Horror Movies and the “Was it Real?” Factor: A Brief Meditation

Hey, folks. Today’s post is a bit of a rant, based on some thoughts I had after watching a horror movie on Netflix called Last Shift. A while ago my friend and editor Briana Morgan listed it in a post on her blog about horror movies that scared her, so I’d had it filed away in the back of my mind for some time. And I recently had a free afternoon, so I made some coffee and a snack and sat down to watch it.

Spoilers ahead!

The film deals with a rookie cop assigned to keep watch over an old police station that’s being closed down for good. As expected, things aren’t quite right, and the secrets the old place holds start coming to life and terrorizing her. The crux of the matter lies with the fact that a cult of serial killers died by suicide in the station, and the atrocities they committed seem to be haunting the place and everyone inside. The entire film eventually reckons with the question of whether or not the paranormal things the protagonist is experiencing are real. If you’re an avid horror film watcher, chances are you’ve seen this same question come up countless times. And very often, it’s the female characters who have to deal with it. (Though that’s a whole other post.)

In Last Shift, the viewer is constantly tugged back and forth, as the supernatural encounters pile up, and we’re all waiting for the big reveal to come at the end to answer the question for us of whether the protagonist was imagining it all or not. There seemed to be a moment in the film that confirmed for me that yes, it is real (or some of it, at least), only for it to be revealed at the end that she was just a victim of the cult’s mind games from beyond the grave, hallucinating the whole thing. We never get to know if any of it was real for sure, just that some of it wasn’t.

I don’t know about you, but personally, I felt let down. The film itself was pretty decent. It had some good scares and effects, though the vague religious and demonic imagery surrounding the antagonists is, in my opinion, a bad plot device and a highly overused trope in general. But that’s not the point of this post. After the film ended I found myself a little annoyed, because I though I’d gotten the satisfaction of knowing that wow, this female character isn’t crazy! I thought we weren’t gonna get the “Surprise! It was all in her head!” ending. I really did. And even if only some of it was in her head, it made me sit and think about these endings we often get with horror films, concerning the “was it real?” factor.

In my experience, these films usually end in one of three ways:

1. None of it was real, the main character is just deranged.
2. We just don’t know.
3. It was real and she was right all along.

Now, for me, horror is about catharsis. It’s about seeing the things that terrify you up close and personal and having to reckon with them. And in my experience, it’s much, much more satisfying to finish a movie that expresses that, yes, your fears were real and this is how you deal with them–see, you can do it, than a movie that ends with, nah, none of it was real, there’s no sympathy for you, that’s it. A movie that doesn’t give you a definitive yes or no is good too, because it leaves room for hope.

I personally feel like it’s a little counterproductive to have the “so what?” of your story be that everything you’re afraid of isn’t really there, or doesn’t matter. The protagonist of Last Shift gets terrorized and traumatized and has the pain of her past scrounged up and thrown in her face and then…nothing. No real resolution. If your fears were never really there, then there’s no battle. There’s no triumph, or even potential triumph. You’re right back where you started. And that’s not very compelling storytelling, in my humble opinion.

I’ve tried to deal with this topic in my own writing. My short story, The Uninvited, was written in part to address this exact horror predicament–it follows a young, fearful girl trying to get the people in her life to take her fears seriously. And in this story, the girl is right, all the scary stuff is real. And even if no one listens to her and the ending of the story isn’t happy, there’s at least the resolution that the main character’s pain and pleading are justified. It makes the conflict and development feel earned. That’s all I’m asking for, a little justification.

So, fellow horror fans, how do you feel about this concept in horror films? Do you recommend any specific films that grapple with this idea particularly well? I want to hear your takes on it. Horror is such a versatile genre, and this is just one slice that I had some thoughts about.

Let me know what you think!

Project Spotlight: Like the Raven (& Twitter Party!)

Hello all! Today marks the start of a new series that will pop up on this blog periodically, where I choose one of my creative projects and give you a brief run-down on it–the characters, premise, what the process of creating it has been like, all that fun stuff!

Because I’m going to return to editing this project soon, the inaugural post in this series will be on Like the Raven, my medieval fantasy novella (also my only novella, at least for now!) So let’s get into it.

(p.s. Stay tuned to the end of this post for details on a Twitter Party I’ll be participating in, where you can learn even more about this project, and me!)

What’s the story about?

