Birthday Adventures

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

I have a surprise for you all.

Today is my birthday!

Woohooo! Balloons and party hats and kazoos and cake!

Not really. Actually, I have to go to work today, and my birthday weekend is already over. But I am a quarter-of-a-century-old today, and I felt the need to announce it.

So. There you are. I was born today.

Since I am an adult and adults still have to go to work on their birthdays, today won’t be extra spectacular or very different from my normal schedule. But! I had the whole weekend to celebrate, and my sister and I went adventuring. We house-sat for a friend, ate almost an entire carton of ice-cream, watched Zumbo’s Just Desserts, made shrimp scampi, and the next morning escaped the house to go hiking.

We were going to hike the Incline. (One of Colorado’s more extreme hiking trails. About a mile of stairs and sweat and hell.) But at the last moment, we bailed and went to Helen Hunt Falls instead. The trails there are a little tamer.

Okay, a lot tamer.

We lost our nerve.

But! We had a great time playing in the stream, taking pictures, and hiking the not-hellish trails. Since it is July, we found a couple of patches of very tiny raspberries. Like, enough to have maybe five each. We decided on our hike that if you were to get lost in Colorado and needed to live off the land, you would most likely starve. Colorado isn’t known for its bounty. I don’t think we saw so much as a squirrel.

But we did have raspberries. And just so you know, wild raspberries are the best.

Especially when you’re hiking in the mountains.

After the hiking adventures, we met the rest of my family for sushi at my absolute favorite restaurant ever. My mom made us wear funny hats. I am not going to show you pictures of that one. Thankfully, since we were celebrating my birthday, my dad’s birthday, and my sister’s engagement, I wasn’t the only one who had to wear the hat.

Always good to have a few people with whom to share strange experiences.

This year has been a whirl of very different experiences and new directions. None of the things that I expected to happen came about, and the best parts of this year have been entirely unexpected. I am still finding my feet in a job I never expected to have, making friends in places I never expected to be, and thanking God that his plans are so, so much better than mine. He always seems to know so much better than I do where I’ll be happy and where I’ll thrive.

This year, I am so thankful for the unexpected.

What are some things in your lives that have taken you by surprise? Tell me about it in the comments!

9 Truths For A Writer’s Soul: Plot Holes

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

Okay, have any of you seen the Disney film, Moana?

Excellent, excellent movie. My god sister got me hooked on the music, which I totally did not intend to like and ended up loving.

Anyway, there is a scene in Moana where Moana is on the boat sailing out to sea, and she realizes her chicken is on board with her. And the chicken, because it is a chicken and chickens are stupid, keeps trying to walk off the boat into the ocean. So she sticks it into the cubbyhole with her food, and instead of jumping out, it walks around bumping into walls and is completely stuck.

Anyone remember that scene?

Yes?

Great!

That’s exactly how it feels to be stuck in a plot hole.

Isn’t that frustrating? Plot holes, no matter how big or small, are a pain to deal with. Sometimes the biggest ones feel impossible to seal up, and we end up with trashed stories and derailed careers.

But, writer, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Every single plot hole, no matter how vast or how black or how terrible, is fixable.

Sounds absurd, doesn’t it? But, writer, your imagination is endless. There is no limit to what you can discover in your story and no limit to what you can conjure up.

Except the limits you place on yourself.

My Experience

If you ever happen to come by my house and find me lying on my couch with my feet poking up in the air and my head hanging off the edge, don’t worry. I haven’t lost my mind. (Okay, I have a little bit.) I am simply getting a different perspective on life.

Sometimes, the best thing you can do is take a look at the world upside down. Look at things a different way. Change something that you’ve always considered to be set in stone. Trash a character whose stubbornness is holding you back. You are the master of your story, and you are more than capable of handling the complexity of whatever problems it throws at you.

Four Tips To Apply It In Your Own Life

1. Nothing is set in stone. You are the author, and you are allowed to change whatever you like. If something doesn’t serve your book anymore, drop it. If you suddenly have the deep desire to throw mermaids into the mix, do it. Your story is your own, and the fear of messing things up will only drag you backward.

2. Sometimes the best thing you can do for a story is drop something that isn’t working any longer. I’m so serious about this one. So serious. If there is a character that is making a mess, kick him out. If a plot point creates more trouble than it’s worth, find another way to get what you want. As enchanting or engaging as some things are, they’re not always worth the trouble they cause.

