The Glorious Muddle

glimpses of grace in the messiness of life

November 11, 2024

Introduction to the World

I’m proud to introduce to the world, (drum roll, please) . . . my newest book and the final installment of A Cold War Trilogy: Three Colors of Courage!

It’s been nine years since I wrote the first chapter of the first novel for my graduate fiction writing class in 2015. Five years since I signed the contract for One Degree of Freedom to be published. Since then, I’ve had three books come out, including a little detour from the series with the prisoner’s memoir that I wrote. This is the last book in the series (young adult historical fiction set in Cold War Romania), and I think it’s the most important and the timeliest one of all.

A little about the book

The grip of Communism tightens around Romania in the fall of 1989. As neighboring Eastern European countries cast off their oppressive regimes, Adriana Nicu and her friends must navigate increasingly hostile living conditions, mandatory military training, and terrifying tactics from the secret police. Adriana draws courage to question her government and take a stand for freedom from the banned books she reads.

Adriana looks to her cousin Timotei and her new female professor for guidance, fueling her determination to persist despite the odds. She and her friends demonstrate true courage as they stand up for what is right, even when success seems unattainable. When the stakes rise, Adriana must decide—once and for all—what she believes about God and what price, if any, is too high to pay for freedom.

Kirkus Reviews calls it “An unsettling evocation of Cold War–era repression, whose legacy seems timelier than ever.” Read the whole review here.

A little about the series

A young girl’s secret passion for forbidden books sparks a journey from oppression to freedom in Cold War Romania. She will need a hunger for freedom, relentless hope, and courage that defies all odds.

This coming-of-age trilogy begins in 1987, chronicling Adriana Nicu’s journey through the turbulent final years of Cold War Romania, where invisible forces always listen and watch. When fifteen-year-old Adriana walks through a wardrobe in Bucharest, she discovers a hidden room filled with stacks of forbidden novels. Adriana defies the oppressive Communist regime by secretly reading these banned books. The stories become her refuge and the characters become her guides, bringing light into the darkness.

In her yearning for freedom and individuality, Adriana navigates the dangers of dissent in the turbulent days leading to the coming revolution. Evil confronts her at every turn in her quest for truth. As the stakes rise, Adriana must decide—once and for all—what she believes about the God she was told doesn’t exist.

Through Adriana and her friends, find inspiration in the resilience of the human spirit in the face of oppression and the transformative power of stories, faith, and freedom.

A noble theme

In Psalm 45:1, the psalmist writes, “My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer.”

I wanted this series to reflect the noble themes of freedom, hope, and courage. My heart’s desire is that you, the reader, will enjoy the story, fall in love with the characters, and be inspired by the real-life courage of the Romanian people.

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July 16, 2024

Cutting the Parts People Skip

July is half over and I’m not yet half finished with my one huge task for the month: revision. Thinking of this causes me stress. I am revising my third and final novel, Three Colors of Courage. It’s an action-packed conclusion to the series, and it’s so good–really good!–that I can’t wait to get it out into the world. I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself to launch the novel before Christmas. More stress.

Revision is hard work. It takes a lot of unhurried time and it can be emotional. The process can’t be rushed. I’m tweaking my book to make it the best it can be.

Every night, I go to sleep with the story and the characters on my mind. My mind never stops working, trying to puzzle out how to make the changes I need to make. Every detail I alter affects many others.

The process reminds me of working a jigsaw puzzle. In fact, when I get stuck, I like to walk away from my laptop for a break, and work on a puzzle. The puzzle work sets my mind free from consciously being in the world of the novel. Something about using a different part of my brain to solve problems and finding the perfect piece to fit the puzzle together is like magic for me. While I do the puzzle, my subconscious continues working on my novel.

My best ideas come while I’m asleep. (Or when I’m walking.) I try to jot down all my ideas when I first wake up, but this morning I had so many that I was worried I’d forgotten some details.

And then I read this in our devotional, My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers:

“God is my Father, He loves me, I shall never think of anything He will forget, why should I worry?”

