11 Writerly Fears

It’s October! That time of the year again where the fog is creeping up the hills and it’s getting dark earlier and earlier, day-by-day. When it comes to horror stories, readers may wonder what on earth writers may be afraid of. After all, don’t they write villains who make your skin crawl or stories that keep you up at night? Turns out, there’s quite a few things that writers are afraid of from forgetting to back up a story right before the computer crashes to 1-star book reviews. *shudders* Writers, ye be warned.

Caution: extreme irony. This post is not meant to be taken 100% seriously.

11) Paper cuts.

It’s not just red ink that can end up on manuscripts. Papercuts are deadly occurrences when your story strikes back that can leave your fingers stinging for days. The pen is mightier than the sword, especially when you use that pen to write, cut yourself on the soft paper, get some obscure infection, and die. Use antibiotics, people! Hand sanitizer stains are just as acceptable as coffee stains on your manuscript since they both ward of death—death to your body and death to your creativity.

10) Writer’s block

My first encounter with trouble writing came in the form of writer’s block, and it still comes and goes. For an entire summer, I didn’t know where I was going with my stories. This past summer, I didn’t know which story I would pick next because I was enjoying my current one so much. And while I may not be recovering from writer’s block at the moment, there may be a time when I get stuck again. And again.

And again.

But that’s when you keep going and keep writing. And pray you don’t overheat your computer on your lap or fry it by plugging it into the wall in some foreign country.

9) Losing your writing.

Whether it’s to a house fire, a crashed computer, or an unsaved file, losing a bit of your writing can be devastating. All that hard work you put into a story, hours, months, years just gone. Remember to backup, backup, backup. Use a thumb drive or a backup hard drive or both. Open a safety deposit box to store all your completed manuscripts or put it on the cloud.

I’m paranoid that people may even steal my stories (which is silly considering how rough some are), so I shred every scrap instead of simply throwing it away. Perhaps it’s ridiculous, but yes, I would be that person to run back into the house to save my stories. Last year when our apartment complex caught fire, I grabbed my backup hard drive.

8) Lack of coffee/tea/caffeine.

It’s a tragedy when the pantry is all out of your favorite beverage or snack. How else are you supposed to bribe motivate yourself to keep writing? I haven’t actually run into this problem yet, but if I were somehow wake up one morning without my favorite tea or coffee grounds available, I would probably walk around in a daze like a zombie. Or just curl up in bed and accomplish nothing like a slug. But where’s the fun in that? Solution: coffee keeps the zombie apocalypse at bay!

7) Getting your book made into a movie.

I’m just kidding. All writers dream of seeing their pretty little words made into a film that cuts out half of the important details, messes up your favorite plot twists, and butchers the characters and their development. Your welcome. But seriously, I still dream of a Lord of the Rings quality version of my story in film…

6) Dead characters.

Particularly the ones you hold dear. Oh, I like this character. He/she could be my best friend. What a beautiful line. Wait… did he just die? *insert melodramatic Darth Vader* NOOOOOO!

Seriously though, don’t get attached. Just don’t do it. Fine, you can get attached to characters, but be prepared to say goodbye.

In a way, it’s worse if you’re a writer, knowing you’re going to kill somebody off. Or they just surprise you and randomly die. The anticipation of such scenes is awful, and I always hate myself for writing them. How could I be so cruel to my characters and my readers? It’s just the story, right?

5) People not reading your story.

Perhaps another fear of writers is shouting into the void. Hello? Is it echoing in here, or is it just me? Sometimes I wonder if anybody will ever read my stories or my blog posts. But then I get a nice little comment, or somebody will say something to me in person about some of my work.

4) People reading your story.

No, seriously. It may seem contradictory, but it’s true. Correction: as I writer, I’m afraid of negative feedback, which gets overanalyzed by my brain. What if readers hate my story? Or worse, what if they sort of liked it, but it didn’t live up to its full potential? What if readers want to hunt me down and try to burn me at the stake? Okay, so it’s a little overdramatic, but sometimes, the mere idea of feedback becomes dreadful. This is why querying literary agents is scary. And reading in front of audiences. And just daring to write at all.

