Writing your story
March 12, 2010 by Billy Coffey · Leave a Comment
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Because to them, a tale cannot end. My children are still too young to understand the mechanics of a story, of the introduction, the rising and falling action, and the resolution. They enjoy all but the last. So after every knight slays every evil dragon and saves every damsel in distress, the inevitable question is always asked:
“What happened then?”
To simply say, “Nothing, that’s just the end,” won’t do. I’ve tried that, and to unsatisfactory results. So I have to come up with something else.
Like maybe the dragon’s mother comes and swallows up the knight as punishment for picking on her poor dragon baby. Or the knight and damsel got married and both had to get a real job to pay for the mortgage on their castle. Or that either the knight or the damsel was a witch in disguise all along and the dragon was the good guy.
And if that doesn’t work, I’ll get tired and say something like, “The dragon stopped chasing after knights and damsels and started eating little children who refused to go to bed instead.” That usually does the trick.
But I can’t blame them. Fairy tales capture us early in life. They speak to some hidden inner part of us longing to bring life into a clearer focus. They teach us impossibility is simply a word rather than a truth. Stories allow us to indulge in a freedom our circumstances often do not.
And that, I think, is why the ending is so important to my kids. To them, a story must end in the right way — with the maximum amount of happiness and the minimum amount of pain. No one should die, for instance. Not even the villain. It’s better if the bad guy just got hurt a little, which convinced him to mend his ways to the point where he became a good neighbor to the knight and damsel. Even at their young age, my kids already know the story continues. Something else always happens.
Yes, that is a bit simplistic, especially in such a complicated world. But in that simplicity are the seeds of a knowledge I see sprouting in my children. A knowledge I think everyone should realize more often.
We are all writing our own story.
Our days are our pages, filled with our triumphs and failures, our big moments and our small hours. Sometimes we write with passion, other times with doubt, and many times with both. But still, we write. Whether we know we are or not, whether we want to or don’t. Even making the choice to say nothing says a lot. God provides the paper and the pen, but he expects us to do the telling. Our story is ours and ours alone. He’ll do the editing when we’re done.
We don’t have a choice in that. We do, however, have a choice in what sort of story it will be. Drama or comedy? Fairy tale or tragedy? Romance or horror? That’s largely up to us. The quality of our lives can be determined by whether we regard the next chapter of our lives with hope or dread.
Maybe that’s why the ending is always the most important part. Because all the pain and suffering in a story is worth it as long as the last three words are “happily ever after.”
There is an innate human desire to possess the faith that if you hang in there long enough, things will work out in the end. I happen to think that’s true. I might be a grown man, but a part of me still believes in those fairy tales. And always will.
Wishing Well
March 10, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 17 Comments
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And I mean everyone. Kids, adults, and the elderly. Men and women. Different races and different nationalities. All seem helpless to pass it by without pausing to close their eyes, toss in a coin, and hear the plop!
(Yes, I tossed in my own coin. I had to see what the fuss was all about. Aside from the plop! I have yet to receive anything for my wish. Angels have not sung and Lady Luck has not tapped me on the shoulder. But you never know in life. That’s all the fun.)
I asked the nice lady behind the register about the Well. She said the owner put it there back in the 1970s as a joke. Gas prices were soaring, inflation was soaring, everything but optimism was soaring. He figured a Wishing Well could do more good for people than the government was doing.
It’s been there ever since, she told me. It’s become a barometer of the times in a way, a leading indicator of the state of their town. When things are going well, the Well is relatively untouched. When things are tough, it’s full of change.
I asked her if it would be okay if I conducted a little research. She agreed. So I took my place beside the Well and watched as one person after another came through for lottery tickets and beer and coffee, and one wish before they left through the door.
Things went well for a while. But standing there watching everyone make their wish became a little boring. I needed more. I wanted to know who those people were.
So when the little boy managed to beg a nickel from his mother and tossed it in, I thought I’d pry.
“What’d you wish for?” I asked him.
“Can’t say,” he answered. “If I say it won’t come true.”
I hadn’t thought of that.
“That’s just for birthday candles,” I said. “This is different. Besides, it’s just a superstition. You know what that is, right?”
“It’s a stition that’s really, really good,” he said.
He never did tell me his wish.
I did, however, get a fair share of other people’s.
