so much time...so few words

A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Jonathan Maberry at a writing conference.

www.dfwcon.org

Early one morning as I shuffled through the hotel lobby in search of coffee I spotted him in a corner, already hard at work, his fingers flying across the keyboard. I overheard him tell someone he had a Monday morning deadline to make, and he had to get forty thousand words written by the end of the weekend...in addition to giving the keynote address, teaching a workshop, and mentoring eager wannabes at the conference. He'd been up most of the night.

I have to confess--I almost never stay up all night writing. Oh, all right, I never stay up to write through the night. The last time I was up all night I was in labor and it wasn't because the deadline had passed.

But, really--forty thousand words in three days? All right...so Jonathan is an exceptionally energetic and prolific writer. Me? Not so much.

I don't know how a person (me) can work so long and so hard on a manuscript, and after six months, have so little to show for it--fewer than 30,000 words. I tell myself that it's okay because the topic is difficult, and some of what I have written is painful, but the fact remains that I am a slow writer.

Therefore, I sometimes need to be reminded that:

www.latestcovers.com

 

 

www.imgarcade.com

www.thealwaysbeliever.com
 

www.quotes-lover.com

 

Okay, I feel better now. You?

*

"You cannot force ideas.

Successful ideas are the result of

slow growth."

~~Alexander Graham Bell~~

*

I'm off to the Greater Philadelphia Christian Writers Conference this week. Pray for me...haha!

jan

 

 

 

questions without answers

Whatever it was I planned to write about this week, forget it. It wasn't important.

What is important is the senseless loss of life that is getting to be a commonplace occurrence these days, the fact that we are helpless to anticipate it or prevent it, and the painful fact that there is nothing any of us can do to help the victims, their families and friends. I'm referring, of course, to the tragedy that took down Malasia Airlines Flight #17.

www.kvdr.com

I didn't know anyone who was on that flight but I do know people just like them. We all do. They're people who have to fly in order to do their jobs, people who need to get away for a little vacation, or who just want to get home. They may be traveling with their children. They put aside their nagging doubts, yield to the annoying discomforts and inconveniences that plague even the easiest flights, and dismiss the unspoken fear that their flight could be the one that goes down. They climb on board, settle into their seats, and relax.

www.imgarcade.com



We all do. Which is why I feel connected to the victims of this disaster. I know that, but for the grace if God, I could have been on that plane, or one just like it--a flight that disappears off the radar.

Whether it is the sheer magnitude, the stark horror, or the near proximity of a tragedy like this that gets our attention, the questions we ask are universal. We want to know why God allows this kind of thing to happen. Why the innocent have to suffer. Where God goes when we need Him the most. After all, we've been taught to believe in a merciful and all-powerful deity. It makes you wonder. Where is God when we need Him? How do broken hearts keep beating? How are we to make sense of suffering?

www.soulshepherding.org

My WIP, Beyond Belief, explores these issues on a personal level. In it you'll meet people who have endured some of life's darkest moments and emerged with an even stronger faith in God. None of them abandoned their faith because of it. None of them succumbed to bitterness or anger or paralyzing grief. They didn't blame God for what had happened. Instead, they went on to forge an unshakable bond of faith in His grace, the one thing that they agree got them through.

 

What can the rest of us learn from them at times like this?

jan

 

 

are you in over your head?

This couldn't have crossed my desk at a better time. I so'o'o needed to hear this. It's from "The Mindful Writer" by Dinty Moore:


"If you don't feel that you are possibly on

the edge of humiliating yourself,

of losing control of the whole thing,

then probably what you're doing isn't very vital.

If you don't feel like you are writing

somewhat over your head, why do it?



If you don't have some doubt of your

authority to tell this story,

then you are not trying to tell enough."

                 ~~John Irving~~



John Irving



Moore goes on to say:

 

"The true work of the writer is the true work of all artists: to take risks, to lean far out over the edge

of the accepted truth, to see what can only be seen from that vantage point.

 

Ask yourself every once in a while: Am I in over my head? Am I posing questions in my work to which there can never be satisfying answers? Am I trying to tackle a project here that is well beyond my capacity as a writer? Am I just a little afraid of the direction that all of this is going?

 

If the answer to each of these questions is yes, then you are heading in the right direction."

 

Dinty Moore

 Whew! That's really good news. For a while there I was worried.

 

What worries you about your WIP?

 

www.pams5writing.blogspot.com

jan

 





 





four simple truths for the writer

Allow me to introduce you to my new favorite book on writing:

 

 



If you want to be a writer but, instead of  putting words on the page every day, you pay homage to every distraction, uncertainty, and temptation that threatens to separate you from your work, you may like this book, too.