3) Not writing.

And even if you are in the mood to write, there’s never enough time. People demand your attention when you’re in the zone, and eventually you’re going to die, maybe with that one last story you were planning on writing but never got a chance to. Thanks a lot, death.

But even if I happen to live a long, healthy life, I might not get the chance to write that one story. Or maybe I’ll never have the courage to do so. Or the knowledge of the subject. Or maybe I’ll get some sort of amnesia that prevents me from ever finishing a story.

2) Meeting your characters.

Wait, I thought this would be exciting? Well, yes and no. If you’re like me and have a tendency to write fantasy, complete with heroes and villains, meeting half your characters might end up looking something like Inkheart. It’s been ages since I read the book, but I remember the scene from the movie where Fenoglio, the author within the story, is held at knifepoint by the characters read out of his own book. But Fenoglio, being the ecstatic writer he is, instead of being intimidated exclaims, “Look, it’s Basta!”

I’d like to think that meeting my own characters would be a little frightening. Then again, I could be excited. The world may never know…

1) Having a #1 fan.  

Anybody who’s read the Stephen King novel Misery, seen the movie, or heard of it know’s what I’m talking about. Not just some happy-go-lucky fan, Annie Wilkes is more like a stalker who kidnaps an author and forces him to write another book. If there’s anything scarier than bad book reviews or rejection letters, it’s obsessive fans who are determined to get their happy endings even if it means the writer never gets one.

But despite all our fears, we writers must get out there and write. How else are we supposed to deal with this frightening world? And by get out there, it’s totally fine to write away in the safety of your room. Or near safety. You never know when some natural disaster may strike…

***

Literary references: J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart, and Stephen King’s Misery.

Let’s chat! Writers, what’s your biggest writing fear? How would you rank your fears? Have there ever been any instances where your worst writing fear came true?

Book Review: A World Without You

Book: A World Without You by Beth Revis
Genre: Young adult, contemporary
Awards: None (Yet!)
My rating: 5/5 stars
One-word description: Relatable

Look at that cover. It’s it intriguing? And it correlates to the storyline! It doesn’t get much better than that—a book with a great cover that actually means something.

Bo is a student at Berkshire (aka. the Berk), a school for young adults with mental illnesses, but Bo thinks he can actually travel through time. It’s heartbreaking to see him struggle between what’s actually real and what he thinks is real, what he remembers and what he’s forgotten.

I’ve read plenty of books about characters with disabilities, from Kathryn Erskine’s Mockingbird to Chris T. Arcadian’s The Shifter to E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars, and there are even more on my TBR list. But A World Without You is the first book I’ve read that includes parts from the sibling’s perspective. Sometimes people forget that the family members of people with disabilities struggle too. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Revis!

As a younger sibling of a brother with high functioning autism, I found Phoebe, Bo’s sister easily relatable. She feels like she has a lot of expectations placed on her shoulders for being “normal.” And while I may have a closer relationship with my brother, to the point where people often asked if we were twins, like Phoebe, I constantly get tired of people asking what I’m going to do next with my life. Even though she can be selfish at times (can’t we all?), she’s an incredibly well-developed character.

The only thing I didn’t like about the book was that it was so relatable and heartbreaking, that I couldn’t read it all in one sitting. There were times I had to set the book down and muse on its words and take a break. But if I really wanted to, I easily could have read the book in one day, considering how I breezed through the last third of the book in one sitting.

Another aspect I really appreciated was how the book made me think, especially about relationships. How much would I miss somebody close to me if they were dead? Or how much would others miss me? The title itself has multiple meanings if you pay close attention while reading the book.

As for meaningful quotes, there were so many lines that stuck out to me. Here’s just one of them:

“You never know all of a person; you only know them in a specific moment of time.”

In many ways, it’s true. I know my college friends from college, not their hometowns or their families, and many of them don’t know me from all the many places I’ve lived. This book is a great reminder that people are often more complex than we may give them credit for, including the friends we think we know well.

I gave this book 5/5 stars for its excellent character development, wonderful writing style, and relatable themes. I’d recommend this book to young adults eager to learn more about mental illness or those looking for a quick, thought-provoking read. When I finished the book in the library, I went right up to one of the librarians and said, “This book is amazing.”  

