beginning again

I think I got in over my head when I took on a book about faith. Writing a book about faith, that is. I've been puttering around with it for over a year, grasping every opportunity to avoid working on it, a sure sign something is wrong.

For months I've been telling myself that sooner or later I will be inspired and everything will fall into place for me. Whether I thought that inspiration would come from The Author of Everything Himself (who I blame for coming up with this crazy idea in the first place), or from a magnificent sunrise, or from the dog, I don't know. But I believed it would eventually come to me. Eventually being the operative word.

www.sciencedaily.com

It's not that I haven't been trying. At a writing conference about six months ago I met with an editor who really got me thinking...

www.goypaz.com

First, she asked me what my book was about.

"Navigating life's darkest moments without giving up on God," I replied in under ten words. Yay!

"What image will your readers come away with when they read your book?" she said.

Image? I met her gaze with a blank stare. I'd never thought about that. I hadn't heard it mentioned in any of the workshops I'd taken or in the books I'd read. She suggested I come up with a theme to use as a framework for my narrative, for the cover of the book, even its title. Let's say gardening, or quilting, or collecting seashells...something people like. Something they'll remember.

I filed her suggestion under "things to think about" even though I had no idea where to begin. I had a 30,000 word rough draft that, even to me, sounded disorganized, repetitive, and decidedly uninspired. It needed some structure.

www.quovadisblog.com

I've been on the verge of letting this one go for months. Then, this week an idea came to me literally out of nowhere. How does that happen? I have been laboring over this for months, wracking my brain without success, and then--BAM!--it just appears?

So, this is the thing. I'm writing about people I know who have been through some terrible times--through illness, loss, and grief--but still cling to the image of God as a kind and all-powerful deity. Their faith remains energetic, devout, and contagious despite what they have endured. One of them is the personification of humility, one the image of joy, another the face of forgiveness, and another, of hope. They are the embodiment of the attributes that describe faith. I will probably rename the book, "Ten Faces of Faith" as I sketch out their lives and what we can learn about faith from their experience.

It remains to be seen how this will work out, but I feel as though the inspiration I have been waiting for has arrived, and just in the nick of time.

www.unionforgamers.com

How long do you give a project before you decide it isn't worth pursuing? How long are you willing to wait for the inspiration you need to move forward with it? 

Is your WIP wrapped around an image that the reader can easily visualize and identify with? Are you writing with this in mind?

*

"I may not be there yet,

but I'm closer than I was."

~anonymous~

*

I hope you are staying safe and warm this week. As for me, I am sitting next to a heater with my hands wrapped around a mug of hot coffee. Write on!

jan

theoretical physics and the origins of confusion

My mind has turned to mush. In my post last week I mentioned that I had just finished reading "The End of Unbelief" by Shane Hayes. That book brought me closer to belief in God than I have ever been. No, wait. Make that closer to accepting the possibility that God exists than I've ever been. Still that's quite a step for me, a practicing Catholic who nonetheless takes the agnostic view that God is unknowable.

Putting aside the issue of God's nature and being, and all the theories about the origins and evolution of the universe, I was still left wondering how the very first bit of matter, whatever it was, could have appeared out of nowhere, out of nothing. I needed to know what the physicists said about it. If not from the hand God, then how do they explain it?

Which is why, this week I tackled Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time."

The book was a #1 New York Times bestseller, implying that it sold thousands of copies. According to the back cover, it "explores such profound questions as: How did the universe begin--and what made its start possible?"

Bingo--just what I was looking for. It promised to explore concepts like black holes and quarks, antimatter, the big bang, and the question of God "in language we can all understand."

I beg to differ.

www.pixgood.com

I barely understood a word of it even though I've taken courses in physics and calculus. I mean, I understand the fact that when we observe the night sky we are seeing it as it was millions of years ago because it takes that long for light from the stars to reach us. It makes sense to me that if you could travel faster than the speed of light you would go back in time.

But Hawking lost me when he said that time is subject to the pull of gravity. It passes more slowly the closer you are to a large mass such as a planet. Meaning that if you took twins at birth and raised one of them on the top of a mountain and raised the other one on the valley floor, the twin on the mountain top would age more quickly. Paradoxically, if you sent him off into space at nearly the speed of light, he would age more slowly than the twin he left behind, and would be much younger when he returned. Because time and space are relative. Or something like that. Theoretically.

