Ways to Keep from Keeping up with the Times

Meet 13-year old Morgan Pozgar, 2007 winner
of the LG National Texting Championship.

It may be part of why so many beginning writers try their hand at memoirs about their early days (as vulnerable as that can make you feel) or historical fiction (which require a ton or research, or leaves you open to a great deal of criticism). Writing about contemporary life is harder than it seems. That's because the world has changed so very much, and it doesn't seem to stop!

How do you keep the language or behavior in your young adult novel from sounding like they came from 20, 30 years ago, when you were a young adult yourself? How do you write a kid's book that reflects the world today's kids actually live in? And if you do happen to get the contemporary references right, is your book going to sound out-of-date before it gets out of its first printing?

Movie making would be even harder in this respect. Pour millions of dollars into a piece that before you know it, attracts jeers from viewers or would-be viewers who make fun of the clothes, hair, language .... and the technology.

Novelist Ann Patchett doesn't like technology. And especially she doesn't like the way the ubiquity of technology screws up her intended plot lines. She doesn't want readers or reviewers exclaiming, "Why didn't she just Google that?" "Why didn't he text her and tell her where he was?" Because it would kill the suspense, wouldn't it?

So she writes the story the way she wants to, but has people's cell phones lost or stolen, their batteries and computers die... whatever it takes to get magic techno solutions out of the way. Patchett is a Luddite herself, perhaps unsurprisingly. On the side, she owns and helps run a brick-and-mortar bookstore in Nashville, TN (and refuses to upgrade her flip phone).

I just read and enjoyed her book State of Wonder, carefully set off the grid in the Amazon jungle. That isolation factor itself plays a significant role in creating the novel's tension. I read it from the glowing rectangle of my iPad, of course, though characters in the book pass around carefully plastic-wrapped hardback copies of a set of Dickens.

See Author Ann Patchett Talks about How She Avoids Modern Tech in State of Wonder (Washington Post).

Remaindered!

I recently re-read Madeleine L'Engle's book A Circle of Quiet. This volume has been a companion of mine for more than 30 years. Some books stick with you, don't they? Not everything has such staying power. L'Engle tells a story about Henry David Thoreau:

"In 1853 Thoreau was informed by his publishers that A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers had sold 219 copies since its publication four years before, so they sent him the remainder. He wrote, 'I now have a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself.'

In a small way I can relate. A few weeks ago I heard from InterVarsity Press that sales of Through Her Eyes, published a dozen years ago in 2004, had finally slowed enough to make some changes in their marketing and distribution of this book. Unlike Thoreau's publisher, IVP is billing me for the cost and shipping of my "remainders."

But because a few other things have changed since Thoreau's day, they're still going to keep the book in print. Paper copies may not be worth the warehouse space, but it costs the publisher nothing to keep selling it as an ebook. For those who do want paper copies, "Print on Demand" (POD) volumes will be produced; that's more reasonable than ever before. So even though it's been remaindered, the book will remain in print. Nice.

The publisher told me they still had 210 copies. I spoke for 160. I'm having a case of 40 sent to me and have asked colleagues at Pioneers to stash several cases more so I can pick them up as needed. I'll keep schlepping copies along when I speak or teach, as I've been doing for years. But now I can cut the price in half to $5/each with no qualms about giving them away for free when that seems appropriate.

A year or two ago I had the dwindling royalties redirected to Pioneers as well. The cost of having Turbo Tax submit the paperwork to pay the government its share had exceeded the royalty income.

Staying in print for twelve years is pretty good for a book of this sort. I'm happy that there's still some audience for it and that the publisher has found a way to keep it available.

Thoreau might find it some consolation that these and other dynamics have returned Concord and Merrimack to print, too.

By the way, I would love to give away copies of Through Her Eyes for free to anyone who would be willing to review it on Amazon, Goodreads, etc. When it came out, that was less of a "thing," but now it looks rather pathetic to have none. Well, one. And even that one is brief and has a grammatical error. It would help the book find new audiences if there were more.

(Made friends with one of our neighbors who wrote a book published just a year and a half ago. He has 74 customer reviews. Impressive!)

My Pioneers Project and the Parada Coca-Cola

It took me years to start saying I'm a "writer." At least that's what I sometimes say when people want to know what I do. More precise would be to say I'm a copywriter and copyeditor. That would tell people who understand the profession that I play with words (often other people's) to communicate messages (often not my own). It's easier to get a job that pays the bills doing that than being a poet or a novelist or an author of memoirs. I dare say it takes less talent and/or chutzpah. But I like it. I also like that most everything that gets past my own internal filters is published.

These days my words don't get out on paper, not often anyway. I mostly curate and work on content for electronic newsletters, websites, and social media.