“Is it one we own?” she asked.

“Interlibrary loan,” I said.

“Then we’ll have to add it to our list of books to buy.”

***

Let’s chat! How likely would you be to add A World Without You to your TBR list? What kinds of books have you read this year? Which genre of book should I post next?

A Study in Foreshadowing: Why Foreshadow?

I’m such a nerd that I admire literary techniques. When a book or a movie has a balance between excellent character development, witty dialogue, and a plot that makes me think, I’m hooked. Perhaps one of my all-time favorite techniques is foreshadowing. Since I liked it so much, I wanted to read all I could about it.

But I found the internet sadly lacking in explaining foreshadowing. Sure, one post suggested if it’s in the text, it must play a role later. In other words, Chekhov’s rule that if a gun is included in a story, it must be fired. The more I looked at foreshadowing in books and movies, the more I’ve realized that foreshadowing is so much more than that, and I’ve never found a post that taught me how to write it.

So I decided to study it myself and write about my findings. In this series, I’ll be tackling three important questions: Why use foreshadowing? What are the pitfalls of foreshadowing? And how can writers incorporate it?

First of all, it’s important to define foreshadowing. According to the dictionary, the word foreshadow means “to show, indicate, or suggest in advance.” When it comes to fiction, foreshadowing is a literary technique where the text hints at important plot points. This can range anywhere from which character is going to die to another character’s identity and so on.

In blogging, foreshadowing can be as simple as telling you what posts I’m going to write next, or having a great title like 7 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Blogging, where you expect seven simple blogging tips. Fiction, however, is a little more complicated. Most readers don’t necessarily want to know what’s going to happen next. That’d be like reading the book blurb and having half the book spoiled for you. Nobody likes that.

So how does foreshadowing benefit readers? I’ll sum it up in one simple word: suspense. There’s nothing that keeps a reader turning pages like suspense. If writers can hook a reader and promise them something good will happen, they may be curious. If a writer promises something bad will happen, even better. That’s the point where the readers’ eyes become glued to the page, and they are squirming inside and wanting to shout, “TELL ME!!!”

Then, when readers finally reach the point alluded to, they may say something like “Aha!” Or if a writer really succeeded: “How did I not see that coming?” If a reader really likes the story enough to read it and try to find all the subtle clues peppered throughout the story, the writer has succeeded with proper foreshadowing.

Foreshadowing doesn’t just make for good reading. It makes for great rereading. (Tweet this!)

When most people think of foreshadowing this way, they may think of mystery books, and while they’re not wrong, it’s certainly not limited to it. Foreshadowing can be found in the correlation between the four thrones at Cair Paravel and the four Pevensie children. It can be in the title of Liesel Meminger’s story. It can be in August Water’s metaphor. It can be in the rule of only having one winner of the annual Hunger Games.

Yet foreshadowing can be a difficult technique to master. Do it wrong, and the suspense is ruined and the readers are disappointed. But do it correctly, and readers are hooked on your story. Foreshadowing done right is like promising your readers a secret and not letting them in on it until the last page.

Come back next month to read part 2 of A Study in Foreshadowing: How NOT to Use Foreshadowing.

***

Literary references: C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, and Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games.

Let’s chat! What’s your favorite literary technique? Which technique do you want advice on writing? What’s the best example of foreshadowing you’ve seen in a book or film?

Controversy in Fiction: Magic

Welcome back to Controversy in Fiction, part 3! You can check out my previous posts: Banned Books and Censorship by clicking on the links. Today I’m excited to share the controversies concerning magic, the fantastical element vital to one of my favorite genres.

Disclaimer: This post may contain controversial opinions that are not necessarily the same as those of readers. I have done my best to write objectively and mean no offense to liberals, conservatives, or anybody in between.  

It was a sunny afternoon in Hawai’i, my mom and I had just returned from the HIM Conference where we got to see David Crowder Band, and I was carrying one of my new acquisitions: that’s right, a pretty little book with a dragon on the cover, DragonKnight. And it was a Christian fiction book; I got it at the conference after all, so nobody thought anything of it.

