I’m so thrilled that my novel, Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters, will be published this Fall by Thumbkin Prints, a new children’s and young adult imprint of Possibilities Publishing Company. I’ve recently updated the name of the Facebook Page for the book and I’d love for you to sign up for giveaways, special offers, and updates. Just go to https://www.facebook.com/AuthorChrista/ and click the blue “Sign up” button on the right side of the page. I can’t wait to share the progress on the book and Emerson Page’s story with you. Cheers to dreams fulfilled!
Tag: writing
In the pause: Go where life is humming and time is flying
Ever been at work and watched the clock wind down? Every. Single. Minute. Ever felt like life is croaking rather than humming? Me, too. And here’s the remedy: get out. Get way out. Of your situation. Of your comfort zone. Of your own way. This past week has been one of the very best that I’ve had in a long time, and here’s why: I am living. Really living. Growing. Exploring. Writing. Getting it done. The really important work of connecting to others and to my own spirit. I am living out loud. Now my time is flying. Now my life is humming. I’m dancing, singing, and glowing inside and out, and will continue to do so.
In the pause: Balance the two kinds of happiness
There are two kinds of happiness: the one that comes from instant gratification and the one that comes from the slow slog toward a desired goal. The first makes us happy in the here and now, but it usually doesn’t last long. The second makes us happy when viewed through the arc of life but in the here and now can be difficult and uncomfortable. I’ve found that I need a good balance of both to truly feel good about life.
Art, music, good food, time with my friends, my dog, and working out are all things that make me immediately happy. Writing, working on my entrepreneurial ideas, and learning something new that I’m not yet particularly good at fall into that second bucket. It’s not that I don’t get any joy from them in the near-term; it’s just that to feel truly happy about them I need to look at them through a longer lens and with a goal in mind.
Knowing about this balance helps me figure out how to allocate my time, effort, and energy to be happy at this moment and to ensure I’m happy down the line, too.
In the pause: The gift of time
“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainty.” ~Erich Fromm
I was handed a gift. I didn’t know it was a gift at the time. It was packaged in something that wasn’t so lovely but when I opened it up and looked inside, I realized it was priceless. That gift is time—time to dream, to write, to dare to do something bold and brave and needed. I hesitated for just a moment right before taking the gift. I could feel the weight of it, the responsibility of it, because it is so rare and desired by so many others. And I plan to make good on it. I plan to use this time wisely and wonderfully to make this world a better place. The sun’s shining; I am madly making hay and smiling all the way.
In the pause: Train travel with strangers
Someday, I’m going to get on a train, sit in the cafe car, and travel across the country with a random and revolving set of travel partners. I’ll just sit down and see who sits down across from me. I’ll learn about aspects of their life stories in the snippets of the time we have together and then I’ll write about it. My guess is that we have far more that binds us together than separates us from one another. We’re all on Team Human, right?
In the pause: My book has taken its next step in publication
Colony Club, a local coffee shop, is the place I will always remember as the setting where Emerson Page – Where the Light Enters stepped into her light. I just met with my publisher for 2 hours and couldn’t be more excited about the launch of my book this Fall. We’re on our way. More details soon!
In the pause: Redirecting the Breaking Bread Podcast into a satirical comedy set in Trumpville
When I started the Breaking Bread Podcast, I had the idea to invite people over to my home, cook their favorite meal, and talk about the issues that are important to them. While that mission seems simple, it’s operationally more difficult than I anticipated. Booking guests is a time intensive job and it costs a good chunk of money. Also, audio editing is a bear and I don’t enjoy it. I like writing and live storytelling, and I want to do a podcast that’s an extension of those two things that also lets me be creative in new and different ways.
I spent a fair amount of time over my holiday break thinking about what to do with the Breaking Bread Podcast. I also spent a fair amount of time reading and talking to people about the election and Trump and what a complete sh*t-show we’re facing come January 20th. And a few things started to come together for me: truth reaches more people when it’s dressed as satire and comedy, world-building is a fun, creative activity (some of my favorite stories are The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, and Welcome to Night Vale), and Trump is insane so I’m going to use his own words as material.
