For the Love of...

There's been a lot going on lately. Between Mother's Day, this guest blog post, the death of my husband's grandmother, and a friend's beautiful beach wedding all within four or five weeks, love has been on my mind. I've also been playing this song over and over again:

There's too many things I haven't done yet

There's too many sunsets I haven't seen.

You can't waste the day wishing it'd slow down

You would've thought by now

I'd have learned something.

I made up my mind when I was a young girl

I've been given this one world,

I won't worry it away.

Now and again I lose sight of the good life

I get stuck in a low light

Then love comes in

How far do I have to go to get to you?

Many the miles, many the miles.

How far do I have to go to get to you?

Many the miles

Send me the miles

I'll be happy to

follow you.

That's just the first part of the lyrics, but it fits me so well it's scary. Although I have those dark moments, I tend to worry very little. Sometimes the only thing I worry about is whether I should be worrying more. Then love comes in. I think my lack of worry comes from an abundance of love. I see it everywhere. I feel it everywhere.

Love is one of those tricky things. I had an email conversation with a friend about this recently. We try to quantify and qualify our love. We label it and separate it, careful not to mix the different types because... what? We're afraid of the implications of love, I think. We're afraid of what it means to admit--to ourselves or anyone else--that we love someone. If you're married or seeing someone, what does it mean to love someone else? I love him like a brother. I love her like I love all of my closest friends. Labeling it a different type of love feels safer. Loving someone doesn't mean you want to jump in bed with them, or marry them. It can mean those things, of course, but not always. We create this division of love in an attempt to define relationships and stake claims on each other's hearts.

We separate love into compartments and say It's okay to give X amount of this type of love, but only to one person. Or We can give a lot of this other type of love to all kinds of people because it's different, and it's not love love. And also, I will feel threatened by this type of love from this person, but not that type of love from that person.

But you know what? It's ALL love.

I'm not saying there aren't different types of love. The way I love my husband feels a little different than the way I love my kid brother. Or the way I love some of my friends. And yet there's something the same about it, too. A sweetness. A blissful feeling. An indescribable something that makes me happy whenever I think of a loved one.

I love a lot of people. I've always loved easily. I've debated whether it's a selfless tendency or a selfish one, because I can't deny that it feels good to open my heart. That doesn't really matter for today's post, though, because the point is still the same. 

Love begets love.

Our capacity for love is bigger than we give ourselves credit for. Once you've given it, you can choose not to give any more, but you can never take back what you've already released into the world. Acknowledging, accepting, expressing love doesn't take away. Not from you, not from anyone else you love. It just makes room for more love to grow, which you then can give again.

There is another point to this, besides me just waxing poetic about love. I've been involved with a project the past couple months, and I know some people may not understand why it's so important to me. But the answer is love.

Indies Unite For Joshua is a worldwide group of independent authors, publishers, filmmakers, and artists rallying to support a fellow writer.

Joshua is the 21-year old son of author, Maxwell Cynn. Max writes speculative fiction, science fiction, and romance. His son has been diagnosed with Acute T-cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia. The cancer has invaded every part of his body: brain; spleen; liver; lymph nodes; and he has a mass in his chest. Joshua has had to suspend his studies while undergoing aggressive chemotherapy and will not be able to graduate this semester. With three-and-a-half years of a 4.0 GPA toward a degree in philosophy, his peers and professors consider him brilliant, as of course, does his father. Joshua would have been the first person in Max's family to graduate college. 

To learn more about this amazing young man, read Max's incredible post.

I donated a guest blog spot to the campaign perks, and I recorded a short video to encourage support for the cause. Not to mention the tweeting and posting on Facebook that you may have noticed. Here's the thing, though.

Like most people involved in Indies Unite for Joshua, I've never actually met Joshua, or his dad. I know his dad from online communities like Twitter, and I think he's a great writer. I consider him a friend. As I say in my video, I care what happens to him and his family. How can I feel so strongly for someone I don't "know"?

Love.

I'm not a religious person. I don't pray. That has always been a foreign concept to me. What I do is love. I let it fill me up, I seek it out, I give it away.

To Joshua, and to David (Max) and Tricia: I love you guys! You are in my thoughts, and I'm sending your family all the loving vibes I can muster.

