I sometimes love--sometimes even weep--over how things come together.
Earlier this evening, I got an email about sending in a copy of a book for the basket giveaway that the Love Inspired Authors site does every quarter. I'm going to send one in, but I thought I'd throw in one of the little prayer books I keep around. Couldn't find one...finally, I braved the garage and all the boxes of books still waiting to be unpacked from my last move. (Yes, I know that was last February...)
As I was digging around, I spotted a leather cover, which startled me. I thought I had unpacked all my Bibles (I have, well, quite a few). I pulled it out, and when I realized what I was holding, I had to sit down.
Jill's Bible. I had given it to her for her birthday in 1994, a glorious blue with her name in silver letters. She'd wanted a New American Standard, and I'd bought it and had it engraved at the Lifeway store downtown. Jill loved her Bible. She attended a non-denominational church in our hometown, Charismatic, and she had truly dived into Scripture the few years before. I had given it not only in celebration of her birthday but for her decision to become a missionary, to devote her life to God.
Sometime later, I went to see her, and we drove up on a mountain near Huntsville to walk. After our hike, we sat on a rock, loving the sun and scenery, and talked. She was jazzed as she started making plans to pay off her bills and go back to school.
You see it coming, don't you?
Her mother returned the Bible to me after Jill was killed in a car accident. Not even when Rachel was born severely disabled have I had as many questions for God and His plans for our lives.
Tonight I sat, opening the Bible for the first time in almost ten years. Although she'd not used it long, Jill was a note-taker. The Bible opened naturally to two locations. Luke showed up first, where she'd underlined 1:37: "For nothing is impossible with God."
The second? Psalm 112, which is highlighted, be-ribboned, notated, and marked with a dog-eared page.
1 Praise the LORD!
How blessed is the man who fears the LORD,
Who greatly delights in His commandments.
2 His descendants will be mighty on earth;
The generation of the upright will be blessed.
3 Wealth and riches are in his house,
And his righteousness endures forever.
4 Light arises in the darkness for the upright;
He is gracious and compassionate and righteous.
5 It is well with the man who is gracious and lends;
He will maintain his cause in judgment.
6 For he will never be shaken;
The righteous will be remembered forever.
Beside the word "fear" in verse 1, she had written: "reveres." But it was the last verse that gripped my heart.
Sigmund Freud once said, "Immortality is being loved by many anonymous people." I think I prefer the psalmist's definition. I know those who loved her will remember Jill as long as they live; here's praying that her faith inspires generations yet to come.
Our craft sessions for the retreat were conducted by Candace Havens, who presented an abbreviated version of her online workshops on Fast Drafts (aka, a book in two weeks) and Revision Hell (what happens after you do a book in two weeks). Mighty fine. Candy has more credentials that many of the speakers I've heard (go visit her website), and the dessert for the day was when she talked about the celebrity interviews she's done over the years.
Two of her key points in getting through a Fast Draft session are 1) send the internal editor on vacation and give yourself permission to write crap - don't worry about the "right" word or typos - those you can fix later; and 2) make yourself accountable to someone for getting those 20 pages a day written - and NOT letting them down. While I've heard these before (they're the basics behind the "book-in-a-week" group on yahoo that I was a part of for several years), it's astonishing how inspiring it is to have the precepts in your face by someone who carries through with them on a regular basis - and sells. Doesn't hurt that Candy's funny and deliciously ADD.
This week I have two things going (other than the day job). I have to finish judging a contest (scores are due by 3/1) and prepare a proposal for submission. Immediately after those things are completed, I'm going to start the fast draft process for CLUES. I'll be posting my progress here.
In the meantime, if you want to know more about Candy's workshops, go to her site, prowl around.
Back later with more on the retreat and the writing. (You rock, Marti!)
Although....anyone who thinks a writer's retreat is relaxing either has never been to one - or isn't taking advantage of it. The body may be in a chair, or a bed, or on a bench by the lake, but the mind is in furious high gear. One of our morning exercises was to come up with the elevator pitch for a new book idea...something we've never worked on before...in five minutes...go.
Although I get new ideas all the time - they do lurk around every corner - I always write them down and do a basic 250-word plot outline. Ideas don't just hang out in my head unwritten. So this truly challenged me. So quick...
brainstorm....
adventure romantic suspense character the name tess kept popping up but i don't like tess stop distracting me plot plot hiking diving combo how do i oh wait revenge a ...
scribble...
"A Time to Kill meets Shoot to Kill"
brainstorm...
keep going what else strong female committed murder major secret escape escape mountains water but ....
scribble...
woman running from past secret (murder?) takes dive trip to caribbean to escape but is followed by male bent on revenge ...
brainstorm...
think think think is he her love interest or villain who is the hero into the mountains of the island to escape trapped storm?
scribble...
she flees the water to the mountains of the island to escape the revenge and is trapped with the villain but
TIME!
And like that, your brain is spinning wildly in a direction completely new and unexpected, yet you have to yank it back from the brink to continue with the workshop. In the meantime, that last cuppa tea is making itself seriously known and you sit up straighter, stretching, making more notes...