One man said he wished for a little overtime to buy his wife something nice for her birthday. Another said he wished for the heating bill to get lost in the mail. I met a lady who wished for a new pair of feet because the ones she had didn’t agree with all the walking around she had to do at work. I met another who wanted just one more good snow (I fished her penny out when she left).
One old farmer threw in an entire handful of pennies for a good crop this year. One old lady simply said, “Brad Pitt.” A teenage boy wanted the attention of a particular girl in his math class, and a teenage girl wanted the attention of a particular boy in hers. Yes, that thought crossed my mind as well. And no, they were different schools.
Some were not as lighthearted. People wished for jobs, for healing, for faith. For hope and peace.
Most wished not for abundance, but simply for enough. To many, this is more a time of getting by than dreaming big.
By the time I left I had realized two things. One was that more than love, even more than faith, it is hope that sustains us. Hope that tomorrow will be better and that life can turn around. Hope that somehow, someway, the prayers we say and the wishes we make count and are not uttered in vain.
And the other is this—perhaps more than anything else, our desires reveal our character. Too many people, myself included, often equate their identity with what they have. I don’t think that’s right anymore. Now I think It’s not what we have but what we wish we did that defines the sort of people we are.
Grocery store Goodness
March 8, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 31 Comments
image courtesy of photobucket.com
I’m standing in a checkout line at the local grocery store with a loaf of bread and a magazine, watching with equal measures of interest and confusion the scene unfolding before me. To either side cashiers smile and chat as they pass cans and boxes over the scanners in front of them. Even the beeps of lasers meeting barcodes sound chipper. Customers walking through the electric doors are greeted with a chorus of welcomes and hellos. A “Have a great day now” is offered with every receipt.
I feel like I’m drowning is syrupy goodness.
Strangest of all is the bell positioned on a small table near the exit, above which is a sign that reads Ring Bell If You’ve Received Excellent Customer Service.
From the sound of things, most of my fellow patrons have received just that. They carry their bags or roll their shopping carts toward the big double doors, pause, and
DING!
At which point any and all employees within earshot will clap and hooray themselves for a job… well, done.
We live in strange times, you and I.
I’ve noticed many businesses doing this sort of thing. The economy’s a wreck, people are being selective in where they shop and for how much, and the name of the game now is making customers happy. Being good brings in the public.
Another DING! More claps and hoorays. I feel like I’m at the county fair.
“Have a great day now,” the cashier says to the person in front of me.
I place my bread and magazine on the conveyor belt and follow them up. The cashier smiles and helloes. Karen, her nametag says. Bright red letters above her name spell out WELCOME!
“How are ya today?” she asks.
Before I can answer an older lady walks through the doors. Karen and everyone else must pause to turn and welcome her to Grocery Nirvana. The woman is literally shaken by the welcome, rocking back on her heels and then forward to catch her balance. She offers a smile that is half amused and half embarrassed and then runs for the produce section.
“So you have to stand here all day and say hello to everyone who walks in here?” I ask.
“Yep,” Karen says, which is followed by another DING! and more cheering.
“That’s gotta get old,” I say.
“Not really. I like it. Makes everyone feel good. Of course, people are mostly scared when we all holler hello to them when they come in here the first time. One guy almost swallowed his tongue yesterday. But they get used to it.”
I nodded and pulled out my cash.
“Do you have a Super Saver card?”
“Nope,” I said.
“You can use mine.”
Karen swiped her own card—saving me nearly a quarter in the process—bagged my purchase, handed me my change and receipt, and said, “Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day now and see ya soon.”
As I grab my bag and shove the change and receipt into my pocket, I’m thinking. My experience here really has been pleasant. I’ve been helloed and thank-you’d and smiled at repeatedly. I’d even saved a quarter, which will make my wife proud.
“Thank you, Karen,” I say. “I’m gonna go ring the bell for you.”
Then Karen does something that can only be described as peculiar. She reaches across the scanner and grabs my arm.
“Please don’t do that,” she says.
I stare down at her hand. Karen jerks it away and apologizes.
“Don’t do what?” I ask her.
“Ring the bell.”
“You don’t want me to ring the bell?”
“No.”
“Why?”
And then she tells me. Tells me the truth. About the bell and the hellos and the goodness. About how it’s a new program designed by corporate with the intent not to actually be good to people, but to keep the money rolling in.
And about how goodness shouldn’t be rewarded because it was its own reward, and that bringing attention to it didn’t make it better, it only made it less.
