all of Jane's brothers). Edmund Bertram treats Fanny like a sister for much of MP, but they're cousins. There are no "true" brothers in any of the other novels: In S&S, he's the girls half-brother, from their father's first marriage; there are no Bennet boys, which is a major plot point, and both the Woodhouse and Elliott families have only girls. (This is also a major plot point in Persuasion, not so much in MP.)

I have a lot in common with Marianne. We both love music and romance and poetry, but I also have a bit of Elinor in me. I would never act like Marianne does in the ballroom scene in London, for example. The old-fashioned girl part of me waits for the man to approach and to do the asking. Like Elinor, I'm aware of social norms and what's acceptable behavior, and 99% of the time, I follow it. (The other 1%...well, sometimes we all go nuts. :-)) But I also am fiercely loyal, like Marianne is, and don't take fools lightly, although I generally use my Elinor side to refrain from saying whatever I think. (See, Marianne and the Middletons.)

Am I the only one who wanted Edward to buck up? You are not in love with Lucy anymore--break off the engagement! I totally support him keeping his word, but come on, Edward! You were willing to spend your life with a woman who drove you crazy because when you were young you made a mistake and got engaged?! Boo.

I think every girl has her Willoughby--that man she falls head-over-heels for, the one that seems so perfect. And then you find out he's not. Maybe he's not a scoundrel, a la Wickham, but he's not perfect, and he's not the man for you.

It's a fine line between Marianne and Elinor. If you stay silent, like Elinor does, you could miss your chance. But if you're overly eager, as Marianne is, it can cause you problems later on. I always wondered what Margaret would end up like--more Elinor, or Marianne? Or a good mixture of both?

Like all of Jane's heroines, Marianne learns a lesson by the time she weds the Colonel (who, incidentally, is never given a first name in the books. He's just Colonel Brandon.), but I think she's happier for it. I think she and Elinor both have good, solid marriages, where both of them can love and esteem their husbands (as Mr. Bennet exhorts Lizzie to do in P&P). 

What do you think of S&S? Are you more a Marianne or an Elinor?

Goal Setting for Dummies: Using Power Sheets

"Goal setting."

Does that phrase give you shivers? I know it used to for me. It seems so grandiose, right? It takes me back to when I was in high school and everyone asked "what I was going to do" after school. Most of us sort of mumbled our major or shrugged. I knew what was my major was going to be, but until I figured it out, it was nerve wracking, right?

So many articles have been written about goal setting that I don't think what I'm going to write here is new. But if you're new to this, here's an article from lululemon's website that talks about it.

Anyway, I'd always liked the idea of goal setting, but I was never very good at it. That is, until I found Lara Casey's power sheets (And no, this isn't an add for her. It's a great tool I use in writing that I thought I'd share with you. :) )

Basically, the Power Sheets break goal setting down into manageable chunks: short-term and long term goals, and most importantly, why you want to achieve these goals. The set contains six months' worth of sheets, and a lot of detailed prep work. But they are magnificent, guys. Each goal gets broken down into daily, weekly, and monthly goals, which is so helpful for someone like me, who needs that step-by-step accountability. For example, for the past few months "write three blog posts a week" was a goal. Then there was "daily writing 30 minutes", and in the monthly section, it was manuscript goals. I also have prayer and fitness goals.

No matter what your goals are--climbing Everest, finishing your dissertation, learning to draw, whatever!--these sheets will be an enormous help. If you're like me and need accountability, then checking off the boxes every day will be a big help.

Do you have goals you're working towards? How do you push yourself to accomplish them?

Photo Essay: Franciscan Monastery, Washington D.C.

Using an Editorial Calendar (or: making sure readers have something to read!)

Before I used an editorial calendar, my blogging habits were pretty hit or miss. Some weeks you'd have content coming out of my ears, and some weeks, total radio silence. That's not helpful on a couple fronts--for you, the reader, I hope that you want regular content because you like to read what I write. (If you don't, don't tell me. ;-)) Second, writing, like anything else, requires regular practice and time devoted to it. If I only write when I feel like it, then I'm probably not really dedicated to the craft of writing. (You could say this about anything, really--prayer, gardening, sports, yoga, etc. If you only do it when you feel like it, it's probably going to be a sporadic practice.)

