Announcement at Seekerville

Check out this post here to see the announcement made at Seekerville! Scroll down to the "Save the Date" portion! It goes without saying that someone's excited!!!

Writing to Heal, Part Three

As promised, more on the idea of conflict and writing to heal. I like to think that whenever we encounter conflict, whether it's a person who cut us off on the way home today or it's a long-standing grudge that we've carried for years, writing through the conflict can be a way to make sense of it.

There's something healing about putting your own responses into the character's response (or what we wished we had done). We see in black and white the proof of what we did (or wish we had done) and we can either be proud of it or ashamed. If proud, great. You stared conflict straight in the eye and didn't lose your integrity. If ashamed, then you can further analyze why that was the case.

Writing should evoke emotion, as I wrote before. So if that emotion, evoked by words, can kill another bird with the same stone, i.e., make you think about something you said or did or didn't, then it's all the more powerful in the life of the word-writer.

Writing to Heal, Part Two

I was thinking about this topic again this morning over breakfast. For writing to be healing doesn't mean that the world will suddenly look like you are viewing it from rose-colored glasses. Healing writing can evoke various emotions, some of which aren't on the "happy" continuum. Sadness, anger, regret, guilt, annoyance, confusion - only to name a few - can and do have their place in writing.

Personally, I like to work in little vignettes that have happened to me over the course of my life into my books. I'm grinning even now as I remember one of my favorites. Of course, not all of them are favorites, but it just goes to show how life is a writer's fodder. There will never be a drought of life (although you may certainly suffer from writer's block from time to time) from which you won't be able to garner material for writing. It's everywhere.

One of my favorite examples of a well-known author who did this is Karen Kingsbury. She wrote a series about the 9-11 attacks, and in her preface said it had been her own way to assimilate and try to make sense of what happened on that awful day. The story idea just came to her as she watched the news coverage. It was healing. And anyone reading her books (if you can get through one of her books without crying, my hat's off to you) also is taken on her journey of healing. As her characters cried out against what happened, we cry out. As they grieved the loss of loved ones and the feeling of security, we grieved. Healing writing at its finest.

So think about what issues you might have in your life currently, or in your past, that you might be able to heal - or at least allow to scab over - by writing. Usually our "issues" revolve around conflict, and as any student of the writing craft knows, conflict creates great plot. More on this in the next post.

Writing to Heal, Part One

On the side, I've been cataloging the reasons why a writer would write. There could be any number of responses: compelled to, for the money, for the accolades, to see your name on the spine on a book, for the sense of accomplishment.

But I'm adding to that list: writing to heal, or therapeutic writing. This is something that therapists use frequently when in session with a client. Keeping a journal is usually a homework exercise. Letter writing is also a common exercise, but either way, it's healing. You can journal your innermost thoughts on a piece of paper (or word processor) that doesn't talk back, try to get you to change your mind, or make you feel guilty for what you expressed. You can use bad grammar (well, unless you really want to be published), be repetitive, chase rabbits and have no apparent point...and that's okay!

In the interest of being transparent, I wrote my first novel for very therapeutic reasons. When I was fresh out of college, I did an internship for a year where I worked with college students. Being young and immature, I messed up. A lot. And the regret I felt really stayed with me. So I wrote this book, and the protagonist was a girl who looked strikingly like me and had lots of my character traits, but I wrote her doing things right. I wrote her doing things the way I wish I had done.

In essence, I rewrote my past. Well, to be more specific, I rewrote a portion of my past that caused me and a lot of others pain. In a way, I was asking for forgiveness through my writing. Forgiveness from God, forgiveness from the ones I hurt and forgiveness from myself. By the time I finished that book...I felt more complete. Whole. Forgiven. And that was worth the toil and labor for that book.

Stay tuned for more thoughts on writing to heal.

Tags

I've been thinking about my tagline, and as promised, I've returned with some suggestions.

Since psychology and counseling is all about relationships and emotions within those relationships (this about the truth of this statement), maybe my tagline should have something to do with emotions.

I feel at a disadvantage, because my specialty as a counselor is mental disorders. It's what will set me apart from other Christian fiction writers. (at least I like to think so.) But who wants to read a tag about mental disorders? Or the psyche? So negative sounding.

What about this?

"Where Emotions - and Romance - Run Deep."

I thought about adding something about humor, but couldn't figure out where to put it so it didn't sound a) trite or b) like an afterthought. "Where Emotions - and Romance - Run Humorously Deep." It could be a bit off-putting to some - especially those who really suffer from the mental disorders mentioned. Wowzer. And isn't "humorously deep," like, an oxymoron?

Here are some others.

"Romance You Can Relate To."
(Catchy. Ends in a preposition, though....eww.)

"Where Romance, Laughter and Therapy Intersect."
(Too much emphasis on humor?)

"Therapeutically Funny Romance."
(I rather like this one now that I've actually typed it out. Maybe I should just drop the "funny" part altogether?)

"Where Romance Meets Therapy."
(Ooh! I like this one a lot, too!)

What do you think?