Bigger than Ourselves - Chapter 11: Some Non-Fictions about Writing Fiction

by Dan Masterton

So here we are, at the final chapter of what is (for now at least) my final fiction story. It’s been fun to work through the process and share it, and I’ve definitely learned a few things worth sharing.

The final chapter is a bit of an epilogue, so I let the last bit of the story stand on its audiobook-own. Here’s the reflections from writing these three stories and trying to get them out there a bit:

First, if you’ve ever wondered about creative writing or fiction writing, give NaNoWriMo a shot.

NaNoWriMo is shorthand for National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that someone takes the month of November and attempts to write 50,000 words to tell a story during the 30 days. The specifics can vary from writer to writer, but the purpose is to set a tidy timeframe and a round-numbered quantity and set to it. While the peak of chatter and activity is November (the ideal time if the communal aspect will motivate you), their excellent resources for sketching and structuring a story and for setting yourself up to succeed are pretty evergreen.

In 2020, as we all navigated new waves of mask mandates, closures, and restrictions, and carried such uncertainty and change into the cold and indoor winter months, I decided to take the plunge on this during that November. Spending some September/October moments in brainstorms, outlines, and then intentional resources, I prepped a story and got down to business. I made it through 50,000 words before the end of the month, and spilled over into December with a few more bits. I shelved it for a few months, picked it up back up for review and edits, and decided to semi-publish it.

I took two more swings at writing stories — in 2021 and 2022 — and I ended up with three full-fledged (novice) medium-length works of fiction. It was a lot of fun to set a goal and work to meet it. I personally found the dash of specificity coupled with wide creative latitude was perfect to engage my creative side and send me in the right direction.

With the exception of a rare assignment along the way in high school, college, and grad school, I can’t remember doing much significant creative writing during school. It was fun to bring all these years of education, reading, and writing into a different mode and try to do something meaningful in a new way. You should give it a shot, too!

The audiobook podcasting and reflecting is complete! Things will shift to a more varied slate of reflections, akin to what longtime friends and readers are used to. Subscribe here to get them in your inbox!

Second, I am uncomfortable with self-promotion. I am unskilled at self-promotion. I am frustrated by the seeming necessity of self-promotion.

The darnedest thing about writing is that people will never read anything you write if they don’t know that you wrote it. If I could will it, I would love to get everything I write in front of a perfect target audience without my ever having directly personally suggested it to any members of that audience. Unfortunately, it takes the writer doing that on their own behalf or laboriously building an audience of people to be that extension; even with an agent or publisher, an author still needs to be committed to doing this big in order to supercharge the reach. I don’t have the stomach for it.

I enjoy small-stakes moments in which I might allude to something I’ve written or published. But, despite whatever arrogance and self-assuredness I possess, I’ve never liked the idea of doing much more than passive posts on social media. I even discontinued the Facebook Page I had going for many years because it just felt too much like an imposition and overkill, especially when I would re-share those posts to my own profile.

When I got these stories together into a larger book, I took one last good try at this process. I picked out some folks who do great work spotlighting things akin to what I do, and I connected with them over sharing these stories. My hope was that my casting a narrow, intentional net, that I could connect with the right audience, seek those connections in an authentic way, and then share myself and my work in a way that felt comfortable.

I was able to join one podcast, one article Q&A, and one web video series, and I am grateful to Jim, Robert, and Amy for their great work and their partnership in spreading the word in this way. Ultimately, these opportunities did not convert to massive book sales, but I am glad to have had the opportunity and appreciate getting those thoughts out to people who may have listened, read, or watched. If more opportunities come up to do interviews, panels, talks, or articles, I’d enjoy the chance, but my heart isn’t in the pavement-pounding or self-marketing that goes into increasing those opportunities.

Ultimately, it reinforced to me that I’ve always welcomed and embraced the things that come more organically, through my jobs, my friendships, and my professional network of ministry folks, and it also confirmed that I am ineffective, uncomfortable, and uninterested in trying to promote myself. I think there’s a line of questioning that helps me understand this not as self-promotion but more broadly or inclusively as evangelization or ministry or informing people. I struggle to get there.

I’d say it’s part aversion and part inability. And I can live with that. I am comfortable marketing myself for jobs and to get a placement in ministry, and I welcome what comes downstream of that. I know my call is to ministry, through pastoral interactions, through writing, and more, unfolding as it may, without pressing.

Finally, you have to be excited about making something artful, creative, and beautiful for its own sake.

Given the overlapping themes of young adults exploring their lives of faith in the Church, in discernment, and in relationship, I put these three stories together into one book. It was fun to title it (Go Your Way!), make some cover art (my Camino pilgrim’s shell!), and build the little compilation (a nifty navy paperback).

Making this website was fun, too —

almost like writing a cover letter for the public!

