Author Archives

by

writing for joy

My grandfather, John Vernon Stockslager (we called him Pappy), passed away last week. My uncle preached his funeral sermon on Monday, and he mentioned something I had almost forgotten about: Almost 20 years ago, when Pappy first got a computer, he created a series of comic strips about two birds named Tweets and Blu. Technically speaking, they’re simple and even a bit rough–he used the Draw program in Windows to create them–but they’re funny and big-hearted and short, just like Pappy. Also at the funeral, one of my cousins read aloud a poem that Pappy had written not long ago. (We had also read one of his poems at my grandmother’s funeral nine years ago.) At some point during the service, I was struck by the sudden realization that although it had always seemed normal to me that my grandfather, a retired electrician and farmer, drew cartoons and wrote poems for fun, it’s actually not that common for adults to do these things. Kids do these things, and then when they grow up and decide they’re not good enough to get paid to do them, they get embarrassed and stop. Pappy never stopped.

I see this same impulse to write for the pure joy of it in Pappy’s children and grandchildren, particularly in my own immediate family. The examples range from the short-lived family newspaper my sister headed up when we were kids–The Fine Five–to my brother’s songwriting to my dad’s extensive reviews he posts on Goodreads for every book he reads. I see it in my own blogging and fiction writing. None of us are getting paid to do these things. Maybe we could, if we worked harder at marketing ourselves or knew the right people. But while I can’t speak for anyone else in my family, I can say that I’m content with writing for a small audience of family, friends, and Facebook connections–and for the delight it brings me. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I’m content with this, like when I see colleagues’ blogs and YouTube channels going viral or when I watch other people in my Facebook writers’ group (which I feel like a poser even belonging to) finding great success in self-publication through a combination of persistent marketing and real writing skill. I admire those people, and what I’m about to say is not, by any means, meant to fault them. But for me, I think it’s a useful discipline to be able to see the value in sharing my writing with the people who matter most to me, even if it reaches no further than that. That’s what Pappy did. I remember there was some talk of looking for a wider distribution channel for Tweets and Blu, but his family was always his favorite audience, whether for his comic strips, his poems, or his music, which I haven’t even mentioned in this post. (And he did get to play and sing in front of a wide range of audiences throughout his life.)

I’m not trying to make the worn-out, false argument that getting paid for doing something makes you love it less. But I do think there’s something to be said for writing–or drawing, or singing and playing–for nothing but joy. I’m thankful that Pappy taught me that.

by

a Christmas thought

This year, I thought a lot about people who had to spend Christmas alone, or far from home, or working, and that made me think about a scene from A Christmas Carol that hardly ever gets dramatized or remembered. The Ghost of Christmas Present, after having taken Scrooge to some of the bleakest places inside London, takes him to some of the loneliest places outside of it:

And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed, or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.

“What place is this?” asked Scrooge.

“A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,” returned the Spirit. “But they know me. See!”

A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their children and their children’s children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song—it had been a very old song when he was a boy—and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again.

The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on above the moor, sped—whither? Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge’s horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds—born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the water—rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.

But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in itself.

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea—on, on—until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him.

–Charles Dickens, 1843

by

songs you should drop everything and listen to

Deeply embroiled in grading, I’m taking just a minute to share with you the front-runner for my favorite “new” (to me) Christmas song this year: “Christmas Must Be Tonight” by The Band. This is an old song that I just discovered this year, and I really dig it. I’ve been realizing this year how much I like The Band. Over the summer, I discovered their wonderfully surprising part-bluegrass, part-zydeco cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Atlantic City.”

Let me know what you think. And what Christmas songs are you enjoying this year?

by

Jesus was homeless

This morning while washing my face and putting on makeup and blow-drying my hair, I was trying to keep tears from streaming down my face. Let me briefly tell you why.

I was listening to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra song “Good King Joy,” which combines the tunes of “Joy to the World” and “Good King Wenceslas” (the moderately obscure carol about the king who feeds, warms, and clothes a poor man) but also contains a blues-gospel vocal riff on the journey of the wise men to bring gifts to Jesus. My first thought was “It’s odd that they would conflate those two stories.” My next thought was “Duh. They’re not conflating anything; those two stories are absolutely connected.” Jesus said that whatever we do for “the least of these”–like the poor man that King W. saw–we have done for him. And that’s why we sing about King W. at Christmas (well, we at least hear the song occasionally–I’m not sure if I’ve ever actually sung it) and why so many people give their time and money at Christmas. Charitable giving at Christmas is not something Charles Dickens came up with in the 1840s; Dickens was drawing from a very old tradition that stretches all the way back to the wise men and even further back to the innkeeper who did, after all, let Mary and Joseph stay in the stable. We give to the poor at Christmas because on the first Christmas, God became poor. He didn’t just become a baby unable to help himself; he became a baby born to a couple who didn’t have much in terms of worldly possessions and who, on the night Jesus was born, didn’t even have a place to stay.