I really got hung up when he explained that light is subject to gravitational forces. Black holes are formed when the gravitational pull of a massive star bends light and attracts it with such force that none of the light can escape. So we can't see the star anymore because its light can't reach us, but we know it's there because of its gravitational pull on other objects in the universe.

www.cosmos4kids.com

He talked about antiparticles, event horizons, singularities, pulsars, imaginary time, quantum mechanics, wormholes, and string theory. He described these concepts without burdening the reader with the mathematical formulas that prove them. I don't even want to go there...

This is impossible...

The ultimate goal in theoretical physics is to develop a unified theory that explains all the processes in the universe and the laws that govern them so that we can understand its origins and predict its future. According to Hawking, due to the limitations that the "principle of uncertainty" in quantum mechanics imposes on our powers of prediction, that will never happen. Even if it did, even if we understood how the universe evolved and where it is going, we would still be left to wonder why it unfolded the way it did, and how our own existence fits in.

www.entertainingchristianity.com

The bottom line, I believe, is that the universe is real (we have evidence for that), but unknowable. It's a stretch of faith to believe that God is real, but unknowable. We can't see God. Nevertheless, like the gravitational pull of the star we can't see in the black hole, we can observe the impact He/She/It exerts on our lives. Theoretically.

I don't know how many of the people who bought this book read it. I can't imagine many of them understood what they read. I bow down to anyone who did. I still haven't decided whether I think theoretical physicists are geniuses, or if they are simply delusional.

But then they might think the same of me. I have an aversion to mathematics. Perhaps they have an aversion to writing. They'd think it strange, indeed, that anyone could sit in front of a laptop hour after hour, day after day, for no better reason than to tweak a word or agonize over the proper placement of a comma, and enjoy doing it. Welcome to my life.

www.clipart.com

*

"The universe is not required

to be in perfect harmony with human ambition."

~Carl Sagan~

*
Good. We've solved that problem. And I'm ready for the next theoretical storm, due to arrive later today. I have the coffee and cookies, the wine, and plenty of birdseed. Now I just have to decide which book is next, "Wild" or "Adultery," or a little bit of both.   

jan

wishful thinking



 

Call it wishful thinking, but I took the weather forecast--SNOW--seriously this weekend. I stocked up on food and supplies. I committed myself to three writing projects. And, I went to the bookstore. I truly believe this quote by Stephen King:

 



www.blog.bookrix.com



Maybe I went a little overboard.

 

Just this past week I finished a rather eclectic group of books. One, "The End of Unbelief" by Shane Hayes, addresses some of the same issues I'm dealing with in my WIP, a book on faith...or the lack of it. I finished a book of short stories by Nobel Prize winning author Alice Munro. And, in anticipation of the arrival in March of our first grandchild, a boy, I read "Operating Instructions" by Anne Lamott, a journal of her son's first year of life written with her customary sense of humor and self-deprecation.

 

This weekend I selected an equally diverse group of books. I picked up "Adultery" by Paulo Coelho because I love literary fiction, and I mean, how much better can you get?

 

www.bibliotikus.net



On a lighter note I bought "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Several of my fellow writers on Facebook commented enthusiastically about it this week, so I figured that was good enough for me. Then, when I checked it out, the woman at the register also raved about it. 

 

 

 

www.thebooksmugglers.com

 



  Finally, I gave in and picked up "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking.

www.amazon.com

The question, "How did the universe begin?" is the one thing that still stands between me and my understanding of God. The back cover assures the reader that this issue is discussed "in language we can all understand...."

 

I beg to differ. My head is already spinning with terms like absolute time and relativity, and with the theories of Aristotle, Newton, and Einstein. And I'm only on page 22. Nevertheless, I'm going to give this a shot.

 

What I need now is not just a passing snow storm, but an authentic blizzard. I need to be snowed in for a couple of days, maybe even weeks (like last winter), with nothing better to do than to unravel the mysteries of the universe. Today's storm was a bit of a letdown, so I'm hoping tomorrow's will do the trick. Thinking wishfully...

 

 What attracts you to the books you choose to read?

