Those Pesky Memes

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gone03 Those Pesky MemesA popular thing these days in the blogosphere is memes. Some say they are the result of a creative network  – others say they are more akin to a virus that keeps popping up. Whatever you think of them, here is a meme that apparently will not stay out of my inbox if I don’t address it. So here goes:

 

“The Next Big Thing”

1. What is the title of your next book/work?

  • Gone

2. Where did the idea come from for the book/work?

  • A blog post I once wrote about the invisible people in our world.  Check it out here.

3. What genre does your book/work fall under?

  • Psychological Suspense

4. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

  • Rand Jackson (protagonist) - William H. Macy
  • Thomas Kyd (antagonist) – William Forsyth
  • Vera Mathis (female character actor part)- Catherine O’Hara

5. What is a one-sentence synopsis of your book?

  • As Destiny, Texas sleeps Rand Jackson rediscovers a gift that once was his biggest curse, and might well still be.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

  • Yet to be seen

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

  • Still working

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

  • Falling Away – T.L. Hines (minus the spiritual warfare angle)

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

  • A mixture of my youngest son’s experiences in the military and a few of my own monumental screw-ups in life.

10. What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

  • “The past is a cruel mistress isn’t she Rand? Just when you think you’ve settled down with the present with a glimmer of hope for a future, she shows up out of nowhere getting all bent out of shape because you’ve been ignoring her.” – Line from Thomas Kyd (antagonists)

So now – if you are a writer, what’s the next big thing? And whatever you are, what is the next big thing in your life?

Who is Enough!

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marc camille chaimowicz man looking out of window Who is Enough!I REACHED OVER and stroked my wife’s hair at 4:10 this morning and said a silent prayer; the same prayer of gratitude I have voiced for over twenty years. That may not seem so unusual to you but then you weren’t where I was back then. On that day, so distant and yet so very near, I was standing in an Intensive Care Unit trying to figure out how I could tell me wife that she was going to die.

The only thing louder than the constant wheezing of the ventilator that pumped air in and out of her lungs was the muffled scream imprisoned deep in my throat. She was my teenage sweetheart and the mother of two fine sons still in elementary school. She was the pride of my life, the love of my heart, my constant companion, my best friend. And now, she was lying with her head shaved after nine hours of brain surgery.

The words of the Neuro-Surgeon ate at my insides like acid. “If she lives another year it will be a miracle. You’re the best person to tell her”.

“How could I be the best person to tell her something I couldn’t even voice to myself”?

Early in the day, during the surgery, a friend had secreted me away to a secluded stairwell far from the over one hundred friends and family who had gathered at the hospital to pray and wait. She understood I needed to be alone for a while. I had done all the socializing and listening to “all things work together for good” that I could handle.

Later, as the echoes of well-wishers were swallowed up in the void of my pain, I sat alone in an empty hospital room watching a dying sun drop below the horizon. The life I had shared with my best friend looked to be sinking with it.

All I could think to do was pray but words eluded me. For years I had given myself to helping others through crisis: presiding over dozens of funerals and wrapping my arms around an equal number of grieving parents and spouses as their loved one closed their eyes to this world. How many times had I spit out glib and trite words of pre-packaged comfort devoid of any real emotional or spiritual nourishment?

Time after time, for what must have been hours, I started to say something and choked on the first syllable. Finally I cried out the one word that has stymied mankind since Adam and Eve first found their son murdered in a field, the word missed by sleeping disciples in Gethsemane as the God-man faced the certain reason for His coming. Three letters, combined to create one monosyllabic whispered plea pushed their why past by lips – WHY?

A whispered question gave way to a tidal wave of “whys” that threatened to tear me from what little foundation I still felt under my feet. Finally, spent from the outburst of pent up emotion, I leaned against the window seal and watched the last pastels of twilight give way to first grays and then the darkest of blacks.

And then? Then the same sun that had set on my exhausted lament the night before rose in glory a few hours later. I gathered myself and found my way to the private room my wife had been moved to. It took most of the day before she was alert enough to ask me how it went. And, it took me even longer to find the right words to tell her. The why then gave way to “what now?” And that question offered no more reply than the first.

The next morning a friend of ours called. “I was praying,” she said, “and reading my Bible this morning and God gave me a verse that I know is for the two of you.” I sighed. Oh please dear Lord, I believe Romans 8:28 but I cannot bear to pretend I feel like I believe them. Know that I believe them, yes. Feel like it, no. Because I was beyond feeling. Just numb.

