2. I Want to Write a Banned Book
Podcast Transcript:
“When God created the world he said, it is good, and it was. For a time when. I say God it encompasses the universal acceptance that something larger than us exists. every culture across the world has an understanding of an Almighty, a great light, a king, a warrior, a father, a mother. When I say God, I do not mean judge, I mean comfort, I mean hope, I mean that we are made for more than for this world.”
I am Alanna and this is Racing Home, the podcast where I unpack the journey of writing the first book in a series about the end of the world. Welcome.
Last week I said I was going to dive into the discussion of religious themes and images and why that plays such an important role in my writing, but before we do anything, I have a horrible confession to make. I am recording this on October 11th. Yesterday I released the trailer for this podcast. The ugliness of the algorithm buried it so that I think it got like 10 nods, 12 views, just something so personally destructive. It was just so frustrating. I actually really like the trailer that I made but that is neither here or there. Today I posted a photo of me the writer discussing the struggle of finding time to write, making time to write, adjusting my priorities, and leaning into discipline to make it happen. Ironically, it immediately got attention. Whatever. Screw you, Instagram. I don't understand what's going on, but here's the thing, I hashtaged my photo with TPTTUH which is ‘The Path That Takes Us Home’ and that is going to be the hashtag that I use on everything that I post regarding this particular manuscript—this whole series—so I clicked the hashtag and was horrified to discover that I started working on this book in 2016. 2016! Do you understand how long ago that is? there weren't a lot of things attached to that that hashtag, but I did begin this story as a Nano project in 2016, so what I did was I actually logged into my Nano account just to see if… I didn't know if they held on to stats or anything… and I was mortified to discover that they do. So, on November 1st 2016 I wrote the first words of The Path That Takes Us Home. I can see my daily word count chart and in that month I did write every day except for four. I missed four days in the whole month. I did not reach the goal of 50,000. I came in at 32,526. Awesome, right? Great! Good for 2016 me. But listen, I told you last week that my word count was 52,433… so I have my calculator… 52,433 subtract 32526… Oh, I'm so embarrassed right now. Okay, that means that since since November 30th 2016 I have only written 19,997 words. If you remember the solo writing retreat I went on in July, a huge percentage of that number actually just happened in July. So what do I do with this? Nothing. I mean it is what it is. I'm really really disappointed in myself that I've let this just drag on for so long. I don't understand what that is. Just a whole lot of self-sabotage and I don't know… I have no business being here. How long ago was 2016? Seven years! This project has been in my brain for seven years. No wonder I'm feeling crazy. It needs to come out.
I know that there was a big chunk of the stuff that I wrote in 2016 that is actually part of book two and book three. There are major scenes that I've already developed that have been removed from my current word count to sit in my Scribner documents for book two and book three. So if we look at it like that, I've written more than 19,000 in seven years. It is also worth mentioning (so that I don't get too down on myself) that since then I've released The Church in the Wildwood, The Ghost of Iris Carver, and Blackbird, so it's not like I've just been sitting on my hands. It's just this specific project that has somehow just been escaping me and it's time to catch it.
And so the purpose of this podcast was to be really honest and to really unpack where I'm at and what the writing process is actually like… and probably to discourage you from ever trying to write your own book because it is maddening, but also, in the end, it's always really rewarding. So maybe you should turn this off; maybe stop listening to me. I don't know. I'm really just embarrassed, and I will also confess that today, on October 11th when I record this, my word count is still sitting at 52,433 words because I have written zero. Big fat zero. And that's also embarrassing. And I would like to apologize to myself and assure you that I am making change and I do have plans and we're going to see that number move because it has to. And because I'm being public about it, I did actually post the date December 31st deadline for a finished manuscript publicly today. So if you're rooting for me, thank you. If you're here to watch me fail, thank you. You're going to give me some great motivation.
So that's my ‘here's where we're at’ update. Let's let's talk a little bit about religion. I know that's heavy, but it's a big part of all my writing. I grew up in a very conservative Christian home and every night before bed my whole family would gather in the living room and one of my parents would read a chapter from a novel and then the other parent would read a chapter from the Bible. We would take Bible stories and focus on those and read through specific Bible stories rather than a chronological journey through the whole Bible. On top of that we also attended Sunday morning church. I attended Sunday school as well as Wednesday night kids programs. We were very very involved in our evangelical church, so I had a very dedicated Christian education and feel like so many of those Bible stories are super ingrained into who I am—into my identity, into my upbringing—and they leak out all the time.