My latest project is a bit different. It's concrete and three dimensional. It's going to have to be interactive and visual, using images and experiences to communicate instead of words, whenever possible. This is stretching me; I've been alternately inclined to procrastinate about the project, afraid to fail, and excited to try something unlike anything I've done before. This week I'm driving down to Orlando to spend a couple days working with a team there to see how much of the planning we can knock out and nail down. I've been working up possible copy on and off for weeks with little confidence that it's the kind of stuff that in the end we will want to use. Now I'll find out.

The commission is to build a museum-style display to explain what our organization is all about. It's going to take up a good chunk of the lobby of Pioneers' new building in Orlando. The audience? The many who come through as missionary candidates and appointees, Pioneers supporters, partner church leaders, allies and colleagues, and those who may just be passing through the lobby because they're part of a group that asks to meet in our space (theoretically possible given the new facility). We can also expect the occasional group of mission-agency-beat tourists, because believe it or not, that's a thing.

We don't expect to compete with the Wycliffe Discovery Center. They're the main mission agency attraction in Orlando. And the JESUS Film guys offer a well-crafted visitors experience as well, or so I hear. We aren't going to staff this, or charge a fee. But we wouldn't mind being another stop on the tour. In a town that's home to so many "world class attractions," it may take some doing. 

The whole exhibit may also play a part in pulling staff and friends of the ministry together around the mission we've been given. That would be good. But the brainstorming process made it clear people have rather different ideas of what should be included, and we can't do it all. We also  have to get the tone right; if not, there could be a lot of criticism. It should inspire and encourage, without being self-glorifying or manipulative. A tall order.

Even as the project is challenging and stretching me, I'm glad the leadership is not in my hands. I'm just an extra copywriter, on hand to put in the extra time the overextended Communications Team doesn't have to give. I don't have to deal with building contractors and the budget process.

Surely the budget is anywhere near the one Collin Brum has to work with on his latest project. Collin is my stepmom's nephew; a sort-of much-younger cousin. Colin works for Coca-Cola. He's a marketing "events" guy. I think he started with pop-up tents and free Cokes on the beach, but he  has a lot more on his shoulders now. Still, if you'd "like to give the world a Coke," you should have a job like Collin's... he has managed promotional efforts at the Olympics since the 2010 games in Vancouver. I wonder if there's anything I could learn from him for my project with Pioneers?

See below for a video in which Collin gives a tour of Coca-Cola Station in Rio. 

Cultural Training for 21st Century Mission

I don't think I ever posted this here, but the the Intercultural Studies team at my school published my Master's thesis on their website. (Their title for it is better than mine, too.) Don't worry, I'm not going to let this honor go to my head. The school has a strong history of commitment to educating current and future international workers, but the actual ICS department is pretty small. The option of completing one's Master's by writing a thesis (rather than completing a practicum) is new, not available to all, and not what most are choosing to do. Only three of us wrote a thesis this year.

Get the highlights in my previous post, Equipping New Cross-Cultural Workers.

The school was only asking for a 15,000-25,000-word doc (60-100 pages) and recommended, for “case study research,” focusing on no more than 5-10 agencies.

I was concerned that the sample size would be too small or that more of the agencies I approached would say no, so I started with a list of 20 and ended up profiling 12.

Only later did I realize that to process the data in the time I had would keep me from the additional steps I’d hoped for (follow-up interviews going deeper on key statements, and surveys testing patterns)… and the whole thing was quickly getting too long. To really achieve my original plan would result in something more like a dissertation than a thesis.

I think the case study descriptions themselves are more helpful than my chapters on correlations and conclusions. I learned a lot and want to share that with anyone interested, but in terms of original research, it all feels more tentative than I’d like. I’m not making any plans to publish my findings elsewhere at this point.

Enough disclaimers? I'd still be thrilled if you read it or shared it with someone you know!

»  Read about Cultural Training for 21st Century Mission. [Later: sorry, the school shut down that particular website, so old posts are gone. Happy to send the thesis to anyone who has a hankering to read it though.]

See also a later post, Observations about Academic Research.

"God must have needed another angel."

My Baby Angel, by Draskias Art

He was a garrulous man and we'd just met him at church, accepting an invitation to share a table at a meal before the Wednesday night service. In exchanging pleasantries he discovered that Hubs is a chaplain. People seem to connect with that much more easily than with my ministry. So even though I've been working in missions all my adult life, Hubs comes across the religious professional in our family. Occasionally this rankles.

Maybe I should be glad of it. It means people seldom try to engage me on matters in which I have some expertise and experience, such as relating to people from different religions and cultures or understanding the cultural dynamics underlying global events. Sometimes they still say dumb stuff about those things in front of me which I have a hard time letting pass, but it doesn't seem to occur to them that I might know more than they do about what they're talking about. I'm more likely to get blank stares, though, than people who want to talk world mission with me.

It is, though something that happens to Chris a lot. People want to talk to him about death, grief, and loss, or make statements taking for granted what his job must be like or what he's trying to accomplish (e.g., evangelism? nope!). Sometimes they just say the most ignorant things... things I hate to hear, but at least it's just me, not  someone who just suffered a heartbreaking loss.

