Author: lauren

I did not make the quarter finals for the novel contest. I have already sent out some more queries, and will continue along that path. Thanks for your prayers, they were much appreciated.

My heart is breaking for those who don’t know you
who feel nothing of your friendship
have no access to your power
no knowledge of your love
your everlasting love
your gentle, powerful care
your concern for the smallest details
your rescue from the deepest evils.

My heart is raging against those who mislead them
those who reduce you to a set of requirements
with no help to be had
who hold up expectations of perfection
to humans made of dust
who build rules around rules around rules
crushing with spirit with an image
of a vindictive, demanding Father
waiting, watching for a slip-up.

My heart is quaking for the calling
to set the record straight
to bare witness to your goodness
to rebuke the storm of condemnation
to reveal your glorious riches to the poor
to strike a fatal blow to the cult of human will power
to speak boldly against men and women
with more power, wealth, and influence
than I can ever hope to achieve
because they have slandered your magnificent, merciful name
and led your precious lambs astray.

Yesterday I was just getting started on my work and doing the preliminary checking of my e-mail, when I saw an advertisement. In my life, I have probably clicked on one of the advertisements on my gmail about twice including yesterday. But this one was for a writing contest, so I decided to check it out. The contest was the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, and here’s how it works. 10,000 entries are accepted between February 2nd and the 8th. An entry includes a pitch for the book, the first3,000-5,000 words of the book (an excerpt) and a completed and polished manuscript. Between February and May the whittle the candidates down from 10,000 to 500 to 100 to 3 and finally one grand prize winner. The grand prize is a $25,000 book deal with Penguin. Now the real question is, how many people in the world would find out about this contest on the 4th of February and already have a completed and polished manuscript ready to go? Well, I happen to be one of those people. So I prayed, I talked to some friends and asked them to pray, I talked to Ben, and then I stayed up until midnight writing the perfect pitch for my book and this morning I entered the contest. I, of course, would appreciate your prayers that God puts favor on my book with all the judges and panels involved in this process. The cool part too is that if I make it to the quarter finals (which I’ll find out around March 16th), then anyone with an Amazon account can read the excerpts, review them, and vote on them. So if I make the first cut you’ll definitely be hearing from me again. 🙂 But probably the best part for me is that I get to be excited about potential awesome success with that book again, and I can focus on writing my next one instead of trying to promote myself, at least until the contest is over. Thanks to everyone for your support and prayers, I feel really lucky to have so many friends who care.

This is just a question for anyone who regularly attends a church small group. If you have kids, or if you’ve ever been in a small group with people who have kids, what are some ways that the kids have been attended to during the small group? We just started a small group with kids in it. Last night we just let them hang out with us while we did small group, which worked a lot better than I thought it was going to, but I think it was hard for the moms. So I’m looking for ideas. Let me know if you have some.

I’m thinking about applying to be a student speaker at my graduation ceremony. My idea for a speech is a list of interesting things that I’ve done in college. I’ll start with a statement about being a non-traditional student, and how I wanted college to help me expand my experience so I’d have a wider worldview with which to approach my writing. So the list will kind of show that I got what I wanted out of my college experience, and it will be funny as well. I’ll be adding to it as I think of things, and probably not all of this will make it into the final draft. But it’s kind of fun to do for it’s own sake anyway.

1. Used the word ‘homo-erotic’ in a serious presentation

2. Better than that, shouted the C-word repeatedly in front of an audience of hundreds of people

3. Was asked what my vagina would wear and say

4. Pulled the brass door handle off of Lind Hall

5. Waited for buses in -20 degree weather

6. Danced the Samba in Lapa, Brazil

7. Got raging drunk in Bela Horizonte, Brazil

8. Performed my first spoken word piece at a literary reading

9. Reclaimed my latina identity

10. Declared freedom from sexual exploitation for all through a bullhorn from the steps of Northrop

11. Explained feminism to a male French-Canadian in front of Coffman

12. Judged a poetry slam in The Whole

13. Discovered what Herman Melville thinks about women

14. Listened to transsexuals read poetry about their life experiences

15. Was asked whether one of my short stories liked music

16. Conceived, planned, and wrote a novel

17. Turned 25

18. Worked in Rarig, and was told not to call the police if I heard screaming

19. Discovered my husband unending patience with my overblown work ethic

20. Learned to work in a group without doing all the work

21. Helped build a poetry library

22. Asked my grandmother about birth control

23. Was declared an honorary jew

There are twenty-six books I need for this last semester. This is going to be interesting. I thought I was going to be way ahead because I read six of them this summer. I’m not sure how big a dent that’s going to make anymore.