And then she read these words to me from Joshua 3:5; “Sanctify yourselves: for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.” I thanked her and wondered if it really meant anything at all. My prayer had been so weak, and my faith so small. What wonders could God do with me?

Soon we went home, chemo and radiation therapies already scheduled for the days to come. Buried and almost forgotten were those words, “tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.” The phone rang throughout the day and into the night. People brought lunch and supper. And another night fell amidst the same echoes – WHY?

The phone rang yet again and I started not to answer but knew I must. The voice on the other end was that of our neurosurgeon calling from his car as he drove through a thunder storm almost a hundred miles away.

“Tim, I had to call you. We got some more tests that we sent off back and I just don’t understand it.”

“Don’t understand what?”

“The cells were atypical. Textbook, as in the only place I or the other doctors has ever seen them.”

“Now I don’t understand,” was all I could think to say in reply.

“The operation is all that she will need. She’s going to live a long full life. Your wife does not have cancer”.

The hours that followed were surreal. Our family physician and his wife showed up at our house giddy with excitement well after nine that night. After they left, those words finally came back to me, “Tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.”

And so, here I am all these years later. Has life been easy in the intervening years? Not at all! We have gone through many trials and failures. We have seen good times and bad. That “why” and so many since stand in line hopefully waiting for an answer that may or may not come in this life.

But there is one question that has been answered time and again. When that question is asked the answer comes rushing in a torrent of divine power. That question is “WHO?” Knowing that answer is enough.

_______________

My Christmas gift to my friends and readers is simple but invaluable – learn to ask the right question and you will always get the right answer.

Depressed …

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image3 Depressed …

or Just Taking a Quick Nap on the Tracks?

DEPRESION. Now there’s an odd topic for such a beautiful day here in sunny Florida. Here I sit on my porch, looking at a crystal blue sky, watching an F-18 approaching for landing at the Pensacola Naval Air Station a few miles away, and listening to a Mockingbird doing his best to imitate a kid screaming at his mother across the street.

So why am I talking about such a dreary subject on such a beautiful day? Because Will Rogers was right when he said, “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” Even when things are going great and the world is your oyster (look it up), you can suddenly find yourself asleep on the tracks. And even if they are the right tracks, the result will not be good if you stay where you are for too long.

Most of us don’t like to talk about being depressed. Some say they’re just a little bummed. Others take on a spiritual air and claim real Christians don’t get depressed; they just get a little down some times. We writer types often just shrug and attribute our listless mood to the dreaded “writer’s block”. Whatever we call or don’t call it, those with any honesty at all know that it is real.

That notable authority, WebMD, offers a check list for warning signs of possible clinical depression. These include:

  • Difficulty concentrating, remembering details, and making decisions
  • Fatigue and decreased energy
  • Irritability, restlessness
  • Loss of interest in activities or hobbies once pleasurable
  • Overeating or appetite loss
  • Persistent aches or pains, headaches, cramps, or digestive problems that do not ease even with treatment
  • Persistent sad, anxious, or “empty” feelings

Experience has taught me there is one thing every form of depression has in common: something that needs to get done isn’t getting done. Jack Foster summed it up this way: “The more you do, the more you do; and the less you do the less you do.”

I was taught by a well-known counselor that, all therapies aside, the best advice to give someone in depression is to find one thing they can do and do it. I remember a mother came to me a few years back and said her adult son was in the grips of deep depression. He had lost his job and couldn’t find another one because of problems in his past. He did nothing but sit in his mobile home, stare at video games, and gradually forget what living even looked like.

I talked with him later that week and in the course of the conversation I asked him if he could think of just one thing that needed to be done, that he could do, and that no one or thing could stop him from making it happen. After staring past me toward the frozen video game on his TV screen for what seemed like an hour, he shrugged and replied, “Not really, I guess I’m just stuck where I am.” The less you do the less you do.”

Two nights later, my phone rang at 1:30 AM. An excited voice pierced the muddled fog of my not-yet-fully-awake brain with these words: “I mowed my grass!” “Great,” I replied, “now who is this?” After three tries the caller finally made me understand it was the man who just 48 hours earlier couldn’t think of one thing to do. But now he had – and done it. At midnight no less!