“People should be nice not to get something for themselves, but to give themselves to something. Do you understand?” she asks.
Oh, yes. I do.
I only wish more did.
(This post is part of the Goodness blog carnival hosted by Bridget Chumbley. To read more posts, please visit her.)
Taking a Tumble
March 8, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 5 Comments
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Though saved by grace, I’m far from graceful. I’ve taken my share of falls in my thirty-seven years, ones that required casts or stitches or kisses from my mother (and in once instance all three). I’ve gotten better at staying on my feet, though. In fact, I figure I went a good fifteen years or so without tripping or falling over anything. For the most part.
An Invitation to Hell
March 5, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 19 Comments
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For the last three months my buddy Kirk has sequestered himself in a rented cabin deep in the Blue Ridge mountains. As far as I can tell, he took with him only the barest of essentials to complete his stated purpose—a dozen bags of deer jerky, four cases of MREs (that’s Meal, Ready to Eat for you non-military folks), three cases of beer, and two dozen protein bars. That should get him through, he says. If not, he’ll just go hunting.
Get him through for what, you ask? Well, now there’s a story.
Kirk is an old high school classmate and friend. Back then he was awkward and shy and always had his head in a book—three characteristics that guaranteed he’d have a tough time until after his senior year. But he sat in front of me in freshman English and, well, some friendships are born of compatibility and others location.
Even then Kirk wanted to be a writer. A published one. But as both his talent and his confidence were lacking, he always qualified “I want to be an author” with “Probably won’t, though.”
Like a lot of high school friends, Kirk and I lost contact after graduation. But then I ran into him at the mall three months ago.. Well, not him. Not the Kirk I knew. This was New and Improved Kirk, and version 2.0 was quite different.
He had found a cure for all that awkward shyness.
Kirk had become a Ranger in the U.S. Army.
Now that he was out, he was back to pursuing his goal of writing a book. And in the spirit of his down-and-dirty Ranger training, he was locking himself in a cabin in the middle of the wilderness to do it.
And you know what? I bet he will. I can almost guarantee it.
There were a lot of reasons why Kirk wasn’t ready to be a writer in high school. You have to grow some and learn some and fail some and hurt a lot first. But more than that, you have to be trained. Kirk told me he’d had his training now. He was a Ranger.
I’d never considered special forces training and training to be a writer to be one and the same, but he was adamant. They’re exactly alike, he said. Both are a process that tests you, then breaks you down, and then shows you whom you truly are.
But to Kirk, his Ranger training gave him one very big advantage—he’d been taught how to be comfortable in misery. He knew how to embrace the thirst and the hunger. How to endure the cold and the heat. And above all, he knew he was being readied for war and that war was hell, which is why his drill instructors trained him to, in his words, “Get the damn job done. Regardless.”
I think he’s onto something.
Because you can (and should) read all the books you can about the craft of writing. You can learn about plot and character and point of view, learn to kill your darling adverbs and adjectives, and speak in present instead passive voice. But until you learn to be comfortable in misery, you will not succeed. Ever.
There are times when sitting down to write is an invitation to pure bliss, when the words leap from your fingers virgin and perfect and you know without doubt they come from the very best part of you. Enjoy those times. They will be few.
Because for the most part, it’s just the opposite. The writing life is not bliss. It’s roaming through the desert of one submission after another, searching for whatever scrap of food or drip of water you can beg, borrow and steal in order to stay alive. It’s enduring the cold of having nothing to say and the heat of knowing you must write anyway.
And above all, writing is war.
It is a war fought not against agents and publishers, but against yourself. It is a war in which the enemy isn’t acceptance, it’s surrender. And yes, it is hell. No doubt about it. But you know what? A writer, a real one, wouldn’t have it any other way.
I haven’t seen Kirk since. For all I know, he’s still up in the mountains writing his book. I like to think he is. I like to think he’s pounding away at those keys and fighting his war.
That he’s getting the damn job done. Regardless.
I like to think that’s what you’re doing, too.
Playing Hooky
March 3, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 4 Comments
Photo by L.L. Barkat of seedlingsinstone
Let’s get this out of the way first off, shall we?
I am not perfect.
In fact, I am the most imperfect person I know, mostly because I know myself better than I know most anyone else. Not a perfect man, not a perfect Christian. Not a perfect husband. And I am most assuredly not a perfect father.
And now that all of that’s out of the way, I feel better telling you what I did with my son the other night.