I’m having a great day today, though. I had breakfast with one of my pastors this morning, and I really enjoy her company. Then I got my hair cut, which needed to be done badly since the last cut I got was in February, before the Vagina Monologues. I went to Fantastic Sams, which I have discovered is better than Great Clips or Cost Cutters because the cut comes with a free shampoo. That was nice. The cut was pretty good too.

I also went to campus to pick up my books, hence my intro. While I was on campus, I dropped off seventeen crocheted hats at Sera Cura, which is a store I sell through. While walking between Sera Cura and Coffman Union I talked to one of my old Spanish professors, a friend from freshman year, got a piece of candy from Mercy Vineyard and talked to Liam, and had a very nice conversation with a girl from Amnesty International. Yep, I feel like a senior now. I also got the phone number of the woman I have to talk to in order to sell hats through St. Martin’s Table.

BTW, if you’re still reading, I am again selling hats and scarves and donating all the money to the AIDS crisis through World Vision. They make great Christmas presents, are made to order in any color and style, and can be shipped anywhere. There are pictures on my facebook if you’d like to look. Last year I was able to donate about $300, and I’d like to double that this year. Okay, commercial over.

A random girl shouted “CUNT!” at me as she walked by in the hallway. I believe it was said in solidarity.

Fake an orgasm in front of three total strangers while pretending to be a bisexual dominatrix. Do you think the fact that all three jaws were on the floor when I finished means I’ll get the part?

One of the most exciting things I learned about during my internship this semester was spoken word. Believe it or not, I’d never actually heard of this before my internship started, but I was so excited to discover it. One of the other girls in my program, Moira, is really into spoken word, especially in using it to help youth to express themselves and raise interest and drive for literacy.

During our writing workshops, I was so impressed with Moira’s ability to cut right to the heart of an issue with her poetry, and her delivery during class was just amazing. We had to visit one of the other internship sites during the semester (we were all interning at different places, I was at Intermedia Arts helping them do develop their Poetry Library), so I picked Moira’s site, the Minnesota Spoken Word Association (MNSWA). There I interviewed Sha Cage (how cool a name is that?) and learned even more about this awesome new discipline. It’s sort of the middle ground between poetry and rap, and just from my observations tends to have a focus on political and cultural issues. I talked to Sha a little about how I’ve been exploring my identity as part Latina lately, and she invited me to go to a spoken word event at Macalaster college.

I went, and it was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. The first guy who performed did such an amazing job, mixing rhythm, tonality, and strong content so seamlessly it totally blew me away. The rest of the performance just kept getting better from there, but it would be totally worthless to try and describe it in print. If you see me in person, I’d be happy to do impressions for you. 😉 In any case, I came away from that event sure of two things. First, that I definitely was part of the Latin community and second, that I had to try this spoken word thing.

So I wrote a short piece and turned it in (on paper) for a class assignment. At the end of the semester, we had a group reading where each of us shared some of our work, along with a few published authors that we had studied over the course of the semester. After a LOT of practicing and even more nerves, I did actually perform my first spoken word piece at the reading. I was told that it went really well, and I was pretty happy with my performance. I remembered all the lines and I think delivered them at least so everyone could hear them.

I had another opportunity to do a reading last night at the Vineyard Family Christmas celebration at River Heights Vineyard Church. My small group leader invited me to share some of my work and I said I would. I couldn’t find anything I’d already written that really fit the bill for this gathering, so my roommate Elle challenged me to write something new. I prayed about it, and the next day I wrote a special piece for the performance. I was again super nervous about doing it, not only because this is a new thing for me but because it was a pretty raw summary of my spiritual life. But I have found River Heights to be a community that is more than eager to accept me, so I was pretty sure they wouldn’t boo me off the stage at least. 😉

I did perform that piece last night, and it went great. Sue Marsden, one of the pastors, made a point of telling me how moving it was and how impressed she was with my authenticity and professional delivery. I liked what Justin Law said the best though, “It was like it was happening!” I’m so excited about finding this new way of expressing myself and using my words for art and God.