This time the man brought up a tragedy that had just occurred down in Florida. A two-year-old boy was snatched and killed by an alligator while wading in a pond at a Disney resort.

"God must have needed another angel," the man said with conviction, as if expecting nods and affirmation from the chaplain and his wife.

We both stiffened. What kind of terrible God would... ? Take a child from his parents so cruelly, for his own sake? Need more angels, really, at all? And where does this idea come from that people who die zip right up to Heaven and turn into angels, anyway?  How could someone who grew up in the church and came to this specific church because he appreciates that they teach the Bible (and not just the human ideas and traditions) fail to recognize how many things were wrong with this kind of statement?

But usually people do things for a reason, so I got to thinking about why people might think the "angel" bit is a helpful thing to say. I can think of several possibly comforting or encouraging implications of believing that kind of myth. It suggests that God has things under control, rather than letting the world's chaos run wild. It suggests that the child is in a better place and has in some sense been promoted, rather than suffering such a horrible experience without any positive results to perhaps mitigate things. It may be as if to say: Your baby is OK. So, even someone who didn't really believe that might consider it more palatable than alternatives! There are certainly other ways to arrive that these conclusions, though, ways that align better with the teachings of scripture, though they may not sound as slick. The "angel" idea might seem kinder, if indeed people are in a place to receive comfort of this sort (maybe so, maybe not).

Still, it is hard to sit and listen to someone malign God, really, and say things that are, when it comes down to it, biblically and theologically unsupportable (not to mention potentially very harmful or wounding if said to someone experiencing that kind of loss).

But what do you do? We'd just met this guy and his comment was only made in passing. No one was asking for feedback or instruction here. The right thing to do seemed to be just to let it pass. Hubs has also held his tongue in more sensitive settings, as when a family member or neighbor or nurse or deputy coroner says these words or others like them. To stop them and give a theology lesson isn't likely to keep such words from wounding the bereaved, just to shame and maybe anger or drive away the well intentioned but thoughtless speaker.

What do you do when people say thoughtless but terrible things like that? When would it be OK to confront them? Does it depend on the setting? Who else is present? How long they go on in that vein? Or maybe how well you know that person? Perhaps there are times when you know the person and can speak to them later about the problem, privately, as well as to offer the bereaved a chance to talk about it when the other person is not present.

Mulch, the local approach

At first glance I thought it was a hay truck, but the hay was more brunette than blond, and the bales were kind of small. Turns out it's not hay, but straw: "pine straw," which is to say, pine needles.

I would think they'd be awfully prickly, but apparently the trees and bushes don't mind. It's good for insulation, reduces evaporation, keeps the weeds down, and (at least according to the folks who promote the stuff) is a great way to beautify your landscape.

By the end of the day the bales had been slung out all around the apartment complex. Today contractors are out with rakes and spreading the contents of those bales thickly around all the bushes and trees. Each item looks like it's growing from its very own giant nest. Apparently this is the finished "look," though it will flatten in time to give the appearance I guess I had stopped noticing; last year's pine straw application.  

Have you ever gardened with pine straw? Just an East Coast thing?

Help. I can't get this to rotate. Sorry!

Summer Blues

Hey, it's my old friend, the summertime blues, my very own Seasonal Affective Disorder. This time it's a whole month early. (Usually I fight this battle in June). That may be due to the summer weather and the academic calendar; school was out almost two weeks ago. I graduated April 30.

I suppose it's possible my SAD response is rooted in some long-buried childhood trauma that happened this time of year. But I don't think so. As usual, I had a super-busy spring, and now face that "school's out, there's nothing to do, and nobody wants to play with me" dynamic. After a few weeks I'm usually OK again, and in the long run a quieter season is good for me.

A diagnosis of clinical, or major depression requires that you can check off the boxes on a number of symptoms and have experienced them most of the day, every day, for two weeks, and thankfully I'm far from that threshold even at my lowest lows. Bad days are mixed with good ones. That means drugs and doctors are not the answer...  though counseling, nutrition/exercise, and other behavioral treatments may help.

My favorite description of depression and a rather smart cure for it come from Brer Rabbit. See Depression: Its Causes and Cures (per Uncle Remus).

By the way, garden-variety depression has a much lower threshold than clinical depression, and at least once or twice a year you can put me down for that. The PHQ-2 Depression Screening Indicator asks these two questions:

1. Over the past two weeks, have you ever felt down, depressed, or hopeless?
2. Over the past two weeks, have you ever felt little interest or pleasure in doing things? 

Apparently, 82% of those who can give a positive response to one of those questions is depressed, and 92% of those who give positive response to both of them are (read more here).

Want do you think, is that assessment TOO sensitive? I mean, don't normal people feel down or hopeless at some point over the course of a fortnight (at least many a fortnight)? Isn't it normal to have some sad thoughts?

What I once heard described by a medical professional as the Single Item Depression Indicator is probably just as effective. Want to know if someone is depressed? Just ask them: Are you depressed? There you go, there's your answer.