As I took my walk, I kept reciting that sentence over and over in my mind. I will never think of anything He forgets. No need to worry. He’s got it covered!

So what exactly am I doing? Why is revision so difficult? Revision is not proofreading. It’s more than fixing sentence-level issues like grammar, punctuation, and word choice. (That process will happen later.) What I’m doing now is overhauling some of the big-picture issues. Things like story arcs and plot structure, character arcs and motivations, pacing and tension.

I look to famous authors who’ve gone before me for advice. Elmore Leonard makes revision sound easy. He writes, “I leave out the parts that people skip.” I love this! If only it were that simple.

When Ernest Hemingway was asked what stumped him enough that he rewrote the ending to Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times, he answered: “Getting the words right.”

Revising means being willing to commit murder. To scratch out characters, to cut whole scenes or remove entire chapters, or to eliminate or drastically alter sub-plots.

Let me tell you, it’s hard to kill my darling characters. I kind of like them. After all, I created them. As an author, I’m not able to be impartial when it comes to murder. Yet it’s something all authors have to come to grips with. I expect to have my sleep interrupted often these next few weeks by my characters pleading for their lives.

In the late 1800s, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch first came up with this piece of writing advice that has been quoted by authors ever since: “Murder your darlings.”

Stephen King expanded on the theme: “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”

This month, I am committing murder as I try my best to cut the parts people skip. And I’m confident that I will never think of anything that God forgets.

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December 23, 2023

A Quiet Christmas

I wanted to be snowed in this Christmas. To be tucked away at home, all cozy and wrapped up in blankets, reading books in front of the fireplace, my husband and I with cups of hot chocolate in our hands. Exactly the way I love for the week between Christmas and New Year’s to be: quiet and unplanned. But this year I wanted to be snowbound on Christmas Day itself.

Why, you may ask? This year, it would just be my husband and me, and I’m feeling a little blue. Isn’t it better to be stuck at home–alone–from the snow than because you don’t have any plans?

Except for two things, I’m getting exactly what I wished for.

One, the ground is dry and no snow is predicted.

Two, I feel pretty crummy. I’m tucked away at home because I have Covid.

I’ve discovered there’s not that much difference between being quarantined at home from an illness and being stranded at home from a snowstorm. Both options mean you can’t leave your house.

And here’s the funny thing: except for feeling sick–which actually is a big exception, it’s not that bad for me being quarantined.

Steve and I did a ton of Christmas activities last week–the musical Anastasia, the ballet The Nutcracker, and a Romanian Christmas concert–and I caught Covid at one of them. We had the hoopla and the rushing around and the traffic and the to-do lists. And more than that, we had lots of fun. I felt like I was starting to come back to life again. I got a taste of things to come.

Now I get a chance to be quiet and still. To sit in front of the lights, listen to Christmas music, and read lots of books. (I’ll easily surpass my GoodReads reading challenge now!)

I have time to reflect.

To remember Christmases past with my family. The happy times when I was young and we were all together. The last three years, both the trauma–filled with ER visits and deliriums and dying–and the sweetness and grace upon grace those final months with my parents. I would not trade that sweetness for anything.

I remember Christmases overseas. My first one when my team of four were stranded in Bucharest for several days–a city with no heat or streetlights or decorations. When the airport finally reopened, we barely made it to Switzerland in time to meet the other Eastern European teams who’d gathered in a small mountain village.

That Christmas Eve, several of us walked through the thick, quiet snow to a beautiful Anglican church where we listened to the words of Stille Nacht (Silent Night). My heart was so full of gratitude that year. Gratitude for all the miraculous things I’d seen God do in Eastern Europe. Gratitude that I was there, that we’d made it out on the last flight.

This year, I have lots of unplanned, unhurried time to think about what Christmas is all about. Not the Hallmark movie idea of what it’s all about, but the wonder of God stooping to earth in the form of a baby. A baby who came to die for me and for you. To ponder the great mystery that God chose to enter our darkness so that we can enter into his light.

