I Know Where Beauty Lives

In the Spring of 2006, I went to Vail, Colorado for my own personal writer’s conference with the Lord, instead of going to the BYU writer’s conference again. I stayed in a nice hotel and was able to study full-time without interruptions for a few days. I have much gratitude to Sherm for making these retreats possible. 

This post is part 3 of "I Have a Tale to Tell"

Part 1

Part 2

While I was there I continued studying, writing, and conversing with the Lord. When I got stuck and didn’t know what to do, I went to a different place in the room and prayed. As I studied, I could sense Him in my mind, like he was remotely logged in. He was guiding me, answering my questions, and asking me questions. 

Three Major Things Happened

I remember three major things happening on this visit to Vail. The first was our study of the word Justification. 

I was looking at this semantic concept because Dramatica had a giant definition of it that really caused me to think deeply. 

The scriptures also spoke of Justification through the Atonement of Jesus Christ so I wanted to compare and contrast the way Dramatica was defining it with the way the scriptures defined it.

I realized that I also had a preconceived definition associated with the word justify. I predominantly saw its negative meaning: When someone tries to justify herself for her failures and makes up excuses for her poor choices instead of admitting them and seeking to improve. I did not want to be that way so I often swung to the other side of the pendulum to evaluate and confess my responsibility in every failure.

But then I asked the Lord what he did with his Justification. He showed me that he justified people by first looking at the reasons for their failures objectively and empathetically. Rarely was a single person completely responsible for their failures. It was important to investigate the other causes that were involved. When those causes are identified the resolution process becomes apparent. And it was his job to be involved in that resolution process, which then brought a person closer to him.

He showed me the justification of margins in my mind. In this first image, you can see the margins on the left are Imbalanced. They are not even. That was like some of the ways I used to deal with my relationship problems.

 

In this second image, the margins have been justified. I knew in an instant what it is now taking me a few paragraphs to explain. So, part of his Justification process is to retrain us. He was doing this with me. He was showing me the facts and then letting me decide what I would do with them. I chose to apply them to my life, which incrementally balanced me out. It gave me better relationship skills. It taught me how to evaluate my failures in a more productive way. It taught me how I wasn't defined by my failures. They were separate from me, or at least they could be separated from me so that I could increase my balance.

I Know Where Beauty Lives

I know where beauty lives. Understanding the semantics behind Justification helped me know who he is and where he stands. As I understood this about him, I physically felt a tight knot inside me release. This was the way that he saw me and everyone else. He resided and presided here. He taught me to evaluate myself and others from this perspective. He showed me that he gives me, my kids, my husband, my family members, and my community members time to make mistakes, experience consequences, learn from them, and grow. He understands we all need time to get it right. In his mercy, he allows for this space and time. 

He consistently repeated this training process over the next several years of my life using other semantic concepts. Through this process, he was slowly but surely freeing me from a bondage I had not fully understood that I was in. And oh my God! (literally) He was so beautiful! Seeing him like this was the delight of my entire existence!

The Second Crucial Thing

The second crucial thing I remember working out with him during this time in Vail was about my kids. And let me tell you the backstory first. I sometimes thought about the possibility of one of my kids dying in an accident or by disease. I would walk through that possibility, envision it, and cry my eyes out. I did not want them to die. I had heard of many stories of other children dying – getting stuck in the trunk of a car, getting trapped under a garage door, drowning, cancer, etc. These stories always broke my heart. I wanted to protect my kids. I didn’t want them to get hurt. I didn’t want them to suffer. It was intensely painful. 

So, in Vail, the Lord asked me to give up the fate of my children to him. He wasn’t saying he was going to take them. It was that he knew that was the one thing I was holding back from him. I held on to it with all my might in total fear. He wanted me to let go of the fear and trust him with the lives of my children, whether they lived long or short lives, whether they had to deal with sorrow or joy. He was trying to tell me that they would be okay – he would make sure of that, regardless of physical life or death.

This conversation came up because I was asking to come closer to Him. I had told him that I didn’t want to hold anything back. I wanted to give him all of me. So, I went through one of my first leaps of faith. I mustered my courage to let go and trust him. I made this commitment. It took me time to actually stop the fearful thought processes and to develop my faith. It still is a little scary for me, but each time it comes to my mind, I just turn to him and give it to him.

The Third Crucial Thing

The third major change that I made during this stay in Vail was the direction of my writing. I had started studying and training with him to achieve the goal of writing a fiction story that would eventually be published.