*

www.quotes.land.com
*



In light of last week's news coverage about the mother who set her baby on fire, my friend and fellow writer, Hana Haatainen-Caye, invited me to post something about postpartum psychosis, as well as a few thoughts about responsible reporting. You can read it on her site, http://thegreengrandma.blogspot.com/. If you're interested in environmental issues, her blog also offers excellent tips for living an environmentally responsible life style. Check it out!

jan

 

 

 

 

slogging through the muck

First there's the book you have pictured in your mind...and then, there's the process of writing it. It can take you from soaring with enthusiasm to slogging through the muck.

 



I'd say I'm somewhere near the midpoint in that process, now...when inspiration wanes, fatigue sets in, and the story line languishes. When self-doubt creeps in. And, even though the end is in sight, like a desert mirage, it fades away the closer I get to it.

www.time2morph.wordpress.com



This is a lonely place. My manuscript isn't polished yet so no one else has seen it or commented on it. Therefore, I don't get to enjoy the stimulation that comes with an exchange of ideas, weighing in on suggestions from my writing partners. I need a fresh infusion of incentive, like the energy that emerges when composing a query letter or submitting to an editor or agent. But, I'm not there yet. This is just hard, lonely work, day after day.

 

www.2014holidays.org



How do I cope with it? How do you?

Sometimes I'll take a little time out to run off a piece of flash fiction, a short essay, or, like today, a blog post. It's like indulging in a little snack when you can't wait for supper.

 

www.epyk.com



Sometimes I have to tear myself away from the keyboard and polish off a few necessary chores before I can concentrate again. For example, when there's no food in the house or I run out of clean underwear. I mean, priorities do change. Writing sometimes has to wait. This past weekend it involved hosting a DIY baby shower for my daughter. What fun! (She's going to have a boy...)

 



When I'm stuck for an idea or unsure how to put one into words, I'll pick a random passage to edit and revise, backtracking a bit until I'm sure I'm on the right path again.





www.screencraft.org

It also helps to read something by another author on a similar topic. Today I flew through "The End of Unbelief--A New Approach to the Question of God" by Shane Hayes.

 

www.bn.com



This is exactly what I'm writing about but he has an entirely different perspective on it, meaning three things. First, people are interested in this topic and are reading this kind of book. Second, our intended audience is different, and third, my book (if and when it comes out) will not be in competition with his. Good to know.



www.blog.bookrix.com

Do you ever get bogged down in the middle of a book? What do you do to energize yourself?

*

"Many of life's failures

 are people who did not realize

how close they were to success

when they gave up."

~Thomas A Edison~

*

On March 28, 1986 the temperature reached 90 degrees in Central Pennsylvania, where I live. Hang in there! Winter will be over before you know it.

jan

consider this question

Before you sign your name to your list of New Year's Resolutions this year, consider this question:

www.lifeyourway.net
 



The possibilities are endless, and they are different for each of us. Lose weight, train for a marathon, go vegetarian, smile more, go back to school, revise your manuscript, protect the environment, travel more, save more, and on and on.

 

In addition, you might consider trying to:

 

www.naturalitabaker.blogspot.com





or to

www.quotesvalley.com



or, if you left something undone in 2014 you might want to

 

 





If you still can't decide what to attempt in 2015, take Eleanor Roosevelt's advice:

www.pandawhale.com



Happy New Year!


www.webneel.com



jan

pure joy and boundless hope

Merry Christmas!

 

www.toplowridersites.com

 

If I could make just one person this happy on Christmas Day

my joy would be complete:

 

 

Wishing you tears of

pure, unadulterated joy this Christmas...

and

a New Year full of boundless hope.



 

www.dec.ny.gov

 

"Hope is the thing with feathers

that perches in the soul,

and sings the song without words,

and never stops at all."

~Emily Dickinson~

jan



how to read a book, for writers

 

HOW TO READ A BOOK (For Writers)

 

Always read a book with a pen in your hand.

 

 

This affords you the opportunity to underline and codify the passages you like for easy reference later on: 

!--amazing

*--remember this

:)--cute, clever, or funny

 









  

Of course, you can always use color-coded post-its to do the same thing:



But, a pen also enables you to jot down notes as you go along...





...as well as keep a list of words whose definitions you need to look up some time later on:
 



 

Why bother??

 

Because every fresh metaphor, every snappy line of dialogue, every new word we encounter makes us better writers. What we learn through recovery, reflection, and repetition elevates our work. Reading makes us better writers, and writing makes us better readers.

*



www.nolagirlatheart.wordpress.com
*
And...if you think writing is boring,
you could be doing that wrong, too.

 

 jan