Here’s my premise: Mina Montgomery accidentally falls through a hidden portal at the corner of Constitution Avenue and 1st Street NE on the afternoon of November 8, 2016 and finds herself in a strange parallel universe known as Trumpville. Built by Trump himself, it is an idealized version of the world as he would design it and it’s populated by people faithful to his point-of-view. Or so it appears. Every day, there is a press conference delivered by Trump to the citizens of Trumpville that tells them how it’s all going “above ground”. To her horror, Mina learns that Trump won the presidential election on the day she fell through the portal. She thinks she’s alone in this mad, a*s-backwards world, but she’s not. What she needs to do is find her people, and together they will find a way out. Trapped in Trumpville for the forseeable future, she opens a bakery in Trumpville called Breaking Bread in an attempt to bring people together. In the episodes of the Breaking Bread Podcast, Mina processes her thoughts as a living diary of sorts in order to maintain some semblance of sanity while she figures out how to get everyone out of Trumpville and back to civilization.
Similar to a Trump presidency, I have no idea how this new podcast idea will play out. Who knows what he’ll do next? He’s leaving us in suspense, remember? My game plan is to speak out again, and again, and again because I care about this country and the people who live here, and to find and support people who need a friend during this wild ride. I remember the Bush years and they were brutal. My greatest hope for this podcast idea is that it will be a port in the storm where together we can ride out the mayhem while we try to right the ship.
Wonder: The comfort of winter
I first read the essay “Winter” by Nina Zolotow in Rodney Yee’s book Yoga: The Poetry of the Body in 2002. Since then, it’s something I’ve re-read dozens of times. May it bring you the same peace and relaxation it gives me in this long, cold, dark, and restful season of winter. Rest, my loves, and be glad.
“In their garden there was always a wild profusion of tomatoes ripening on the vine, and leafy basil, arugula, and lettuce, and glossy purple eggplants, and red and yellow peppers, and zucchini with its long, bright blossoms, and there was always lunch at the wooden table on hot summer afternoons, with plates of pasta and bread and olives and salads with herbs, and many bottles of red wine that made you feel warm and drowsy, while bees hummed and the sprawling marjoram, thyme, and rosemary gave off their pungent fragrances, and at the end of the meal, always, inexplicably, there were fresh black figs that they picked themselves from the tree at the garden’s center, an eighteen-foot fig tree, for how was it possible – this was not Tuscany but Ithaca – Ithaca, New York, a rough-hewn landscape of deep rocky gorges and bitter icy winters, and I finally had to ask him – my neighbor – how did that beautiful tree live through the year, how did it endure the harshness of a New York winter and not only survive until spring but continue producing the miraculous fruit, year after year, and he told me that it was quite simple, really, that every fall, after the tree lost all its leaves, he would sever the tree’s roots on one side only and, on the tree’s other side, he would dig a trench, and then he would just lay down that flexible trunk and limbs, lay them down in the earth and gently cover them with soil, and there the fig tree would rest, warm and protected, until spring came, when he could remove its protective covering and stand the tree up once again to greet the sun; and now in this long gray season of darkness and cold and grief (do I have to tell you over what? for isn’t it always the same – the loss of a lover, the death of a child, or the incomprehensible cruelty of one human being to another?), as I gaze out of my window at the empty space where the fig tree will stand again next spring, I think, yes, lay me down like that, lay me down like the fig tree that sleeps in the earth, and let my body rest easily on the ground – my roots connecting me to some warm immutable center – luxuriating in the heart of winter.” ~Nina Zolotow, “Winter”
Wonder: How Curious George saved his creators from the Nazis
Art is endlessly generous: if we rescue it, then it will rescue us. In dark and troubling times, it’s easy and understandable to be consumed by sadness and despair. What’s more difficult, and ultimately more valuable, is to be a light to ourselves and to others. The husband and wife who wrote the beloved books about Curious George smuggled him out of Nazi-occupied France on two homemade bicycles made in the 11th hour of their escape. George’s narrow escape from a variety of curious and mischievous adventures, often by bicycle, is in no small part a colorful corollary to the flight of his authors. Karen Blixen once said that all sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story. It’s true of George and it’s true of us. We can create our way to a better tomorrow.
Wonder: How writers can handle rejection
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” ~Theodore Roosevelt
As a writer and an artist, I get rejected every day in one form or another because that’s what happens when you put your work out into the world every day. Critics are everywhere. I am still inspired to keep going because I create the work I want to read. I write the stories I most wanted to believe in, and that belief is a shield and a sword against any rejection. All artists in every medium need that belief.
If you’re struggling now to get your work out into the world or dealing with rejection on any level, keep these words from Theodore Roosevelt close to your heart. They help me keep my head up and my fingers tapping on the keys.