This seems so obvious now that I’m typing it out, and it’s not like I didn’t know all this before. It just hit me this morning in a way that it never has before. This advent season, I want to pay attention to the people around me who are economically poor as well as poor in spirit, because in doing so I am paying attention to Jesus.

by

fun house!

Over the weekend, I moved into my new house in Wyoming, Michigan (nowhere near the state of Wyoming, just like the college town where I went for my Ph.D. coursework, Indiana, Pennsylvania, is nowhere near the state of Indiana). My previous house, in Virginia, was a modular on a slab, built in 2005, so while it was almost maintenance-free, it wasn’t a home with which I would associate the word “character” (though, to give the previous homeowners credit, they had added a really cool tile floor in the kitchen and some lovely landscaping outside). But my new home was built in the 1940s and has a basement and a little Cape Cod-style upstairs level, so it’s full of character, quirk, and whatever else you want to call it. I have always loved houses with funny little alcoves and cupboard doors in unexpected places, and my new house has plenty of these. Plus, the previous homeowner left a number of built-ins (such as corner knick-knack shelves) and a few non-built-ins (such as an old but functional metal desk in the basement) around the house, so I’ve been having fun running around the house thinking of ways to use these little surprises, even the ones that aren’t terribly functional. Here are some of my favorite features:

  1. The ultimate hiding place. In the upper level, there are two recesses in the sloped ceiling/wall, one of which contains a bar on which I’ve hung clothes. There’s one spot where the recess goes back deeper than the opening, so if I push the clothes aside, I have a perfect hiding spot. But it gets better: You can only get to the upper story through the bathroom, and when the door is shut, it just looks like a closet. Hey, wait, I shouldn’t be telling you this, in case we play hide and seek in my house someday (a likely scenario). I think I mentioned in a previous post that I enjoyed hiding in the sloped closets of the Cape Cod house where we lived when I was a little kid, and apparently I have not lost that joy.
  2. The wonky antique cabinet. In the basement, there’s a large old wooden cabinet that isn’t built-in but appears to be very heavy and unwieldy, and the basement stairs are not conducive to carrying furniture, so it’s functionally part of the house now. (I would love to know the story of how it got down there in the first place–or maybe it was built down there.) The doors don’t quite shut right, and it badly needs to be cleaned out (it’s full of random home improvement stuff, including some paint cans that may come in handy) but as my antiques-minded sister pointed out, if I ever felt ambitious, I could paint it and put new doors on and have a lovely showpiece. Or it could just remain a quirky conversation piece.
  3. All the basement shelving I could ever want. This one isn’t quite as exciting as the others, but because I’m going to be using the laundry primarily for laundry and storage (there’s also a guest bedroom down there, which is slightly larger than my “master” bedroom), and also because I’m kind of a hoarder, the amount of shelving down there is a dream come true. In addition to the built-in shelves and table, the previous homeowner left a large metal portable unit that’s going to be perfect for hanging just-washed clothes. And there’s even a sink next to the washing machine, which I appreciate for its novelty as well as its utility. (I guess it’s not that unusual to have a sink next to the washing machine, but I’ve never had one before, so it’s fun.)

I could go on: There are lyrics to John Lennon’s “Imagine” painted on the inside of the door frame of the room I’m going to use as a library/reading room (not a design choice I would have chosen, but I can think of worse songs she could have picked); there’s a grapevine Christmas wreath up in the eaves of the shed, so I’ll have to get my ladder and see if I can dig it out, and there are TWO lazy susans in the kitchen cabinets. There are mirrors and coat hooks in convenient places–that’s less money I’ll have to spend at Lowe’s–and I even like the colorful cabinet hardware and light switch plates in the kitchen. I live in a fun house, and I can’t wait to get all my stuff unpacked and make it truly my own (oh, and to decorate it for Christmas!).