 

If you give in to the voices of discouragement, insecurity, and uncertainty that clamor for attention inside your own head, or you open the door every time the enemy knocks, this book may be for you.

 

On days when you're tired of writing or afraid to start, or unsure how to proceed, this little book can help. 

 

It is based on four simple truths:

1. The writing life is difficult.
2. Much of our dissatisfaction with it arises out of our desire to control not only the process of writing, but whether the world accepts or rejects what we have written.
3. There are ways to lessen the disappointment of rejection and to live a more authentic writing life.
4. The way to do this is to make the process of writing less about our own success and fulfillment, and instead to be mindful of our motives and our attachment to desired outcomes.

Yes, the author writes largely from a Buddhist perspective. Each short chapter is a reflection on a quote about writing. Here are a couple of my favorites:

• "Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer."~~Barbara Kingsolver

• "I write to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see, and what it means."~~Joan Didion

• Everyone thinks writers must know more about the inside of the human head, but that is wrong. They know less. That's why they write, trying to find out what everyone else takes for granted."~~Margaret Atwood

                                                                                                       

• "Every morning between 9 and 12, I go to my room and sit before a piece of paper. Many times I just sit for three hours with no ideas coming to me. But I know one thing: If an idea does come between 9 and 12, I am there ready for it."~~Flannery O'Connor

www.gograph.com

• "Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write."~~Rainer Maria Rilke

Baobab tree

 



If you sometimes feel unbalanced--thrown off course by all that is happening to you and around you--remember that mindfulness can help you reconnect with your own truth. Reflect on who you are as a writer, where you are in life and what it means, how you feel about it, and what about it needs to be written--or drawn, or photographed, or choreographed, or sculpted, or put to music. Reflect on the Noble Truths of the Writing Life.

*

"As a writer you are free.

You are about the freest person that ever was.

Your freedom is what you have bought

with your solitude, your loneliness."

~~Ursula K. Le Guin~~

*

jan



 

 

true story

This took place a couple of weeks ago. True story.

 

REQUIEM FOR A GRAY SQUIRREL

I killed a squirrel today. One moment the little fellow was scampering about in the leaves by the side of the road. The next moment--







 I’m sure it freaked him out when he glanced up and saw my car bearing down on him hard and fast. He must have been blind with fear the way he darted this way and that in utter panic.





Instead of scampering off into the woods where he belonged, he dashed out into the road and ended up under my right front tire. I hit the brakes hoping for the best, but it was too late. I felt the sickening thump that ruined my day, not to mention what it did to his.

Don’t ask me why tears came to my eyes. Squirrels are considered a nuisance around here. There must be hundreds of them on my street alone, their total worth estimated at less than a thimbleful of fairy dust. That is, according to the professed wisdom of mankind.

But what about his family and friends? What was he to them? The brave defender of the nest? The commander-in-chief of acorn collectors? Perhaps he was a scholar or healer, a storyteller or spiritual guide. What will they do without him now?

I wonder who will be the first to notice he’s missing. I wonder if they’ll they send out a search party and scour the area until they come across the pile of bloody fur in the street and realize he never had a chance.

Who will be left to curl up without him tonight when the sun goes down?

It makes you think because this kind of thing happens a lot. Your day is going along just fine when out of nowhere--BAM! It changes in a heartbeat.

The way it changed just this past month when a ship capsized off the coast of South Korea carrying hundreds of young vacationers to a watery grave. Bam.

When an airliner with over three hundred passengers on board dropped out of the sky and disappeared without a trace. Bam.

When a mudslide buried thousands of villagers in a remote village in eastern Afghanistan. Bam.

First responders rushed in to assist the victims, and search parties set out to locate survivors while friends and families waited in agony. In vain. The rest of us took note of it and then went on about our lives as if nothing at all had changed when, in truth, humanity will never be the same again.

As I drove on today I glanced in my rearview mirror to see a broken little body in the street behind me. What is it they say? “Sed gratia Dei sum quod ire.” There, but for the grace of God, go I.

All I can say is, “Deus vobiscum. Requiescant in pace.”

 

Amen.

*

 

Just for the record, I have a hard time even killing a bug, and that includes spiders. I like to carry them outside and release them into the wild. Except, maybe ants and houseflies. You?

jan

 



 

only a dad

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY



www.inhabitat.com



 

It's time to set the record straight. Fathers everywhere should listen up.