I never managed to see how that yard looked after being assaulted by a waking zombie madly mowing his grass in the dark as life crept back into his soul. But I did reunite with him, his wife and children years later on Facebook to see a man who was doing a whole lot more than sitting stuck in front of a frozen TV screen. The more you do the more you do.

Perhaps your problem isn’t that you on the wrong track in life. But even the right track is a bad place to take a nap. So what is there in your life that needs to be done, you can do it, and you don’t need anything or anyone to make it happen? We’ve had our nap now and I can hear the train coming. Probably a good time to wake up and remember, “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

How to Become a Writer in Five Minutes or Less

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image How to Become a Writer in Five Minutes or Less

STEVE MARTIN AND I are worlds apart in many ways. He is a multi-published bestselling author, playwright, world class banjo player, winner of multiple Emmy, Grammy, and American Comedy awards, and an avowed agnostic. I am none of these. I have, however, watched The Jerk and acted like one myself more than once so we do have that in common.

After all, who couldn’t relate to someone who had these lines in such a classic?

I know we’ve only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days. The first day seemed like a week and the second day seemed like five days. And the third day seemed like a week again and the fourth day seemed like eight days. And the fifth day you went to see your mother and that seemed just like a day, and then you came back and later on the sixth day, in the evening, when we saw each other, that started seeming like two days, so in the evening it seemed like two days spilling over into the next day and that started seeming like four days, so at the end of the sixth day on into the seventh day, it seemed like a total of five days. And the sixth day seemed like a week and a half. I have it written down, but I can show it to you tomorrow if you want to see it.

Though he has moved on from stand-up comedy to a variety of pursuits that range from bluegrass music to the collection of fine art, Martin retains his snarky wit when he talks about the art of writing. He would tell you, it’s easy to become a writer in five minutes are less. All it basically involves is something to write on, something to write with, and some words.That’s it.

For example, says the funny man, he finds it easy to write in his rose garden. “Each rose, “he says, “represents a story, so I’m never at a loss for what to type. I just look deep into the heart of the rose, read its story, and then write it down. I could be typing kjfiu joew.mv jiw and enjoy it as much as typing words that actually make sense, because I simply relish the movements of my fingers on the keys.”

Another suggestion he makes if one faces dreaded writer’s block is to borrow some words that have already worked for someone else:

The other trick I use when I have a momentary stoppage is virtually foolproof, and I’m happy to pass it along. Go to an already published novel and find a sentence that you absolutely adore. Copy it down in your manuscript. Usually, that sentence will lead you to another sentence, and pretty soon your own ideas will start to flow. If they don’t, copy down the next sentence in the novel. You can safely use up to three sentences of someone else’s work — unless you’re friends, then two. The odds of being found out are very slim, and even if you are there’s usually no jail time.

In all seriousness, some authors are so intent on ensuring they only write things that are new they never watch TV shows or read novels in their genre. They want to always be fresh and only write something no one else has. Good luck with that!

Kyle Callahanisn’t the first writer to suggest there are really only two plots for any story to be built upon: a stranger comes to town and a hero goes on a journey. Of course there are a million variations but in the end Solomon knew what he was talking about when he said there is nothing new under the sun. The trick is not to invent something no one else has ever said but rather to say it in such a way it resonates as though no one ever heard before.

Unlike Steve Martin, I have been hearing and embracing the greatest story ever told since I was a child. There is no way to count how many times I have heard that old, old story. You know, the one about how a Savior came from glory, how He gave His life on Calvary to save a wretch like me.

Even so, from time to time someone tells that story in such a way I know without a doubt it is their story. And when someone tells that story that way it resonates with me as though I’m hearing it for the first time.

Now apply that to everything you do, say, and write. The way to become a writer or anything else in five minutes or less is to say, write, and do what you truly believe in. What is truly you? What can you talk about, write about, or do that leaves no doubt it isn’t manufactured or bogus? Now take out the next blank page of your life and write something that resonates with those around you.

Garbage Makes the Best Story Material of All

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compost Garbage Makes the Best Story Material of AllNATALIE GOLDBERG in her fine book for writers, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, reminds us of a truth that applies to far more than writing. Put simply, she reminds us that the garbage of our life makes some of the best story material of all.