Ex-thief Ravenna Seray is looking for a fresh start. Unfortunately, the members of the gang of rogues she ditched want revenge. So when the daughter Ravenna abandoned at birth is kidnapped by the scoundrels she once considered family, Ravenna must acquire a priceless, and maybe nonexistent treasure in only three days, or else her daughter’s life is forfeit.

Who are the characters?

Ravenna Seray (aliases: Ravenna the Red, The Red Raven): She’s beauty, she’s grace, she’ll throw a dagger in your face. Recently attempting to turn her life around after years of thievery and lying low. Stubborn and fiercely protective of her past and its tragedies, but tormented by guilt over putting her daughter in harm’s way, and giving her up in the first place.

Lucien Laverre: A more-or-less immortal elven mage brought by chance into Ravenna’s path. He’s a bit fuzzy on the details, to be honest. Flamboyant, crafty, overall very excited to be in his current situation. May or may not be head-over-heels in love with the pretty rogue he met in the woods. One of the most enjoyable characters I’ve ever written.

Leonora Dyre: Ravenna’s fifteen year old daughter, raised by a couple of kind farmers. Sensitive, quiet, and calculating. Don’t underestimate her.

Cynric Morel: Current ring-leader of The Shrikes, the group of rogues Ravenna walked out on. He has a huge tattoo of a snake, but don’t let it fool you–he’s much more venomous, and willing to do anything to punish whoever crosses him, even if that person used to be his right-hand-gal and old flame.

Where did the idea for this story come from?

I’d wanted to write a medieval fantasy story for a long time. I’d had a certain idea filed away in my mind, in which a lady thief plodded through a dark forest in search of something important. For a while that was all I ever made of the concept. The title of the story comes from a song that I always found intriguing: “I Go Like the Raven” by Beyond the Pale. It helped me shape the idea of Ravenna’s character, plus it sounds like something that’d be played in a tavern in the world of the story, which I love.

One day when I was a junior in college, I got the idea for Lucien’s character, and everything fell into place so fast that I literally couldn’t stop myself from writing. I remember having a full day of classes, and scribbling bits of dialogue in the margins of my notes and barely being able to pay attention to my lectures, because I was so enthralled. At first I thought it was only going to be a short story, but it grew and grew into novella length, and I knew these characters would be around for a while. I’m already planning for more installments of Ravenna and Lucien’s adventures.

Where’s the story at now?

I finished a full draft and some rounds of edits with the help of beta readers last summer. The story’s been on hold for a while but when I return to it to continue editing, my plan is to really beef up the background of the narrative. I’d like to add more scenes showing Ravenna’s past, as well as Leonora’s, to help round everything out. I’ll be in need of some beta readers as well, when the time comes.

This story means a lot to me. I love medieval fantasy and I feel like this story has a really good balance of heavy themes and lightheartedness–I never really thought I could be funny until I wrote this story!

If this project sounds interesting to you, and you’d like to know more about it, then you’re in luck! Very soon I’ll be participating in a Twitter chat and AMA with some pals to help promote the launch of my friend Joshua C. Forrest’s Patreon. This will all be going down on March 31st at 8pm EST, and I’ll be chatting about this project in particular. Some really wonderful writers will be joining me!

Want to know how Ravenna got her nicknames, get a look at some art I’ve done of the characters, or see snippets of the story? Want to know more about me and my creative process? Then jot down your questions, save the date, and come chat using the hashtag #JCFPatreonParty! Check out all the fun details here.

See you then!

On Calling the Beast by Its Name (Or, on Chronic Illness)

Hey, your friendly neighborhood bird princess is back, this time to briefly talk about something not at all related to writing. This time I’m here to talk about the fact that I’m chronically ill, and how I still don’t feel totally honest when using that name.

I have psoriasis. I’ve written about it before. According to the American Academy of Dermatology, psoriasis is “a chronic disease. It develops when a person’s immune system sends faulty signals that tell skin cells to grow too quickly. New skin cells form in days rather than weeks. The body does not shed these excess skin cells. The skin cells pile up on the surface of the skin, causing patches of psoriasis to appear.”

The definition of a chronic disease is “one lasting 3 months or more, by the definition of the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. Chronic diseases generally cannot be prevented by vaccines or cured by medication, nor do they just disappear.”

