Mom was in the hospital last week. My routine gets a little wacky when life interrupts like that, but I also appreciate that real life has to happen if we are to write about anything important at all. People get sick. People die, even. And we have to stop and minister to their needs and grieve their passing. We have to step away from the blogs and the WIPs and take time to live.

And when we come back to the writing, it flows with a new vitality.

Here’s the deal: Real life is what gives us fodder for writing. I met with one group of writer friends a couple of days ago and one said she knew someone whose house had recently burned down. The woman lived alone with nine cats. One died in the fire. Instead of praying for the woman, as I would have done if I’d been discussing this with friends from church, or wondering how I could get involved in a fund-raiser, as I would have done if I’d been hearing about the woman’s plight while sharing a beer with friends at the VFW bar, I brainstormed plot ideas sparked by the tragedy and discussed human nature with my writer friends.

The next day I met with a different set of writer friends. One was going to a stay in a hotel for a big dog show. She talked about the different people who go to the shows. The rich people, the hippy-ish people, and the PETA people. We talked about how a hotel with a dog show would make a great closed stage upon which to unfold a mystery and how the people involved in dog shows would make a great cast because of their quirky personalities. And the dogs! How much fun it would be to have dogs involved in solving the mystery.

That’s how it is with writers. We’re always watching the human drama, wondering what lessons can be had, thinking about how neighbors can be stretched a bit to make them larger than life, and seeing the color and chaos of everyday events and wondering how we can weave them into a plot that moves with a purpose.

I think I’m going to start a new occasional feature—Me on Monday.

I am, after all, fascinated with myself and I think everyone else should be, too.

The truth is, I go to church on Sunday and I gain great insights into who I am, and I’m still processing those insights on Monday. I find out on Sunday that I am proud and sinful and unfaithful. And these things affect my writing. But besides hearing from the pulpit that I fall short of the glory of God, there are also the great little snippets I pick up from the people I speak to after the service.

A few weeks ago it went like this:

Friend: I had to stop reading your book. I didn’t hate it. I just had relatives visiting and I’ve been so busy.

Me: No big deal. You do not have to explain. It would be helpful to me if you let me know which page you stopped on, though.

Friend: Oh, I haven’t stopped. I’m going to finish it. It’s just so hard to read on my little Blueberry screen. (Blackberry, Boysenberry, whatever)

Me: I have a hard copy in the car if you’d like.

Friend: That would be great.  I’m going to let my daughters read it. I really don’t hate the book. It’s just that I realize you wrote it for young girls and your heroine is young and will be attractive to girls. She’s stubborn and immature. I can see so much of you in her. She has that “Wah, wah, wah, I’m not going to listen to you because I know I’m right,” thing going on.

Me: Yes, we’re rather arrogant, we two.

I walk away, thinking…

..She thinks I’m arrogant and I won’t listen and I always think I’m right? Am I really that way?

Nah…She’s wrong.

OK, I’ll admit it. I am arrogant and self-centered. I think that’s part of the human condition post-fall. A very ugly part that I must struggle against daily.

And writers may have a double dose of arrogance. It takes a certain amount of self-confidence to let other people read what you’ve written in the first place. We writers have opinions we think are worthy of sharing. We believe what we have to say will be interesting and informative—if we didn’t, we wouldn’t put our stuff out for public consumption.

So, yes, writers are probably by nature more opinionated than some others.

And it’s good for us to listen to what other say about us, and to consider how they perceive us.

But I try to only consider the opinions of others after I’ve written. While I’m writing I try to  let my characters be who they want to be. The characters really are not me. They are acting without restraints I put on myself. They are acting in ways consistent with their own personalities and their personalities are far removed from my personality.

So I can’t think about possible future criticisms or real past criticisms when I’m writing. If I let my fears over my friends’ reactions color the way my characters live and move and have their beings, then I’m going to cripple the book, I think.

What about you? What kinds of funny or off-the-wall criticisms have you gotten, and how do you process them?

My daughter: I don’t have any new books to read. I guess I’ll start Twilight again.

Me: How many times have you read those books?

My daughter: Four.

Me: Oh, we can’t have that. Here, take my Kindle and read the book I wrote. If it’s too hard for you, or if you don’t like it, you can quit. Just tell me what page you stopped on.

The next day:

My daughter: I’m on chapter eleven and I really like it. I keep forgetting that you wrote it and then I remember and I go, “Whoa! My mom wrote this.”

The next day:

My daughter: I’m just at the part where he told her he’s going to rescue her. (laugh) I loved the one line when she counted her buttons. “One, two, three. All packed.”

Me: I laughed when she said that, too.

Two weeks later, after a long Christmas vacation that saw my poor book utterly ignored (my daughter is not a natural born book lover–she only reads on school days) :

My daughter: I finished the book, Mom. I loved it. I cried.

Me: Did you cry, cry, or just mist up?

My daughter: I was bawling. I’ve never cried over a book before.

Me: Why were you crying? Didn’t you hear me talking about the book with your aunt? Didn’t you know how it ended?

My daughter: I cried first because I was so sad, and then I cried again because I was so happy.

Sigh. I don’t care if I ever sell the book. My little girl loved it. That’s got to be better than the Newbery. I understand why agents and editors say, “Don’t tell me your mother loved the book. Mothers can’t judge. They always love their children’s books.” But in the end I don’t care nearly as much about what strangers think of my book as I care about what the people I love think. They are the ones that matter to me.

No, I didn’t ask my daughter if she liked my book better than Twilight. And, NO, I especially didn’t ask her if she thought it was better than Hunger Games. I’m not crazy.

And I don’t have to have her idolize me. I don’t need her to think I’m the best writer ever. To have made her cry for sorrow and then again for joy is more than enough for me.