Until we visited the home of a lady from church. She took one look at my book and asked me how I could read that. Didn’t I know dragons were of the devil? She then proceeded to go onto a spiel about how evil they were and how J. R. R. Tolkien couldn’t have been a Christian because he had wizards in his book. I stood there and took it, thanking God she never mentioned C. S. Lewis and how The Voyage of the Dawn Treader included a dragon.

I went home that day feeling crushed.

But I did the best thing I know I could do: I asked my brother Gavin what he thought. Anybody who knows anything about my brother, knows he’s always been extremely conservative. While I might not always agree with him, I respect many of his opinions. And at fourteen-years-old, I was seeking some assurance on my reading choices. Gavin said that he believed there could be good dragons, and I haven’t looked back since.

But that doesn’t mean we haven’t had disagreements over the years. Fantasy happens to be one of my favorite genres, but it is also one of the most debated between conservative and liberal circles. Everybody seems to have their own opinion on magic and whether or not it is purely evil or could be a force for good.

Spiritual Magic—The Chronicles of Narnia

Written by C. S. Lewis, the Oxford scholar and author of Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia serves not as an allegory of the Bible but rather as a supposal, Lewis term for a hypothetical scenario rather than an event-for-event and character-for-character story of the allegory. Aslan and the talking animals versus the White Witch and her minions represent the spiritual realms, making this series the quintessential for the religious.

Yet, the books still contain magic. Magic serves as the primary means by which the Pevensies and the other children get to Narnia, and even Aslan is bound by honoring the Deep Magic through his sacrifice. But it goes further. Dr. Cornelius uses simple magic in Prince Caspian, Lucy reads spells from a book in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and Eustace and Jill call on Aslan in The Silver Chair.

Ultimately, it’s how magic is used in Narnia that is the key. In The Magician's Nephew, there are two silver apples that play a key role: one eaten by the Witch and another planted by Diggory. Aslan assures the children that because the Witch ate one, the rest would be a horror to her:

“That is what happens to those who pluck and eat fruits at the wrong time and in the wrong way. The fruit is good, but they loathe it ever after… She has won her heart’s desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery”.

Spiritual and Intellectual Magic—The Lord of the Rings

A fellow Oxford professor and the man who brought Lewis to Christianity, J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings serves as an influential story that shaped fantasy as we know it today. Although there is no clear, singular Christ figure, the division between good and bad is evident between Sauron’s armies and the free peoples of Middle Earth.

Once again, magic plays an important if not allusive role. The One Ring is clearly evil, but even the elves themselves bear rings of power. Likewise, the Palantire could be used for good or bad, the elves and wizards exercise magic, and Aragorn himself commands the power over the King of the Dead. Ultimately, magic has intellectual properties concerning wizards and elves, especially where the elvish language is concerned, and spiritual aspects concerning the rings, which as Gandalf puts it have curious properties.

Linguistic and Scientific Magic—The Inheritance Cycle

Among the most contemporary of popular fantastical fiction, Christopher Paolini’s The Inheritance Cycle has a well-developed system of magic. Perhaps my favorite thing about the series is magic’s limitations and linguistic properties. Most spells are connected with words, from brisingr (fire) to rïsa (rise), and require a certain amount of energy from the spell caster. It’s actually rather unnerving that some spells, if used too soon or without the proper amount of strength, could kill a Dragon Rider.

Unlike the previous stories, only a selected few can use magic from Dragon Riders and dragons to witches and shades. However, there is no particular race or type of magician who is strictly good or bad. Eragon and Saphira ultimately come up against Galbatorix and Shruikan, and while the shade is clearly an antagonist, there are allies who are witches, and even the dreaded Urgals do not all serve Galbatorix.

“"Magic’s just science that we don’t understand yet.” –Arthur C. Clarke (Tweet this!)

Genetic and Academic Magic—Harry Potter series

As I was growing up, I wasn’t allowed to read J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books because they included wizards and witches as the main characters. But once I graduated from high school, my mom told me I could read anything I wanted because she trusted my judgement. When I first started reading the books, my mom was a little startled and my brother was appalled.