In my years on the internet, I’ve learned that a few of the people I follow on social media, for art or writing or whatever, happen to be people with chronic illnesses. But even though all our conditions are described as chronic, I’ve never really felt like I “qualified” as chronically ill. I’m not in constant pain. I’m not confined to my bed on some days. In my mind, chronic didn’t mean long lasting, it meant debilitating on a daily basis. But that’s not what it means. Just like every case of psoriasis is different, and every person with psoriasis has a different experience of their illness, every chronically ill person experiences their illness differently. I don’t need to be bedridden or in constant pain in order to have my condition count. I never meant to put myself into some kind of imaginary suffering olympics about whether or not my condition is bad enough to be taken seriously. That’s my preconception to dismantle. But I also think that there is some kind of stigma in the general world, not just my head, about certain illnesses having to be bad enough to be taken seriously. I want to break down that stigma.

Maybe it’s because psoriasis manifests in such an obvious external way, it felt too simple to be a big deal. Yeah, I have itchy red patches of skin. You can see them. That’s psoriasis. But it’s also so easy to forget that invisibly, my immune system is tearing itself apart because it just doesn’t understand that I have all the skin I need. A malfunctioning immune system is a big deal. A malfunctioning immune system is dangerous. My very simple, very obvious patches of psoriasis are just the external manifestations of my very sick immune system. My body is a traitor. And I think that is a sentiment many chronically people can relate to.

If I wear makeup and certain articles of clothing, you would have no indication that I am sick. But that doesn’t make me any less sick. It just makes me a good disguiser. In my case, I disguise my illness because I don’t feel comfortable with the conclusions people sometimes jump to if they see my psoriasis plainly on my skin–that I’m contagious, or unhygienic, or something. That’s my choice to make. But no matter how many layers I pile on, or how much makeup I wear, I am still sick. My immune system is still blindly puppeteering my skin cells to act against their normal orders. My condition cannot be cured, only managed.

I have psoriasis.

Psoriasis is a chronic illness.

Therefore, I am chronically ill.

Being able to declare these things does not change anything about the state of my illness. I am not comfortable with my traitorous, volatile immune system, misguided as it may be. I am not comfortable with my psoriasis. I am only calling it by its true, full name.

Commonly, in history and philosophy, knowing a thing’s name means having power over it.

I’m well armored, have been for a while. But now, now I have my sword drawn. Now, I’m ready for the real battle to begin. For the first time, even after so many years of being sick, I’m finally unafraid to see the monster for what it really is. To see it completely.

I’m ready to look the beast in the face, call it by its name, and get to slaying.

The Summer I Lost My Love of Writing

Exactly one year ago today, I wrote this blog post. In it, I detailed how I had pretty much lost my love of writing. I was in what seemed like the perfect creative situation–I had a story I loved, and nothing but time to dedicate to it. I was determined to make that summer the summer I finished the first draft of The Birdcage Effect, the fantasy book I’d been writing since high school. It was still in its first draft, but I was in the part of the story I considered to be its ending. I could see the finish line. I could finish this book. Or so I thought.

Things don’t always go as planned, despite how much we want them to. In my mind, that summer, there was nothing stopping me from finishing that book. So when I couldn’t finish it, when I couldn’t make the words come no matter how hard I tried, I blamed myself. The situation was absolutely ideal to me. The planets seemed to have aligned. The only thing that wasn’t working was me.

The more I tried to make myself write this story, the more depressed I became, until I started to hate myself and hate writing. I didn’t understand why I just couldn’t do it. I pushed and pushed myself to create, but I couldn’t create. I had outlined the end of the story, so I knew the problem wasn’t that I didn’t know what was supposed to happen next. I loved the book so much (and still do), so I knew the problem wasn’t a lack of care for the story itself. But despite my planning and my love and my time, the words wouldn’t come. In my eyes, the only thing left that could be the problem was me.

It didn’t take long for this thought process to run amok in my head. If I couldn’t write a story I loved in perfect writing conditions, then what kind of writer was I? Something had to be wrong with me. The swift conclusion I came to was that maybe I wasn’t the writer I had always thought I was. Maybe I had just been humoring myself for years. Because if I couldn’t be successful in what I considered to be the ideal situation, then I certainly couldn’t be successful in any other capacity. I easily dismissed the knowledge of all the hard work I had put forth in the past. Nothing could stand before my deep self-loathing. I tried to fight it, I really did. I wrote that previous blog post in an attempt to be honest, and I did receive some very sweet messages that really meant a lot to me. Some part of my heart knew that the pain wasn’t going to drown me. It was terrifying and loud and persistent, but I still loved my stories. That was the last little thread of hope I clung to while being tossed and beaten by depression.