When I was doing my social media overhaul, Cristina had the brilliant suggestion of an editorial calendar, and I think it's changed my writing for the better. It's helpful in several ways:

• I can track outside writing projects (like my Real Housekeeping work) and make sure I don't miss deadlines.
• I can see, at a glance, what's coming up for the next few weeks, and schedule posts appropriately--if I'm going on vacation, I can still have content ready to go, if I want.
• I have to dedicate time to writing at least a few times a week, so I can have these posts ready to go.
• It helps me prevent feast or famine blogging--I can spread ideas out over a number of days, so there's not a glut of pieces on day and then nothing for days after.

I use trello, and I really like the format, because it's easy to use, clean, and very user-friendly.

So here's my current editorial calendar:

The left-most column is where I keep a running tally of ideas. These are either scheduled--as in, I think I have a place for them on the calendar--or not (just yet). Next is researching: this is for posts that might take longer (such as posts where I'm talking about theology) and need to look up necessary documents--hence, research.

Middle column is writing, and this is where things go into the hopper, if you will. I try to have two weeks' worth of material going at any one time. You can see, in fact, that this piece is at the bottom of the writing list, meaning it's in the on-deck circle, to steal from baseball. (I took the photo the day I wrote this.)

The colors mean different things: the blue means it's a post for this site, whereas the purple means it's going to the blog (which you follow, right?) Any other colors are indicative of the category of writing, which is really just for me.

After writing is editing and graphics. That means I make the pretty pictures that top these articles, and give all the pieces a read-through to scan for errors.

When all that is done, the card moves into the "completed" column--yay! I generally keep things here for a week, so I can get an overview of what went up where over the past week. Then the cards are archived.

Another great trello feature is the calendar page:

This is actually one of my favorite features, because I can see what's going up when in a big spread, and I can re-arrange cards at will. This is great for my future planning, especially for when I'm going on vacation, or I want to see things at a glance. The only problem I have here is that when a card is archived, it's also removed from this page, and that irritates me, but, such is life!

I also have a trello board for my big writing projects, but that's set up differently. Maybe I'll show you that one some other time.

So not only does my board provide organizational nirvana, but it also provides accountability. The content isn't going to write itself! Usually early in the week I do the calendar sorting and resorting, to figure out what's going up when, and then I work on blog posts throughout the week, along with my other writing.

Things that don't get scheduled are things like Yarn Alongs and Seven Quick Takes on the blog, because those are running features that don't need quite as much planning as from-scratch blogging does. I do keep certain features as cards, though, so I don't forget, like the biweekly writing updates--I'm also going to do those for the Jane Austen Re-Read. 

I know that the idea of editorial calendars is used in a lot of different industries--I know that IT guys use a version of this (not trello), but something like this to track their software development. Have you used an editorial calendar in your work? Would you like to?

Catholicism in the Culture: Sin, Crime, and the Duggars

Earlier this week, I read this article in the Washington Post about Josh Duggar's inappropriate (and quite frankly, gross) actions against several of his sisters and another family friend. That alone isn't worth blogging about, though. What is worth writing about are are similarities and difference between sin and crime--something that the author of this piece doesn't seem to understand. The author seems to think that "repentance" is equal to getting off scot-free, and that there isn't any sort of price to be paid for committing sin, whereas with a crime, there is a cost--jail, usually, or a fine of some sort.

When you treat this as a sin instead of a crime, you let everyone down...The behavior alleged was a crime, not a sin.

Actually, it's both. If I commit murder, I have sinned and committed a crime. Same with theft, abuse, using illegal drugs, etc. There are some things that are sins but aren't crimes, like adultery. You can't go to jail for sleeping with your co-worker's wife. No one's going to lock me up for not observing the sabbath or for taking God's name in vain (at least in the United States).

Let's look at a few terms, here, because the author didn't, and that's a big problem.