I taught him how to play hooky.
Yes, I know. Not a good thing. But I did so with only the purest of intentions. Cross my heart and hope to die.
To hear what my intentions were and why I feel so strongly about them, please follow me to High Calling Blogs. And remember — Judge not, lest ye be judged.
An Open Letter to the Buried
March 2, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 46 Comments
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I’m fortunate enough to get my fair share of emails throughout the day, and from all sorts of people—family, friends, those who are not yet friends but will be, and so on. I like my emails. It’s nice that people think enough of me to drop me a little note to say hello or thanks or please.
Lately, the ones most on my mind are the ones who say please.
As in, Please pray for me. Please help. Please listen.
Though I don’t often do this, I blame the times. It’s the world’s fault, a place that each day seems to spin a little farther from straight and bends a bit more crooked. Life has gotten much more difficult for a lot more people in the last few years. I have sixteen pieces evidence to that fact in my inbox.
There is sickness and death. Jobs lost and homes gone. Hearts broken. Hopes dashed. Love failed. There is fear and anger and sadness. Dark souls and darker futures. And hanging over them, pushing down, is one question that may go unsaid but is never unfelt:
Why is God doing this?
“This” can be best explained by a friend who wrote to say that his job of twenty years would be no longer in less than a month. His house will surely go soon thereafter. His wife cannot work due to health issues, which has already emptied their savings. Their furnace is on the fritz, and the last snow damaged the roof of their home.
“I’m not sure we can pull out of this one,” he wrote. “I feel like I’m being buried.”
I wrote him back as well as the sixteen others. Yes, I said, I will listen. And pray. And help all I can. But then I wondered about all the other people out there who were feeling buried themselves. What would I say to them if they decided to write, too?
I thought about that, which didn’t take very long. I’ve had a lot of experience in feeling buried. So if such a letter would drop into my inbox, this is what I would say in return.
Dear Buried,
It never ceases to amaze me how quickly life can turn. How we can be going along steady and straight and then suddenly find ourselves in places both unfamiliar and dark. We can neither go forward nor back for fear we’ll get lost even more, and so we’re left to sit there motionless and hope the clouds eventually break.
We’re taught the principle of What Goes Around Comes Around from an early age. Many of the troubles in life are the result of neither God nor the devil, but of our own poor choices. And while that’s true, there’s no denying there are plenty of troubles that are beyond our own doing. I’ve always thought those were the worst troubles to have. Those are the ones that will make you fear life and dread tomorrow. That make you wonder not only what’s coming next, but that there isn’t much you can do about it.
The more religiously inclined would say now would be a good time to trust in your faith and your God, and I would agree in principle. But while those words might be easy to say, they can be pretty hard to put into practice. Especially if, like me, you’ve caught yourself thinking He either has too much to do or too much to keep an eye on. Because it sure seems as though He lets a lot of things slip through the cracks sometimes.
He doesn’t, of course. I know that. You know that, too. But knowing it and understanding it? Well, that’s just not the same.
If there’s a good thing about enduring one’s fair share of suffering, it’s the wisdom that comes on the other side of it. And since I’ve endured my fair share, this is what I offer:
You’re right to feel like you’re in a deep hole and there’s no getting out. That it’s dark and damp and cold. That you can’t get out. It’s right to feel as though scoop after scoop of more of the same is being tossed on top of you.
But God is not burying you.
God is planting you.
He is sinking you into this world, not as punishment, but so you may grow and blossom and bear fruit. So you may offer shade and rest.
And so He can prepare you to not only be good, but also be good for something.
Best,
Billy
IfI’da
March 1, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 7 Comments
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I remember the first time I read Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken. I was still in high school, and my English teacher was one of those literary types who thought the sun rose and set in people like Dickens and Shakespeare. Me, I didn’t understand any of it. That poem especially.
She went on and on about the beauty of Frost’s words, of how those two roads diverged in a yellow wood and he chose the one less traveled. What magic! she said. Oh, what courage!
But I didn’t think she had it quite right. I didn’t see much in the way of magic and courage at all. To me, it sounded an awful lot like Mr. Robert Frost decided it would be a good thing if he took that road until he found out where it led. To me, that poem meant that even though he kept walking, something inside him always wondered what that other road was all about.
I can understand. I’m the same way. I spend a lot of time wondering if some of the choices I’ve made through the years were the right ones. How would my life have turned out differently if I would have done this instead of that? Or if I would have not done this instead of that?