I came to a point where I said, “I’m making very little progress towards finishing my story. I’m spending so much time on writing about the structure of story that there is no time left to actually write my story.” 

The last morning in Vail, I was in the shower and he had logged in remotely again. I was thinking about the above conundrum when he answered me. His words were very clear, “Which would you rather do – write your story or keep learning about the structure of story? Writing your story will be a shorter and easier journey. So, you can put down your studies and do that. Or you can take the much longer and harder journey (I pictured a mountain path) and continue focusing on writing about the structure of story. There was no force or guilting me into doing one or the other. He merely was presenting the choice to me and was asking me to decide.

There was no question in my mind. I wanted the longer, harder journey. This place that he was taking me was so amazingly beautiful. I had to keep going. Once I made the choice, I sensed that’s what he wanted too. 

So, I made the commitment to put my fiction story aside and focus on writing about what he was showing me.

To be continued...HERE

I Learned My Lesson Well

When I swore I would never write again, I experienced intense depression. It felt like something had died in me. For the next week, my heart mourned as I went about my regular mom routine - taking care of the kids, cleaning the house, and shopping. 

This post is part 2 of: "I Have a Tale to Tell"

I remember going to JoAnn Fabrics and seeing in the store window the successfully completed projects of talented seamstresses and artists. I had this surreal moment of thought. In hindsight, I recognize that this was another of those interactions with His Spirit. All of these artists had developed their talents so that they could create these works of art. Why couldn't I develop mine? Why couldn't I have something to offer too? 

I felt a deep sadness. But I also saw a sliver of light and truth. My desire to write a moving story was similar to an artist's desire to paint a masterpiece or a seamstress's desire to sew a beautiful garment. Why was I receiving a message that I didn't belong here or that I was trying to do something that was reserved for an elite few? If I was willing to put in the work, could I not also develop the ability to succeed?

After a week or two of walking around in a dark haze, I finally asked my husband for a priesthood blessing. In it, I was instructed not to give up and that this dream of mine was of God. I shouldn’t pay attention to the criticisms of man. Scriptures about Nephi building a ship while his brothers doubted and mocked him were referenced (1 Nephi 17).

"And when my brethren saw that I was about to build a ship, they began to murmur against me, saying: Our brother is a fool, for he thinketh that he can build a ship; yea, and he also thinketh that he can cross these great waters." -1 Nephi 17:17

I was also directed to go to God for training and instruction in my writing process like Nephi did when he was building something he had never before built.

This priesthood blessing rekindled my hope. Knowing that God believed in me and wanted me to write was powerful and sustaining. 

The Structure of Story

Over the next few weeks, I prayed intently and frequently for direction. It came to my mind that I needed to learn the structure of story. I realized that I had been getting too expanded in my writing. I wasn’t paying enough attention to the summarized plot - the framework of my story. It was like trying to decorate a house without first making sure the foundation and framework were in place. 

Another way to explain this is that there are outline writers and there are discovery writers. I was a discovery writer. But the Lord showed me that I would be more successful if I found the balance between those two methods.

After learning this, I remembered a booklet on story theory that Tracy Hickman, our workshop host for science fiction and fantasy writers, gave me at the 2004 BYU writer’s conference. I took it out and reread it carefully. It spoke about the Hero’s Journey.

A hero who is called to an adventure to obtain a goal, leaves home, experiences all kinds of adversity and temptations, fails and suffers intensely, is then atoned for (saved, brought back to life), is transformed through this process, obtains the goal, becomes part of the atonement for others, and returns home victorious.

Dramatica, A Theory of Story

Tracy Hickman's booklet also included some details from a story theory called Dramatica by Melanie Anne Phillips and Chris Huntley. As I read about this theory, I became very interested in it. I purchased the Dramatica book and the software. I spent the next year studying with these mentors and attempting to write my story using their guidance. But as I did this, I found myself trying to get a bird's eye perspective of what they were proposing. They were presenting so many different concepts that I often felt bewildered. Something inside me was driven to organize it all. I asked questions like: How did they come up with this? How do they know that these are the relationships between words? What are the relationships between words? 

So, I chose to slow down and pick apart each idea that they presented. 

The Dramatica theory is based on words and the semantics behind them. So, in slowing down, I wrote down each of the words and definitions from their "Dramatica Vocabulary" list that they provided in their reference section. On one level they divided words by synonyms and antonyms. On another, they divided them by other variables like character traits, character roles, plot dynamics. They visually arranged the words by these semantic relationships into a quadrant diagram - a Chess Set. 