by

planes, trains, and radical hospitality

This past weekend, my family watched the John Hughes comedy Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987) like we do every Thanksgiving. This movie works so well because the two main characters, played by Steve Martin and John Candy, subvert stereotypes that are often present in run-of-the-mill comedies. Martin’s character, Neal Page, is a twist on the workaholic dad character so common in 1980s and 90s family comedies. Unlike most of those characters, Neal desperately wants to get home to his family, but can’t because of a relentless series of logistical mishaps. He also embodies the tightly-wound neurotic character type, but whereas that type often appears as an antagonist or as merely the butt of unkind humor, Neal, as the point of view character of the film, is utterly sympathetic. Candy’s character, Del Griffith, (SPOILER ALERT–but seriously, you’ve had 31 years to see this movie) is a homeless widower, a character who might be a tiresomely pathetic victim in a lesser movie, but he’s also that annoying guy who sits next to you on an airplane and talks your ear off. But as we, through Neal, get to know Del, we are led into sympathy with him as well, and we come to understand that he talks because he’s lonely. He is vulnerable not only because he is a homeless widower but also because he is a traveling salesman–someone who, like Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, survives by the good will of others–but he is also incredibly savvy and resilient.

I realized this year, more than ever before, how much I relate to Neal Page, especially in his very physical and verbal displays of frustration. I really see myself in the scene where he throws an almost acrobatic tantrum–and literally throws his car rental agreement–in the remote parking lot where he gets stranded after he gets dropped off at the alleged parking space of a rental car that doesn’t exist. Co-workers probably think Neal is a calm, mild-mannered guy, but he has high standards for himself, other people, and the universe at large, and when those standards aren’t met, he doesn’t know what to do. So he explodes, and sometimes he hurts people. I can relate, so very much. (I gave a major character in the zombie apocalypse story I just finished writing, Adrian Fallon, this same flaw. I also realized after watching the movie on Friday how much the road trip elements of my story had been influenced by Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.)

I think nearly everyone can relate to Neal–who, again, is the character through whom we experience the story–in one respect. The whole way through the film, we’ve been imagining, along with Neal, these idyllic scenes of what his family must be doing at home. Through him, we’ve experienced the gradual stripping away of comforts he has always taken for granted–money, transportation, warmth, privacy, security. (These are things, by the way, that Del, a perpetual traveler, cannot take for granted. I think the heavy trunk he carries around represents the burden of the constant stress of the road.) By the end, we, along with Neal, want nothing more than to go home, take a shower, eat Thanksgiving dinner, and go to bed. Yet (spoiler again) Neal makes the radical decision to turn around and invite Del to share Thanksgiving, one of the most intimate holidays, with his family. There’s a lot of talk today in the blogosphere, the publishing industry, churches, etc. about “radical hospitality.” Planes, Trains, and Automobiles shows us, profoundly, that tired, frustrated, flawed people are the ones who can best show such hospitality.

 

 

by

the thankfulness book

Happy Thanksgiving from my blog!

Tess Martinus's avatarthe Dr. Tess blog

This is the next in my series of posts on crafting a rule of life.  Those of you who have been following this series will be interested (and maybe a little sad) to know that I am probably going to wrap it up after next week’s post.  However, I’ll continue to add to my rule of life and will probably blog about it from time to time in the future.

Two weeks ago I wrote about the three hours I spent in solitude, meditating on my struggle with anger and how, with God’s help, I can implement practices into my life that will help me to become less angry and more gentle.  One of the action steps that came from that session was to begin writing daily in the thankfulness journal that I started last summer during a Bible study on Ann Vosskamp’s One Thousand Gifts, a book I…

View original post 436 more words

by

The no-maj question

Since I’m still dedicating my usual blogging time to finishing up my zombie apocalypse story, I’m reblogging another post from two years ago about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Speaking of the no-maj question, did anybody see Dan Fogler (a.k.a. Jacob Kowalski) in his new regular role on The Walking Dead last night? He may turn out to be a bad guy, but at least he looks adorable.

Tess Martinus's avatarthe Dr. Tess blog

This is the second and last post I am writing in response to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them–at least until I watch it again. 🙂  Spoilers ahead.

A few weeks ago I wrote on my blog that one of the aspects of the film I was most excited about was the presence of a non-magical person as a major character.  I predicted that this would be significant for fandom because it would give us all hope that we, too, could become part of that world (since we’ve all pretty much given up on receiving that lost-in-the-mail Hogwarts letter).