As I read the books, I never quite agreed with all the witchcraft and spells, but I still appreciated the books for its world building and many of its characters. Magical abilities in these books are passed down through generations or simply appear for others. Then each wizard or witch is taught how to use magic in schools such as Hogwarts. But there’re still forbidden spells and the dreaded Lord Voldemort. Essentially, it’s yet another fight between light and dark.

Sophisticated and Natural Magic—Jonathan Strange & MrNorrell

Or as the book puts it, English and Faerie Magic. While Norrell advocates for intellectual learning and polite, English magic (talking gargoyles, weather illusions, etc.), Strange experiments with Faerie Magic (The King’s Roads, Faeries themselves, and anything dealing with the Raven King) or Black Magic (raising the dead and causing madness).

I read this book on my own so I could form my own, untainted opinions on it. Here goes. The struggle between Strange and Norrell serves as a primary conflict throughout the book, but neither of them can be said to be particularly bad, although they have their faults, namely arrogance and selfishness. At the same time, the Faeries themselves are devious and act as the primary cause of most of their troubles.

Throughout the book, the moral aspects concerning magic is another key aspect:

“‘Can a magician kill a man by magic?’ Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. ‘I suppose a magician might,’ he admitted, ‘but a gentleman never would.’”

Of course, these categories are not absolute. In fact, trying to catalogue the different types of magic almost drove me mad (thankfully, not the Jonathan Strange, pineapple-hating mad). There’s no reason to say that Narnian magic doesn’t have a science to it. After all, the Pevensies come up with an explanation to figure out the differences in time elapse between Narnia and England. Similarly, the characters in Harry Potter clearly have souls, for without them the Dementors would be purposeless. Even an afterlife is alluded to several times.

The main problem audiences tend to have with the different types of magic depends on their perception of it. To some people, all magic is evil. To others, if the magic doesn’t align with their spiritual views, it’s bad. In fact, many Christians I know tend to prefer the spiritual aspects of The Chronicles of Narnia over other forms of fantasy. Others yet may believe it’s all just fiction anyway, so the same principles of fiction don’t apply to fantasy as they do in the real world.

Although my brother Gavin still refuses to read, watch, or talk comfortably with people concerning Harry Potter, he still likes fantasy. In fact, he uses Once Upon a Time’s terms for magic: light and dark. Essentially, it seems most fantasy abides by these principles. Every struggle between magical forces is more often than not a struggle of good versus evil, light versus dark. That isn’t to say that either side is strictly pure (Edmund betrayed his siblings and Eustace was turned into a dragon; Harry used forbidden spells; and basically every member of the fellowship was tempted by the Ring), but even magical worlds strive for a sense of justice and moral standards.

I once heard it said that magic can be a metaphor for power, and it’s true to a sense. Some people are granted more power than others, some inherit it, and others don’t. But each person can choose to use that power, for good or for ill. And in that sense, because fiction itself holds a sort of power, words themselves can be magical.

***

Previously in Controversy in Fiction: Banned Books and Censorship

Literary References: Donita K. Paul’s DragonKeeper Chronicles, J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity, and The Screwtape Letters, Christopher Paolini’s The Inheritance Cycle, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, and Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

Let’s chat! What’s your stance on magic? Of the above types, which do you prefer?

Bury Me: A Poem

I’ve been meaning to write more travel poetry, considering how many places I’ve seen, so this month’s poem focuses on cathedrals, but it also concerns death and writers. This summer, I had the privilege of going back to London, this time with one of my best friends and fellow writers, Faith Boggus. On this particular trip, we saw many places I hadn’t been to before, including Westminster Abbey.

Not only is it the famous designated cathedral for crowning monarchs, but it’s also the resting place of over two-thousand famous persons from kings and queens to scientists and people whose stones have been tread on so much nobody can decipher the names anymore. Perhaps the section that stands out most in my mind is Poets’ Corner, the section where many famous writers have been buried who were influential throughout English Literature.

