My Favourite Characters (series introduction)

"If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats." -Richard Bach

 Good characters make good stories.  Great characters make great stories, stories that reach into our emotions, tickle our funny bone, and make us think and sometimes cry. Great characters are real.  Great characters are people we never forget.

I'm excited to be working on a blog series on some of my favourite characters.  Starting tomorrow, I'll be posting a character a week, counting down 10 of my most favourite fictional people (both from books and the silver screen).  These characters have affected me.  They're very real.  And I've learned much from them.

Here's a few quotes about characters to end off:

"A writer should create living people; people, not characters.  A character is a caricature." -Ernest Hemingway

"It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does." -William Faulkner

 "All characters are based on elements of a writer's personal experience." Robert Holdstock

"The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail." -Mark Twain

"Writing fiction is a solitary occupation but not really a lonely one. The writer's head is mobbed with characters, images and language." -Hilma Wolitzer

"The best way to send information is to wrap it up in a person."  -Robert Oppenheimer

Fanfiction can make a writer.

(My favourite novel character who I've written a lot of fanfiction about: Edmund Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia)

I am a big fan of fanfiction (ouch, bad pun).  Much as it can be a distraction to writers from actually creating their own original characters and plots, I know from experience that it provides both great practice in writing and can be a launching pad into the wider world of writing.

When I first started writing, it was because I loved a world called Narnia.  

I wasn't a writer previous to this. I told my mother several years before that I didn't think I would ever like writing. She disagreed, and as mothers are, she turned out to be more than just right.  Several years later, I discovered the world in the wardrobe and the four English children tossed into Narnia. Now I had something to write about.  There were so many ideas- so many 'could have' stories dealing with the Pevensie children and Aslan and I threw myself into writing some of them.

I wrote dozens of Narnia based stories over the course of a year or two.  And over that time, I grew to love writing for more than just Narnia.  Now I was creating my own characters and stories.   I had learned to love writing because I loved stories and characters.   It had moved even deeper than a love for Narnia and now was a love for my own characters and stories. 

Fanfiction was a launching pad for me into the love for writing that I have now.  The wonderful thing I've noticed about fanfiction is that it takes characters (and stories) that people love and gives them a chance to explore those characters more fully.  People who never thought they'd like writing realize that they can journey with those characters.    There are few things more fun than taking an adventure with your favourite character.  So people write fanfiction.  

They fall in love with writing.

And through that, new writers are born.

A writing prayer.

Jesus,

I write FOR YOU.

That is what truly matters in my writing.  More than anything anyone else thinks. More than the satisfaction or accolades I get from writing.

Whatever good comes from my writing comes FROM YOU.

How easy I forget it, too.

I get wrapped up in plots and ideas and my own agenda.  

I write what I feel like writing, not bothering to consult you.  I don't ask for help or wisdom. I rest in my own strength.

But this gift is FROM YOU. Writing is one of the greatest gifts you have given to me. The joy I get from it isn't something I can measure.  But all gifts point back to You, the great Giver.

When I write, help me. Guide my pen. Use my words to bring You glory. 

I write because of You. 

I write FOR YOU.

I can't do it on my own.

~Abbye

(Note: The Eternity part 2 post is coming. But this post is something I'm being reminded of right now as I'm working on some writing projects.)

What is Eternity, really? {Part One}

Eternity is?

peace  happiness  no war  a great big party

  fun  joy  no death  good things  ice cream

   friends  new bodies  no disasters  fountain of youth

  a feast  summer  good food  beauty

Jesus

How would you define eternity?

Maybe you have felt the call of eternity on your life.  Maybe you've experienced that deep hunger for something more than what this world sells in shiny, glittery, empty packages. Maybe you've felt in your own life how God can take a sinner and give their heart a passionate beat for Eternity.

But what is eternity, really?

So many people define eternity by how they want it to be.  I've been guilty of that myself-- wanting the good things about eternity but not really caring about whether God will be there.  There was a man who once said "Some people want to go to heaven, but they don't want God to be there." Doesn't that often describe us?  There are some legit things that God promises will be in heaven, and they are good things.  I'm not saying that we can't desire the good things that God promises about Eternity.  But I've been convicted that the sum of Eternity is so much more BIG in scope than that.  And I don't want to miss out on it.

Is eternity really just about me getting fulfilled and being happy and doing what I want to do?

Eternity means something radically different than that.  This past weekend I was at a conference and heard a speaker talk about Eternity.  One verse he read really stuck out to me.  This is Jesus, talking right before he was betrayed and killed.   He prayed to His Father and this is part of His prayer:

"Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." ~John 17

Wait, eternal life isn't just a perfect place where we'll get to do fun things and be happy forever?

Eternity is about knowing Jesus and giving Him glory?

Part two coming soon!