 

I want to share something I learned as a child. If my father were here today this is what I would say to him:

 

As a child I didn't care what job he went off to every day. He could have donned a pair of overalls and strapped on a tool belt, or picked up his stethoscope or briefcase on the way out the door and I wouldn't have noticed...as long as he came home at night.

 

It didn't matter that our house was old, that it creaked in the wind and sagged in the corners. I didn't care what kind of car he drove...long as he came home at night.

 

It didn't matter how much money he earned, how much power he wielded, or how much stuff we had...as long as he came home at night.

 

At home at night he taught me how to throw a ball, to ride a bike, to build a fort.

 

www.nanny.net

 

He showed me how to brave a storm, to hammer a nail, to hang a swing. He led me outside to play in the snow, to feed the birds, to watch the sun set and the moon rise. At night, he shoveled the coal that stoked the furnace that kept me warm.

 

This post is for all the fathers who can't be home with their families tonight. You know who you are. You might be half way around the world fighting to protect the lives of children who remind you of your own.



www.militaryroots.co.uk



You might be pumping gas, or mopping floors tonight.

 

www.autismafter16.com

 

You might be fighting a fire, or rushing to the scene of an accident.

 

 



www.bls.gov



 

You might be busy setting a broken leg or closing the hole in someone's heart.

 

 

www.onlinecollege.org
 

Maybe you can't be home tonight. Even so...this poem is for you:

 

Only a Dad

By Edgar Albert Guest 1881–1959

 

Only a dad, with a tired face,

Coming home from the daily race,

Bringing little of gold or fame,

To show how well he has played the game,

But glad in his heart that his own rejoice

To see him come, and to hear his voice...

...Only a dad, neither rich nor proud,

Merely one of the surging crowd

Toiling, striving from day to day,

Facing whatever may come his way,

Silent, whenever the harsh condemn,

And bearing it all for the love of them.

 

Only a dad, but he gives his all

To smooth the way for his children small,

Doing, with courage stern and grim,

The deeds that his father did for him.

This is the line that for him I pen,

Only a dad, but the best of men.

*

 

Enjoy the day if you can. If you can't, try to enjoy someone else's day. 

jan

 

 

i wouldn't want God's job

My current WIP--a non-fiction book about faith--is progressing so slowly it hurts. "Beyond Belief" has been tugging at me for years. Now that I've started working on it, it won't cooperate. There are just so many questions.

 

"Beyond Belief" recounts the stories of people who have endured some of life's darkest moments--a child's death, devastating illness and disabling injury, a friend's suicide--and in spite of it, gone on to forge a strong faith in God. They don't question His motives or His methods. They don't blame Him for their trials. Instead, they draw strength and solace from His felt presence in their lives. Their stories help the rest of us reconcile the contradictions between what we have been taught to believe about an all-powerful and merciful God with the pain we experience in our lives. "Beyond Belief" explores the extraordinary faith of ordinary people and what we can learn from them.

These are friends of mine. They have shared their stories with me little by little over the years. I knew it would be a painful for them to revisit these memories, not to mention putting them into words, but each of them graciously and generously accepted the invitation. For their courage and grace I am deeply indebted and eternally grateful.

~~Namaste~~



 

My hope is to touch someone out there who has suffered and given up on God because of it, and to show them that there is a way back.

Today I met Pat for lunch so we could go over her story. I needed more from her. I had to ask her how it came about that she grew up feeling that she was unworthy and unlovable. Who convinced her that the pain she experienced in her life was God's punishment and that she somehow deserved it?

I wanted to understand her family and the shameful incident that drove them out of town and nearly destroyed her youngest son--a creative genius who went on to study art and music in college. The sweet, sensitive boy who lost his mind to a college prank--an intentional LSD overdose orchestrated by a couple of his buddies. I had to ask her how she came to learn that it was his body that turned up  in the woods behind the house six months after he wandered off one day. How the police established his identity. How she survived it. Why she still goes to church.

Next week I'll meet with Robin and we'll go over the details of the car crash that took her younger brother's life when she was just fifteen...when he died in her arms. I'll ask her about the day her happy, active infant daughter went mute with autism. We'll revisit the day she learned she had stage 4 breast cancer and what it was that got her through that.

Then I'll meet with Rita. Then, Maria.

This book is hard to write because these stories are hard to tell, and hard to make sense of. If, in writing it, I have learned anything so far it is this: I wouldn't want God's job. I think He must be very sad.

http://www.simplereminders.com

*

How do you see the problem of pain? Do you believe in the power of prayer?

What if God's answer is "no"?

 

jan