Visit bit.ly/booksbydan to browse around.

Even after all that work on the back end plus doing the things I described above to put it out there plus a few bucks in paid advertising, I think I sold about 25 copies of the first story standing on its own and then about 10 copies of the compilation. Eventually, I just lowered the Amazon price to a $0 royalty, and it’s basically listed for cost-of-goods and prints on demand per order. I like this better. I find I actually bring it up more often to others when the financial piece is zeroed out!

This is all to say that, while I would welcome an increased audience if it came, I’ve founded wider, deeper, fuller peace in simply writing — and in the editing, the design, and the process and synthesis — for its own sake. I write because my brain and heart seize upon questions and ideas and hash them out naturally, before I even need to be intentional about it. I write because I want to organize the reflections and synthesize them into something sharper. I write and share because I want to offer my process and result to others and find whether or not it has resonated with them (and this is the little place that drives me to still do this bit of self-promotion I do).

My friend Josh has an even more mature, polished handle on this complex. Put simply, he suggests, “There are precious few external rewards to this craft — writing is an exceptionally inefficient way to gain attention.” He suggests that if you can do an anything else that you just do that. And he’s not wrong.

And I think that’s part of why I can only be a writer as a component and complement to ministry. I can only write when I live out an incarnate faith in my life, in my relationships, in my marriage and family, and in my Church communities, and when I’m striving to be a John-the-Baptist in ministering Christ and the Gospel and our social teaching to others in accompaniment and formation. Doing that ministry and living my life fuel the writing and make it a major-but-not-sole part of who I am and what I do.

Yet, I want to write. I need to write. I want to share. I need to hear what people are reading and what they think of what they’re reading. And all of this happens best when I separate myself from seeking mass appeal or quantified audience or analytical engagement. I’ll never be able to totally avoid the insights data or ignore the quantity of engagement, but I’ll always be delighted to read a comment, hear someone’s response to my offering, or get the chance to have a longer discussion — because I wrote and shared.

Bigger than Ourselves: Ch. 10 - A Feasible, Realistic Image of an Ideal Church

 by Dan Masterton

What is your image of the Church?

Sometimes, you can get a sense of someone’s image without even asking them directly. When our lives of faith or our view of the Church come up in conversation, people’s reactions and the places they go organically can often tip this off.

For some people, their response jumps right toward the bishops. As they talk about the way the bishops declare and explain teachings — and in reality, if the bishops spontaneously come up, it’s usually to criticize them — you get a sense of that person’s probably hierarchical image of the Church. For these folks, the Church is its clergy.

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In a similar way, sometimes people’s responses focus on the teachings themselves, the dogmas and doctrines and the catechism points and the expectations for Christian living. This image is one of rules and limits, of Church as police state or rulebook.

And sometimes, folks will describe a gathering of people, whether around the altar for a Sunday Mass, banded together for a charity collection drive or service project, or gathered for a social affair. Here, you see an image of community and the life they seek to share.

In truth, our Catholic faith and our Catholic Church is all of these things — we are bishops and clergy and teachings and a Christian lifestyle and a community of believers. And more. Yet, if we find ourselves particularly frustrated or disappointed by our bishops or priests, or we find ourselves particularly frustrated or disappointed by shortcomings in pastorally sharing and learning this faith, we may end up with a limited sense of our Church, and struggle to see past its bishops’ limitations and missteps or its inability to maintain a strong pastoral sense.

I think our faith is strongest, and perhaps most true to Christ and the Gospel, when it begins from a sense of the Body of Christ — that is, both a community of believers gathered in Christ’s name as well as the Eucharist that Christ instituted and gave us a gift to celebrate together and propel us outward to loving action. From there, yes, we turn to our bishops and priests for teaching and leadership, but we ourselves can learn and teach, too. And we look to our Church for a cohesive, coherent transmission of our faith and lifestyle, but we seek to live it out in grace, in accompaniment, and in mutual support and struggle to be all the love God made us to be.

As I go further into adulthood, and meet more and more lapsed or non-practicing Catholics, I count the blessings of having had a moderate and pastorally sound parish to grow up in, of knowing grounded and real religious brothers and priests in the Viatorians and the Congregation of Holy Cross, and of finding parishes as an adult and maintaining relationships where this pastoral, human, joyful community could continue to be found. And I wonder how we can bring more people, especially these Catholics, into positive experiences that might reignite a rogue ember and start a fire of faith in them anew.

In some ways, Bigger than Ourselves is meant to be idealistic, in that it portrays an ultimate hopefulness and good that comes when everything lines up well and people come together in the best ways. Yet, it’s also meant to be a feasible, realistic portrait of Church life and parish life — no one in this story and no behavior in this story in fairy-tale-ish or wildly unlikely. In fact, the people, their ponderings, and their actions all come from real life relationships and experiences I’ve had in my Church life.