3. Grab a pen and notebook, and go a little wild. Write down everything that could happen. Everything from death to maiming to spontaneous rebirth to rescue by mermaids. I’m serious. Be ridiculous. Don’t take hours on each idea. Give them a sentence each, throw them onto the paper, and let your brain have some fun. Eventually, I think, you’ll find a solution that fits your story and your style.

4. Be certain, absolutely, positively certain that whatever the trouble is, you can handle it. You’re a writer. This is what you do. Every plot hole has a solution, and you will find it. Sometimes, that assurance is the most important thing. Allowing doubt to creep in will only ever kill your creativity.

Good luck, dearest writer! May your tea be hot and your dreams wild.

Was this post helpful to you? Tell me about it in the comments, and drop in any tips of your own! I would love to hear about it.

Weekend Adventurers

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

My best friend in the whole entire world is finally home.

She was gone for a long time.

I missed her.

But now that she’s finally home and back in our beautiful tiny cabin, it has created a rather conflicting dilemma for me. A ‘I really want to hang out with you but I work 40 hours a week and also use all my spare time to write’ kind of dilemma.

Exhausting.

But, in the three weeks since I started my job, we have come up with a compromise.

So now, we are weekend adventurers.

Okay, Sunday adventurers. Because I write all day Saturday if I can possibly manage it. But! Sunday is our day off, and we have learned to use it to the best of our ability. Yesterday, that meant church, lunch at Chipotle, a whacking huge dark chocolate ice cream with gummy bears—yes, I said gummy bears—and raspberries at Cold Stone Creamery, and a drive/hike through Garden of the Gods.

It was exciting.

Mostly because we very nearly ran out of gas.

Like, coasting on fumes, man. Life on the edge.

We didn’t have much time to hike because it was hotter than the Sahara desert and so crowded that there were literally herds of people blocking the paths. Like, real herds. It was crazy.

So we snapped a few pictures and took off. Instead, we spent the afternoon at Glen Eyrie, in the cool under the trees and outside the bookstore.

It was lovely.

Now that we’ve started this weekly excursion, we are determined to keep it going. Next week, we are going hiking in the mountains, and we have a list of places we want to see this summer. IKEA (because IKEA is the BEST), the Denver aquarium (because fish are amazing), the zoo (mostly for the ducks and maybe to pet a skunk), and camping, too, if we get up the nerve.

I’m not much of a camper. But it’s worth a shot!

Having a regular, 40 hour a week job is a new experience for me, and one loaded with possibilities. Now that my schedule is set—instead of scattered and spontaneous in the extreme—I can plan a few small trips around Colorado and have some of the adventures I’ve been thinking about.

So, definitely stay tuned. There will be pictures of giant fish on this blog someday soon. Like . . . sharks. And maybe an octopus.

You have been warned.

What are some of the adventures that you have ventured on recently? Tell me about them in the comments! I’d love ideas and suggestions!

9 Truths For A Writer’s Soul: Vision to Page

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

I love the idea of being an artist.

Seriously. It’s one of my dreams. I would love to be able to sketch my characters, draw scenes from my world, and put at least part of my vision for my stories onto a page where I can see it.

Unfortunately . . . my drawing skills are basically equivalent to a semi-talented six-year-old. I can draw great stick figures, some reasonably recognizable pine trees, and mountains.

Okay, I can sketch mountains. For maps and stuff.

Not actually draw real ones.

Basically, what I have in my head never, never translates to what I put on the page. And, more often than not, that’s the same with my writing.

Nothing that you put on the page is going to be exactly like you saw it in your head.

Writer, you have a beautiful imagination. Your mind is limitless, with so much potential for creativity, and the more you train your imagination, the better it will get.

Your writing will never match up to that.

My Experience

Over the years, I have learned to let the story have its own way. Things crop up in the middle of writing a scene that add to and even change the course of the story, and I have learned to simply go with it.

The story in my head is not always right.

It is not always attainable.

And it is not always the better version.

I’ve come across things while exploring like this that have given my story more life than I could ever have imagined. Major plot points generally are planned ahead, and from there, I let the writing take over. It may not reach the vision I had in my mind for that particular scene—it may not even have followed the storyline I was expecting. But—within certain parameters—I let it go where it will. After seven years of writing and twenty-some years of reading passionately, my instinct for story is generally trustworthy.

And . . . when it isn’t, there’s always room in my trash bin for a failed experiment. I don’t mind trying three or four times (or sometimes more) to get an important scene just right.