As I’ve traveled throughout Europe, I’ve found that no two churches are the same, no matter what anybody else says. Even buildings similar in architecture cannot have the same frescos or people buried in the floor. Yes, they have buried people in the floor. And if you think that’s more disturbing than a cemetery, the Sedlec Ossuary (Prague, Czech Republic) has decorations made of hundreds of human bones. It’s definitely something I will never forget.

Bury Me

I’m surrounded by a forest of words,

these weathered leaves and bleeding ink
sticky as pine sap, with branches from Geoffrey Chaucer
to Arthur Conan Doyle stretching to the sky.

Don’t ask me why I find comfort

among the dead words, written on forest green and jet-black spines,
the tombstones of authors lined up on a shelf.
Their eulogies are in their lasting words,
coming to life and dancing across the attic of my mind,
sweeping away cobwebs of boredom and dust from life’s stress,
unpacking emotions, thoughts, and dreams I never knew I had.
Read me a story, mommy. That child buries her nose in a book
when she should be making friends. If worms eat up the decay of earth,
what are full-grown bookworms, devouring leaf after leaf?

I set foot in a gray abbey, each step echoing across the halls
of time. Nobody told me the place was a tomb.
The hall of kings and queens, ancestors and forgotten names—
their tombstones worn on the floor from countless feet—
poets survived by words. I’ve gasped at rows of books,
but never before have I been surrounded by rows of dead authors.

My search for Lewis’ plaque discovered Chaucer,

Eliot, Dryden. I stopped before Spenser and Milton,
marveling how life is oft’ separated by generations,
but in death two poets are separated by stone a book’s width.
Poor Dickens denied his last request;
my friend was standing on his grave.
I passed over countless corpses under the floor—
would that I could recall their names,
but I’m awful with remembering the names of the living.

Weeks ago, I jokingly told my mother

that should I die before I turn twenty-five
burn me like the Vikings of old.
Forget a sorry cremation when I’m ground to dust,
but give me a pyre fit for a book burning.
But in all seriousness, I’d rather rest
under the green leaves of a willow.
Let the trees weep and do not cry—
I’ll let my tombstone etch a weathered lullaby,
drowned in rain and washed away—
Do not cry. We all must die. 

***

Let’s chat. What’s the most sobering place you’ve ever visited? Which author(s), living or dead would you like to meet/have met?

Anxiety, Depression, and Literature: Studying Abroad in England

It was another sunny morning in Italy. The sky was blue, and the day was full of potential. Or rather really annoying questions from people attempting small talk. Here is a legitimate conversation I had right after church:

“So, how’s the dissertation going?”

I looked the guy dead in the eyes. “I want to set it on fire.”

“So, it’s going well.”

Try small talk, and I’ll give crazy answers like this. I’ve even come up with sassy answers to what I plan on doing after graduation: join the circus as a unicyclist/trapeze artist, get married on the moon, and conquer the world. On second thought, I may just throw my graduation cap instead. (Do graduate students get the same caps?)

Last September, my dad and I loaded up his car with my stuff and drove all the way from Italy to England. Yes, that’s right. My life is pretty crazy. Last March I got accepted to the University of Nottingham to study for an MA in English Literature. I like books so much, I decided to go beyond the four-year degree and tackle an accelerated one-year program in a foreign country.

After all the stress of filling out all the paperwork to get my visa (which every international student hates, by the way), my dad helped me move into my flat in England. My room was perfectly located right across the street from Lidl and not even a block from Jubilee Campus where I’d go for plenty of walks. I lived all the way on the top floor (yay, exercise!) with a great view of the street where I could people and bird watch.

Wearing my borrowed fencing kit.

The pen may be mightier than the
sword, but beware the sword!

I bought a bike, which I used to go to classes (usually beating the campus bus by five minutes) and explore the city and the parks. I especially enjoyed going for walks along the lakes and bike rides along the canal and the River Trent. I even joined the fencing society at school because I always wanted to learn how to sword fight.

I was super excited to attend a university in England, even though I knew it would be difficult. But I was also scared. I had so many questions. What would the classes be like? How hard is the grading system? What if I failed?