As I wrote the definitions down, a correction, a translation, a connection, or an additional facet would come into my mind. So I wrote those down as well. After doing this for a while, I noticed that the definitions suggested that there was a balance between any two antonyms. But they did not make a space in their model for the words that represented that semantic balance. 

They used four quadrants or four Chess Sets to organize the words. Each Chess Set was divided into four more quadrants nested inside of it. The authors explained that there were symbiotic and conflicting relationships between each of the words within a single quadrant. It was much more complicated than this but I'm trying to simplify it to show how I was attempting to make sense of it.

The study of semantics and the attempt to create a visual model of the patterns of the meaning behind language completely fascinated me. I tested out their theory by translating their general definitions into specific definitions that I used to describe the characters, plot, and setting of my story. I spent months analyzing the relationships of the concepts in each quadrant. And then I evaluated how one quadrant of meaning compared with another. Dramatica did not instruct me to study like this. I was being guided by the Lord to do it. He was using this model as a tool or a medium to train me in his own way.

For example, the problem in the overall story I was working on was that people had a Fixed Attitude. So, I focused on that quadrant. In my Word document, I styled "Fixed Attitude" with Heading-1:

Fixed Attitude

Then, I wrote down the names of each of the nested quadrants and styled them with Heading-2:

• Contemplations

• Impulsive Responses

• Memories

• Innermost Desires

I looked at these one at a time:

Contemplations

After that, I added each of the nested quadrants within the Contemplations quadrant and styled these with Heading-3:

• Appraisals
• Doubt
• Investigate
• Re-appraisal

Under each of the Heading-3 words, I wrote the semantic meaning for all of these words combined. They included all three levels of words:

Fixed Attitude

Contemplations

Appraisals 

I put these three-layered concepts together to visualize the Fixed Attitude of the dystopian society that my main character was raised in. So, the first question that formed in my mind was: How does the society my character grew up in contemplate (evaluate) the value (appraisal) of a person or thing? This was my answer:

They judge each other by initial appraisals. What you look like on the surface determines your worth and my worth compared to yours. Your clothes, cleanliness, hairstyle, and look on your face. If I come up better than you, then I experience good feelings because it proves I am good and worthy of love. This is the first impression.

Remote Login Education

The Lord remotely logged in like this throughout these writing sessions. He coached me in my mind, directing my thoughts, introducing ideas coupled with the definitions I was studying. I wanted to know what he thought of each concept, especially when there was a question about what was right and wrong. That seemed to be my inherent orientation.

As we differentiated between each of the concepts, we analyzed the marriage, family, and community relationships of the characters in my story. A lot of questions about the society and family I grew up in came up. During my childhood, there were many concepts that I had unconsciously absorbed. We investigated and sifted through them so that I could see what was true and false, right and wrong. 

Every morning I got up excited for a new day. I couldn’t wait to study. There was nothing I wanted more than to be with him in this place. There was so much light and love and excitement. 

I studied before the kids got up and then after they went to school. While many moms took the opportunity to get a job or go back to college when their kids were all in school, I used it to study with the Lord. Lots of people have their thing. This was mine. 

There is much to tell about my role as a mother and a wife. These responsibilities have always been so intensely important to me. That is coming. But I can’t explain that part until I explain this part.

There had been a vague cloud over many values that I had previously and unconsciously formed opinions about. Some were not serving me well in my relationships with God and with others. When we looked directly at them together, the clouds broke up and His values became very clear. My mind gradually sharpened. Doing this every day for several years educated, enlightened, lifted, and completely changed me.

The Compass of Semantics

While I was studying Dramatica from late 2005 to early 2006, I was also prompted to study the scriptures more intently. I wrote each chapter in my own words. We looked for the concepts that we had studied in Dramatica in the histories of the societies that were described in the scriptures.

We summarized and semantically organized words and concepts such as:

Pride, Envy, Doubt, Faith, Hope, Desire, Humility, Gratitude, Confidence, Strength, Weakness, Light, Darkness, Right, Wrong, Sin, Righteousness, Peace, Joy, Energy, etc.

I noticed that people used lots of different words to represent the same semantic concept. I also learned that there were some concepts that the English language didn't have an accurate descriptive word for. Because of this, there were some things that were very difficult for me to initially see and explain. These were usually intertwined so tightly with negative meanings that it was hard to differentiate between the good and the bad. The Lord helped me surgically separate them. This process improved my relationships with my family and community because I learned to understand people better, to look past their words and behaviors, and see what they were really trying to communicate.

