My baby cries,
hurt
or scared,
or just alone.
I cuddle, keep her warm,
check what she needs.
I play, sing along to my favorite lullabies,
songs that lift and encourage and comfort,
and at last I realize
I have hidden hurts, fears,
sometimes just alone.
I need the cuddles, the warmth, the comfort.
I need her.
She needs me.
I need me.
I enjoyed our Sunday School discussion on Job today, but I had way more thoughts than I could share. Here are a few scattered thoughts I wanted to write down.
1. First came from one of the hymns we sang today, "Bless Our Fast We Pray" (#138 Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 1985). The second verse describes helping others, and then asks for a blessing in return. At first, this sounds almost entitled, or at least contrary to what we learn from Job, that we should expect something good for doing something good. But I'm reminded of a talk by President Bednar on tithing, where the blessings received are not always the same as the blessings expected:
"Some of the diverse blessings we obtain as we are obedient to this commandment are significant but subtle...We might want and expect a larger paycheck, but the blessing that comes to us through heavenly windows may be greater capacity to change our own circumstances."
Can we expect to receive something good for doing something good? Yes, but it might not be the blessing you think you're going to get. Isaiah reminds us that the Lord's thoughts are higher and sometimes incomprehensible compared to ours.
2. The next thought came from our discussions about trials that come to us through no fault of our own. When my baby son passed away, Elder John H. Groberg spoke at the funeral. One of the things he said was that "it doesn't matter what happens to us in this life. What matters is how we react to it."
3. During the same experience, I wrote a poem about grief. I had an image in my head of a bulldog clinging to a pole in its teeth. Storms of grief and doubt batter its body, but those teeth are locked and it will not let go. That's how I feel about hope. It's not (always) about warm fluffies or an ideal future. It's the act of holding on to Truth no matter what happens around you.
4. I ended up reading two more hymns while listening to the lesson. The first was a song we sang in the previous meeting, How Gentle God's Commands (#138 Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 1985).
"Beneath his watchful eye, His Saints securely dwell. That hand which bears all nature up shall guard His children well."
The hymn pairs well with the language of Job. However, as I prepared to make a comment about the hymn to the rest of the class, my eye caught on the hymn on the previous page, Be Still My Soul (#137 Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 1985). The second verse struck me as being essential to our topic, both in content and in the imagery. How important to hold onto that hope that we will at last understand all that's now mysterious!
"Be still, my soul. Thy God doth undertake to guide the future as he has the past. Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake. All now mysterious shall be bright at last. Be still, my soul! The waves and winds still know his voice who ruled them while He dwelt below."
5. No one has a monopoly on suffering. Even those who seem to live a perfect life or have no difficulties will be facing some kind of trial. I remember once when my family was struggling financially, we helped a friend who was homeless. Immediately, I went from feeling poor to feeling immeasurably wealthy. Truly, poor is a state of mind. Perhaps compared to our friend, we had a perfect life without difficulties, yet from our point of view, we still struggled.
When we think of trials and suffering, we might think of big, story-worthy events like death or divorce or job loss. But I think that the small, daily difficulties can add up to being far greater. I know a strong, loving couple who stick together through all kinds of difficulties, but they had a big fight about opening a new bottle of ketchup before the old one was empty.
Over a year ago, I slipped on a book and dislocated my kneecap. The sharp, instant pain was overwhelming and left me screaming and writhing on the floor, but it only lasted a few minutes. The constant daily pain and limitations of my out-of-alignment, arthritic kneecap is not nearly as dramatic and doesn't have a funny, ironic story to go with it (come on, you have to admit that a writer losing a fight with a book is at least a little funny), but that constant semi-permanent difficulty adds up to a much bigger trial.
I once read a question that was supposed to spark a moral debate: "Would you give up one day of life to save a child?" My answer was: "Only one day? Where do I sign up? I'm a mom. I give up pieces of my life every single day."
6. In our Sunday School class, we discussed how to help those who are grieving or otherwise going through difficult trials. I could write a whole new blogpost on this subject, but I will try to be brief. I originally wrote the poem about grief so that I could empathize with others in a similar situation. It starts, "I don't know how you feel. I have no words that will fix everything, but I can tell you how I feel."
At the start of this topic, our teacher told us that after his wife speaks, he often asks if she wants advice or just wants him to listen. His natural inclination is to offer advice and try to fix her problems, but that isn't always the best response.
Another sister suggested that the first step is to be humble and ask yourself if you are answering for them, or for you. Often, giving advice has a root in pride, when you think you can solve everything with your superior thoughts and words.
I then suggested that the second step is to listen to both the person who is grieving, and the Spirit. I once approached a grieving sister, thinking about things that had helped me. My mother told me that sometimes the people who came to comfort her seemed to expect her to be constantly sorrowing, and my mother ended up laughing when they left. They seemed to be seeking comfort for themselves more than her. I was prepared to laugh about this story with my grieving friend, but as I interacted with her, I quickly realized that this was not the response she needed. She really was seeking comfort and needed quiet support and understanding, so I tried to provide that instead.
Listening to the Spirit is important because the person you are trying to help might not know what they need. After my son passed away, many family members hurried to our house. Some of them mourned with us, and we needed that. Others brought normalcy. They got me out of my grief and into the kitchen to help make lunch for everyone. It was not the comfort I expected, but it turned out to be what I needed. Sometimes we need to mourn with people, and sometimes we need to comfort them, and it takes good listening to tell the difference.
Most of the members of my church studied the book of Job last week. I would love to know what you took out of the lesson.
I've been writing stories since I was a young child, yet I didn't publish my first story until I was 28. That's about twenty years of practice before my stories were ready. I learned by trial and error and developed skills slowly over time.
The biggest issue with my early stories was that they had no structure. I just wrote whatever came to mind. After a lot of practice, I finally developed a feel for how stories needed to progress. I only discovered story structure after I had written my first book, The Spectra Unearthed, yet that one does fit the beats of a structured story.
Again, it took me twenty years to get to that point, and about four years of working on that one book. Some authors still write by instinct, and their stories still end up having structure even if they don't do it deliberately. Personally, I find that story structure lets me write faster, and my stories turn out better.
Nine steps for a simple story
Today I gave my kids a nine-step formula for writing a structured story. I had them write down one sentence per step. When I write, I use a similar formula, though for me, one step equals about three chapters.
Half steps for a more advanced story
For more advanced writers, you might want to add half-steps in between some of these major beats:
2.5: What was your character's life like before the story? 3.5: What is your character's new life like now that they have chosen to change? 4.5: How does your character react to their troubles? 5.5: How does your character prepare to face their troubles? 6.5: What convinces your character to keep trying? 7.5: What hidden strengths can your character draw on to rise above everything that went wrong?Next, my kids and I looked at KM Weiland's Story Structure database to learn how stories that we already know and love fit our model. We used Harry Potter 1. I've also used the movies Frozen and Aladdin.
Story Structure in The Spectra Books
For my first few Keita's Wings books, I used story structure to turn a messy rough draft into a publishable story. Now I also use it to create an outline before I start writing. I update my outline as I go to help me keep track of where I am in the story and what I need to do next.
Here are some of the finished outlines for some of my books (some of them are cropped to remove spoilers).
