Author: lauren

Working at Breaking Free has taught me the hideous and yet all too common story of a young girl (12 or 13 years old) who meets a boy and starts dating him.  He gives her all the attention and love she’s been missing, and then one day, he turns on her.  This can happen in a horrible sudden switch where he takes her somewhere and she’s gang raped by all of his friends.  Or it can be a slower and more insidious transformation, not unlike other kinds of abusive relationships, where his behavior slowly becomes less forgiving and more demanding until he’s beating the crap out of her, pimping her out to his “friends,” and she just feels grateful that he puts up with her.

Didn’t want to hear that?  Me either.

But I did hear about it, and now when I hear people talk about “willing prostitutes,” organizations clarify that they don’t want to help “common prostitutes,” or see “happy prostitutes” in media, I want to throw things.  Instead of destroying random property, I thought I’d write a story to explain how this happens and hopefully raise the level of compassion and understanding towards American prostitutes.

Unfortunately, in order to write that story and accomplish that fantastic feat, I have to write that pimp character.  And because I don’t want to write pedantic, stupid, dichotomous drivel, I have to find some way to understand and possibly even empathize with that character.  Which is how I find myself staring the first line of dialog I’ve given the guy for three days in a row.  I’ve worked out a little bit of what the guy’s motivation is, but I just can’t bring myself to write his physical description, can’t move my protagonist in his direction.

So here is creative compassion at its apex, trying to feel for the worst kind of villain, trying to imitate a life I wish had never existed.  Writers that I admire create villains that are so dynamic, so powerful, and so true to life.  They write villains that are fully evil and fully human.  God have mercy on me, and enable me to do the same.

On Tuesday I spent about six hours writing 1,800 words that filled three single-spaced pages without any breaks or indentations.  This was a document that I start for every major project I write, entitled “Talking it out.”  This is the embryo of a book.

Today, I will attempt to construct a preliminary bone structure for this new creation, which might look something like an outline.  My outlines are nothing like the complexity of a human skeleton, but look more like a stick figure.  Here there is a leg, so probably there should be another one of roughly the same size next to it.  More will be added to it later, after it has some room to grow and develop on its own.  My last book started with a simple ten-point outline.  At the midway point, I had forty-six plot points that I printed out on slips of paper and arranged and re-arranged in a tree on my kitchen table.

My last book, entitled “The Other Side of Silence” and in my notes as “Spiritual,” has been cast out onto the waters of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.  It is just a touch insane for me to submit my treasured work to that particular contest.  A contest that chewed me up and spit me out along with my grand efforts at transcending gender roles a mere year ago.  But the rationale of last year still works now; it’s motivation to really finish the book and stop picking at it, and it delays the necessity of querying that book so I can start working on my next project.  So off it goes, to try its legs in the real world.  Mary Shelley referred to her writing as her “hideous progeny.”  I’m a little less dramatic, and might choose something more like my “awkward toddlers.”

It may (or may not) surprise you that more than once in my life, I’ve been asked why I continue to pursue a career that involves so much rejection and critique.  This is not only because the publishing industry is known for chewing people up.  Oh no, it’s mostly because I’m known for being particularly sensitive.  Why would that be a problem?

I wind up in a lot of odd activities because my kind of courage is a conviction that I’ll be able to deal with problems when I get to them.  This often results in blind or downright boneheaded decision making.  This is how my soft, reclusive, easily wearied teenage self wound up on a three week backpacking trip in the Alps.  It’s how my husband and I joined a church plant after leading one small group together.  And more recently, it’s how I found myself raising my hand and saying “I’ll lead worship for Celebrate Recovery.”  That is not to say that I regret any of these decisions.  These have been some of the most profound experiences of my life and if I had skipped them, I simply would not be me.

However, half-way into the execution of these choices, I have to actually deal with the problems.  More athletic hikers berate me for my slowness, and that soft reclusive person gets a little peeved that she wound up in this position.