The summer dwindled away. I didn’t finish the book. I started my senior year in college and moved on to other creative writing projects. The Birdcage Effect has been on the shelf ever since. Only a few months ago was it suggested to me that maybe the story was too messy to finish as it was. After all, I had been writing it for five years. And when I started it, I barely knew the basics of good storytelling. I just wrote because I felt like it. Now, so many years and a college diploma later, I do know the ins and outs of storytelling, and much more than the basics. I can clearly see now that trying to write the end of The Birdcage Effect that summer was nowhere near as simple or as ideal as it had seemed. Just because I had the time to finish the story did not mean that the story was ready to be finished. As a matter of fact, from how I see it now, the only thing The Birdcage Effect is ready for is a total restart. And that’s a scary thing to admit, but not nearly as scary as that summer was, when I tried to tear out my own heart. I almost succeeded, too.

Sometimes what seems as infuriatingly simple as a bad case of writer’s block is a symptom of a bigger problem. I talked about this in the most recent episode of the podcast I’ve been working on.

It was actually that episode that led me to write this blog post. Last year I wrote that, “Writing has become a house I am locked out of. I have lost the key, or it has been stolen from me, and I do not know how to get it back.” To me, trying to finish a failing project was a testament to my own shortcomings. In reality, the only thing it truly was a testament to was how badly the story I was working on needed to be reconsidered. The one thing I didn’t think to blame that summer was the book of my heart. As much as I love it, it needs to change. That summer, it wasn’t ready to be finished. It has taken me a year to learn this lesson, but I am grateful now to know it.

I know now that when I hit a roadblock in my writing, when something inextricably holds me back from putting words on the page, I should not try to force myself to get words on the page. That will only wound my process. Instead of forcing myself to write, I need to step back and ask myself why? Roadblocks exist for a reason. When something halts my process, I need to find out what it is, instead of trying to bludgeon my creativity with it.

After that summer, and after working on creative writing projects for school, I shifted gears to focus on my fantasy novella Like the Raven. With that story, something clicked. Sure, I had to trudge through days of low motivation, but I was always able to persevere and get words down. I even had one of my most plentiful writing days in years. This project was proof to me that I was still a writer, and that I loved writing. It was the right project for me at the right time, and it proved that I wasn’t the problem.

I still suffer from writer’s block often, but now, I have more wisdom on how to address it, and more grace to extend to myself in times of stagnation. I am no longer locked out of writing. I had the key all along, I was just trying to open the wrong door.

Yes, Writers Should Be Critical and Have Standards: A Brief Meditation

This (rather overdue, I know) blog post is born out of some musings that have been gnawing at me for some time now, regarding how writers think and discuss the works of other writers, specifically, writers at or above their same experience level.

You see, I’m going to graduate college with a BA in English with a concentration in creative writing in less than three weeks. I’ve spent the last four years reading excessively, writing excessively, and talking about writing excessively. And as the years have passed and I’ve honed my skills, it’s become clearer and clearer to me how important it is to be honest and transparent when talking about writing, especially at this level. “This level” being the threshold of the professional writing world.

We have honed our craft and we have studied the craft of others. We know, or should be expected to know, what polished, good writing looks like. Why, then, is it so difficult for us to call out bad or lazy writing when we see it? Discerning the quality of writing and articulating valid criticism of that writing should not be something writers shy away from, even if we are afraid of hurting other writers’ feelings. My years of participating in creative writing workshops have taught me how important it is to tell other writers when they are not writing to the full extent of their skills, or if their works are simply not doing what they should be. We should not be afraid to hold writing to a certain standard.

It should be noted, though, that I do not exempt myself from this conversation. I am just as capable of bad or lazy writing as the next person. I have criticized my peers in workshops only to realize that I make the same mistakes I accuse them of. This is a reflective conversation. My desire is just that we writers stop tolerating bad or lazy writing just because the writer is our close friend, or very popular, or anything else. We have a responsibility as a community to hold each other accountable, to hold each other to a high standard.

I have often asked myself in workshops, or while reading certain books, if I am being unnecessarily critical of a writer’s work. I think to myself, “They’ve had a book published and I haven’t. Who am I to criticize them?” Well, the answer to that is this: I am also a writer. I have worked hard for my skills just like them. We both exist in the same literary world. Their work is as open to critique as mine.

I never want to look down at another writer’s work as if I am the authority on what makes good writing. Criticism should never come from a sense of superiority. I don’t criticize other writers because I think I write better than them. I criticize other writers at my level because there is a standard that writing at this level should be held to. We should have high standards–not impossible standards. There is a difference between offering valid, honest criticism and harsh, malicious criticism. We should always offer the former, with nothing but good intentions. But we should never let lazy writing slide because we are afraid that pointing it out will make us seem harsh.