“Life itself was in Him, and this life gives light to everyone. The light shines through the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it.” John 1:4-5

Silent Night
Holy Night
Shepherds pray at the sight
Glory streams from heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing hallelujah
Christ the Savior is born
Christ the Savior is born

Merry Christmas, Friend! May you find quiet moments to reflect on the mystery.

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November 28, 2023

Empty Seats, Empty Tables

Photo by Jack Brown on Unsplash

Our number has been cut in half this year. With the loss of both my parents, my father last year and my mother three months ago, we’ve gone from four to two. Any season of grief is hard enough, but the holidays magnify the sense of loss and sadness exponentially. We all expect to be surrounded by family, by smiling happy family, and when we’re not, we’re disappointed.

This is our holiday season of firsts. First one without any parent. First one with just my husband and me. To not only survive the holidays, but to make them special and meaningful, we have to be intentional.

When I lived overseas, I spent a few holidays alone. I moved there alone. I left to move back to the States alone. And by “alone,” I mean by myself alone. Sometimes married friends would commiserate, “We feel lonely, too.” And I would think, when you can use a plural pronoun–we–you cannot fully understand the meaning of “I feel lonely.” I have not forgotten that.

I realize how blessed I am to use a plural pronoun. I get that. Being intentional about Thanksgiving and Christmas does not mean me making a plan for myself. But I still need to make a plan for the two of us. Compared to a large smiling family, two can also feel lonely. Grief is hard no matter how many people remain.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, we had my mom’s memorial service. It was beautiful and honoring to her. The best part was all the extended family who came, many traveling quite a distance. Mom would have loved knowing they were all there, looking at her photo albums at my house beforehand, recounting memories and stories from her limitless supply.

But then the family left to go to their own homes, and just Steve and I remained. For the last thirteen years in my caregiving role, all of our holiday gatherings have revolved around my parents. We grew accustomed to the four of us.

Now that my parents are gone, I just couldn’t motivate myself to cook a big meal and make things festive for such a small number. So we didn’t. We picked up take-out turkey dinners and ate in our dining room, decked out for fall.

We couldn’t ignore the obvious. Something was missing. The song from Les Miserables, “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables,” kept playing in my mind. Phantom faces, phantom shadows. I placed name cards that my mom had made several years ago at their former places. Steve and I acknowledged the empty seats at our Thanksgiving table while giving thanks to God–through tears–for our absent loved ones. We remembered them, answering our sadness with happy memories.

“The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them,” writes Francis Ward Weller.

When we finished eating, we took off to drive into the mountains. Most trees were bare of leaves, but they proudly held their heads high with dignity. There was something beautiful about them. Majestic even. And the occasional evergreen managed to peek through. Life was still visible. My life feels as though it’s been stripped bare at times, but this intense sadness only lasts for a season. It will pass.

We made it through this first Thanksgiving, our first modified Thanksgiving, with a new tradition of going to the mountains. Now we must be intentional about Christmas. After Mom’s service, I knew I didn’t have the energy to haul down the many boxes of decorations from the attic and put everything out. Besides, if I went to all that trouble, who would see it?

I would. We would. I knew that if I skipped decorating altogether, I’d be depressed. So I decorated a little, a scaled-down version just for my husband and me. We started to make plans for a few Christmas activities, not too many but something to look forward to, something to put in our calendar. Community theatre, horse drawn carriage rides, church dinners, Christmas shopping, advent devotionals, a Romanian concert. The best antidote to feeling lonely is to initiate with someone, so we reached out to invite a few lonelier-than-us people over in December, a tradition we set in place our first year of marriage.

Mostly, we want to remember and be thankful for all the years God gave us with Mom and Dad, while not running away from the sadness at their absence. We want to hold grief and gratitude together, in hands outstretched to the Lord.