I’ve long believed that my best form of evangelization isn’t systematic theology, apologetics, or debate and argument; it’s a life of faith, well lived, often understated but never hidden or diluted. I think the same is true of Church life and parish life — our steady dedication to coming together in Christ as the Body of Christ and responding with individual and communal lives of love and joy can show others the good of this life in Christ. I think this St. Brendan council of young, old, and in between; of lay and ordained; of deep faith and emerging dedication — they are an image of a community we can be and the good we can do, with and for each other, and for Christ’s sake.

Bigger than Ourselves Ch. 9: Step 1 - Reduce Institutions ... Step 3 - Profit?

by Dan Masterton

It sure seems to me that Catholic parish life is struggling.

As an adult, I’ve seen the issues up close, not just through how our parish looks and through my work in ministry but also through our own parental and familial choices.

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It’s always been important to me, each time I move, to minimize my church-shopping. I will try Mass in a few places, get a feel for each community, and think it through. But then I want to choose one place to settle, formally register, set a repeating online donation, and go to Mass and try to really plug in there. In our settled hometown for our family, we have done that and put down roots at one parish for a few years now. So in terms of commitment, consistent attendance, and financial support, we are doing what we can to vote with our feet in favor of one parish and parish life.

However, we struggle to prioritize socializing and seeking ongoing formation at our parish. As we hear announcements and flip through the bulletin, we grumble about trying to fit potential Church outings around soccer practices, ice skating lessons, music classes, and other appointments — not to mention sitting at home and relaxing together for at least some of the time. Most often, we come for Sunday Mass and our one night each month of family faith formation, and then we aren’t really around the church much. I may squeeze in a food drop for the quarterly soup kitchen crew’s cooking or bring gifts for the Christmas giving collection, but our in-person presence at anything more is minimal. So in terms of engagement, presence, and relationship-building, we are nearly a non-factor — and thus part of the problem a bit.

The potentially growing poverty of parish life is surely financial and infrastructural — younger generations are just less likely to register and donate, both to weekly collections (and capital campaigns I imagine), and vocations to priesthood and religious life are of lesser quantity than they used to be (though, in my work in vocation ministry, I do see a probable increase in quality of discernment and formation). But perhaps the greater poverty is the poverty of engagement. And that’s just the topline issue I would identify among families that do belong somehow.

Moving one layer outward, sociological studies are indicating a reduction in formal belonging, and perhaps an aversion, among Gen Z (generally considered those born between 1997 and 2012), including to formal religion. Yet, these studies also see a continued desire for spirituality and exploration.

In a sense, it’s a new version of the old issue of being “spiritual but not religious.” However, sometimes this is now connected with those who identify as “nothing in particular” or “none” rather than as atheists or agnostics. Where as the SBNR vibe was often a hedge or a cover against admitting atheism, this newer identification often indicates an active and ongoing desire to engage with one’s spirituality and beliefs actively. Yet, it is done so in a personal, often private and hard-to-identify way, and a certainly in a way uncoupled from institutional religion.

On one hand, I can understand the institutional distrust, especially of an institution with high-profile and significant modern struggles, not least its cover-ups and sexual scandals. On the other hand, I am skeptical of the idea of taking on major spiritual exploration disconnected from a community element — we know that many, if not most, things are richer, more impactful, and more sustainable when reinforced by a community experience and by relationships, from drug and alcohol addiction recovery to professional organizations to bowling and softball leagues. A tricky wrinkle is that I imagine many from this crowd would welcome communal religion if it was a grassroots thing. The problem there is that this breezes past the funny tension between desiring an organic, spontaneous start and a group that doesn’t strike me as especially organized or proactive toward this.

Whatever you may think about these tendencies or preferences, I find myself worrying about the downstream impact. Those who resist, oppose, or tear down institutions while desiring the things they perennially prepare and offer, and those who do so without all that much of an idea of what comes next, are playing a risky game. 

That’s easier for me to say because I am more optimistic about institutions overall, thinking those who are active and rise to leadership can make an impact that improves institutions. For those who are skeptical of churches but desiring spiritual lives, I would hope for a level of engagement that evolves to reform community spiritual life, especially among Catholics, rather than discard or reject it.

For Kevin, here, there’s a real challenge of taking the cold realities of data and subjective input and trying to make a strategic and sustainable decision. It is easy to see merging, closure, and reduction as the needed intervention; it is also easy to see the care and hope of people longing to retain a fading community. The harder thing, often, is to chart a third way, one that acknowledges increasingly sad realities yet also retains hope and responds with creativity. We don’t have tosimply close a bunch of churches; we don’t have to give in to high emotions that cling to fading models. The idea here is that Kevin, his bishop, and the people of St. Brendan may have a creative third way.