It very nearly drove me crazy.
But then I happened upon an idea that helped to put all of that wasted thinking in perspective. I wrote about it today over at katdish’s blog, and I invite you there to read it. Hopefully, like me you’ll find that the decisions you’ve made in life, the ones who’ve led you right where you are, are the means by which God has brought you to exactly where you need to be.
Shining a Light
February 26, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 29 Comments
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Princess Amy
Once upon a time there was a princess her name was Amy. She had blond hair and colorful dresses. Princess Amy was determined to find her true love. One day she started singing “My true love I will find . Oh yes I will find him”. Then a handsome young boy heard her over the palace wall. He came in the garden gate. She soon saw him. She started to sing.”Now that I found you I will love you”. She came down the stairs and they met in the garden. My name is Amy she said. My name is Jeremy he said. Then she introduced him to her father. Soon they got married.
THE
END
My daughter’s first attempt at authorship.
Despite the fact it’s filled with references to things no father in his right mind believes his eight-year-old daughter should be thinking about, it’s rather good. And I told her such. All the elements of a good story are there—characters, plot, scene, and the tension of whether or not Princess Amy will indeed find her true love. And of course there’s the happy ending.
We have spoken at length in those quiet hours before bedtime of her desire to be a storyteller one day. “Just like you, Daddy,” she says. I’ve at times wondered if that wish would correspond to anything I happened to be. If I were a garbage man or a dentist, would she spend her time picking up the household trash or staring at teeth?
I somehow doubt it. Indeed, she spends as much time with her nose in a book, whether one that’s written or one she’s intent to write, as I do. And though I have my misgivings about encouraging anyone regardless of age to take those first steps upon the road to publication, I do so with her. It gives her joy, and I’m all for allowing anyone to drink his or her fill of that.
Thus far it is the romance she seems most interested in pursuing. She’s tried her hand at poetry and managed to fill a few pages of “Roses are red, Violets are blue…” Not her thing, she said. She’s gone the non-fiction route and written two paragraphs on Easter Island and bunnies. Too boring, she announced. No, it’s the romance for her. That’s her thing.
Knowing my feelings regarding talk of love and marriage to anyone other than her father, she’s asked my blessing to continue her stories. I’ve given it—how could I not?—and whatever reservations I had were nicely disguised in layers of excitement. And to be honest, I am excited. Not that she may soon be penning stories in which she marries herself off to someone in her second grade class, but because of what those stories may eventually lead to.
Truth.
In the end, that is the aim of all writing. We tell our stories so that we may come to some morsel of truth in the end, however uplifting or sad that truth may be. We write to give meaning to our lives and the circumstances within them. It is a holy act, a means by which we elevate ourselves above chance and fate.
Which is why I consider all writing to be of value, whether they are written for the ages or merely for the times. Every book, every letter, every blog post is a victory over the crushing weight of anonymity that presses down upon us.
Fantasy is just as relevant as literary fiction. The young adult novel is just as meaningful as a poem. Each medium and genre, however different, still contain within them the very same struggles and hardships. They speak of the human condition, of our shared fears and hopes, our triumphs and struggles.
I didn’t tell my daughter that; I’ll let her find that bit of treasure on her own. But I did tell her this, and now I’ll tell you:
Putting pen to paper is unlocking the door to a very dark room to which you intend to bring light. It matters not if that illumination comes from a lantern or a candle or a flashlight. All that matters is that, for even the briefest of moments, a bit of the darkness is chased away.
The Art of Rejection
February 25, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 9 Comments
Writers compare rejection notices like veterans compare war wounds. And that’s appropriate, I think. The two are very similar, evidences of battles not necessarily won or lost or even stalemated, but simply fought. Both begin as a bitter pain that seems unendurable but, with hope and God and perseverance, may become points of pride later.
See this? we say. Got that one three years ago. Hurt like hell, too. Doesn’t really bother me much anymore though, except when it rains…
For those of you who might have missed this post the first time around, Rachelle Gardner has been kind enough to repost it for me today on her blog. We both invite you over to read it.
And remember — always try one more time.
I’m a writer whose first novel, Snow Day, will be published by FaithWords in 2010.
But don’t let that fool you. I’m just as confused as anyone.
And that is fine with me, because the great thing about wandering around in the fog is that you never know what you might run into.
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