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Stranger Than Fiction by Ginny Jaques
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Rated "G" by the Author.
An account of my trip home to Vancouver from the ACFW writer's conference in Minneapolis.
Stranger Than Fiction
by Ginny Jaques
I’m on the airporter bus, heading toward the western Canadian border, almost home from an amazing time at the ACFW conference in Minneapolis. It’s late, and it will be much later before my head hits the pillow. I wish I could sleep now, like that tousle-headed man in the seat across the aisle, as if I didn’t have a care in the world, or a zillion important ideas whizzing around in my head. He’s so far gone a bus wreck wouldn’t wake him. How do people do that?
I turn back to my notes—a brainstorm list of all the topics I want to blog about when I get home to my computer and my head quits spinning. First, Industry Chatter—all the rumours I picked up from the authors I talked with. Then, maybe something about the trends—how they seem to have shifted, even since the Mt. Hermon conference in March. And, of course, I’ll have to do a blurb about Angie Hunt. What a wise, honest, humble, obedient child of God she is. Remembering the sound of her voice as she reads us her children’s book, The Three Trees, brings me to my next post.
This one should probably go on my personal blog, because it deals with my perplexity about my WIP. Did I really have to travel clear across the continent only to discover that my completed manuscript falls neatly between all the cracks in the CBA market? The speculative editor doesn’t want it because parts of it are too conventional. The editor of the more conservative house can’t use it because parts of it are too unconventional. And the third says it wouldn’t work for them, even though it might be their kind of story, because it begins with a sci fi element. The ABA is out too, even though the book is written for a pre-Christian audience, because of the strong Christ element.
I know. It’s not all about getting published. The conference was well worth the time and money and effort. I learned so much that is going to make my “completed” manuscript more “finished.” But when the writing is “finished,” what will I do with the story? All doors in CBA are tightly shut at this point, and I don’t see even a sliver of light under any of them.
But Angie has convinced us that our plans for our lives (and our manuscripts) are not necessarily the same as God’s plans. Our plans may have a glimmer of God’s goals in them, but the unfolding of those plans and their ultimate purpose are beyond our comprehension. Our plans are too small, too soon, too easy. Though we need to keep our dreams before us, Angie says, we should hold them loosely. We should walk, instead, day by day, in restful obedience, trusting our Father when our dreams are chopped down and cast away on the lumber pile, no matter how devastating, unnecessary, and irrevocable the waste may seem.
So what else to blog about? A brief report on the ACFW—astronomical growth in numbers, talent and enthusiasm. I could call it The State of the Union or something like that. A blurb about Randy Ingermanson’s zany plans to get rich quick and retire early from at least some of his myriad occupations. John Olson’s, Writing in the Shadows (was that a veiled reference to the new book he’s plugging? Hmm.) Virginia Smith’s advice that is going to help me un-sermonize my message. Wow. This could take a while.
And then a post called, Stranger Than Fiction. Stranger than fiction? Where did that come from? Intriguing, but what kind of material could I put under that title?
Oh well. I write the potential post title down at the bottom of the page, snap my notebook shut, look longingly over at tousle-head, still breathing but only barely, and bury my nose, again, in Camy Tang’s hilariously funny and touching Only Uni.
Time flies when you’re reading a good book. Immediately we’re at the border. I wait until the other passengers have gone by, gather up my things, step out into the aisle, and reach down to touch a blue-jeaned knee. The touch warms me. I love the feel of a cherished-by-God stranger under my hand.
“Huh?” Tousle-head looks up, eyes glazed.
I smile at him. “We’re at the border.”
We’re running late. We’d stopped to pick up passengers from another bus with a flat tire along the highway, and now there’s a line up at customs. But at last we’re away, over the invisible line that separates my two countries, past the airport where we leave half our companions, and into downtown—my almost-final destination. I still have to catch a city bus over to the North Shore. And I have no Canadian cash. It is past 10:00 west coast time—midnight by my internal clock.
Thank God for luggage with wheels. I wander around like a homeless street person trying to find someone who will trade my three American bucks for Canadian loonies. The 7-Eleven attendant finally takes pity. “If you will buy something—anything—I will give you the change in Canadian.” I pick out a banana, give him four US one dollar bills, and collect three dollars and thirty-one cents in Canadian change, carefully divided by my rescuer into the exact coins that will make my future bus driver happy. I clunk my luggage down the stairs from the store to the sidewalk, sort through the money in my hand, pull out two loonies and two quarters, drop the rest in the upturned baseball cap thrust in front of me by a fellow street person—another God-loved one—and trudge down the street to my bus stop.
The 240 arrives. I want the 246. I hesitate, then, as a precaution, I poke my head in the door and ask, “Will the 246 be coming?” My question interrupts a running dialogue between the bus driver and one of the passengers at the front of the bus.
The driver shakes his head. “It runs from Park Royal on weekends. Get in. I’ll take you across the bridge and you can catch it on the other side.”
I hop on the bus. Well, I don’t exactly hop. I bounce my luggage-on-wheels up the steps. I drop my perfect-change fare into the receptacle and turn to find a seat. The driver pokes my forgotten transfer into my hand and the running dialogue with the other passenger, which has continued throughout my transaction with the driver, shifts five degrees counter-clockwise and focuses on me. I sit down in one of the few available seats on this crowded bus, behind the driver and across from Mr. Running Dialogue. He grins at me.
“What’s the suitcase for? Going away somewhere?”
“No, I’ve been. I’m heading home.”