I recognized and sorted hundreds of synonyms and antonyms. I saw that there were semantic antonyms that were more than just black and white. There were multifaceted ways to divide a single concept. I cataloged them in my notebook and in my mind. Summarizing them was always a challenge for me. Sometimes I would summarize words that needed to remain separate. Other times I would keep words separate when they really represented the same concept.

I also looked up hundreds of words in the dictionary and wrote down their definitions, always searching for central patterns. I examined words that I had heard all my life as if it were the first time seeing them. I questioned everything. There were so many values and concepts that had been in my peripheral vision before. During this time, I turned to look at them directly and focus on what they semantically meant and what they meant to me personally. This process completely opened my mind to understand things in a way that I had never even fathomed before.

I am a visual learner so the Lord would often teach me by bringing visual metaphors to my mind. He used things I recognized like the relationship between the earth, sun, and moon. He also used physics, magnets, physical fitness and nutrition, cooking, gardening, weeding, and planting trees. I filled my notebooks with diagrams and sketches of the things he showed me. I could not get enough of Him. I kept asking for more. But to receive more, I had to live by what he was teaching me. I was always falling short, but I kept trying and struggling to master it anyway.

Throughout this continuous study of Dramatica, the scriptures, and the dictionary, and listening to the Lord’s guidance, I started to see visions of a model that was different from the Dramatica quadrant model. It was a summarized structure of all the truth. I saw a compass.

This song describes the way I felt throughout this time: Can't Take It In by Imogen Heap (Narnia Soundtrack) 

To be continued...HERE

I Have a Tale to Tell

I have a tale to tell. But it has to start from the end instead of the beginning in order to be merciful to everyone involved. I'll divide it into parts or separate posts. This is part one.

Listen: Live to Tell by Madonna (clean)

I wanted to be a writer

In 2006, God began to train me more intensely than in the previous years of my life. I asked for it. I wanted to know more. My reasons for desiring this changed over time, but at first the reason was to be able to write an amazing story. I wanted to be a historical fiction writer. The first story I chose to tell was the birth of Jesus Christ. So in 2000, I wrote “The Stone of Light, ” a story in which three kids from the present traveled back in time to when Joseph and Mary were just learning about their roles in His life. The kids experienced their own adventure and conversion story as they traveled with Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem. It was like the Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osbourne meets Quantum Leap (late 80s, early 90s television series). It was somewhat of a spin-off of the Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites series by Chris Heimerdinger as well as the Kingdom and the Crown series by Gerald Lund. It took me more than a year to research the setting with all of its geographical, geological, cultural, political, and economic details. 

The rejection of a mentor was painful

When I finished writing it in 2001, I sent it to Deseret Book, and they rejected it. Then I sent it to Covenant Book, and they also rejected it. The reason this hurt me so badly was because I saw Deseret Book as part of my church community. And I had been predominantly raised by that community as mentioned in some of my previous posts. My sense of belonging to a family and community was here. They rejected my offering without much of a reason. I didn't know what to do to improve it. This was difficult because I wanted to "play on the team" and I thought this was the only doorway in.

Additionally, I had a large library of books published by Deseret and Covenant that I had been reading for many years. These books changed my life for the better. I loved them. I read them to my kids. My kids loved them. We were a family that read together. We went on reading adventures together, laughed, cried, and learned. And that brought us closer together. It solved many of the problems we had been having. These stories played a huge role in raising me and my kids at the same time.

I owe so much to the publishers and to the authors of those books. As I said, in many ways they played a mentor role for me. Because of that, I wanted to become like them. I wanted to be a writer. That was my passion, my dream, and my mission. And this is why their rejections hurt so badly.

Back to the drawing board

So, after the rejections, I went back to the drawing board. I read more books on writing, attended writer’s conferences, started a writing group, and hired a writing coach. I learned a lot, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t enough to actually accomplish my goal.

At the BYU Writers for Young Readers conferences (2003, 2004, 2005), I experienced a type of rejection as well. Successful writers spoke to us in workshops about how successful they were. Some of these were the authors of the books that changed my life. I deeply admired them, but I also envied their success in my present failure. 

In our group workshops I learned some good things, but in hindsight what I really needed was someone who believed in me, who saw my talent, and who could help me develop it. Instead, there was a lot of focus on criticizing what we were not doing right. Too much criticism and not enough support, hope, specific training, and reinforcement. After the 2005 writer’s conference, I returned home swearing I would never write again.

To be continued...HERE.