Admittedly, one should be alert to Goldberg’s Zen leanings. Her frequent quotes of Buddhist sages and Zen masters leave no doubt where she looks for ultimate meaning. With that said, her following observation is one from which we could all gain:

We collect experiences, and from the decomposition of thrown-out eggshells, spinach leaves. Coffee grinds, and old steak bones of our minds come nitrogen, heat, and very fertile soil. Out of this fertile soil blooms our poems and stories. But this does not come all at once. It takes time. Continue to turn over and over the organic details of your life until some of them fall through the garbage of discursive thoughts to the solid ground of black soil.

Her point is that the best stories are not those born out of some writing conference class or book but rather out of life. And life isn’t neat or instant. Even if you haven’t experienced great tragedy or failure in your life there is still plenty of refuse: broken promises, unrealized dreams, and inner failings.

Paul Billheimer said it best in the title of his excellent devotional book – Don’t Waste Your Sorrows. Coming from a different spiritual perspective but to the same conclusion, Billheimer seeks to remind us that nothing in one’s life is worthless. The scraps of life can become the makings of rich compost. And it is that compost that makes for the richest story material.

The Apostle Paul put it this way:

We do not become discouraged (utterly spiritless, exhausted, and wearied out through fear). Though our outer man is [progressively] decaying and wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day after day. For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!], Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (Amplified)

No matter how hard I try to avoid it, I keep seeing bits and pieces of myself in the characters of my stories. Be it fiction or non-fiction, the compost of my life keeps providing the best possible writing material. My joys, fears, successes, failures, hopes, and disappointments are all there in the characters, ideas, plots, and themes of what I write.

So what do you do with that compost pile of fragments of past experiences? Remember that every chance encounter, every failed relationship, every good and bad thing in your life need not go to waste. Given to the Master Gardner that refuse can become the stuff of which He writes a story of redemption, and hope, and purpose.

We may not all be writers but we all have a story. What is yours being written with?

End of the Spear but not the End of the Story

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auca 03 End of the Spear but not the End of the Story

A picture, it is said, is worth a thousand words. But in truth, some pictures, like the one above merit far more. The name of the man standing in the middle means little except to a relatively small circle of people that have walked this earth, and the name of the young boy mentioned on the back of the fading photo infinitely less. But the story of the two brown skinned men along with their relatives has inspired books, movies, and thousands of young men and women to venture from their comfort zones to places and peoples little known by the outside world.

The story of these two men began in the 1940’s when a girl escaped to her family in Ecuador to tell of her capture and enslavement by a fearsome tribe locals knew more as jungle ghosts and legend than flesh and blood. But the people of this ghost tribe were no legend. They were the Woorani.

The Woorani only numbered 600, split into three mutually hostile groups. Yet even the cannibalistic neighboring tribes feared them. They were Aucas, the killing people. Every tribe that encountered them considered them to be savages, and with good reason. Murder within their ranks was almost a sport, twins were routinely buried alive, and when someone got too sick or grew feeble from old age, relatives would dig a pit beneath their hammock, throw them in the pit and bury them alive.

But in 1956, the year the boy named on the back of the photograph was born, five men made contact with the Woorani. Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Peter Fleming, and Ed McCully found a way to land a small plane on a sand bar near where Aucas lived with the intent of sharing Christ with them. Elisabeth Elliot’s, Through Gates of Splendor, and the more recent film, End of the Spear, tell the story of how these five men were killed by the Aucas and how the outside world was horrified.

So how did these two Aucas in the picture end up wearing suits and smiles barely a decade later? Among others, the family of Nate Saint chose to reach out and live with the people who had murdered these five peaceful men. Nate’s son, Steve, lived with them from the time he was seven well into his teenage years. Mincaye, the Auca who speared Steve’s father became his spiritual adoptive father.

Mincaye led dozens of others, like the two men in the photograph, to abandon their murderous ways and to follow the saving path. Or as Mincaye once said:

We acted badly, badly, until they brought God’s carvings. Then, seeing His carvings and following His good trail. now we live happily and in peace.

And the man in the middle? He is Alfonso Olmedo. First a pastor in Argentina, he later moved to the United States where a pastor from Louisiana named Earl met him. A friendship developed to the point Olmedo came to spend a few days in the pastor’s home and speak to his church.

While visiting in that home this man from Argentina who had rubbed shoulders with men who were once murderous ghosts, shared their stories with a young boy. He taught the boy how to play Spanish checkers and marvel at the mysteries of God’s grace. Neither the boy nor Olmedo could have known a friend and father had only another year to live. And with the death of that boy’s father, the photo this story is about was locked away in a grieving widow’s photo album.