Now you may or may not know this, but before I went into publishing full-time with Chicken House Press I did work for a church. So I was almost 19 years working part-time in a church, sitting at the staff table, working closely with pastors and other ministry leaders. I got a real look at the ugly underbelly of the inner workings of the church and I do not recommend it for anyone. So I'm now a couple years removed from that and I've been doing a lot of exploration of my own faith, understanding the contradiction between what I was taught growing up and then what I saw behind the curtain as an adult. trying to reconcile the two and not having a lot of success. Where I'm ultimately at right now is that my my own faith journey doesn't have to have anything to do with the church. It's just about a relationship with who I understand God to be. I do believe there is a God. I refuse to believe that we are here by chance by accident— that it's all just chaos—and if you are uncomfortable with that belief, that's absolutely fine. I'm not trying to push any kind of agenda. I'm just not brave enough to be an atheist. (Parenthesis: that is a direct quote from one of the characters in my book. Close parenthesis.)
I will say that my rich knowledge of all these biblical stories does play a huge role in how I unpack characters. It's interesting how it comes out rather subconsciously as I write because I never set out to reference the Bible in any way or tell a biblical story, but it happens. It comes out. I tend to have a lot of Old Testament references because the brutality of the Old Testament is fascinating and dark and often the stories that I'm telling have that kind of a vein. If you read The Church in the Wildwood or Blackbird you'll understand there was a real theme of religious trauma. I did reference a lot of different biblical things as characters worked through that trauma, and I do believe that that's a lot of a reflection of my own journey. Certainly not in the same way that my characters experienced it, but it just happens.
For the record, I want to be very clear that I am not writing Christian fiction and I have no intention of ever going down that path. I don't believe that is my purpose here. I remember when The Church in the Wildwood came out the church librarian requested to have it in the church library and I said no no, that is so inappropriate. It does not belong there. It doesn't matter that “church” is in the title. Church within my book meant something completely different than what church at the institution in question was talking about. So no, I am not a Christian author; I do not write Christian fiction; I have zero interest in being lumped into that category. And if you are interested in what happens when boundaries are pushed and you haven't read the The Church in the Wildwood yet, you can go there and find out what happens when the town Reverend falls in love with the town whore.
I do love the surprise of religious imagery within pop culture or secular mediums: books, music, movies, television shows. I think there's something comforting in a lot of those images and it can also be unsettling which can be a goal of a certain theme. I remember in my first book I talked about a biblical story wherein a king was murdered well he was on the toilet which I think is kind of hilarious and disgusting, but pulling in those stories that aren't necessarily mainstream Bible stories I think is surprising and throws people for a little loop. I actually have a lot of fun with that. I do like to educate myself as I write so when I wrote Blackbird there was a lot about Catholicism in there and I did a lot of exploration and learning around that. In When the Trees All Burned I have a pretty major character who was raised up in Hinduism so that's been really fascinating and I really I enjoy that. I think it's a great challenge to explore something outside of myself and apply it in a believable way to a character. That is the great challenge obviously. Leaning into my Evangelical upbringing… that's a much easier step for me to apply that to a character… but I am very cautious not to overdo that. Just as in the real world where everyone is coming from different backgrounds, different upbringings, different religions, different ideas about the world, so too, when you create a cast of characters, you must ensure that there diversity, that they are all from different backgrounds. You can't build a cast that is all the same. That would be the most boring book ever. I have been really intentional with When the Trees All Burned to be as diverse as I can while still being respectful and honouring all the cultures, religions, sexualities that I am representing with within the book and that's kind of a new and tricky balance. And it is a little risky because obviously I only have my own experience and then whatever research I can do, so all I can do is my best to create a believable cast of characters who represent a diverse world and I think that's really important. So, as I said, I can't have a whole mass of characters—I'm not building a Congregation of like-minded people—so the one Evangelical that I actually have in my cast of characters right now who was raised Evangelical is actually a comedian, she lives in New York City, she's a lesbian, her father is a pastor of an Evangelical Church, and so we get to see some of the tension around that as she balances her upbringing with her lifestyle. And just for fun, if you'll indulge me for just a minute, this character does an actual stand--up show during a scene in the book. So I wrote a portion of this stand-up which is really difficult because it's hard to translate the experience of stand-up comedy onto the page. So as an exercise in exploring whether what I wrote could actually translate to live, I went back to high school drama class (which I never actually took because I was afraid) but I pretended to be this character and I put on a comedy show and I recorded it. So I'm going to give you a little clip of that. It's going to give you a little sense of her (if you can pretend she doesn't sound like me) and a little bit about how her upbringing is coming into to play into her adult life. So yeah. You're welcome.