It's going to storm here later. No hiking this afternoon. A good day to write.
The last weekend of February is the annual retreat for the local RWA group - the Music City Romance Writers. This year, we're at Natchez Trace State Park, which, as with many of the Tennessee parks, is both chock full of history as well as beauty.
Despite my resolve to stay away from agents until God's timing comes around, I have an appointment this afternoon. I'm pitching Daisy Doe to her, just to see what her reaction will be. Of course, it's preceded by a massage, so I'm hoping I won't be too nervous...or too relaxed.
More on all this later. :)
It's 5:30 am and I am so NOT a morning person. I get up at 5 during the week to give Rachel meds and coffee, so both have time to get into her system before we really have to start about 5:50 or so. Just wasn't sure if I'd have time to blog much today, so thought I'd jot down a note.
Still more to say about the last two blog entries, but I'm not exactly "live at 5." Still writing more on CLUES...the stall seems to have broken, and I'm trying to "write-through" my insecurity. It's always about this point in a book (midway or so) that I get the "this is dumb and not good; you can't really write" quivers.
More later. Time to medicate.
Ah, Marti, your insights are remarkable! (Folks, see the comment below, if you haven't checked it out.)
For some reason, your ADD vs NonADD ways of working got me to thinking about acting. In college, I studied the Stanislavski Method, but didn't quite take to it. For a while, I thought I was just a bad actor. Truth is, I'm not good at sustaining intense drama over a two-hour period - my inner nature is a touch too whimsical and unfocused - nothing spoils a good Tennessee Williams moment like a fit of giggling.
On the other hand, I have a friend who is SO method that he can take days, sometimes weeks to get OUT of chararcter (which plays the devil with his relationships, I can tell you - serial killers aren't a lot of fun to live with and a run of Hamlet can be downright annoying).
I was very good, however, at sketch comedy and old musicals. I have a broad style of delivery and a loud voice (I can be a serious belter), neither of which are good talents for subtle performances.
So, Marti, I'm thinking our respective working styles may be akin to...you are Shakespearean; I am Saturday Night Live.
Both have their pros and cons (and George Burns and Laurence Olivier are both beloved!). I think it's a matter of using those talents God gave us to recognize how we best work; adapting those intrinsic parts of our personality into a working style that is valuable - and productive!
There's the rub! The productivity!
After I posted last night, I followed some of my own advice and made myself "write-through" the stall. Discipline over talent. And it worked. I have most of today off, and I'm plunging toward the end of my chapter...although I had to take a break to check the blog, and get on the treadmill, and feed Rachel...
;)
Next weekend is a writers retreat for the local RWA group. A weekend at a local national park - woods, workshops, and downtime for writing, plus an agent or two. My personal deadline is to get CLUES mostly finished by the end of it. We'll see if my discipline and stubbornness can override my tendency toward easy distraction.
I think I'll post progress here; see what happens.
I swear, sometimes I have procrastination down to a fine art. I'm pretty much on an even keel again at work, and I'm well. The house is...well...not condemnable, and the laundry is caught up. Rachel is bathed...you get the picture.
My freelance is done, and all I have left are some contest entries I have to judge in the next couple of weeks. Yet...still....
...I'm not writing.
I'm not blocked. Ideas are everywhere. I even read through what I have of the manuscript so far, and more ideas flowed. Yet, when I was done with the read-through, I got up and walked away. I'm sleeping plenty...
...so what's the problem with the focus?
Not sure. Perhaps part of the problem is that my mind is on another book. But I know all too well that if I take a break to work on that one, it'll be forever before I get back to the one I'm supposed to be writing.
I think I need to change a bit how I work. Before, I had pitched ideas, seen what interest there was, then written what people wanted. Not a bad way to work, especially if you really need the money. But maybe now I shouldn't be so quick to pitch the proposals. Maybe now I need to finish more what's driving me, so that I can move between books if I want. That's the way I wrote the first five. I kept at least three going at any one time, working on what struck me.
Maybe, as someone who's lack of focus on any given day borders on ADD, that's a better way for me to work.
We'll see. For now, I have to feed Rachel, and I think there's a tv show on that might need watching...
I feel as if I've had a two-day recess, back when "recess" involved a bunch of kids running around a playground with bare supervision, no matter what the weather, so that when you returned to the schoolroom, grinning wildly and smelling strongly of a the sweat of a dozen of your closest friends, you were ALMOST ready to start work again. You were awake, at any rate.
I've slept more these past two days than I have in a month. Last night was odd, because I woke up twice, once needing an antacid. But Rachel even slept late AND she took a long nap. Tonight, she's already showing signs that she's ready for a new week. I've tackled some things I've let slide for awhile, and I have in my mind plans for others, which is a good change. Over the past few weeks, I've been so numb I barely made it through the day and was pretty dependent on others telling me what to do. No initiative whatsoever.
So...I feel like it's a lesson I have to teach myself over and over, many times during my life. NOT (as you would think from these two blog entries) that rest is important to creativity as well as productivity. Intellectually, I know this. My lesson involves more of the ego:
Will of the mind does not overcome the needs of the body. Especially at my age.