First off, what is sin? Here's how the Catechism defines it:

1849 Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as "an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law."121

1850 Sin is an offense against God: "Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight."122 Sin sets itself against God's love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become "like gods,"123 knowing and determining good and evil. Sin is thus "love of oneself even to contempt of God."124 In this proud self- exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation

There are also different types of sin. 

We see, in this definition of sin, that no sin only hurts one person. Sin is an offense against God. It is opposed to grace. Sin removes grace from your soul, and places you farther from God.

Now, what is crime? According to Merriam-Webster, crime is:

: an illegal act for which someone can be punished by the government

: activity that is against the law : illegal acts in general

: an act that is foolish or wrong

So both sin and crime are about doing things that are wrong, whether by God's law, the law of the state/country/county, or by Natural Moral Law.  Essentially, Natural Moral Law states that even if you never met a Christian, read the Bible, or ever heard of Jesus Christ, there are some things that humans know are intuitively wrong. As Catholicism for Dummies puts it:

Moral law is natural because it’s known by reason — not written in stone or on paper, like the Commandments or the Bible. It’s moral because it applies only to moral acts — actions of human beings that involve a free act of the will. (It doesn’t apply to animals, because they don’t have the use of reason.)

What Josh Duggar did (and he confessed to doing it, so this isn't alleged behavior) is both a sin and a crime. He committed a sin by violating one of God's commandments--sexual acts outside of marriage are wrong. (While the Duggars have some pretty extreme courtship measures, the general message of "no sexual activity until you're married" is a tenant of Catholicism, as well. But full-frontal hugs are allowed, and I never dated with my siblings as a chaperone, etc. The Duggars embrace a pretty hard-core version of purity, which the article discusses.) So that's sin. However, it's also illegal to perform sexual activities on others without their consent, so that's the crime portion of the situation. Both require confession and punishment/penance, but they go about it differently.

If the Duggars were Catholic, they would have strongly suggested that Josh confess this sin (you can't compel a confession. The penitent has to come to it of his own free will and with a proper spirit of contrition), and he would have received a penance.  After the penance was completed, Josh would have been fully absolved from the sin, thus returning to a state of grace and a state of friendship with God. The Catechism says (my emphases)

1468 "The whole power of the sacrament of Penance consists in restoring us to God's grace and joining us with him in an intimate friendship."73 Reconciliation with God is thus the purpose and effect of this sacrament. For those who receive the sacrament of Penance with contrite heart and religious disposition, reconciliation "is usually followed by peace and serenity of conscience with strong spiritual consolation."74 Indeed the sacrament of Reconciliation with God brings about a true "spiritual resurrection," restoration of the dignity and blessings of the life of the children of God, of which the most precious is friendship with God.75

1469 This sacrament reconciles us with the Church. Sin damages or even breaks fraternal communion. The sacrament of Penance repairs or restores it. In this sense it does not simply heal the one restored to ecclesial communion, but has also a revitalizing effect on the life of the Church which suffered from the sin of one of her members.76 Re-established or strengthened in the communion of saints, the sinner is made stronger by the exchange of spiritual goods among all the living members of the Body of Christ, whether still on pilgrimage or already in the heavenly homeland:77

It must be recalled that . . . this reconciliation with God leads, as it were, to other reconciliations, which repair the other breaches caused by sin. The forgiven penitent is reconciled with himself in his inmost being, where he regains his innermost truth. He is reconciled with his brethren whom he has in some way offended and wounded. He is reconciled with the Church. He is reconciled with all creation.78

(The entire section on confession is worth a read, if you're interested, or this post)

So, not only would Josh's sins have been forgiven after confession, but he also would've received grace to strengthen him against committing sin again. (as I tell my first graders--GRACE IS AWESOME.)

Now, that being said--confession heals the person's relationship with God. When criminal activity occurs, the Church believes that the process of law and due process has to happen for the common good of society. For example, if a murderer comes and confesses his sin, the priest will strongly urge that person to confess to the authorities, as well. It's part and parcel of justice, which is a virtue. If you steal, you not only confess it--you have to pay back what you stole.