As writers entering this world, our highest priority should be the cultivation of and pursuit of good writing. And we can’t do that properly unless we are willing to be honest about what needs improvement, both in our own writing and the writing of our peers.

Support other writers. Be honest with other writers. Learn from other writers, and work together to tell the best stories you possibly can.

A Tree in The Wind, I Bend

Today I’d like to take a moment to be honest with you all, and myself as well, and speak on a matter that has grown harder and harder for me to ignore in the last few weeks.

This summer has been without a doubt, the most difficult and discouraging season for me as a writer that I have experienced in my life. In May, when I returned home from my university, I was excited for all the time I would have to hone my craft. I looked forward to dedicating all these free hours to my stories. I set a goal for myself–to complete the first draft of my novel, The Birdcage Effect, before the end of the summer. I was convinced I could do it.

It’s now August, and I will be returning to my university before the month’s end. The summer is just about over, and I feel hardly an inch closer to my goal. In the last two months or so, I’ve written just over 7,000 words in The Birdcage Effect. In the document, this is 13 pages. In terms of the state of the plot, it feels as if scarcely anything has moved forward. I’ve been stuck in what I consider the “ending” of the book for some time now, and recently, any attempts I’ve made to continue writing have left me severely discouraged, and full of self-loathing.

The harsh truth about this summer that shakes my heart to the core is this: the more seriously I’ve tried to pursue my writing, the more depressed I have become.

I have never been officially diagnosed with depression. In all honesty, I don’t know how to name what’s happening to me. All I know is how sick I am of feeling this way, and that I don’t know what to do.

There are still stories inside of me yearning to be told. There is still a fire in my heart to tell them. But putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) has yielded me few words, and plentiful misery. This post is more of a confession than anything else. A cry for help, too, perhaps. I am grateful for the stories I’ve been able to tell, and their significance to me has not been diminished. But any writing I’ve managed to do on any of my many, many projects, has given me no joy. I fail to work up any motivation to so much as look at them, but even if I force myself to write something, I am consumed by overwhelming hopelessness.

Writing has become a house I am locked out of. I have lost the key, or it has been stolen from me, and I do not know how to get it back. I know there is beauty and meaning in this craft, but I have not been able to see it for some time. All I can see is my own incompetence. My own failures.

These last few days have been some of the darkest I’ve experienced in a long time. I haven’t slept well–my insecurities torment me at night when I feel most cut off from the people who love me and the things that I love. I don’t know how to put on a brave face anymore. So, here I am, being honest with you all, and myself, about this thing, whatever it is, that has stolen the light from my eyes that writing once kindled, and replaced it with melancholy.

I’m trying my best to keep trying. I know this won’t be the death of me, but I feel so very far from any sort of hope. I don’t know what else to say or do. Every part of me is tired. Every part of me is sick of this.

But I swear this isn’t the end.

Looking at Settings with Personality

Illustration by Victoria Daru

In preparation for the start of #SettingSunday, the Twitter writing challenge that my friend Victoria Daru (@VictoriaDaru ) and I have created, I’ve gathered a couple short excerpts from various projects in order to break down just what we mean when we say that we want “settings with personality.”

A setting is not a character, but it can do just as much work as one. The settings in your stories have the power to reveal important matters relating to theme, tone, plot, character development, and more. There should be no superficial details; everything you say about your environments should have meaning, and contribute to the story as a whole. Your settings should be more than simple places to be.

What does this look like in practice?

The first line of my WIP, Like the Raven, reads:

The two moons hung like silver coins against an inky, starless night.

The notion that the moons resemble coins shows us that our point of view character, Ravenna, is preoccupied with money. This makes sense, because the is an ex-thief, and her outlook on the world around her is shaped by the years she spent as a cutpurse. This passage also tells us that she is travelling by nightfall, which hints at the notion that she is on a mission where time cannot be wasted, and also that her intentions are somewhat nefarious, and she needs the cover of nightfall to conceal her deeds. She is, in fact, on her way to raid a tomb. And lastly, words like “inky” and “starless” set the tone as fairly ominous. The night is without stars, just as Ravenna’s outlook on what she has set out to do is fairly grim–she is not confident that she can achieve the task she has been assigned, and it is the knowing of what will come from not completing her task that darkens Ravenna’s mood.

Some #SettingSunday prompts that this passage would be a match for: A World Without a Sun, Where a Story Starts, A Dark Place, Outdoors.