Four Tips To Apply It In Your Own Life

1. Write every scene to the best of your ability—then leave it alone. Let it rest, let it simmer for a while. Move on to the next scene and keep writing. The longer you are stuck on a single section, the more frustrated you will get and the more chance you have of dumping the whole thing. Move forward.

2. Remember that words are limited, but your reader’s imagination is not. Your job is not to put paint the complete picture, only to offer enough details to spark the reader’s imagination. Damp pine needles, silver birches, salt rime among the reeds. Give them hints and then leave the rest to their imagination.

3. Allow the written version of your story to take precedence over the visual version in your mind. Let it go. Let it be what it is. The tighter you hold onto your original version, the less room you will have for exploration. Let your story breathe and grow beyond the vision you had for it.

4. Have grace for yourself. You are still learning. In the beginning, even just a sketch of your original idea is a triumph. Writing is hard. It takes a lot of time and practice to come to a place where you can accurately fulfill the ideas you’ve had. Just like when you first start drawing.

Good luck, dearest writer! May your tea be hot and your dreams wild.

Was this post helpful to you? Tell me about it in the comments, and drop in any tips of your own! I would love to hear about it.

Surprise!

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

My sister is finally, finally home, after traveling about like a crazy adventure woman for six months.

I am so happy she’s here.

Don’t get me wrong, living alone is lovely. The house is quiet, I have my own space, and—and that’s the only plus sides I can come up with right now.

Now that my sister is home, I have someone to read with in the evening, someone to bounce ideas off of when I’m in a creative mood, someone who makes dinner when I am at work and has it ready when I come home, someone to grocery shop for, since grocery shopping for one person is no fun at all . . . 

Basically, I have about a thousand reasons to rejoice that she is finally home and isn’t planning to leave again for—some amount of time. Hopefully not in the near future. But we’ll see. World travelers sometimes don’t stay in one spot very long.

Now that she is here, I can tell you the secret I have been saving up since the beginning of May! Or was it April . . . or . . . never mind, it doesn’t matter.

Ta-da!

I painted my house!

As you can no doubt guess, it was badly in need of it, and this was my welcome home surprise for her. Thus the reason I didn’t post about it.

I started painting sometime around the middle of I-Don’t-Remember-Maybe-April when I was waiting for news after several job interviews.

So, yes, I was stress painting.

I got the first coat finished with the help of some semi-enthusiastic siblings and then . . . I got sick. So things paused for a few weeks while I laid around on my couch in a cold-medicine induced stupor and watched episodes of Winnie-The-Pooh on Youtube to keep my stress levels from crashing through the roof. Because obviously, I couldn’t stress paint anymore.

You do what you gotta do.

But eventually—after a very long wait—my cold got better and I was able to finish the second coat. Now that my beautiful tiny cabin is no longer an awkward shade of pink, it has turned into a sort of secluded hermitage. (For those of you who are extroverts, I just want to clarify that this is a good thing.) The green and brown blends into the trees, and when you’re driving up the road, you’d have to know just where to look to notice that there is a house hidden away up here after all.

Which, as a secluded sort of hermit, is just right for me.

Also, my sister loved it. So all my stress painting ended up all right.

Have you been working on any home improvement projects this year? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

9 Truths For A Writer’s Soul: First Draft

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

When I was eighteen, I was not the most competent person in the world.

Actually, I was pretty clumsy.

Which was fine, except that I had a younger brother who was good at everything. And I do mean everything. He could pick up magic tricks after two or three tries, could do a backflip on solid ground, and generally became competent at whatever he set his mind to within a matter of hours.

It drove me crazy.

The only thing that I could do that he couldn’t . . . was write. I could tell stories. I could focus on a task and follow it through to completion, no matter how long it took. Six months, a year . . . seven years. I could do it.

So I became determined that I wasn’t just going to be a good writer. I was going to amazing. I was going to be the best of the best. People were going to remember my stories.

So I wrote a book, fueled by this passionate determination to be incredible.

And you know what?

It was terrible.

Awful. Like, ‘I will never let it see the light of day’ kind of bad. ‘Burn it with fire’ kind of bad.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the first draft of my book, We, the Deceived.

The point of a first draft is to make a mess.

And boy, did I make a mess with that first draft. And the second one, too.

But you know what? In the midst of those awful, painful first drafts . . . I was learning. And my story was developing. I got to know my characters. I began exploring my world, seeing it through eyes I never had before. I fell in love with words and discovered a passion for language that I never knew I had.

Many drafts later, my book has made people cry, hooked lifelong fans, and is now waiting in the wings, ready for a publisher.