So, yes, Josh's parents would've had to turn him in to the authorities. What happens after the crime has been admitted is a different thing in different localities, and thus outside the realm of this discussion.

However, the thing to remember is that sin hurts everyone. When you sin, you don't just confess and get off scot free. There has to be penance, there has to be contrition and yes, you have to do your penance. The author of this piece is wrong when she suggests that sin and crime are different things, and that one is more or less serious than the other. Sin and crime are both offenses against other people, and both must be dealt with accordingly, whether sacramentally or judicially.

After the First Draft, Now what?: Revising vs. Editing

So you've got the first draft. Yay! Now comes time to let out your inner editor. This can be hard, because the inner editor can be a beast, and think that everything you wrote is crap. So I recommend--and so do other writers, like Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down the Bones--that you take time away from your piece for a little while. Sometimes it's a week, sometimes it's a year, but that time away allows you to refocus your vision and recalibrate your inner editor. When you come back to the piece, you'll have fresh eyes, and this enables you to see both the good and the bad in what you wrote. When I was recently going through The Undesirables, there were places that were great--and places that were just crap. I deleted the crap and attempted to write new and better things.

This brings us to an important distinction between editing and revising. Revise means (among other things) "to alter something already written or printed, in order to make corrections, improve, or update." Edit means "to revise or correct, as a manuscript."

Essentially, revising comes before editing. When I used to "edit" papers in college for other people, what I did was revise and edit. The first reading was usually for revisions. I made sure that the paper flowed, the argument presented was made, and that everything moved in a sequential, logical fashion. If an argument was weak, I noted that, or if there was too much repetition, I noted that. Sometimes I would circle entire sections in red pen and note that they should be moved around--either forward or farther on--in the text.

When I revise novels, I delete sections I don't like, I add things that need further exposition, and I can re-imagine the timeline, if I have to. Revising is more about the grand shape of things. Editing is about the nit-picky details--spelling, punctuation, grammar, things like that. So if I've revised a paper, the second pass is usually for editing purposes, unless the person wanted me to read it again to make sure the revised copy worked.

I really like revising and editing. To me it's the process that turns the coal into a diamond, if you will. Now, there does have to be the one good sentence in there to begin with. But if it is there, then you simply have to build on it in revision. I find the first draft the hardest part in my own writing, because I haven't gotten everything down yet. The ending is still ambiguous, and I might just have one scene in my head--how can I create an entire novel out of one scene? The writing gremlins are usually pretty present in my first drafting experiences. It's probably the effect of the blank page, or the blank canvas. But when I'm revising, I have fresh eyes and I'm ready to tackle the manuscript head on again.

Writing Updates May 25, 2015

Notes from the writing room:

• This week I'm finally adding the new (and hopefully last) section to the memoir. I've nicknamed this part the "Dominican section", since it deals with me joining a Dominican parish, discerning a vocation to be a cloistered nun, and things that happened after that. (No spoilers here, guys.)
• I'm writing up my D.C. trip on the blog tomorrow, which, coincidentally, involves more Dominicans. (Subscribe to the blog if you don't already, please?) It was a picture-perfect weekend, weather wise, which was so nice, since the last trip I made to D.C. involved snow and cold.
• I'm also writing my next Real Housekeeping column this week, which involves how to stock your pantry and create easy meals from your food stash.
• On Wednesday in this space will be a piece on revising vs. editing: no, they are not the same thing!

The First Draft--the Messy Scribbles

So you've finally decided you're ready to start the first draft.

And you put pen to paper and....nothing.

I know some people think they need to know everything that's going to happen in the novel before they start writing, and you really don't need to. It helps, sure. But it's not necessary. I've started pieces with just one scene in my mind and then gone from there. (Gift of Snow started this way.)

For a first draft, I find things like NaNoWriMo to be really helpful. You're stuck with a word goal and the objective is to get everything on paper. You can't stop because you've got the time crunch to meet the goal of 50,000 words, so you write through writer's block and hopefully come out the other side with a story that has a beginning, middle, and an end. Personally, I need that sort of external accountability to get my first drafts done, and I only stop if I am really stuck--totally, creatively dry and at a dead end, which is what happened to my piece for NaNo last year. I just had no idea how to move the story beyond its embryonic stages.