In all, the classes weren’t that different from my undergraduate back in the States, except they were two hours long and only once a week. In the end, my schedule was pretty empty. I spent most of my time cramming in as much reading as I could, planning my reading schedule, and panicking because I thought I wasn’t reading enough. It took me a while to realize that all the external reading not assigned every week was recommended not required, but I still tried to read as much as possible.

So far, I haven’t failed. I haven’t gotten spectacular grades, but English professors grade a LOT harder than the Americans. They still use a one-hundred-point system, but a 50 is a pass, 60 a merit, and 70 a distinction. Woah, what? So far, I’ve done alright. I’m still waiting on results for my dissertation, my final project which is the equivalent of a master’s thesis in the States.

I also attended a Vineyard church where I joined a small group. Aside from my classes where I spoke to practically nobody, I saw people twice a week: once at church on Sundays and once during small group on Thursdays. Even for an introvert, it was rough not talking to people on a daily basis. I was lonely, and I missed the community I had back at Evangel University where I could just wander down the hall and chat with the girls on my floor.

I didn’t know any of my classmates. How do you start a conversation with somebody during class? After class? Before? And what on earth do you talk about?

I had a couple of friends in my small group, but most of them were busy with their own schedules—work and school and such. I felt like I could be myself around them, but I didn’t get to know anybody very well.  

In England, I felt like I had nobody.

And it wasn’t all from a complete lack of trying. It may have been cultural. It may have been that particular year in my life because I was so focused on coursework. It may have been any number of things.

Halfway through my second semester, I overstrained my Achilles tendon while fencing, and suddenly found I couldn’t walk without pain. Thankfully, I could still bike, but I stopped taking walks, which I did for study breaks. Instead I spent most of my time in my room reading. And reading. And reading. Around the same, a couple of my friends stopped coming to small group.

I never felt so alone.

On a weekly basis, I broke down in my room crying. The smallest things would set me off—a conversation with a professor, crossing the street at the wrong time, a small, insignificant thought, a books I read. I started calling my parents nearly on a daily basis, feeling broken. Weak.  

I hated myself for it.

I prayed a lot, but I didn’t feel like God was speaking to me. Last year, he told me I’d go to grad school, and I did. This year, I had no work. No direction. People kept asking me what I planned to do after graduation when I didn’t know.

The only passage of Scripture that really spoke to me was II Corinthians 8-12, “Three times I [Paul] pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Like Paul, I was weak, am still weak. I begged God to take away the pain, the loneliness, the insecurity. He gave me this verse instead. I’m still learning its implications.

After my ankle healed and I came home for Easter Break, I was finally able to relax around my family a bit. I also had my first appointment with a psychologist, where we talked about my struggles, anxiety and depression. I wanted to do everything and nothing for fear that it would all go wrong. What a combination.

After speaking with a psychologist and my family, I went back to England to finish up my essays and start my dissertation. Gradually, my mood began to improve. I cried less. I started singing in my flat again, probably driving my flat mates crazy. I found listening to K-Love helpful, particularly Matthew West’s “Grace Wins”:

I wanted to travel places and do things with my life. I even got to hang out with some of my friends from small group more often, which only made it harder to say goodbye when I came home for the summer.

Now that I’ve turned in my dissertation (no, I didn’t actually set it on fire), I still don’t have much direction in my life. In July, my friend Faith visited for a month, but now that she’s gone, I’m lonely once again. But at least I have my family.

I’m not the same person who went to Nottingham a year ago. I’m a little older, a little more experienced, a little more broken. But that’s okay. 

When I say I just want to be normal, I don’t mean I want to be like everybody else. I just want to be myself. Whoever that is now, I’m not sure. But I’m still finding out.

Life is a discovery process.

One of the many view of the weather from my flat,

featuring one of the local crows, who I named Fidget and Speck.

I could have had it worse, and I still have bad days when I just lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling wanting to do nothing. But those days are few and far between. Every day, I’m discovering how to appreciate the sunshine and the rain, the melancholy songs and the joyful ones, the tragic stories and the happy endings, the good days and the bad days.

And that’s okay too, because that’s life.

***

Similar Posts: Do what YOU Enjoy and 7 Steps to Keep Writing When You Feel Like Giving Up

Let’s chat. How do you deal with bad days and insecurities? Were there ever days when you felt like giving up? What inspired you to keep going?

