Author: Carrie Sue Barnes

Carrie Sue Barnes is a fiction author and blogger who fell in love with creative writing as a grade schooler in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She resides now in Wisconsin with her family, often pulling her love for the Midwest into her writing. Carrie Sue's debut novel, The Hidden Legacy, was released in 2018 by Bold Vision Books to strong reviews. Since then, she has published several short stories and continues to write short fiction and faith-inspired reflections on this site. Carrie Sue loves reading, kayaking, hugging her children and friends, rewatching The Office, and connecting with readers in person and on social media.
Personal Reflection

Markers and Memories

Carrie Sue Barnes

Hopscotch makes me think of Saginaw, charter buses, Mike Chenier, sleeping bags on the hard-as-rock cafeteria floor, falling asleep to the recitation of the rosary. Every steep ravine I pass while hiking in Wisconsin transports me for a fleeting moment to freshman year at Grand Valley State, my window seat beside the trees, nighttime excursions across the crunching leaves that carpeted the ravines. Narrow creeks running beneath roads and cutting through fields take me home. Watching an episode of Gilmore Girls, I might as well be back in the apartment in Steubenville, pretending to work on Methods homework with Sue and Michelle, leaving late to walk to my job at the campus library.

There are a few approaching events that have me thinking on the past. They signify the amount of time that has passed, the ways our lives have changed… Except these road markers leave me feeling behind. Not left behind, for that could imply that others are at fault, but simply behind. The sense of missing a turn somewhere along the route from past to present is my familiar companion. When I get this way, reminiscing and thinking how nice it’d be to see the faces and places I treasure from the past, I am not wishing to return to the past. I don’t want to go back. I want to reach another place, another stage or situation, which in 5 or 10 years will give me reason to again feel this nostalgia. What it comes down to is my own road markers – sparse in number, small in meaning. If I ever do have a wish to go back, it is only to repave the road since.

Intentionality

LOL: True or False?

Carrie Sue Barnes

Anytime I read something that includes “LOL”, be it a text message, email, facebook comment or other such online conversation, I wonder, “Did they really laugh out loud?” I wonder what the percentage is of people who truly laugh out loud, laugh their asses off and roll on the floor laughing when they claim to do so? Probably pretty small. Are we turning into a whole race of annoying Julie’s? I don’t blame J. D. at all. No one can sincerely say that typing LOL feels as good as physically laughing out loud. Maybe we are actually losing our ability to laugh out loud! If I quickly make those 3 keystrokes in order to move on to my next full words, rather than taking a moment to laugh at what I just read or heard or saw, think of how many laughs I am missing out on each day! For a person who is in the frequent habit of using those acronymns, the number could be atrociously large. Couldn’t we all benefit from a little more loud, from the gut laughter or shaking fits of giggles in our days? Supposedly laughter is contagious, so wouldn’t you be doing more good by sharing the sound of your amusement with whomever happens to be in hearing range rather than conveying a merely mental laugh with the person on the other end of that text or facebook conversation?

Cosmo Brown would find us LOL-ers pitiable, don’t you think? He knows what we’re missing.

Midwest, Personal Reflection, Writing

Alas, I’m Back At Home

Carrie Sue Barnes
The trip to Traverse City and its surrounding area was fantastic. Yes, fantastic. The only thing that could have made it better was if I could have stayed through the week. I love it down there. (Not that it’s really ‘down’ from here in northeast Wisconsin, but to a Yooper, the lower peninsula is always ‘down’ from wherever she happens to be.) There is water in every direction you look. There are blue and green striped bays, meandering rivers, quietly beautiful inland lakes, and of course, the great Lake Michigan. There were also blossoms in just as many directions as there was water. Cherry blossoms, lilacs, tulips, flowering crabs, and then some more cherry blossoms. Straight rows of cherry trees ran up and down the glacial hills of the peninsulas, heavy with white flowers.
In the category of research, the trip was a success. I found neighborhoods, parks, churches, etc. that will prove useful for writing The Mercy Hour. I developed ideas for the characters lives and activities. In the category of vacation too, the trip was a success. We relaxed, we soaked in the views, we laughed, we drank wine, we ate treats. It was loveliness.
And now I’m back, trying not to indulge in self-pity. Let’s be honest though, I miss the views. The wine wasn’t bad either. 🙂

Writing

How many heads?

Carrie Sue Barnes

Jessica finished reading the two chapters I have written of The Mercy Hour and came into my room to clarify something. I was already in bed, lights off, grogginess settling over me. “Okay, this Renee girl is great, but how many heads does she have?” I could not stop laughing out loud. Apparently I’d written that this girl waved her “heads” in front of her, rather than her hands. I’m pretty sure this typo will be referenced repeatedly as Jessica gradually reads the book.

I love having Jess along for the journey of writing my novels. (I also love that I get to put an “s” at the end of “novel” now.) She was my only reader until the first draft of Full of Days was complete. It was torture for her because I’d give her several chapters to read every few months and then she’d have to wait through another extended period of time to find out what happens next. What a trooper. I realize that it is to the author’s great benefit to have some folks who can read the manuscript with an unbiased, critical eye, but I am also confident that it’s to my benefit to have Jess around to read it, especially during the long process of writing it. Her excitement and anticipation to read what I’ve written is edifying, to say the least. There are days when I look back over what I’ve written and wonder if I’m fooling myself to believe I can do this. Her enjoyment of my rough, freshly penned pages builds up my faith for the long haul.

She is your mirror, shining back at you with a world of possibilities. She is your witness, who sees you at your worst and best, and loves you anyway. She is your partner in crime, your midnight companion, someone who knows when you are smiling, even in the dark. – Barbara Alpert

Uncategorized

Night by Night

Carrie Sue Barnes

Last night I cut nearly all my hair off (or at least, I paid someone to cut nearly all my hair off). I haven’t worn it this short since high school, or maybe freshman year of college. That’s 10 years ago! After a decade of hairstyles reaching my shoulders, if not longer, it was awfully strange to have nothing to grab at the back of my head while I washed my hair in the shower this morning. It felt like I was washing someone else’s hair. But it’s mine, and I am actually loving the new, easy-doesn’t-begin-to-describe-it cut and all the compliments it’s garnered thus far. It’s fun to keep track of the adjectives people choose when they notice the drastic change I made.

Tomorrow night I shall roll my packed suitcase out the door and hit the road. I’ll only drive as far as my parents’s house in the U.P. but early the next morning my mom and I are scheduled to depart for Traverse City, MI. The Traverse City region happens to be one of my favorite places to visit, with its bays, beaches, sand dunes, cherry orchards and boutique shops. It is also the setting for The Mercy Hour. Mom and I will do our best to strike a balance between chilling out and researching the book’s setting during our four days there. Prediction: I will be inclined to stay.

Of course the approaching journey means tonight is to be dedicated to filling that suitcase and readying to leave as soon as I finish work tomorrow. The little more than a day standing between me and my road trip just feels extra. Expendible. Such days can be annoying if I’m caught up in the spirit of anticipation, but with a tweaked attitude they can instead become a worthy challenge. Maybe it’s yet another sign that I need to learn how to chill, but I enjoy taking what feels like an expendible day and changing it into the opposite: a day of accomplisments and enjoyment. The expendible day is tailor made for all those little tasks I have put off, for crossing lines off the to-do list, for praying for all those people who asked for my prayers, for watching that movie I have wanted to watch, for calling that friend I meant to call sooner, for reading a book, for driving over to the adoration chapel, and for (of course) writing. I don’t know that I’ve ever met an expendible day I didn’t change into something else by the time it ended.