If you don't like the word goal idea, you can also tell yourself you'll write for 30 minutes a day, or an hour a day--whatever. The point of a first draft is to get the basic sketch--the messy scribbles--of the story down. This also applies to writing nonfiction. Things like essays or speeches can be done this way, and I've done that before. You start with what you know is going in the piece. Then you can write things like "MORE HERE" (which I do all the time), or "WORDS" (if you're being cheeky) as placeholders.

No one turns out a perfect piece of written work in a first draft. No one. Not Jane, not Dickens, not Ernest Hemingway. No one. So shut up your inner editor and just write. No one cares if it's trash, because no one but you is ever going to see it. This is where you can think up whatever you want. When you go back and edit, that's when you can critique and slash out entire chapters if you want. That's the purpose of editing. But the rough draft is like a Pollock painting. It's paint splashes on the canvas of the page. Reduce your expectations, sit down, and write.

It's Alive! Creating a Vibrant Novel Part III: Dialogue

Dialogue is my favorite thing to write. Putting words in people's mouth is always a fun thing to do, especially when it's part of the job. Characters need dialogue in order to really exist. You can dig out the caves, you can do all your pre-writing research, but your characters, eventually, will have to talk to each other.

Having a good ear for dialogue is a bit of an unearned talent. Some writers have it, and some don't. There was an entire period of novel writing when dialogue was pretty spare. Henry James is a great example of this. You have pages and pages of text, without any dialogue, and to be honest, this sort of writing drives me crazy. I don't need pages of internal monologue. I need dialogue. Detail is helpful, yes; but there is a place where it becomes burdensome (see Moby-Dick....this is the main reason why I so dislike Melville).

Knowing your characters will tell you a lot about how they talk. If they're lawyers, they're going to talk different than Eliza Doolittle. An Earl is going to speak differently than a shopkeeper, and someone older is going to use larger words, and more sophisticated sentences, than a two-year old.

Here's an example from The Undesirables, where we have several characters of different ages interacting:

I found Jack in the kitchen, spreading batter into a cake pan. “Guinness Cake, for Kate,” he said.

“Her favorite.”

“We’re going out for dinner?”

“Yup.” The strands of Aladdin, and the girls’ singing, came into the kitchen. “Sweet. I’m off duty.” Jack placed the pan in the oven and tossed the mitts on the counter. “Where to?”

“We need to decide.”

“CHEESE,” The girls cried. LeAnne and Margaret were of one mind--they wanted the place that served grilled cheese down the street.

“Something a bit fancier, my ladies,” their dad said, picking each one up under the arms. The girls squealed and the threesome fell on the couch.

“Wendy’s!” They squealed in concert.

“Even fancier than that,” I said, tickling Margaret.

“I don’t know that it gets much fancier than Wendy’s,” Emme said as she tossed her keys on the counter.

“In their world, probably not,” Jack said as we let the girls go back to the movie. The Rug was playing checkers with Robin Williams’ Genie.

I actually love writing in kids' voices, so this scene was fun for me to do. But it's an example of adults interacting with kids, and kids being kids.

Dialogue is a place where stealing is a great idea. Charles Schultz said that if you didn't have a funny dog you didn't know how funny a dog could be, and it's the same way with dialogue.

If you're writing in an accent, it can be hard to catch that accent, so definitely do research beforehand. Don't throw in words or expressions that wouldn't fit that particular culture/social realm.

Jane Austen, of course, is a master of dialogue. There's a reason we find her and Shakespeare so quotable. It's because they knew how to write in a way that captured our ears and our minds. Stilted dialogue can kill a scene really quickly, and it's something I'm always obsessing over.

A really good example of stilted dialogue? The Star Wars movies, especially the prequels. I like them as much as anyone else, but George Lucas' gift really is not writing dialogue. It's just not. Even the best actors can't save bad dialogue.  They can try, but ultimately it's probably always going to sound stilted.