The brokenness that begins the healing

You know, I used to think that I had it all together
I believed I was invincible
I could fix my own problems
I could heal my own hurts and bandage my wounds

You know, it fell apart on me
All the lies of individuality
I couldn’t hold up my mask
And keep on smiling like nothing was hurting

You know, it was a good thing I was broken
And it was good to cry
Because when I broke in pieces
You gently picked them up and made me new

You know, it wasn’t pain free
It hurt more than anything to be healed
I had to let go of my isolation
And come out from the façade I had been

You know, the freedom I feel
Knowing you, being known by you
It’s a feeling of peace and security
Knowing I can be honest and you’ll love me anyways

You know, this mask is trash now
I don’t need to hide behind my face
You’ve changed who I once was
All I can do is lift my heart to praise

You know, this heart is loved
And I’m only beginning this journey
It’s a wonderful mystery
How brokenness is what begins the healing

~abbyelizabeth

Crying in a Bookstore

...or, why I write, simplified.

I almost ended up crying in a bookstore today. 

I walked through the teenage section, seeing book covers filled with pain and sorrow and longing.     Depression and pain and suffering and suicide and despair.

I read the first page of a book.   I can't remember the name.   Itwas a diary, the diary of a teenager who eventually committed suicide.    On the first page he talked about how meaningless his life was.     He cried out against the fact that he had nothing to live for.    And I wonder, did anyone ever answer him?

John Updike said about writing "I want to write books that unlock the traffic jam in everybody's head."

Nathaniel Hawthorne:   "Words- so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them."

If I am going to be a writer, if I am going to combine words and phrases and characters and settings, if I am going to use my words as power...then I want to be someone who answers those who are in despair.

Sometimes I just want to shout Truth in their ears.   But I know that so many wouldn't hear it if I yelled.   They've heard too many people yell at them before.    So they stop their ears. 

And I whisper.  
I write a story.   I paint a portrait of love and life and pain and triumph.   I pour my heart out into characters and setting and plot.   I carve a bucket meant to hold a priceless treasure.

When you see the story, it's like you're taking the bucket.    At first, it may be the 'bucket' that draws you-  the outer shell of the story, the plot, the setting.     Something draws you in.      The story interests you, captivates you.     The bucket is beautiful in it's own right.

But what you really want is the water inside.    You want the Truth that I'm whispering in your ear through story.   Because what makes the bucket beautiful is what it is carrying.

Truth.   Life.   Love.   Hope.   JESUS.

2011: Of Grace, Love, and Relationships

When I think about this past year, one of the biggest thigns that stands out to me is the way God has worked in my heart concerning relationships.     As an introverted, lone-rider type of hermit, I hadn't really learned to rely, trust, and open up to people.    God taught me a lot this year about need, about relationships, about love and support and what it means to live together as God's family.     

I'm learning not to be such a hermit.     That's a tendency I've been consciously aware of for several years, but more recently God particularly laid it on my heart and prodded me in that direction.

God puts people in relationships for a purpose.     Even relationships that are difficult.    Even with people who are hard to love and hard to relate to.     Even when there is sin in my life and the lives of others.   God is teaching me.     He's stripping away the innate selfishness of my heart.      If I never love...I may never hurt.   I may never be uncomfortable, never have to apologize, never have to cry or show others my hurt and sinful heart.

But if I seal my heart up, it will die.     If I remain a hermit, what happens then?  C.S. Lewis said about this that if you never want to hurt, never love.    But then, your heart will die, shrivel up upon itself, and ultimately, know neither Sorrow nor Joy.

I need people.     My heart is sinful.    My circumstances aren't ideal.    And I need people by my side.   I need to be honest.    I need to allow myself to be broken because brokenness always precedes any healing.    It's in the stripping off of something dirty that you allow yourself to be cleansed.     It's in jumping into the dirt and mess that you find diamonds.

I've been blown away by the people that Jesus has placed in my life this past year, both new friends and old relationships that He's strengthened and given grace to.    Specifically, in July of this year, a group of young people started getting together to talk about God, pray for each other, and really support and build into each-other's lives.  It's become dubbed "Thursday Night Awesomeness," and the encouragement I have received simply from the regular time being with people who love Jesus has been immense.     I'm learning to love others.   I'm learning to encourage and challenge others.    And I'm being loved and encouraged and challenged by others.    I'm being challenged to break out of my selfishness and LOVE not just in words but in Truth.   I can't underestimate the influence of this in my life in the last 6 months.

I'm learning that love means sacrifice and that people, not agendas or strategies is what God is really concerned about.   Jesus came into the world to create a new kind of people, a people known for their love for each other.     I've just begun to taste a little part of that in my own life, and I still, daily, hourly, have to battle the selfishness in my heart and fight to love and let myself be loved.       

But, though the road is rough and I've fallen flat on my face more times than I can count, I wouldn't trade the experience for anything.     And I'm still walking this road gladly and with hope.

     

What else can I say?    In 2011, God was good.     He's taught me incredible things.     He's broken me.    He's healed me. 

He's changed me.   

How has God changed you in the past year?