All because I wrote a terrible first draft.

My Experience

The best thing that I ever did for my book was to start over. Completely. I wrote the entire thing, typed the end . . . then I pulled up a new word document and started over at chapter one.

And writer, it flourished.

It had room to grow, room to be different, and yet it had an outline, a first draft, and a solid vision for where we were going.

It also taught me to write. And to write well.

Writer, stories need space. They need room to breathe, room to grow, and room to expand beyond what you first thought they would be.

That’s what a first draft is for.

Sometimes, I am honestly convinced that one of the best things you can do for your book is to allow it to be wrong. Write it, write it, write it, and allow it to be wrong. Then come back and fix the mess later with draft two, or draft three.

Or, in the case of some of my chapters, draft twelve.

Four Tips To Apply It In Your Own Life

1. Hold onto the vision—not the draft. Don’t dump the ideas, the things that made you catch your breath, the plot that kept you awake at night, the characters you love. Those are important. Those should be preserved. Let the words change. Let the world grow.

2. Nothing will hold you back as a writer more than being afraid of work. Writing a book is a lot of work. Getting published is a lot of work. Building a fan base and keeping people interested in what you do is a lot of work. There is no way around that. But I’ll tell you this . . . I’d rather write than work anywhere else.

3. Everything you write, deleted or kept, is moving you forward. No matter how cheesy. No matter how awful. No matter how much you loved it or hated it or want to burn it. It taught you, and it was worth the time.

4. Create a vision for your book that is out of your reach. One that you will have to grow to reach. One that will stretch your skill level. You’re capable of more than you think, so reach for something that feels impossible. Your perception of your limits will be your cage eventually, unless you are convinced that you can write better, write bigger, and finish more.

Good luck, dearest writer! May your tea be hot and your dreams wild.

Was this post helpful to you? Tell me about it in the comments, and drop in any tips of your own! I would love to hear about it.

Finding Normal

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

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My new morning commute is forty-five minutes.

One way.

Does that sound a little crazy to anyone? That means every week I am driving about 7.5 hours back and forth to work . . . not including the time spent on the road if I happen to need a trip to town on a weekend.

I’m scaring myself just by adding up the numbers.

But do you want to know a secret?

I love it.

When I was first offered the job, one of my friends asked me if I was going to move into town to be closer to my new building.

I said no.

She understood.

First of all, I live in the middle of absolutely nowhere and have a tiny writer’s cabin tucked away in the middle of a pine forest surrounded by farmland and country roads. When I wake up in the morning, I hear magpies and bluejays and woodpeckers outside my house . . . not traffic and people and all the other city noises you can think of. I have deer and turkeys in my yard. I can go for walks at midnight down our dirt road if I feel like it. (I don’t usually feel like it.)

But besides loving where I am, I just . . . don’t hate my commute. In fact, as an author running a blog, writing books, and working full-time, my commute is some of the only time I have to really remember how much I love books myself.

Thank goodness for libraries that let me borrow 24 audiobooks at a time.

Really, my commute has been the saving grace for my reading habits. Thus far this year, I have read 66 books. Most of those have been audiobooks. With 7.5 hours of driving to do every week, I figure I can plow through at least a book a week. Maybe more, since I have lunch breaks too.

Finding out my library loaned out copies of audiobooks was a revolution for me. I have been devouring them while I paint for my mum, while I drive, while I work sudoku puzzles on my phone to keep my brain sharp . . . really just any time I have a few minutes of silence. I’ve been rediscovering some old favorites—right now I am listening to A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle—as well as discovering new treasures—Michael Hyatt’s Living Forward and as many of Agatha Christie’s books as I can find. As an author who still believes the best way to learn to write is to read, I am very grateful to have an unlimited library on my phone.

And plenty of time on my way to and from work to take advantage of it.

What are you reading these days? Any suggestions for me? I’d love to hear them!

9 Truths For A Writer’s Soul: Learning

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

Does anyone else wish that there was a manual for being an adult?

Like, flip to page 87 for a step-by-step, flawless instructions on how to pay taxes. Page 62 details exactly how to cultivate a healthy relationship and how to extract yourself from a toxic one.

Chapter 12. Finances. Here’s how you balance a checkbook, create a budget, and feed yourself on $100 a month when money is tight.

Boom.

Problems solved. Life conquered.

Does anyone else need this? Because I need this. It would save me so much stress. Unfortunately, that isn’t how life works. Experience comes through mistakes. Everyone’s methods are a little different. Everyone has to find their own way forward and stumble around a bit until they figure out what they’re doing with life.

