One of my Fifty: My Response to ReWrite

As most of you are aware, I just went on a super epic (and long anticipated) road trip to attend a writer's conference in Austin, Texas!  Early last Wednesday morning, I drove from Iowa City to Omaha to crash breakfast with my sister-in-law and my nephews, and then I grabbed my mom to join me down to Oklahoma City.  We spent the night there with my grandparents before heading down to Austin (through Dallas, at which point I was infinitely grateful Mom was able to tag along and willing to be my wheel-man!).  I was then plunged into two of possibly the most overwhelming days of my writing career to date.

There were a lot of people there.  And they were all strangers.  The only person in the room I "knew" was Ted Dekker, but obviously, he didn't know me.  I was there with business cards.  I was wearing slacks and makeup.  My hair wasn't in a daycare braid.  It was an exhilarating, terrifying, alternate universe.  And social anxieties aside, even the practical steps I learned about while I was there were a lot to think about with a full time job and school still on my tail (which is the reason for the delay in this blog post).

There may or may not have been a moment where I fled up to my hotel room and literally hid under the covers.

But while they were all strangers, they all understood me.  They didn't know it of course, but they did.  They all knew what it's like to have a story hijack your mind and demand to be told.  They all knew what it's like to write something that brings God and Writer together in impossibly intimate ways.  They all knew how to bring our own brokenness to the page and watch God mend our hearts in the words falling out of our pens.  They all knew what a calling to write feels like, what it is to write simply because "we have to."

Ted Dekker's daughter Rachelle described what it's like to come out of a writing session with two of the most intense pages ever written in the English language to find the real-life people in the living room whose response is: "Oh, cool."

"No no no no no, you don't understand!" all of us scream with her.

The people at ReWrite in Austin last weekend did understand.

And then I also got a lot of awesome, practical advice about self-marketing and author platforming and all that fun, author-yet-to-be-published stuff that made a whole lot more sense coming from actual people than it does when it comes from a Google search.

Then the reality of this dream of mine was summed up in one impossible number: You need ten thousand fans to make writing a viable career.

Ten thousand people.  I need ten thousand people to be interested in what I have to say.  I need ten thousand people who would choose my book as one of the statistical five the average person reads a year over the hundreds of thousands that come out.  I need ten thousand people to follow me, anticipate my publication dates, and be excited to read my stories.

How in God's universe do I get ten thousand people to like me?  How do I get ten thousand people to like me when I start loosing my mind in a room of two hundred strangers?

So after leaving Mom with her parents in Oklahoma City and taking on the last ten hours of the drive solo, God and I had a bit of a chat about this.  This is what I know I have to do, because we writers simply have to write.  And as was pointed out more than once during the conference, if you've been called to write and you aren't writing, then you're technically being disobedient.  Even if I wanted to walk away from this dream of writing books, I couldn't do it.  "So, God," I said, "I have to do this.  This is what You've called me to do, so I'm going to do this...

"But God, I can't do this!  Ten thousand fans?!?!"

Well, but reaching people is the whole point, right?

God knew I was overwhelmed.  He'd known we'd be having this conversation before I even thought signing up for this conference was possible.  So God gave me a new number.

What about fifty?

A big theme at ReWrite for me was that I'm not alone.  Even in that room full of strangers, they understood me and what writing is to me, and I did meet a few people who could be friends some day.  Moments when I feel understood as a writer are like gold for me.  But whether I have writers in my life who get this part of how my soul functions or not, I'm still not alone.  Even if I'm putting myself through school, I'm still not alone.  I feel alone a lot, in both aspects, but it just isn't true.

I'm not alone.

So here's to my family and friends.  Here's to my acquaintances both in Nebraska and Iowa.  Here's to the people of Cornerstone Baptist Church, Veritas, and Iowa City Church of Christ.  Here's to the new friends I made at ReWrite.  Here's to anybody who has ever offered me an encouraging smile and said: "I'd buy your books!"

Here's your chance.

I'm asking you to join me now in my journey as I start this brand new chapter of my reality as a writer.  I'm finally a senior now at the University of Iowa (woohoo!!!  I'm not an eternal junior, guys!!!), and book one in my series of five is a few typed-in edits away from completion.  It's time to start creating an author website, to start blogging regularly (and a little more formally... maybe... or, y'know, maybe not :P ), to finish this degree and have time to focus more directly on what God's been preparing me to do.  But y'all, I can't do this alone.  I need you to pray for me, cheer me on, and hold me accountable.