Another example, from my WIP novel, A Thousand Gifted Hearts, reads:

Embroidered curtains, pale as the face from his memory, billowed across the room.

In this scene, the point of view character, Carnelian, has shattered a window in his home after he believes he is being tormented by the spirit of a character he has killed. The embroidered curtains show Carnelian’s wealth, but the key detail is that he connects the curtains to the face, the face of the person he murdered. This shows that even in his home, a place meant to be safe, Carnelian cannot rid himself of the memory of his foul deeds. He sees her everywhere and in everything, whether or not her ghost is actually following him. The movement of the curtains also implies that the weather outside is tumultuous enough to cause the billowing, which can then be reflective of the inner turmoil Carnelian faces because of his past misdeeds. The external environment reflects the character’s internal environment.

Some #SettingSunday prompts this passage would be a match for: A Ruined Place, Haunted, Somewhere in Time, A Familiar Place Twisted into Something Different.

The quotes you post in response to our prompts can relate in a literal or figurative way, as long as they relate somehow. We want you to think deeply about the environments you craft, and why they matter to your stories. What do they reveal about your plot/characters/theme? Some of the strongest settings are shown through your characters’ interactions with their surroundings. Info-dumping details can kill your readers’ immersion in the world. Don’t let superficial settings slow down your stories.

The prompts for the month of June are already posted on Twitter (@willowylungs & @VictoriaDaru), so take a look! #SettingSunday kicks off on June 5th! We’re eager to join the conversation with you.

Happy writing!

Album Review: Arké by Natasha Jolene

 

Let me preface this by saying I have never done an album review before–but also, I have never encountered an album  quite like Arké by Natasha Jolene. I downloaded this album when it was available on Noisetrade, and I fell in love upon the first listen.

Arké is a seven song concept album that explores the story of humanity’s beginnings, through the book of Genesis, chapters two and three. Its characters and themes show just how much the things that started it all impact humans in the present-day world. The songs are fairly mellow, not over-imposing or in your face. They are soft, even in the moments of suffering and anguish that they portray. Natasha Jolene’s voice is melodic and smooth, and a perfect accompaniment to her lyrics and the tales behind them.

This album portrays its source material as widely applicable to the world at large, yet stays true to its roots. Within the music and words there is peace, heartbreak, doubt, regret, forgiveness, devastation, and hope. Arké is a wonder, and the only way I can express my sincere adoration for it is to show you what it contains that means so much to me.

1) Delight

And every morning dew brought a promise
That we would never have to leave
We sang our songs of breathless wonder
Til the skies filled with harmonies

The album begins in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve. This song embodies the notion of new life, the joy that the first man and woman must have felt in God’s presence. If I had to describe this song in one word, it would be bright. It serves as a perfect introduction, just as the world we live in was perfect when God first made it. It was good. This song is not loud or beaming, but peaceful. I can perfectly picture the sunlight on the leaves, and the couple dancing in the dawn, knowing God and knowing the land and all it had to offer. But as we all know, this delight was not to last.

2) Will

Eternal soul
You’ve seen what isn’t good
Now, nail yourself to the tree
By whose fruit you choose to exist

One of my favorite things on this album is how seamlessly each song leads into the next. The shift from Delight into Will is so well-done, and as the first note rings out, the listener just knows what has happened. This song, as far as I have been able discern, is told from the point of view of God, as He watches His children choose the forbidden fruit. And we are reminded (very cleverly by Natasha Jolene) through the lyrics, that God sees what they are about to do, what they have done, and what will come of it. The shifting verb tenses in the song remind us that God is all-knowing and ever-present. He sees what Adam and Eve have chosen, and He sees where it will bring them, and where it will bring the rest of humanity.

Another one of my favorite choices on the part of Natasha Jolene is her references to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, throughout this album. I’ve heard it said many times that if you don’t see Jesus in the Old Testament, you’re missing the point. And this song is one of those reminders–the idea that through this sin, Adam and Eve have set the wheels in motion. They have let sin fall on humanity, and, one day, the perfect sacrifice will come and be nailed to a tree for their sin, my sin, and your sin. This is such a powerful moment, because it shows Jolene’s ability to mean more than she says on the surface. Though those lines reference a punishment, the listener cannot help but be reminded of the One who will ultimately take the punishment that Adam, Eve, and all of us, deserve. The death of Jesus Christ is foreshadowed, and because of that mention, the listener is powerfully reminded of the hope that we have in Him. I cannot praise Natasha Jolene enough for this genius lyrical device that appears continually throughout the album, where, even in the moments of deep regret and suffering, there is still the thought of hope.