“Oh. Where’d ya go?”
“I went to the United States.”
“The United States? Why’d ya go there?”
“For a conference.”
“A conference? What was the conference about?”
I decided this guy had missed his calling. He should have been a border crossing guard. He had the customs and immigration interrogation routine down pat.
“It was a writing conference.”
“Oh. You’re a writer, are ya? What’d ya do at the conference, write?”
“No, I went to workshops and talked with editors to see if they wanted to buy my book.”
“Oh. You have a book? Did any of them want it?”
“No. No one wanted it.” I glance around at the large, silent audience in the front half of the bus. I’m sure they feel, like I do, that this is too much information, but I don’t know how to stop the flow without being deliberately rude. Come to think of it, deliberately rude probably wouldn’t work anyway.
“Why didn’t they want it? Not good enough?” I notice the young woman sitting next to our talkative fellow passenger. Her head is slightly averted, but she’s following the conversation out of the corner of her eye and smiling into her collar. The young man next to me does a subtle but supportive “nudge, nudge, say-no-more.”
“No, it’s good enough. They just didn’t want it.”
The dialogue continues, covering such diverse topics as:
My husband: “Why would he let you go off by yourself? What if some man wanted to come up to your hotel room for a drink?”
“Wouldn’t happen.”
“You never know. It happens all the time.”
My blue jeans: “Blue jeans look good on you. Everyone can wear blue jeans. Old people. Young people. Doesn’t matter. I don’t know why anyone wears pants suits or dresses or anything else.”
My kids: “Where does your son live?”
“The Dominican Republic.”
“Why does he live so far away. Don’t ya get along?”
“No, we get along fine. He just likes it there.”
“The Dominican Republic, eh?” A cherubic smile spreads across his face. “It’s nice and warm there.”
We sit in companionable silence for a full thirty seconds, enjoying the mini mind-vacation before the next topic is introduced.
“How old are you?”
“Not telling.”
He screws up his face and assesses me through the slits in his eyes. “I figure your kids have to be around twenty years younger than you, right?”
“Close.”
He assesses some more: “So they must be thirty or so.”
“Not telling that either.”
“Or thirty-five.”
Finally, it’s my stop. I grab my suitcase, say a fond farewell to my new-found friend and thank the driver, who grins as I go by. The 246 waits for me at the rear of this bus, its defused yellow lights beaming softly through the mist of a typical Vancouver September night.
This bus is not crowded at all. Empty seats everywhere. I move to the back, thinking of climbing up to the elevated level for a better view, but hauling the suitcase up and down the stairs doesn’t make sense so I change my mind. There’s a young woman by the window to my right. I sit down in the seat beside her. She smiles and I smile back as the bus pulls away from the curb.
“You did a good job talking to that man,” she says.
“Oh. You were on the other bus?”
She nods. How had she gotten on before me? I hadn’t seen her. After a pause she says, “I was especially interested in your conversation about your writing. I’m trying to be a writer. I’m working on a novel.” Her speech is shy, almost apologetic. She peeks up from behind soft bangs, a pretty girl, with eyes that hint of wisdom forged out of pain.
We chat. I ask about her WIP. “It comes out of my personal experience,” she says, with a glimmer of a smile again. “I’ve recently had cancer.” She touches her breastbone, and then she gives me her pitch. It’s a storyline I think any publisher would be a fool to pass over. She asks about my WIP, and listens with more interest than anyone’s shown in a week. “You know. I’ve got a friend over on the island. He’s a publisher and I think he might be interested in what you’ve got. He publishes books with spiritual themes.”
Much later I sit at my computer, checking my e-mail. Her midnight posting is first. Subject line: “Quick hello from the woman on the bus :)” I click on the publisher’s address she’s given me in the message and peruse his client list and the books he offers. Several fantasies—not too dark. An historical or two. And another book about a lost lover—a gay man who “stops at nothing to find a perfect love, and hope for a perfect peace.” I’d love to tap into this market audience.
I have a strong suspicion this publisher won’t want me either, but it’s the thought that counts. God’s thought. I see his hand so clearly in this series of surreal, serendipitous encounters on my way home from the conference. He’s letting me know that he can pluck a publisher out of a hat in my backyard if he needs to. I see him picking up the planks of my discarded dream, treasuring them, perhaps setting them aside for a while, but ultimately using them for his purposes, as Angie has told us He will. I’m reminded that he delights in the simple acts and accidents of life—the animal feed boxes and the small fishing vessels—just as he delights in the simple people we travel through that life with. And I’m encouraged to believe that some day my broken lumber may be shaped into something that will hold Great Treasure for someone. Meanwhile, I’ve made a new friend—another God-treasured one. She lives just down the street from me. We’re going to next month’s North Shore Writers Group meeting together and we’re already talking about forming a critique group.
A very loving God is at work in our world. His purposes will be fulfilled, through the small, everyday occurrences of our normal daily lives. I’m warmed by the thought, and delighted by the unexpected reminder, on my way home, that God’s ways can sometimes be stranger than fiction.
Note: Since my husband's cancer surgery 4/25/05, this book content has been integrated into the public speaking content for audiences interested in a sassy approach to personal and/or community awareness events. Another chapbook on intimate love poet
GLIMPSE OF AN ANGEL IS NOW AVAILABLE. A PORTION OF ALL SALES WILL GO TO HOSPICE TO THUS ENABLE THEM TO HELP OTHERS WHO ARE SOON TO PASS TO THE OTHER SIDE. NO LONGER AVAILABLE.