What I didn’t realize was that there would be so many non-magical characters in the movie and that they would represent such a wide array of roles.  (And yes, let’s get this out of the way: “No-maj” is kind of an annoying term, but it makes sense.  Americans don’t…

View original post 425 more words

by

Fantastic EQ and How to Have It

Since I’m dedicating all my writing time this month to finishing up my zombie apocalypse novella, today I’m reblogging a post from two years ago about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, whose sequel comes out next week!

Tess Martinus's avatarthe Dr. Tess blog

Well, I couldn’t wait until next week.

I know there are some people who read my blog who love J. K. Rowling’s wizarding world as much as I do, but there are also some readers who aren’t great fans of that world but are interested in the psychology/personal growth topics I often write about.  This post is for all of you.

Last night as I was leaving the theater after seeing Fantastic Beasts and Where I Find Them, I ran into several friends and acquaintances, and as we briefly exchanged expressions of love for the movie, I noticed that I kept putting my hand over my heart, as if I needed to keep it inside my chest.  That’s how the movie made me feel.  I felt like my heart was overflowing.

Another way of saying the same thing: Sharp-eyed viewers (and people who have been on Pottermore recently) will…

View original post 568 more words

by

getting psyched for NaNoWriMo

November is National Novel Writing Month, not an official holiday but the flagship event of the eponymous nonprofit organization. If you complete a 50,000-word novel during the month, you can claim to have “won” NaNoWriMo, though it’s not a competition. I did this once, almost 10 years ago. I wrote a novel, heavily inspired by The Dark Knight and Harry Potter, about a man who goes around taking the punishment for other people’s crimes. I had also been reading a lot of George Eliot at the time, so my prose in the novel is very dense, and my narrator often breaks out into philosophy. Unless you already know a lot about guns and police procedures, crime drama is not a good genre for NaNoWriMo because there’s little time for research. So my novel, which I self-published as A Man of No Reputation, has a lot of problems, but it inspired a number of themes that continue to appear in my writing, such as loneliness, self-sacrifice, and a protagonist with a perpetually sad-looking face (he can’t help it; it’s just what his face looks like!).

This year, I’ve decided to use NaNoWriMo as motivation to complete the zombie apocalypse narrative I have been working on, slowly, for over a year. I won’t be able to claim to have “won,” since I have no intention of writing 50,000 words; I am at roughly 26,000, and my story arc is nearing its end. (I’m not sure what the finished project will be properly called–a long short story? a novella? I’m mainly thinking of it as the source text for a movie.) Since November starts this Thursday, I want to take a few minutes to look back on the changes my story has gone through and forward to how it might end up. (I really do mean “might”; I have a general idea but no actual outline. I am what they call, in writers’ group lingo, a “pantser”–I plot by the seat of my pants.)

Originally, although I was and still am calling my story a (dark) comedy, my main character was going to die. It was going to be a beautiful, self-sacrificial death, kind of like in my 2009 NaNoWriMo project. I maintain that a comedy can end with the main character(s) dying, like in (spoiler alert) Thelma and Louise, a major inspiration for my story along with Zombieland and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (yes, I’m writing a road trip story). But after getting a lot of feedback about how much people in my writing groups loved my main character, Sam Larson, I started to reconsider killing him off. Yes, I was partly trying to please my audience (not a bad thing), but it also occurred to me that perhaps I could better reinforce one of the themes of my story by allowing Sam to survive.

That theme is LIFE, and it’s a theme uniquely suited to a zombie narrative, which is permeated with a grotesque parody of life. Readers learn early in the story that Sam suffers from clinical depression and that about ten years ago, he attempted suicide. Although Sam has learned to live with depression and no longer wants to die, he constantly struggles to believe that his life has value, especially in this new world in which people tend to be judged by their physical prowess and survival skills. (I’ve written extensively on my blog about this issue in zombie apocalypse narratives.) I think I could still convey this theme with Sam dying a heroic death at the end, but I believe the theme will come through even more clearly if I show him living.

I’m also using a motif that is especially suited to the zombie subgenre: eating. People are constantly eating in my story, whether it’s oatmeal heated up over a fire on the side of the road or a full Italian meal in the safe house. Of course, zombies are always eating too, but they derive no joy or satisfaction from this meaningless activity. In contrast, I wanted to show my characters enjoying food as a gift of life and sharing it with each other. So the eating scenes are not throwaways but integral to the message of my story.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo? Are there any other themes and motifs you can think of that are particularly appropriate to zombie stories? Let me know in the comments!