Until now. Now a mother, seeing the shadows of life growing longer by the day, has passed the photo story back to the boy become a man. It tells the story of two Aucas, once ghost killers, an Argentinean friend, and the words he wrote to an 11 year boy named Tim in 1967:

To my very dear friend Tim .. in remembrance of the wonderful time we had together! God bless you and make you a great servant of our Lord, whose Grace can change savages into Sons of God as it was with these once feared Auca Indians.

Steve Saint and Mincaye

Transitions – Life Can Make as Much Sense as Fiction

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Twain connect Transitions – Life Can Make as Much Sense as Fiction“It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.” – Mark Twain

That observation from the famous American writer, Mark Twain, is true on more levels than most of us want to admit. One of the most basic drives of man is to make sense of life. Whether in the most remote valley of New Guinea or the steel and concrete jungle of Manhattan, we instinctively want to see the connection of things.

When it comes to writing, transitions serve to hold our thoughts together so the reader can follow what the author is trying to communicate. A student guide from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill explains it this way:

Your goal is to convey information clearly and concisely … Transitions help you to achieve [this by] … establishing logical connections between sentences, paragraphs, and sections of your papers. In other words, transitions tell readers what to do with the information you present to them. Whether single words, quick phrases or full sentences, they function as signs for readers that tell them how to think about, organize, and react to old and new ideas as they read through what you have written.

Basically, transitions provide the reader with directions for how to piece together your ideas into a logically coherent argument. Transitions are not just verbal decorations that embellish your paper by making it sound or read better. They are words with particular meanings that tell the reader to think and react in a particular way to your ideas. In providing the reader with these important cues, transitions help readers understand the logic of how your ideas fit together.

But life, unlike a well plotted novel, seldom has clearly marked transitions. From our perspective, the dots don’t always connect. In my life at least, there have been chapters that lacked coherence and seemingly had no connection to the ones before or after them. All of this proving Twain to be correct: Fiction has to make sense – life often does not.

In the stories of our lives, some of us want to turn to the last page to see if we like the way the suspense novel ends. If not, we set that one aside and look for another one of more interest. Others of us are bored by description and dialogue. All we want is action, action, action! If the story drags a little because the plot is not tight, if the ending is too ambiguous, or something more interesting steals our attention, that story is set aside and condemned to the bottom shelf where all the other stories that maybe we will finish one day when we have nothing else better to do will be read.

This is why man without God is constantly seeking for transitions. Things that will make life make sense. Things that give cohesion. Things that will connect the dots. There are a million things people turn to in seeking to make the story of their life makes sense: family, money, religion, work, sex, philosophy, entertainment … and the beat goes on.

Perhaps there are more transitions in this story called life than most of us see. Like three months ago when my stepfather died. My sister is 11 years old than me and we have lived our lives separated both geographically and personally. To make a long story short, we have not been estranged, there has been no riff that tears siblings apart, just separated by circumstances and life.

That night, after the funeral, God offered a transition. I could have easily missed it. So could she. But a simple opportunity that presented itself in the weariness of that midnight hour provided a transition. Three hours later, the story of our life made a lot more sense. The fault was not with the writer of the story but rather the readers. Are there still gaps, things that don’t make sense, dots that are not connected? Of course there are.

The good news for both my sister and me is that we are good friends with the writer of the story. We both know Him intimately. More importantly, He knows us. Because of that everything doesn’t have to make sense. We know all the dots will be connected one day and until then, we trust Him. How about you? Are you frustrated by the lack of transitions in life? Do you find yourself trying to write your own story, one without ambiguity, without pain, without frustration?

As a friend of mine likes to say, “How’s that working out for you?”

Sibella Giorello’s Stars Shine Bright

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GiorelloSilbella Sibella Giorello’s Stars Shine BrightThursday Review
Raleigh Harmon Novels
by Sibella Giorello

When Sibella Giorella won a Christy Award for her debut novel, The Stones Cry Out, it was natural to wonder if she could maintain the momentum and continue to grow as a writer. There have been many one-hit-wonders in fiction, some by choice (Harper Lee), and others because they apparently didn’t have any more to offer.