Now how about you? Are you ready to open yourself up to a bit of love? All it takes is a share. A tweet. A post on Facebook. If you're able, a couple dollars. One supporter has been giving two bucks a day. Could you do the same? We have 10 days and $1,100 dollars to go to meet our goal of $10,000. Click the Metallica baby picture above, or the widget in the top right sidebar to go to the Indiegogo site to donate.

For the love of Joshua, what can you do?

Back to the Sara Bareilles song from the start of this post: How far do I have to go to get to you? Many the miles. Send me the miles, and I'll be happy to.

Joshua, when you're better, send me the miles. I'll come down and buy you and your parents a round of drinks. Or two. :-)

Write Me a Song

Since I've been talking a little bit about Christmas songs, I thought I'd take a slight detour and talk about how songs relate to writing in general. This post originally appeared on 11/10/11 at From The Write Angle as Crossing the Bridge: Song Structure and Plot. I'll be back in a few days with more silly Christmas songs!

I was marveling the other day about how some of my favorite singer-songwriters can really tell a whole story in a four-minute song. I love a good ballad, especially. The music, lyrics, the singer's voice, everything works together to take you on a roller coaster ride of emotion. I tend to write character-driven stories, and it's that same gut-wrenching ride that I strive to impart to my reader. This got me thinking. What can fiction writers learn from songwriters? The answer, I believe, lies in structure.

Thinking back to your elementary and middle school English classes, you may remember charting the plot of a book using something like this:

Look familiar? Was I the only one who felt constricted by this particular diagram? Exposition and rising action were no problem. For the most part, falling action was a no-brainer, and denouement was easy peasy. But I often faltered around the climax. (Please, no psychoanalysis of that statement is necessary.) In many books, the climax felt more like a series of events—a plateau, if you will. And that straight line of rising action is really more of a procession of peaks and valleys. When you break it down, it looks a bit like a song. (For these purposes, "song" refers mainly to current popular music. Song structure varies greatly, not only within but across genres as well.)

The exposition is your basic intro, and the rising action starts with the first verse, followed by the chorus. The verse tells the story, and the chorus gives you the overall theme of the song. (Don't ask me why, but I'd never realized this basic premise of storytelling vs. theme until I read it in those concrete terms, and then I thought of just about every song I'd ever heard and—whaddya know? It's true!) Many songs also have a bridge, which I have come to realize is my favorite part.

Let's take a listen to one of my recent favorites, Take it All, by Adele.

The verse does indeed tell you the story, and the chorus gives you the theme. When the chorus comes in for the first time, there's a burst of new emotion, like a mini-climax, before we come back down a notch for another verse. The bridge starts around 2:08—this is where you hear things change, and instead of coming back down to the emotional/dynamic level of the verse again, we start another build of emotion. It's not a one-note type of climax, it's a gradual build toward and satisfying release from the point of highest emotional impact. The repetition of the chorus closes the song and drives home the general theme again. Was it as good for you as it was for me? A great song has you yearning for that bridge, for those few bars where it all comes together and makes the hair on your arms stand up.

So let's go one more time. Gravity, by Sara Bareilles, is another song that gives you the same ebb and flow of tension in the alternation of verse and chorus, then knocks your socks off with a great bridge (which starts at 2:25). I dare you to try not to get swept up in the tension. I've listened to this song hundreds of times, and I still take a deep breath at the peak of the bridge, when she sings the word "down," and hold it until she releases. Exquisite.

So what can we take away from this (besides learning of my penchant for soulful female singer-songwriters)?

Instead of a three-act structure, or the linear rise and fall in those old plot charts that seem to turn on a dime at the apex, think of your story as a song, or a series of songs. Tell your story in the verses, intertwined with conflicts that help us understand the overarching themes of your novel (the chorus). Build toward that spine-tingling climax. I want you to take me over the bridge. Give me a few moments to savor the dizzying heights before you wrap me up in another cozy chorus and send me on my way.

You can use this structure on both a micro and macro level to weave a story rich with tension and emotion that reaches nearly addictive highs. If you can do that, you'll have me coming back for more of your product again, and again, and again...

What other aspects of songwriting can you apply to fiction? What songs intoxicate YOU with their emotion and powerful storytelling?