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3 C’s – It’s Friday!

Posted on by Katie Ganshert

Cares:
Revising. Talk about slow-motion. I don’t know if it’s because I know more this fourth time around, or if I’ve turned into this psychotic perfectionist, or what. I sit down for my hour of revising before work, and I get through 2 or 3 pages. Seeing as my novel is 388 pages, this makes for very slow going. I’m currently on page 92.

Concerns:
You know that feeling you get in the beginning of February? That restless, impatient, slightly-deflated feeling? The one where you just want it to be warm already? That’s exactly how I’m feeling. Only not about the weather (okay, a little about the weather). I’m feeling that way about being out on submission, and it’s only been two weeks. For all you folks out there waiting for an agent….here’s a heads up: The waiting doesn’t get any more bearable on this side of representation. It’s still the same. Write. Wait. Check email. Write some more. Wait some more. Check email some more… I wish the writing groundhog could come out of his hidey-hole and tell me what to expect. Do I have another six weeks of winter spanning ahead of me? Or an early spring? I feel Jesus whispering, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Only instead of listening, I’m too busy trying to convince Him that maybe my timeline is better than His. Oh, what a silly person I can be.

Celebrations:
My husband. God’s been doing some amazing work in his life these past couple weeks. It’s like watching a growth spurt in fast-forward. My heart’s always been blessed as his wife, but especially so these days.

Reading another great book. The Shape of Mercy, by Susan Meisner. I’ve been on this wonderful roll with fiction lately. Seems like every novel I pick up sweeps me away, which is rare. I tend to be very picky when it comes to fiction.

Question to Ponder: What are your cares, concerns, and celebrations today?removetweetmeme

Embracing Discomfort

Posted on by Katie Ganshert

Like most people, I tend to avoid discomfort. I tend to wrap the whole concept in a package of negativity. But maybe discomfort’s not such a bad thing. Maybe it’s a good thing. Especially if it drives us to action, or at least to an uneasy contemplation.

Here’s the thing. I’m a people-pleaser.

On the surface, it means I don’t want to make anybody uncomfortable or unhappy. I often blame my hesitancy to share my faith on this people-pleasing tendency of mine. Heaven forbid anybody feels weird, or uncomfortable, around me.

The truth?

People-pleasing’s really not about how other people feel. It’s about me. I’m the one who doesn’t want to feel uncomfortable. I’m the one who doesn’t want to feel unhappy.

This attribute leaks into my writing. I’m inclined to wrap each chapter in a nice pretty bow, release all the tension so the reader (scratch that….the writer) can stop feeling uncomfortable.

All of us hate to feel uncomfortable.

That’s the key. The ticket. The truth to embrace. In life and in fiction. I need to relish the discomfort. Bask in it. Let it soak and settle until people squirm and scramble to recapture a sense of peace.

In life, that peace won’t come until you’re in the arms of Jesus. In fiction, it won’t (or shouldn’t) come until you reach the end of the book. Comfort at the cost of hell, comfort at the cost of putting the novel back on the nightstand, isn’t comfort at all. I need to stop making people comfortable.

Just think how different we’d all write, how we’d all live, if we embraced discomfort.

Questions to Ponder: How differently would you live if you embraced discomfort?

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Nightstand Novels

Posted on by Katie Ganshert

Under the glow of dim lamplight, I read whichever novel’s been making friends with my nightstand. Hubby snores away. It’s late and I’m tired. I flip through the pages, find the nearest chapter break, and determine to set the book down as soon as I reach the end of chapter 3.
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Chapter endings are those natural places where readers STOP reading.
But as writers, we don’t want readers to stop. Because anytime they stop, anytime that book touches that nightstand, there’s a definite possibility it will languish there for all eternity. I know many a novel have spent a ridiculously long time on my nightstand. So long that I forget who the main characters are and eventually give up altogether.
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Here’s the thing. I don’t want my novels to be nightstand novels. I want them to be In-your-hands-eyes-so-bloodshot-you-can’t-see-straight novels. Those are the kind of novels that get people excited. That get people talking. And those are the type of novels I want to write.
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So how do we avoid being nightstand novels?
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The answers to that question are many and mysterious. One tangible answer, however, is learning how to write killer chapter endings.
How do we do that?
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A number of ways. We could stop in the middle of the action. Find an enticing hook. Foreshadow things to come. Etc. Etc. If used well, all are excellent ideas. But here’s what I think they all boil down to: End each chapter in a state of unbalance.
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When I write my 1st draft, I tend to overwrite. I feel this burning desire to wrap up each chapter in a pretty little bow. To write the climax, followed quickly by the tension-sucking denouement. I feel such a sense of closure when I write this way. Like, “Ahhh…I’m finished with that chapter.” Thanks to crit partners and craft books and helpful articles/blogs, I’ve learned to cut my chapters short. Utilize the delete button. It’s almost always the writer’s best friend.
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Consider cutting the last paragraph. The last line. The last page. Whatever you need to do to end each chapter on a note of unbalance. A sense that things aren’t well. Make your reader’s stomach squirm and propel them to the next page so they can slay the uncomfortable beast taking root in their bellies.
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Tension, and the ever-reaching quest to release it, hurls us through a book. Don’t release the tension for the reader at the end of a chapter. If anything, heighten it! Heighten it! Heighten it!
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Question to Ponder: What sort of chapter endings get you to turn the page and start the next?

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