3) Young Wood

Then we heard your voice again
From a distance you said,

“Where are you?”

This song is quite simple, but it captures so much. The repetition of the line, “Where are you?” is so powerful. We know from the original chapters that it is God asking this question, but so often we as Christians will ask of God where He is. We need to be reminded that we were the ones who separated ourselves first. This song captures that separation, that shame, and that fear. Yet, this song is the calm before the storm.

4) The Dust

Who could love the dust?
Our naked souls are tainted now, and
Who could love the dust?
The mud we sling is us

This is, without a doubt, my favorite song on the album. The mark of a great concept album, to me, is when you can understand what has taken place in the story without any lyrics to tell you. When the shift from Young Wood to The Dust occurs, you can feel the transition–you can feel the Fall. You can feel that something has been gravely changed, that something will never be the same.

Natasha Jolene’s words are full of this knowledge, and in this song the curse is placed upon mankind. The realization of what has befallen Adam and Eve is poignant. Simply the way she sings the word “chaos” gives me chills, because it embodies the very real anguish of the moment. Ruin and death are the only fruit known to these characters now, and the reality of what has occurred finally crushes them. They cry out, “who could love the dust?” knowing deep inside that they are the dust and that nothing will ever be the same.

But, as Jolene is so clever, there is more to this question than ruin. Adam and Eve ask the question thinking that the answer is obvious–no one could love them anymore. They imagine the dust as the lowest of the low, unable to be saved or redeemed. But, as we know, this is not true. When I first listened to this song, that line hit me like a punch to the gut. Because there is just so much more behind those words than what Adam and Eve are saying in the moment. As Christians, we know the answer to that question. We know who could love the dust. The answer to that question is Jesus Christ.

This line calls back to the notion that first appeared in Will, the idea that even in a question pronounced with such hopelessness, in the answer and in the future, all is not lost. Jesus Christ did, does, and will love us, the dust. He loved the dust so much that He came and died for the dust. Jesus Christ, the perfect and spotless Lamb, died for the dust. If you take anything at all from this album please let it be that. The anguish expressed in these verses is not without a remedy. And so I praise Natasha Jolene again for telling this story as it should be told, because the most important thing she does in writing about this beginning is that she references its end. We know that though this tale began with pain, it all leads to Jesus Christ, the greatest of all endings.

5) Whose Voice

Who told you you were naked?
Who told you you were naked?
Who told you you were shameful?

Not I, child, not I

This next song contains questions with very different answers than the previous tracks. Again from the point of view of God speaking to His children, Adam and Eve are asked who they allowed to deceive them. Of course, we know the answer to these questions is Satan, the serpent and the first liar. But I want to point out something really profound I realized when I had showed this  to a friend. My friend remarked on the lines above, specifically the question, “who told you you were shameful?”

Our conversation led me to really dwell on the idea that Satan was the one who told us that we were not enough. When God created all of this, He called it good. We were deceived to think less of ourselves than what God saw in us. Looking at our world today, I am astounded by the amount of things we see and are told that make us feel inadequate. Humanity struggles so much with depression and feeling as if we are not valued–it makes perfect sense that the reason sin entered the world was because we were convinced we were not good enough. We were told that we had not achieved enough, and despite the fact that the God of the universe wove them together with His very hands, the idea took root in Adam and Eve that they were not enough.

If you are reading this, I want you to know that God was not the one who told you that you are not good enough. Those voices are not from Him, and that is precisely what this song is saying. It is a haunting reminder of where one of humanity’s deepest insecurities came from. It encourages us to return to the One who made us, to the One who saw us and said that we were good.

6) When Love Subdues

But you stripped my flower of its leaves to cover your own shame!
You’ve reduced me to an ointment to numb the place where your side gapes

I interpret this song as the voice of Eve, reflecting on what has happened up to this point. She acknowledges, ” I do admit to frailty, I do admit to my mistakes.” There is hope in this confession. This song boasts that yes, we have made mistakes, but all is not lost. The conversation of love again reminds us of Jesus, and the promise of Him to come. Hopelessness and hope battle in this song, feeling the weight of the situation but also knowing that the Creator is a Father, and He is love. The knowledge of the love of God leads to strength.  The softness of the melody here is calming and reassuring, because it reminds us of the declaration that when we are weak, He is strong.