And then maybe someday, I'll need you to read my book!

I need you to be one of my fifty.

If you're willing to join me on this crazy little adventure (that just got significantly bigger, actually), please please please send me an email to kaycee_pancake@yahoo.com.  There will be a "quarterly newsletter" involved--but that sounds a lot stuffier than what it will really be.  It'll be more just an update on what I'm up to, what I'm working on, my progress on the publishing front, that kind of thing.  And "quarterly" translates to "when school lets me have five minutes to myself."

If that sounds boring, there will also be some short stories involved :)  (If you've ever read and enjoyed one of my Christmas stories, that addition is supposed to tempt you.)  If you prefer hard copies, then include your address in the email and I am 110% willing to snail-mail newsletters and stories to you!

*****I promise not to spam you or sell your info or anything like that of course, and if you decide you hate me later you can just let me know and I'll leave you alone.*****

Send me an email.  Become one of my fifty.

And then get ready, because God has something great in mind!  He always does.

~  *  ~

Email kaycee_pancake@yahoo.com to become one of my fifty!

Feel free to forward/share this link with anybody else who might be interested in a front-row seat to the writing career of a Young Adult Fantasy writer whose last name is Pancake!

Of Money, Ted Dekker, and God's Provision

There is a writer’s conference in February in Austin, Texas, co-hosted by Ted Dekker.  That’s right, Ted Dekker.  (In case you don’t know, he’s extremely awesome!)  I knew when I first saw the link to this conference’s web page on Ted Dekker’s Facebook that I had to go.  Then I crunched the numbers, and with the Early Bird Registration, I decided that I not only had to go, but I COULD go!  It would be tight, and I’d have to start hitting up my friendly neighborhood bulimic vampires at Biolife regularly to make it work, but it was going to work!

***Bulimic Vampires: I donate plasma.  It sucks out your blood, separates the plasma, and spews your red blood cells back into you.  More importantly, if I keep my weight where it should be, I get paid $20+ to go sit and read for an hour.  It’s a pretty sweet deal!***

The Early Bird Registration deadline was September first.  But when I logged on on September first, I found that it had expired  at the beginning midnight of September first, not the ending midnight of September first.

I was devastated.  It would be $150 more than I had originally planned.

Then tuition payments hit, and they hit hard.  Two classes cost a lot more money than one.  Then my fur-ever baby got sick and had to go to the vet.  And then the dentist decided that they needed an extra $700.  I pay for parking on campus three times a week and go through twice as much gas now with commutes between work and school.  So, the past few weeks, I’ve been slowly resigning myself to the fact that this career-altering, maybe even life-changing trip wasn’t going to happen, accepting it as just one more thing that I can’t do as a nontraditional student putting myself through school.

I got an email from Ted Dekker today.  Obviously, not actually Ted Dekker, but whoever it is who puts together his mass-emails.  They reinstated the Early Bird rate for a couple of days.

Guys, I bought my ticket.  I'm going to Austin in February!!!

I am literally crying right now.

I've been wound so tight and been so tired ever since classes started up again, but it hasn't been like the Semester from the Underworld.  Yes, balancing school with a full time job is hard work, and yes I lose a lot of sleep to do this, and yes I have plenty of moments of discouragement.  But during the Semester from the Underworld, every time I had to drag my exhausted, over-caffeinated corpse out the door in the mornings to spend 14+ solid hours working and going to class, I was overwhelmed with the idea that I didn’t belong here, doing what I’m doing.  I couldn’t do this.  This was impossible.

But everything is possible.  I can endure what God has placed in front of me, because I have His strength in me.  I made it through that semester, with straight A’s, I might add.  And I’ll do it again this semester.  I can do this because this is where God put me, and this is what He’s given me to do.

And into that moment of defeat when I thought that my cross to bear was this monotonous life of school and work, school and work, school and work with the actual quest for publication on the back burner until a break in the school year only to be moved back just as it starts to boil, into that moment of discouragement and resignation, God had Ted Dekker email me so He could tell me: “Here, Kaycee.  Trust Me.  This is what you’re here for.”