Controversy in Fiction: Censorship

Welcome back to my five-part series, Controversy in Fiction. Today, I’ll be writing on a similar issue to last week’s post: Censorship. Unlike Banned Books, however, Censorship allows for certain books but contains many restrictions all the same.

Disclaimer: This post may contain controversial opinions that are not necessarily the same as those of readers. However, despite the subject of this post, it contains no profanity. I like to keep my posts appropriate for any age audience.

If you haven’t gathered already, I was raised in a conservative, Christian family. So swear words simply weren’t allowed in our house. To this day, my exclamations consist of mild words from drat to goodness and insults from knucklehead to idiot. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t come across profanity in other ways, especially in movies.

My first shocking encounter with a book peppered with swear words was Eleanor and Park. I was so taken aback by the amount of cussing within the first five pages that I had a difficult time enjoying the rest of the book. Paper Towns had a similar feel with its amount of profanity, but was less startling by that point.

But young adult books, like the ones mentioned above, are not the only books to contain profanity. I don’t read too many adult books, my preferred genres ranging from YA to children’s books. But every now and then, I’ll pick one up, or I’ll decide on a classic. And I’ve found that fiction within the last one-hundred years includes more and more profanity. It’s not just in some classics or popular books, either. Even some Christian fiction I’ve read contains the occasional swear word.

So, what’s the big deal? And how much swearing is too much? Should it be allowed at all in fiction?

Censorship is often a means of controlling language for an audience. Like book banning, it may have good intentions, but other times, it could harm fiction. For instance, if somebody were to take out every offensive word in Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, it might just be easier to ban the book. It might be easier to remove the word “the” from the dictionary than to childproof some books.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like profanity. I won’t even use it. But I’m not entirely for censorship either. Instead of crossing out major sections of books or limiting accessibility to certain books, discretion should be used when selecting them. Here are just a few of my basic principles for both readers choosing a book and writers writing a book.   

Know Your Audience

Just like ratings on movies, such as PG-13, if you’re in the kid’s section of the library, you probably won’t find any swear words. Most parents would frown upon hearing such language coming out of their child’s mouth. (Anything resembling a swear word meant I had to have my mouth washed out with soap as a kid.)

As a rule for my own writing, I don’t write anything I don’t want my little sister reading. Or if I’m going to read a piece aloud in front of an audience of one or twelve, there will be no profanity.

That’s not to say that all new adult or adult books should contain profanity. Goodness, no! But adults typically have more maturity and understand the weight, meaning, and power of words. Maturity I write as I sit at my desk that is guarded by a plush green dragon.

Know Your Characters

Every character is different, and some tend to be more dramatic than others. Some might even be verbally explicit. Often times, a character’s personality is reflected in the way he or she speaks, and the way people speak isn’t always nice.

In my novel Breaking a Thief, my protagonist Lorne was raised as a thief, so picking up swear words was natural for her. But because the story was a young adult novel, I substituted actual profanity for mentions of its use. It’s probably the only instance where I strove to tell, not show. In fact, when I sent the novel off to my editor, she suggested that I cut back on some of present mentions of cursing in consideration of my audience.

Another character to consider is the narrator. In my latest short story series, I have two narrators with different storytelling styles. Rhona speaks in a sophisticated manner, so whenever other characters swear, she just mentions a curse. Ellard, on the other hand, comes from a more rural background and tends to explain things exactly as he hears and sees them.

When reading about characters, it’s often important to consider their background before criticizing their personalities or speech.

Know Your Story

A light-hearted book about baking or romance will not necessarily contain instances of profanity, but a book about the struggles of cancer or war might.

Sometimes darker stories call for darker themes and darker language. That isn’t necessarily to say that we have to like all of the language or the scenes, but such things often reflect the depravity of our cruel, real world. Words aren’t always meant to be liked, but they are meant to tell stories and truths.

***

Literary References: Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park, John Green’s Paper Towns, and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

Let’s chat. What’s your stance on book censorship? Is there a limit to how much profanity you will tolerate in a book?