Not sure where that myth comes from--the one that says your mind can win out over your body. Probably too many spy novels and James Bond films. But the harder you push, the more you THINK you can go without sleep, without mental rest, without good food, the more likely you are to...well...get cranky and make mistakes.
And I've been REALLY cranky lately. Just ask my colleagues. And we won't get into that second part....
Truth is, I've never had a problem with age--or being the age that I am. Despite the way that I might dress sometimes or the music I enjoy, I have NO interest in being young again. That round was too hard the first time.
I AM, however, having a problem recognizing the effects of age on my body. I don't mind sneaking up on the next milestone (in May I'll be 50); I do mind that I can't go for weeks on end with little sleep and bad food without turning into a sloppy mess with acid reflux.
Hmph. Maybe I'm still crankier than I thought....
We'll see how I feel after the tax appointment tomorrow. I go to see Charles Parker (no kin to the saxophone player), CPA extraordinaire. He took me on as a client when I could barely pay him, much less the govt. He's never let me down, and I really need him this year, with the freelance AND the job AND buying the house.
Fear of the IRS and aging - what a combo. Not much changes, however. In looking around my office just now, I spotted a GQ from 1986. Right next to the spiffy portrait of Harrison Ford (which explains why I have a 21-year-old men's magazine in my office) is the headline: "How to Look Great at Any Age."
Mr. Ford would have been about 44.
I think I'm going to go soak my feet and go to bed early...
For the past few weeks, I've felt as if I were engaged in a battle against myself. Deadlines at work, at home. A trip which I probably shouldn't have taken, money I could have used better elsewhere. Stress on the job for a project that is finally, finally coming to an end. Sickness...Rachel and I have both been ill for almost a month. I even dropped out of church due to exhaustion and a fear of infecting more folks.
Last night I took a break in a job I was close to finishing, to get a drink and watch Leno's monologue. Just that...10 minutes. Leno comes on here at 10:30. I got my water and my wrap and curled up in the recliner.
Never saw the end of the monologue. Two or three jokes in, I was gone. I don't remember drifting off or even being all that sleepy. It's almost as if I passed out. Obviously, my body was trying to give me a message. I woke up at 3:30am with a headache, puffy legs, and the feeling that I'd been thumped on the back. I crawled into bed. Got up at 7 to take care of Rach and have breakfast. Back to bed. Finally got up around 10 or so, feeling, for the first time in weeks, truly relaxed and rested. Even most of the stress, the feeling that I have to "get it done now" was missing.
After a call to my mom, I finished that job and emailed it off. Since then I've done laundry, made bread and soup, cleaned the fridge and the kitchen. But it's all been very lazily done...no rush, just did whatever struck me. Most of all, I took one of my "spa breaks," when I got in a hot shower and did all the girly stuff that involves lotions and scrubs and a razor. I've returned to the casual pace I usually keep on weekends. Even time seemed to slow down.
It's been wonderful. And I feel ready to tackle some stuff I've put off for weeks.
Hey, just because I'm rested doesn't mean I play to lay around the house with a box of Chocolat.
It has been a day of paddling fast in a chicken-wire canoe. In fact, much of the week has been like that. Sales conference prep, plus the other stuff...I didn't realize until Tuesday that I was still a zombie from Chicago, so I tried to get some extra rest Tuesday and Wednesday. "Extra" being a relative term for me.
It has been one of those weeks when I start thinking my two greatest sources of comfort are Scripture and a good bottle of wine.
Yet this morning, I had one of those "life goes on" moments in the shower. Last night, a lady most everyone I know has been praying for went on to be with God. When I found out, I came to a complete stop in prayer, and immensely grateful for her husband's perspective, as he wrote to let everyone know: "She's left me for a better man."
This morning, the weather guy still told the day's forecast, and my daughter still needed a breathing treatment and suctioning. I got up at 5 for her first round of meds, then made sure she was comfy for the bus ride at 7. I stood in the shower later, thinking of loss and gain and continuity, sunshine and shadow, and the mystery that is God's plans for our lives. We can discern the best we can, pray for wisdom and guidance, but we still see only through that "glass darkly."
This is why, as frantic as I can get about too much to do and missed deadlines and occasional cost overurns, I remember that it would all go on without me. Perspective. All we can do is the best we know how, trust, and pray.
I'll blog more this weekend. It's a "mommy weekend" when I'll be home the entire time with Rach. I'm actually looking forward to it. Maybe my living room will even get cleaned.
Or maybe not...
Chicago. I've visited this amazing city many times...all but one in the height of summer, when the skies are blue and the lake an astonishingly bright and attracting border.
Winter is a slightly different story. This weekend, outside temperatures will hover mainly in the single digits, and from my hotel window, I can tell that the wind is...not calm. But I won't be experiencing much of the outside. I'm ensconced at a hotel at the Love Is Murder conference.
This is my first time to this conference, and I'm still feeling my way about. Any conference, big or small, is a type of microcosm...this one is mostly writers and readers, so I hope to talk to more readers about what appeals to them about certain authors. I did bring work with me, and a lot of it. We'll see how much actually gets done...or how much I buy into the separation of conference from the rest of life.