Ted Dekker knows why I’m here.  “It’s not so much about what kind of story should I write, or what kind of story is the publishing industry looking for,” he said on the video in his email.  “It’s about how to be a writer.  It’s about how to unlock that space that’s already inside of you.  That’s why you’re drawn to this, that’s why you’re drawn to being a writer.  There is something inside of you that wants to get out, it wants to explode, it wants to discover, and it also wants to communicate this beauty that’s deep inside of you, or this struggle that’s deep inside of you, with the world.”

I attend the University of Iowa where writers sit in a circle and talk about how writing is just an elaborate deception about engaging the lies that we tell ourselves, or that writing is a way to explore the darkness within, and in order to be successful at it you have to have this gritty edge, that it can’t be too bright or no one will believe it.  I don’t know if any of my university professors or peers will ever get my writing, but Ted Dekker does.

That’s why I’m here in Iowa City, pursuing writing.  And every time the impossibility of it all crashes over me and I start to panic, that’s the moment when God reaches His hand out to me and provides what I need, and I’m reminded of what I’m really doing here, and why I’m really doing it.

I don’t know what God has in store for me in Austin, I just know that by His provision, I get to go!

Thoughts on Profanity

Just in case anyone's new to this blog (and because I really like saying it anyway): I'm studying Creative Writing at the University of Iowa.  We're talking top creative writing program in the nation if not world.  We're talking every time I said I wanted to major in Creative Writing, everyone said "Oh, so you're going to the University of Iowa?"  We're talking the best of the best as far as education and Creative Writing can journey together.

But now that I'm here, I've noticed something incredibly disappointing that totally breaks the heart of this wanna-be wordsmith.  All of these people who are supposed to be so great with their words are completely incapable of making any point without the use of profanity.

Seriously, if you're a master of the English language, why is your most commonly used word the f-bomb?

(Side-note: 99% of the f-bomb instances that I hear are not even physically possible.  Do these highly educated people even know what the word means?)

Another disappointment I've had here (though not quite as strong as the previous and may be recanted with further experience in the program) is that undergrad Creative Writing classes appear to consist of sitting in a circle talking about writing with fellow undergrads and TAs (Teaching Assistants... Grad students, as in don't even have their masters yet).  Discussions, not lectures.  The idea is that the learning is done through "exploring ideas with your peers" and silly higher-education rubbish like that.  I had a TA last semester who, when a grammar question came up, said "I'm actually terrible at grammar."  Then why in the world am I paying a grand to take this class?!  I can talk about what makes stories good or bad with any of my friends educated or not who read, for Pete's sake!  I came here so that this awesome program could give me the tools (grammar being at the top of my list) to better use my craft, not to sit around saying "How do you feel about that?"

Ahem.  Anyway, where was I?  Oh yes, learning by talking about ideas.  So anyway, with this method, it seems that the point isn't to teach so much as to develop and learn to express my own methods and beliefs about how I handle writing.

It is with the support of these two disappointments that I bring you today's blog: How I feel about profanity, particularly in writing.

I know, that was a long introduction.  Thanks for bearing with me!

To start with, I do not curse.  I have said the D-word twice in my life.  When I'm singing a song with a curse word in it, I change the word.  I have many reasons for this.  It is not effective communication.  I believe that there are far better ways to use the English language.  The more you hear cuss words, the more likely you are to repeat them (I said both of my D-words "on accident" around the time I broke up with my ex who had no problem with curse words), and so I don't want my speech to be having that effect on those around me.  And cursing is actually highly addictive.  I have been told by people who have both cursed and smoked that it was easier to stop smoking than it was to start cursing.

But then I arrive at the question: How do I handle profanity in writing?

My first answer is "Don't do it."  It's bad enough to hear profanity, I don't want to make my readers see it.  I don't want to contribute to that vocabulary being visually ingrained in their minds.  And not only my readers' minds, I don't want to entertain that vocabulary in my own head.  Besides, how many words are in the English language?  I say again: if you're a scholar of English, you have an almost infinite pool of words and phrases to make your point, why is the f-bomb your favorite word?  THAT YOU DON'T EVEN USE CORRECTLY?!

Ahem.  Sorry.