Then along came The River Runs Dry and Sibella proved she and her main character Raleigh Harmon had a lot more to offer. Raleigh was a character with depth working in a profession where faith is hard to come by. That was followed by The Clouds Roll Away and The Mountains Bow Down. It was then that I noted in a review:

Every time I begin a novel by this gifted author I always think, “This isn’t the kind of book I usually read.” But it never takes more than a couple of pages for me to forget such a misguided notion and find myself sucked in by Giorello’s first-person immediacy, unvarnished honesty, and determination to peel back the façade of human goodness to reveal what lies beneath. It isn’t just the vain lives of the Hollywood elite who are being exposed in this story. Raleigh Harmon, a believer, is having yet another layer of duplicity scraped away in a painful process of self-discovery. And it is the depth of her character and the power of the author’s prose that keeps me coming back.

An now Raleigh Harmon is reaching the end of her journey with what is probably the last in the series, The Stars Shine Bright. I’ll be reviewing the novel in next week’s Thursday review installment. Until then, here are few things the author shared during the course of several interviews she has done with me. Once you finish reading you can listen to Sibella in an interview she granted me at Fiction Addict.

On “Christian” Fiction: “The truly great writers who were believers, like Charles Dickens and Flannery O’Connor, didn’t write explicitly “Christian” literature. They didn’t see the world in terms of “us and them.” They wrote stories that brought fractional worlds together, forming a complete picture of life. As believers, they also loved their characters as themselves. Even the bad guys. You can feel that when you read their work.  So  … instead of worrying about whether we’re writing “Christian fiction,” we should work at being authentic Christians who write whatever God puts on our hearts. And let it fall where it falls. The rest is just noise”.

Just for Writers: “I always want to tell fellow writers: ‘Lock and load!’ All the junk that’s supposedly keeping you from writing will always be there — always. In fact, once you get published, the challenges only grow. So if you want to write, write. Ignore that voice whispering in your ear, the one that insists ten or twenty times a day that you should just quit. Don’t quit. Fight back. FIGHT BACK.And when you need to call in reinforcements, read James Scott Bell’s “The War of Art for Writers.” You’ll see just how clearly the battle lines are drawn for us foot soldiers at the keyboard. Semper Fi, scribes. Semper Fi”.

____________________________________

image thumb Sibella Giorello’s Stars Shine BrightSibella Giorello grew up in Alaska and majored in geology at Mt. Holyoke College. After riding a motorcycle across the country, she worked as a features writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Her stories have won state and national awards, including two nominations for the Pulitzer Prize. She now lives in Washington state with her husband and sons.

Celebrating the Detours of Life

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image thumb3 Celebrating the Detours of Life

THE LAST TIME I managed to leave a few thoughts here I parted with a question. Maybe I did that because open ended questions are the best way to encourage interaction. More likely it was because I really wanted to know others besides me struggled with delays and detours in their pursuits of life.

Last week I listed the steps I knew I must take to continue this writing journey. I placed “Survive in this world” as number 8 when I knew it really should have come first. No matter our plans, life refuses to take a back seat. And just when you think you have all your ducks in a row, the realities of life come knocking at the door and refuse to go unheeded.

I remember the world’s oldest man (at that time) was once interviewed on the Today show some years ago. He was asked the logical question most would want to hear answered, “What is your secret to living so long?” The 119 year old man thought a moment and answered with a twinkle in his eye, “I get up every morning and try real hard not to die that day and so far that plan is going pretty well.”

It was a special moment that has replayed in my mind many times. But the truth is there was a day the plan that had worked so well for over a century failed. Just months after bringing that slice of joy to millions of viewers, the man whose name I can’t recall, was dead and gone.

But even so, he lived far longer than we are promised on a simple premise: live today to the utmost and if God gives you another day tomorrow, do the same thing again.

Now back to the question I posed last week; “Anyone care to share how their plans for life are going”? It didn’t surprise me when someone who has shared this writing journey with me for at least the last five years showed up as transparent as ever. Catrina (CAT to me) Bradley wrote of her delays and detours.

My writing journey, huh? Well, I’m not where I dreamed of being when I started down this path is all I know for sure. I’ve been in a long dry spell – motivation has left me except for brief visits. I dreamed of writing the next great break-out novel (and I still may someday) but for now I struggle to come up with an original Facebook status.

Now there’s a breath of fresh air! You mean writers, real writers, run out of ideas? Think the ones they have stink. Are sure no one else would care to read a single word they wrote should the motivation come. You mean it’s possible for someone creative, and verbal, and all the rest to sit and stare at a stupid computer and think not one of the 7 or so billion people out there would give a flying fig about anything they had to say? You bet!

