The Princess and the Gobdooble

Life is about experiences and by extension so is writing. 

I recently read a blog post by Jerry B. Jenkins about his early writing years and his growing boys. Writing was important to him, but he made a commitment that he would never let it get in the way of his family time, which meant between work, his family, and sleep there was only a small window of time in which he could write. At the end of his post he stated, “Writing needs to be a high priority. But for as long as you have a family, writing should never be number one.”

I’m a single gal so I don’t have daily family needs to see to but this past week I was called up for “sick child duty” for someone who had already missed too many days of work and whose daughter was still to sick to go back to her normal caretaker. Taylor is a four-year-old princess who already has an impressive vocabulary and even sick she has too much life in her to take a day lying down.

I’d initially planned to do some extra writing that day, but with Jerry’s words ringing in my ears, I shut my laptop down and engaged in a day of princess movies, games, and coloring. Truth be told, pink and princesses have never really been my thing (my idea of a princess growing up was someone who wore her hair in braids and took on the evil Galactic Empire); however, there was something magical about sitting on the couch under a blanket with Taylor while we watched each film. The highlight of my day, though, was pulling out the paper and markers.

At first we drew our own individual pictures. Taylor’s work of art was an abstract piece she dubbed “The Eyeball” and mine was a tree in the hills that I allowed her to decide what grew on it. She picked a fruit tree that bore apples, oranges, grapes, blueberries, bananas, grapes... Let’s just say it was an incredibly colorful tree. As we discussed our pieces I told her that I thought her picture looked a lot like a Gobdooble, which she immediately wanted to know everything about.

“What’s a Gobdooble?” she asked, to which I answered, “It’s the most amazing doodle in the world and I learned how to draw it when I was your age!” (Don’t ask me where the name came from; I blame my childhood fascination with Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss.) In case you’re unfamiliar with the concept of a Gobdooble, it’s really quite simple: One simply moves her hand about the page and intercrosses the lines without lifting her pen off the paper until the start and end point are linked together. The more complex the Gobdooble the better! You then fill in all the empty spaces with colors, shapes, and designs. When it comes to Gobdoobles, anything goes!

Taylor and I spent close to an hour talking and coloring our newest masterpiece and during that time I forgot all about being a grownup with grownup responsibilities and deadlines. Instead I found myself enjoying being four again, an age where the world is completely unblemished and filled with all manner of magic. Creativity opens doors, imagination takes you on journeys, and there is no knowing where you’ll end up when all our daily structure gets thrown out the window.

Our Gobdooble now graces my fridge as a reminder that life and writing isn’t all about rules, schedules, and formulas. It’s about allowing your mind to be opened to new possibilities (such as a tree that bears every imaginable fruit on the planet plus some or finding a gem of truth in a story about a pink-clad dancing princess). Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” It’s one of my favorite writer’s quotes and is taped to my desk, pinned to my peg board, and even appears in the About Me section of my personal Facebook page.

Life is about experiences and by extension so is writing. How can you tell the story of someone’s journey of self-discovery if you fail to embark on one of your own? And how can you learn anything of importance if you don’t stop to enjoy precious little moments as they present themselves?

Thank goodness I had a sick little princess, a stack of blank paper, and a handful of markers to show me once again just how right Thoreau and Jerry are: “Writing needs to be a high priority. But…writing should never be number one.”

30 Days of Thankfulness in Writing – Day 2: Mentors

It’s easy to focus on the negative in the world around us. In observation of a month many dedicate to counting their blessings, I’ve started a 30-day challenge in which I’ll focus on one aspect of my writing life for which I am thankful. I’d love to have you join by sharing about something that has blessed your own writing life in the comments section below. - Jen

An editor I used to work with once said that if you wanted a bigger piece of pie, you had to make the pie bigger first. In other words, if you want to see more benefit from your efforts, you need to be willing to work with others to expand the territory. At the time he was talking about a couple of manufacturers who were squabbling over who had the rights to a certain bit of emerging technology, but what he said works for writing as well. The publishing world can appear cutthroat to outsiders. There are only so many book slots available in bookstores a year (though e-publishing is changing that), agents only take on so many new clients, and editors are a precious commodity. Once you get your start, if you want to make a living at writing your work really has to sell.

Then there’s the pie. When it comes to readers, there are only so many pieces to go around and those tastes are constantly changing. What is hot and fresh one day may be considered old and moldy the next.  Yet despite the survival of the fittest mantra we have pounded into our heads from an early age, I have rarely met a published writer who was unwilling to share a bit of insight with an aspiring writer. In my experience at least, it’s always been the exact opposite.

And that’s what I am thankful for today: the writers who have become my mentors. Some I have never met face to face, we’ve only worked together via electronic communication; others I’ve had the privilege to sit under for a spell. Each of them recognizes their time is a mere blink and wants to make sure there are other well-trained storytellers to take their place when they set their pen down for the final time. They don’t just lock themselves in their writer’s caves and turn out books — they dedicate a portion of their already busy lives to teaching.

These writers remind me of the ancient story keepers who took on apprentices and trained them until they could recite from memory the histories, fables, and tales of their culture. The main difference is my mentors taught me the rules of writing, how to avoid pitfalls they encountered, and they also encouraged me to find my own voice.

So to my mentors Norm Rohr, Douglas Hirt, John Perrodin, Suzanne Eller, Jim Bell, Jerry Jenkins, and all the others who have taken the time to pass on their valuable knowledge to the next generation: Thank you for working to make the pie a little bigger for all of us.

Hey, Jen...Guess what!?!

I can still remember how sour my stomach felt as I walked through the doors of that conference room in the Denver Hyatt Hotel that November day three years ago. I was meeting the nine other writers who were part of my Craftsman group for the first time and part of our introductions was to give a pitch for the novel we’d spent the last several months working on. The last time I could remember being so nervous was the moment I stood before several hundred people at the district spelling bee in fifth grade — and suddenly forgot how to spell “commit.”

For some reason, at first I was expecting everyone to be older, with families grown or almost grown. Instead I found us split evenly with writers on both sides of 30. One of the Craftsman I met right away was Jon Wakefield, a soft-spoken but enthusiastic husband and father of two squirrelly boys from Virginia. He worked in technology, but he dreamed of being a full-time writer.

Prior to arriving, we’d all submitted our first chapter of our manuscripts and we received a notebook with everyone’s work and some evaluations that were to be completed prior to arriving. The genres varied from suspense, thriller, sci-fi, fantasy…you name it, it was there. One of the things we were asked to rate on a scale of 1 to 5 was our overall interest in continuing reading the story (1 being uninterested and 5 being unable to put it down). After reading Jon’s chapter, I circled “1,” a number he’s never let me forget. (Thought to be fair, I think I only gave out a single 4.)

I learned more about writing working alongside my classmates and authors like James Scott Bell, Jerry B. Jenkins, and speaker/writer C. McNair Wilson during that one weekend than I had in the entire four years I’d spent in college writing classes. We were all stretched tremendously and six months later Jon called to run a new novel idea past me. I was immediately intrigued and told him to send me the first fifty pages when he was done. When he did, I forgot to write notes and had to read through it a second time.

Jon has come even further since then, he has started up his own copywriting business. He has become a leader in his community and spoken in public forums, and I just received a note from him this week telling me his new book Fatal Reality had just been picked up.

Jon isn’t the first writer in my circle to move another step closer to his life’s dream, and he certainly won’t be the last. And nothing gives me more pleasure than celebrating alongside them. Right now I only have articles and short stories to my name but I look forward to the day when I get to call Jon and say, “Guess what!”

Congratulations, Jon. I am incredibly proud of you!