The same is true for writing.

No one can teach you how to write.

People can help you. They can encourage you, mentor you, offer tips and resources, and give you advice. You can take classes, hire a coach, attend seminars and conferences.

But in the end, when it finally comes down to it, it will be you and your story and a blank page. And you will have to write it the way you know how.

You, as a writer, will have to discover how magical words can be on your own.

My Experience

Two people have had the greatest impact on my writing. The first was K.M. Weiland, because of her blog and her books and her marvelous advice. The second was Beth Swoboda, my editor, because she taught me how to love words.

She also kicked my butt and showed me what not to do.

I love her.

Mentors are wonderful. Coaches are wonderful. Tips and advice and articles can and will improve your technique and give you a new vision for what you are working on.

But the writing depends on you. Your story depends on you. An hour of regular practice is worth a thousand tips, and a trash full of deleted material will take you further than any article or class. You have to sort through the conflicting advice, the tips, the mentoring, and decide how you write stories.

You are a writer. Your story is yours. Only you can take responsibility and wade through the pages and pages of mediocre, sloppy writing that inevitably find their way onto a writer’s desk, slew it aside, and find the treasure underneath.

Your story. Told in your voice. With your passion carrying it through to the last page.

Four Tips To Apply It In Your Own Life

1. Your journey is your responsibility. No one else’s. Not your editor’s, not your coach’s. Yours. Whether you choose to approach it casually or with passion and determination depends entirely on you. How much do you care about your writing? How much are you willing to fight for it?

2. Never underestimate where a good, solid work ethic will take you. I have determined since the beginning that when I walk into the room, I might not be the most talented, the most connected, or the most popular, but I will be the one willing to work the hardest and sacrifice the most. Writer, it has never failed me.

3. Be proactive. Find the books, yes, find the blog posts, the feedback. And then sit your butt in your chair and write. Spend more time writing than you do researching. Or world-building. Or talking about your writing. Know when you are supposed to be writing and show up.

4. Make mistakes. Make a thousand mistakes. Make so many mistakes that your trash is full. Try things that don’t work. Write horrible, choppy dialogue and flat characters and cheesy, cringe-worthy moments. Use pretentious prose. Have too much white space. Have too little white space. The point is, if you are making mistakes, you are writing. And thus, you are learning.

Good luck, dearest writer! May your tea be hot and your dreams wild.

Was this post helpful to you? Tell me about it in the comments, and drop in any tips of your own! I would love to hear about it.

On Your Mark . . . Get Set . . .

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

Panic!

No, not really. Nobody panic. Especially not me.

Although I do happen to feel a little panicky right at this moment.

Know why?

Today is July 1st, and also the first day of my new job, working as a writing assistant for Focus on the Family.

Are you shocked? I was. Also very, very excited. This will be my first experience with an office job and with working a nine-to-five, so I’ve been rushing around the last month to get myself prepared and brush up on my business casual knowledge.

Oddly enough, this meant buying a lot of clothes.

Like, a lot of clothes.

A whole wardrobe, actually.

How many of you knew I was a nanny before I got this job? Well, I was a nanny. And when you’re earning your rent playing hide-and-seek and going on trips to the park with little boys, you don’t wear business casual clothing.

You wear a t-shirt. And jeans.

Because when you hang out with toddler age boys, stuff happens. Stuff with water, stuff with mud, stuff with food.

And stuff with snot.

Yep. I said snot.

So, no, my wardrobe did not include anything remotely business casual.

Believe it or not, I loved being a nanny. I loved my boys and all the stuff we got to do together. We have many cookie memories. And jumping-on-the-tramp memories. And how-did-you-beat-me-at-this-game-you’re-five memories. I learned so much from those jobs.

Mostly that my memory is terrible and if I play matching memory games with a five-year-old, the five-year-old will win. Every. Single. Time.

Don’t ask me how.

Leaving my nanny positions for an office job—albeit a writing position—has been a little tough. I’m going to miss those boys. I was there for a lot of memories. Learning to crawl, losing their first tooth, kindergarten, first grade, baseball games, and so many more. I’m not saying I cried a little bit when I left on my last day, but I cried a little bit when I left on my last day.

Okay. A lot a bit.

But the leaving is all finished now, and today I am starting something new. If you think of it, wish me luck! I’m pretty nervous, so any good thoughts or prayers are appreciated!

Anyone have any tips for the first few weeks in a new job? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!