Do you have favorite writers who excel in dialogue? Do you ever have problems writing it?

It's Alive! Creating a Vibrant Novel Part II: The Characters

Last week, we talked about how important research is to a novel. Today, we're going to talk about the people that populate your stories--the characters.

There are a plethora of approaches involving characters. Virginia Woolf talked about digging a cave behind hers:

“I dig out beautiful caves behind my characters; I think that gives exactly what I want; humanity, humor, depth. The idea is that the caves shall connect, & each comes to daylight at the present moment.”

 Diana Gabaldon writes about characterization at length on her website. Some authors prefer to know everything about their characters, from the time they were born to their favorite childhood breakfast, while some wing it as they go along. Some characters have things borrowed from people I know, and some are created out of whole cloth (like Ariel, a minor character in The Undesirables--I just worked on a scene with her yesterday, so she's fresh in my mind. And yes, her name is Ariel for a reason.)

Generally, I know my main characters well. I write down details about them--eye color, hair color, height, general body shape and composition. I know how they like to dress and what they do for fun, and I can picture them as I'm writing. Secondary characters tend to spring up because the main characters need them to populate their world. For example, in Undesirables, Kate (the main character) has a best friend, Paige. David (Kate's husband, and the other protagonist), has a best friend, Eric. While I might not know as much about these guys as I do about Kate and David, I still need to know how Eric and Paige will react in situations with Kate and David. How do they talk? What is their relationship with my main characters? What is their physicality--how they enter a room, how they sit, their mannerisms.

In Pilate's Wife, for example, I knew there were things that Pontius and Claudia wouldn't do. They wouldn't slouch or be slovenly people. They wouldn't talk with their mouths full. They have a certain sense of breeding and carriage. I also had to be careful of their dialogue. I couldn't put twenty-first century idioms into first century mouths.

But the main characters have "caves" behind them: I know when they were born, who their parents are, their siblings. I often sketch out family trees for these guys, and have birthdays for their siblings and parents. I know where their parents live and where the characters grew up. I know their best and worst school subjects. To me, that's all very important,  even if I will never use this information. I still have to know it.

The last piece of creating a vibrant novel is dialogue, and for this, I'll have to devote another post.

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? If you write fiction, how do you create your characters?

Writing Updates--May 11, 2015

The latest updates from the office:

• First, I'd like to state that, as much as I love the new baby princess's name, I named my royal character Charlotte years before she was born (The Gift of Snow). So when the novel comes out, don't be thinking I stole her name, guys. ;-)
• Blog: The blog has its own tab here (look up--it's the furthest right), but if you want blogging posts when they're published, please go over there and subscribe. Here's what I wrote about last week: How to handle life's curveballs; knitting and reading. Two weeks ago, I had a post about books you need to read before you die, so if you're looking for some summer reading, I've taken care of it for you!
• Some of you have been asking about excerpts of the novels. I'm in the process of working on finding good sections and I will post those under the "excerpt" pages, above (they're currently empty). I'll update you when there is something there!
• I'm doing major revisions to The Undesirables. When I first wrote it, my objective was basically to get a beginning, a middle, and an end in 50,000 words for NaNo. To do that, I wrote quickly and skimmed over some pretty large plot developments. Now I'm going back and filling all of those empty spaces in, and I'm having a ball.
• As a gift for subscribing to the page, I've sent y'all a copy of Pilate's Wife. If you did not get it--or are a Wordpress Subscriber, in which case you didn't get an email because I don't have your email--please let me know so I can send you a copy. I want to make sure everyone who wants to read it can!

Pilate's Wife--now available!

Hi everyone!

As promised, Pilate's Wife went out to all subscribers today as a thank you gift! I hope that you enjoy reading it!

However, if you are a WordPress follower, I can't email the story to you. So if you want a copy, please use the contact form on the about me page, and I will send you the story! I want to make sure you get your gift!

I'm "excited and scared" that this story is out there in the world, and I hope that you all enjoy it.