7) Skins

This world is no longer glad to see me
And I’m no longer glad to see myself
The consequences of this choice are staggering
I need you; I need your help

The confession expressed in the previous song leads perfectly into the final track on the album–a cry for forgiveness. The acknowledgment that we have no control over this world, that we long for that original state of satisfaction and delight, and that that freedom is only attainable through God.

This song is a quiet meditation on our need for God, and the hope and peace we can have in His presence. It’s a perfect ending to the album, because it reminds us that no matter what we have done, no matter the poor choices we’ve made and their consequences, there is always room for us in God’s kingdom. All we have to do is make this same kind of realization–that we are broken and in need of help from the only One qualified to fix us–our Creator.

---

 

Arké is an album I will never forget. Every time I listen to these songs I am struck by their beauty and the message behind them. If you are looking for simple, lovely, and powerful Christian music, look no further. Natasha Jolene is brilliant, and I thank her sincerely for her hard work and for this wonderful album.

You can listen to Arké, and buy it here: https://natashajolene.bandcamp.com/album/ark

 

Book Review: The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

I picked up The Book of Lost Things at a thrift store over spring break, and, admittedly, I was first drawn to it due to the beautiful cover art. But I am a known fairy-tale and fantasy lover, so when I read the synopsis, I knew I had to take this book home with me.

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly follows the story of David, a young boy in England during World War Two. David’s mother has recently died, and he is thrown into a period of transition and unrest when his father begins a relationship with another woman named Rose, and David and his father move into her house–a huge old house with an attic full of books that becomes David’s new room, and a mysterious sunken garden. David struggles with adjusting to this new life, and when Rose gives birth to a baby boy, his relationships with the members of his family, new and old, becomes strained. Not only that, but David has frequent blackouts and hears the books in his room talking to him. He dreams of a fantasy world and a Crooked Man whose appearances become more and more frequent and disconcerting. Eventually David enters this fantasy world, where he seeks out the old king who rules there in order to find his way home. Along the way he encounters many friends and enemies, and those in-between, and finds himself faced with harrowing choices and nightmarish monsters, none so terrible as the Crooked Man himself. The Book of Lost Things is a tale of bonds, sacrifice, tricks, and what it means to move from childhood into adulthood, that all the while uses the images and themes from common fairy-tales, but twists them into a new, darker and more frightening world.

This book was indeed, very dark. I had not expected it to take the gruesome turns it did once David entered the fantasy world, and I found that my experience with this book was extremely fickle. I felt as if it took a while to pick up at the start, but once David passed into the fantasy world, things picked up almost too much. The twists put on some classic fairy-tales were too much at times. There were moments when I found myself just grimacing for entire chapters, because the events turned so graphic and unsettling. This is definitely not a book for children, despite the somewhat deceiving cover.

Along with that, I felt as if some of the events were not necessary to the plot, but were more thrown in as nods to certain fairy-tale tropes or themes. There were some scenes–at least one whole chapter–that I found completely unnecessary to the plot. If you’d ripped it out of the book, David would have ended up at the exact same place with no real change at all. There weren’t too many of these moments, but enough that I noticed them and they certainly stood out as stumbling blocks to the entirety of the story.

Moving on to the writing style, I found it for the most part very enjoyable. Connolly writes beautiful prose, full of imagery and vivid metaphors. At times, I did find the dialogue awkward. Some things David said periodically struck me as odd, or just not really believable for a twelve-year-old. Other moments in Connolly’s writing I found to be too informative, in the way of “telling” instead of “showing.” There were paragraphs or sections of chapters that, though valuable, were just dumped on the reader quite suddenly, and seemed to trip up the flow of the story. This happened mostly at the end of the book.

And lastly, I found this book predictable. I had guessed both major twists before I was even one-third finished with it, and those twists appeared at the end of the story. The ending felt a bit rushed as well, but it definitely still had its intended effect on me. Congratulations, John Connolly–this book did make me cry. I didn’t expect it to end the way it did, and I can almost forgive the ending for how powerful it was emotionally.

Overall, I rated The Book of Lost Things as 4 out of 5 stars. I am a sucker for fairy-tales, even the dark ones. I really enjoyed this book’s characters, and the plot at its core was well put together. I think all the events converged very  well, and even though I was able to predict a portion of the ending, I was still satisfied. Putting aside the graphic and somewhat irrelevant scenes, this book really grew on me. I can forgive it for those things, and the narrative and stylistic choices that I disliked.

I recommend The Book of Lost Things to anyone who likes dark fairy-tales, and stories and characters that tug at your emotions, even the unpleasant ones.