So there’s an internal thumb war that takes place between the stubborn, boneheaded part of me and the sensitive, malleable bit.  I need both pieces to make my life work.  So much of what is creative and beautiful in my work comes from that soft place.  That’s the part that feels deeply for causes, can empathize with totally unsympathetic characters, and will hear and respond to the voice of God.  But the harder, stubborn part can use strategy and discipline to overcome obstacles, will continue to work in the face of adversity, and actually takes a gritty pleasure in doing so.

My question is not only who’s going to win, although that’ll be interesting.  More deeply, is it possible to continue on without severely bruising or restraining an aspect of my personhood that I love?

Even if I know it’s a draft and not a finalized version of a book, I struggle with endings. Throughout most of my writing process, endings find me. I write a sentence and think, “Oh, that’s the end.”

That does not happen at the end of a book. That last scene is sticky and hard to set down. I walk away with little bits of it still on my fingers. The end of a book is a set of contradictions. It should dramatically conclude without feeling over-wrought. The end should satisfy the reader but leave them wanting more. The end of the book is the justification for all the pages preceding it, the reason for the writing and reading.

Which is why I always know when I’ve really ended a book. When a book is finished, I feel a Zeus-like power between my palms. Watch out, world! This lady can create beauty out of nothing, and chuck lightning bolts too.

The guitar is not my main outlet for creativity, but I do really love to play worship music.  For years this love has been kept safely in the wee hours of my living room, but has recently exploded into amplified worship leading for a group of 20-50 people.  My skill level is far from awesome.  I tend to use words like “proficient” or “adequate” to describe my guitar playing.  This is not only my first experience leading a band, it’s my first experience being in a band.

In my defense, I think I’m a much better band leader today than I was two months ago.  And really, there are very few activities I can say that about.  But to be honest, I’m just not great at this yet.  As possibly evidenced by my drummer taking a (hopefully) temporary leave from the band.  Tonight I will miss the steady beat of the toms and the metallic rustle of the cymbals behind me, that surprising tonality I was just getting used to.  She is a pretty fantastic musician.  I already miss the generous heart of my drummer, who was always willing to give me a ride to band practice.

Which is how I wound up at the church at 9am on a Tuesday morning.  Since the cute husband and I share a car, the only way for me to make a 4pm worship practice was to have him drop me off at the church on his way to work in the morning.  So today my writing will be done in a back room of the church.  I have settled in on the one couch the church owns, which I’m pretty sure the youth group picked up off a friendly curb.  As my habit goes, I’ve formed a little nest for myself.  I have my laptop, a bag full of food that I will carefully dole out throughout the day, my iphone is blasting my writing playlist, and my guitar is resting in its case nearby.  Later it will be an instrument for worship.  At the moment it’s serving as a coffee table/footrest.

I was asked to teach a poetry workshop to the women in Breaking Free.  These are women who have recently escaped from human trafficking and prostitution locally, and some of them have heard me perform my poetry at Breaking Free events.  The thing is, I have no idea how to teach this stuff.  Teaching is not an area of creativity I have much experience in, and all the formal education I’ve had in poetry has focused on close reading and scansion.  Probably not the best jumping off place.  So I hold up the workshop I shamelessly stole from my friend Moira, like a shield that will protect me from the failure that terrifies me.

I’ll be honest, I am a little afraid of these women.  I have heard stories about them stealing wallets and cell phones, but those stories aren’t half so scary as the vague warnings that “these are women who have been living in survival mode, just be careful.”  No matter how well meant that warning is, it sounds like there’s a small possibility that they might try to eat me if I let my guard down.

Heather, the woman who oversees my work at Breaking Free, kindly offers to introduce me and explain what I’m there to do.  When she tells them that I’m here to teach poetry writing, a hand shoots up.  “I have a poem!  I have a poem!”  Her eyes are green and shifty and she rocks constantly.  I worry that something about Nantucket is forthcoming.  But Heather nods patiently, and the woman closes her eyes and grows completely still.  She recites from memory a beautiful, tender poem about someone she loves.  She speaks softly, keeping her eyes closed, speaking to the heavens.  I know without asking that this is about someone she lost, that she’s already learned to distill beauty from the pain.  For a second I think about admitting that I don’t have anything to teach these women.  But before I do that, I look around and I see the wonder on all the other women’s faces.  They see what I see, and they want it too.  So I decide to try.