Take heart CAT and everyone else like us. A multi-published and often recognized author sent me a rough draft of his next novel a couple of weeks ago. The first thing he asked me when I told him I had started reading it was, “Do you think it’s really any good? Do you think people will want to read it?” I dare say a writer who doesn’t keep on thinking that way isn’t going to be around for the long haul.

But then our intrepid responder said something that rekindled a truth that had been slowly wasting away in me: in the midst of her dry spell she saw God using her talents in unexpected ways.

I write more devotions than I had imagined. Actually, I never imagined writing them at all, but they seem to come easy for me. (When they come – a monthly deadline for a group blog helps a lot.) And poetry – I love to write poetry! Who knew? Mostly, I write all day long at work – emails and prayer requests and letters and church bulletins and newsletters – and I think I’m all worded out by the end of the day. But I’m putting all those writing tips and skills to good use – the Lord’s work!

You see CAT, you are a writer and so am I. That breakout novel someone else wrote yesterday likely will be on the sales table at Barnes and Nobles a year from now. Few novels reach celebrity status and even less become timeless. On the other hand, that email you spent time on and used the writing gifts God gave you to express a word of hope to a fellow traveler in this life may well be timeless.

My point is that detours are not always a bad thing. Some can actually save your life. Or perhaps take you down a side street you never noticed before. To places you never thought of or even knew existed. It’s what I do with the gifts God has given me in those detours of life that say more about me than when all is speeding along in the fast lane of success.

Getting Back to My Writing Roots

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image thumb2 Getting Back to My Writing Roots

“Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you” – Alex Haley

Alex Haley’s Rootsbecame a defining moment in American culture when it won the Pulitzer Prize and aired as an Emmy Award winning TV miniseries in 1977. Though it dealt with many social issues, at its core, this was a story about family and the power that comes from being tethered to one’s beginnings. Everyone needs those times in their life when they remember from whence they came and thus consider where they are headed.

Today, I took one such mental journey to reflect on my writing roots. That led me back to something my wife dug up a few weeks ago – my first published words. It was a six line poem in our High School literary journal. Trust me; I’m doing you a favor by not printing it here. I’ll spare you the pain and boredom of what transpired over the next 35 years before I grew brave enough to give the writing itch a scratch again.

When that day came I did what everyone does when they are ready to write the next great American novel. I got an idea and started writing, and writing, and writing. I poured myself into the characters (lots of them by the way) of that story and before long typed “The End”.

The next logical step was to Google up a willing publisher and send those words off. Six weeks later that lucky “reputable” publisher sent me an impressive looking gold foiled trimmed 10 page contract via Express courier. “Your manuscript shows great promise,” said the impressively titled acquisitions editor. “We are sure that by working together, The Tokenwill be a great success.”

As I read on, my persistently multi-tasking mind scanned the pages that followed as I thought, “This writing gig isn’t hard at all.” This was great. I was going to be able to skip all those tedious books on writing, jump right into my next story idea, and call my aging mother and let her know her baby boy’s name was going to be seen on bookshelves all over the country. So much for my sister, 12 years older than me, being the mental superstar of the family.

But just as I imagined myself calling up Ted Dekker and Dean Koontz to tell them to watch their backs because a new player was in the house, the last page of the contract brought me crashing back to reality. “Please sign in all the appropriate places and include a check in the amount of $3,895.00 so we can begin the work of putting your fine novel to press as soon as possible.”

This reality check was all too indicative of that period in my life. It had been a disruptive few years, with more than one career change and what amounted to a complete emotional and spiritual meltdown. There is always a price to pay for those real stories of life.

In spite of this let down and ensuing diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, I told my ego and feelings to take a hike and hunkered down for another assault on this thing called writing. This time I read the books, sought some advice, and came up with a battle plan. It looked something like this:

  1. Learn the Craft
  2. Polish My Novel
  3. Find an Agent
  4. Launch my Brand
  5. Query and Send out Proposals
  6. Get Published
  7. Survive in the Real World

Next time, I’ll let you know how that plan is working out these days. For now, let just say “Survive the Real World” should have been at the top of the list.

How about you? Anyone care to share how their plans for life are going? It’s not that hard and this is a whole lot cheaper than paying for therapy. Why do you think I wrote this article?

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