Bigger than Ourselves Ch. 8: Multi-Potentiality and God's Ongoing Invitations

by Dan Masterton

When I was in college at the University of Notre Dame, I always liked finding folks who had unusual combinations of majors, supplemental majors, and minors. Why pre-health and economics? Why accounting and theology? Why piano performance and engineering?

The conversation usually unfurled a fascinating combination of gifts, talents, and skills alongside intriguing passions and desires. Sometimes, it was more of a lark — a way to explore an intellectual curiosity at a high level and expand one’s mind; more often, it reflected a healthy inner tension that wondered what crossovers and professional potentials could be unlocked at an unusual point of overlap.

As an adult professional working in Catholic schools, this kind of person was all around me. While some colleagues were came into teaching from a classic education/subject area course of study, many others were this kind of hodgepodge I describe — the math teacher who could also teach classical guitar, the football coach and assistant AD with a divinity degree, or the theology and social justice warrior finishing a counseling degree.

And in a situation where you’re constantly underfunded, understaffed, and underrested, having a faculty/staff with diverse backgrounds, a wide range of skills, and ready passions goes a long way. There are plenty of times where a school can abuse or exploit this depth in their human capital, but, when this is well managed and done with grace, it becomes a major blessing — and an often necessary way — that a Catholic school can evolve and endure and sustain.

In a perfect world, the faculty, staff, and admins would have clear, concise job descriptions without amendments and add-ons and loosely worded “other duties as assigned” clauses to go with healthy salaries that help you stomach the time commitment. In reality, Catholic education usually has to be a bit more Mad-Max-Fury-Road. And survival and the chance to thrive are usually tied to the nimble ways that school leadership can identify its employees’ gifts, utilize them effectively, and try to juggle titles, responsibilities, and expectations flexibly to fit.

The strongest schools I’ve seen have sought to retain dedicated, talented people and use them and their skills in the best way possible. Usually, this meant clinging less tightly to cardboard-cutout titles and rigid job descriptions and leaning into more unconventional combinations. When you trust your people and manage the relationships faithfully, this can and does work.

Part of this is leaving space for people to grow and develop, and for people to admit and nurture secondary or subtler gifts they have deeper within them that can be brought to bear on the community. In my time in Catholic education and ministry, I’ve variously leaned into writing, graphic design, social media management, and community organizing in ways I didn’t know I had in me — and ways I didn’t know I’d want to. I’ve seen others go back to school for new and different training, seek out new roles in coaching or student life/activities, or pursue faith formation anew. 

All this is to say that we have a multi-potentiality within us that often only comes out by necessity in our professional lives, but often is rooted in wider, richer curiosities or even sometimes in impulses from younger days that may thrive when given new air to breathe. Sometimes, this can tax or stretch us in partly unwelcome ways; at other moments, it can unpack a long-wondered-about potential that enables us to grow and serve in badly needed ways.

Part of the mystery at play is God’s ongoing invitations. I used to think of vocation largely as “God’s call,” but I’ve found that language and understanding to be too reductive. Some religious brothers, priests, and sisters I know — many of whom work in vocation ministry — prefer to use the phrasing of “God’s invitation and our response.”

And my dear friend Br. John likes to add that “God’s invitations are ongoing.” It is neither a one-sided interaction nor a once-and-for-all prompting. God called us by name in birth and baptism; God calls us in our states of life, beginning as singles and then considering continuing in that or turning to marriage or religious/ordained life; God calls us to a vocational path of work or service; God calls us to particular lanes of that path; God calls us also to personal and specific vocational expressions. And all through these invitations, what we hear — and the response we discern — can evolve, both in expected and unexpected ways.

 

For Jill, she has always been a teacher. For decades, it has been expressed through patient education and peer mentorship and training. Now, that expression may be evolving, and just as her heart evolves in its understanding and desire to express itself, so, too, do the invitations come from God, especially through those faithful people around her.

God doesn’t waste any of our faithful presence to God, others, and ourselves. It is all part of our vocational path of striving to be part of Someone (Christ) and Something (the Church) bigger than ourselves.

* * *

In returning to blogging, my first project is to finish up the audiobook/podcast of my fiction stories. My three stories — “What There Is to Be Done”, “Abundance, not Scarcity”, and “Bigger than Ourselves” — are collected into “Go Your Way: Stories from Our Lives of Faith,” which is available on Amazon. (I basically use Amazon as an on-demand printer; the price is set to yield a $0.00 royalty.) My third story was in progress when I stepped away last summer, and here I’m getting back to it. Each episode is one chapter from the book plus a brief reflection.

Bigger than Ourselves is itself a series of short stories, about various people at a Catholic parish, and the book as a whole ties them together through their community life.

For more on my writing, visit my LinkTree portfolio or book information website.