“So he goes into that bit and I was like “Whoa Dad, listen, I'm not stupid. And he was like God is love, Bonnie, and he wants you to be safe and find the right partner.” And I was like, “Yeah, and she'll be hot.” he didn't like that at all. And I said. “Dad, if God is God and God is love and love is God then Love Is Love. Just love. Just love, that's all it is. I go to his church sometimes. He likes when I go but I can only stomach so much of it, you know? Sometimes the music is just so cheesy and such a show that I can't even handle it. Like what are they doing up there? A bunch of worship leaders fantasizing about but how Jesus actually looks like Phil Collins while the drummer does way too much because he really wants to be touring with Beyonce. And why are they called worship leaders? Something about that just hits me the wrong way. If God is love and love is love, don't we already know how to worship just by our love? You know? By their definition, I am a worship leader. Do you know what I'm saying? Like I am doing what I was created to do, and I'm leading you in laughter which is, at its core, one of the purest forms of love. And if love is God… you see what I'm saying. So, will you join me in worship?”
It's been very interesting to explore that and I'm having a lot of fun with it and I hope readers will connect to that as well. That being said, I recognize that there's a there's a large demographic where that kind of approach—that kind of character—is going to cause controversy, and to that and to them I say: bring it on! I would love to write a book that is banned in Texas. I think that might be a mark of good work. I just learned from one of my Chicken House Press authors that Anne of Avonlea has been banned in certain Southern schools because of Anne and Diana's bosom friendship just… oh my goodness! Come on! So if that's being banned, I'm definitely going to be banned for a gay comedian raised in the church. So that's going to be a good time.
Anyways, that's a little bit of my thoughts about using religious themes within my writing. It's just going to be part of it. If you are going to read an Alanna Rusnak book you are going to find religious images and biblical references. And if that makes you uncomfortable I would just like to remind you of Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction and the way he passionately quoted scripture before blowing someone's face off. There's a place for everyone, friends.
So, to wrap things up this week I am going to carry on with the excerpt that was the clip from the very beginning. That was the opening excerpt I will conclude with the end portion of that section…
When I say God I mean it was a divine force that opened my eyes and told me what needed to be done. I don't care what you call this force. God (Big G), god (little G), Allah, Creator, Santa Claus. We are all speaking of the same thing. We are all speaking about love. When I created Eden it was not to give naked people a place to prance. The dance of Eden is the pure intention of that original creation. To take what we are given and to nurture it perfectly. Every society has the capacity for this Utopia and yet every society to date has wasted this opportunity for equality. Yes, God promised to never again destroy the world with a flood, but he didn't promise to never again destroy the world by other means. We have invited such wrath. We are the whole reason for this ending. We have chosen this, and while this does sound like the verdict of a vindictive judge it is actually the disciplinary hand of a loving parent. If you abuse the toy the toy is taken from you. He who makes his bed must then lie in it.
Chin up, Bright Eyes. We'll chat again next week.
Racing Home is a Chicken House Press production; theme music by Alex Grohl and Alanna Rusnak
If you would like to support my writing journey with a small financial donation you may do so by visiting bio.site/alannarusnak That link is available in the show notes. You can make a donation of any size of your choosing and it will go towards funding the production of this book. Writing takes a lot of time, a lot of energy, it requires a lot of coffee and chocolate. So if you want to help out that's one way you can do it. Donations over $50 will be automatically signed up to receive a signed copy of When the Trees All Burned at least one week before official launch.
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