I wrote a story for another class last semester that took place in a prison in a fictitious world.  One of the biggest things my workshop knocked it for was its lack of profanity.  They argued that prisoners would use profanity, a lot of it, in their dialogue.  I disagree with that particular workshop, a) because it took place in a fictitious world, and b) because mine was the only story all semester long (in both writing classes actually) that did not contain profanity, so their "expertise" on the tasteful use of curse words loses a lot of credibility for me.

But it does present a conundrum: Is there such a thing as "tasteful use" of profanity?  Is it okay to write a character who curses in his or her dialogue?  If a bad word is used in the correct context to give it its proper meaning, is it okay to say it?  (For example, the f-bomb in this absolutely epic slam poem.)

I still tend to lean towards "no," mostly for the reason that I don't want that addictive vocabulary in my own mind, and I don't want to shove it in my readers' faces.  This stand does limit some dialogue when I'm writing a character who would curse, but I can say "He cursed," or I can write an innocent character's reaction to his vocabulary.  I can use syntax to create some of the shock value that I can't get by not cursing.  And besides, a lot of my work is either faith-based (no cussing necessary there) or fantasy (cussing would be inconsistent with the world anyway).  So this attitude toward profanity serves me pretty well.  And besides my own writing, this stand also allows me to look at profanity in someone else's work without automatically scribbling it out or dismissing the entire piece because it has bad words and therefore must be a bad story or poem.

The down side of my attitude toward profanity: It's going to take me 3-4 more years to finish my degree here, with all of these Creative Writers whose favorite thing to do is fling about the f-bomb inappropriately.  This plants me very firmly in a minority of what could very possibly be one person in the entire Creative Writing department of the University of Iowa.

It's going to be a long 3-4 years.

While we're becoming better, smarter people by exchanging ideas instead of giving this poor, deprived, quazai-student the lectures she so deeply craves, what do you think about profanity in writing?

Writing, Reading, and Cleaning

This is what I do with my summer!  Of course, it took me all summer long to be okay with that.

You see, Iowa City kind of has its way of shutting down in the summer.  All of the campus ministries slow down (when they aren't stopped completely), lots of people leave to spend summer at home, on mission trips, studying abroad, etc.; some people leave for good because they've graduated or it's just time to transfer.  And besides, I've only been here for a year (almost).  That's not quite long enough to make friends you can call up in the middle of the night and say, "Hey, let's go wander around WalMart!  It'll be AWESOME!!!"

Parents pull their kids out of daycare for the summer in Iowa City because half of them work for the University, so during the summer they can stay home with their kiddos.  Which means there are less hours needed from the employees.  Which means I only work 30 hours a week.  And then clock out and hang out with the babies and all my kids who turned 2 and moved out of my room, because they're all cute and I have nothing better to do.

So I hang out at work after I get off.  I donate plasma to make some extra bank (I'm gonna need it!).  I read all the YA stuff that's fun to get sucked into for days at a time.  I read poetry that I didn't really have time to sit down and bask in during the year.  I read Shakespeare because I want something that will take up a LOT of this empty time that I have.

And I write my painfully rough draft of my WIP.  I love the story, I love the world, and I love the characters; the problem is that I've been working on it for several years, and over the course of various life events, I have been several completely different people over the course of the past several years.  My main characters always have a tendency to take after all of my issues, so poor Princess Inirae has run the gamut of all of my emotional distress and faced all of my problems with me and has thus sufficiently destroyed the arc of my story.  Needless to say, Nostras is in a state of chaos that must be cleaned up.  My goal is to pound through a rough draft by the time I go home for Labor Day so I can go to Kinkos and print it out so I can start my editing process.

When I need to get off my butt and do something, I've been cleaning.  Because this chicka is going to be starting school a week from Monday!  So let's set off on the right foot and have an organized office and a clean apartment to come home to!  After all, I am incredibly blessed to be able to stay here another year, bats and cockroaches and all!

I have every intention of my last week of summer being productive, and I'm looking forward to putting this summer behind me!

~  *  ~

Quick Update: As most of you know, I applied to the University for resident status.  They sent me a letter that said something to the effect of: "We got your application.  Now go on another scavenger hunt and spend more hours of your life on this process, send us an even thicker envelope than you did last time, and we'll look it over and let you know what we think."  Moral of the story: One step closer, but it kinda feels like two steps back.  At least they didn't just say "No,"... I think...