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September 16, 2023

Learning How to Grieve and Mourn

I am fresh into a new grief that started three weeks ago and I’m still living in the wake of one that began many years ago. Everyone faces grief at some point; it’s part of being human. I’ve learned a few things about grief and mourning that I hope may help you.

Did you know there’s a difference between grieving and mourning? Grief is the feeling of great sorrow, the profound sadness. Mourning is the expression of that feeling. It’s the lament. Grief is inward and personal. Mourning is outward and can be done in community.

My grief is due to the loss of two parents to dementia: the cruel disease which starts out making you–closest observer and caregiver–question whether you’re imagining things. Friends and family far away often do think you’re exaggerating. Dementia moves slowly and leaves a long path of destruction in its wake.

We all have to grieve on our own. Grief causes me to move in slow motion. I don’t have the energy I used to, but it is returning–slowly. I cry easily, seemingly for no reason. My arms and legs feel heavy when I move.

I’m not just dealing with the loss of my mom, but with the stress from repeated traumas over years of caregiving. The last several years caring for both parents left me with a bit of PTSD. I don’t know when I’ll recover. How does my mind tell my body it no longer has to hold on to the stress?

The last 18 months, nurses called our landline frequently, always in the middle of the night, to let us know Mom fell again. To inform us whether she had to go to the ER. Now when our landline rings, I clench up. When I go to bed, my muscles tense up. I’ve been conditioned, just like Pavlov’s dog. I can’t seem to turn off the adrenaline. I needed it then; I don’t need it now.

But I have to let myself feel this. All of it. If I don’t grieve now, it’ll rear it’s ugly head later. As I let myself feel sad, I relive it all. All the years of delusions and wandering and agitation and confusion and inconsolable tears and paranoia and fear.

I’m grieving for both parents all at once. I’m reliving Dad’s death along with Mom’s.

Loss has both a cumulative and a triggering effect. I can’t face the loss of my mother without remembering the loss of my father just 18 months earlier. That takes a lot out of me; there’s not much left over. I may look like I’m myself, but I’m not. Many people don’t understand and expect me to be able to do more. I still need time. I’m trying not to let their disappointment–their opinion of me–affect what I do.

I want to wear a neon sign on my forehead. “My mother just died.” When Dad died, I wanted a sign that said, “My father just died.” Every day these three weeks, this is the steady refrain that hangs over everything. I want people to know why I’m not back to normal yet. Will I ever be?

When I moved back to the States after living abroad, I wanted a sign to warn people why I looked and acted and seemed out-of-place. I expected to acclimate after a while and become a normal American. I did acclimate somewhat, but I’m not who I used to be. Eastern Europe changed me. I am not the same person I was before I moved there. And I’m glad for that.

I don’t think I’ll ever be the same person I was before the caregiving and the loss. And I’m not sure I want to be.

Caregiving was the hardest thing I’ve ever done but it was one of the biggest honors of my life. I am so grateful I had the chance to walk through these last few years with Mom and Dad. I think I softened the journey home for them.

As I feel the grief, I’m allowing myself to lament. Mourning is expressed best in rituals, in things we do. Visiting the cemetery. Crying, alone or with others. A public service to celebrate a life lost. The Jewish tradition of sitting shiva after a death is a wonderful way to heal. Mourners gather in the home of the grieving person and sit silently with them for seven days.

My personal mourning includes writing in my journal, taking walks in nature, reading Psalms, listening to a playlist I made for Mom of her favorite music, looking at her photo albums, remembering, staring into space, retelling stories (even if it’s only to myself). Writing this blog is therapeutic to me. I’m a writer; it’s how I process and heal. And I hope my words may help someone else process and heal.

The week after Mom died, I went on a personal two-day retreat. I did all the rituals of mourning listed above. The beautiful setting in nature and the time away was very therapeutic to me. After months of feeling numb spiritually, my overall sense during that time away was that God still loves me.

I hope you feel that, too. God still loves you. He loves you in your sorrow.

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Taryn R Hutchison

Telling stories to help you soar