A Blustery Day, A Quiet Meeting

Yesterday I left the office about 5:25 PM to attend the first meeting of the year of BNC Writers, planning to stop at the public library along the way. The reason for the library stop was only to see if my book Documenting America, which I donated to the library, had made it to the shelves and into the electronic card catalogue.

On the short walk from building to pick-up truck I fought the wind, now coming out of the east across the front of the building. It was from the south earlier in the day. A sailor would probably describe the wind as “fresh”, though this land-lubber doesn’t really know what that means. It seemed like more of a gale. Certainly as blustery as A.A. Milne’s blustery day. The shift to the east means the center of the storm is south of us, and moving past. Although, radar doesn’t show an actual storm. But a shift in the wind means change, and change is good, right?

Three miles later I was at the library, and it was closed. I forgot that the City and most governmental offices had the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday off. Most businesses in this part of the world don’t, so I lost track of the status of the library. Checking on my book being impossible, I drove the half mile on to church, arriving 45 minutes before our writers meeting should start. I unlocked the upstairs, outside door, posted the sign, went to the room and made a minor re-arrangement, and waited. This was to be our first meeting after the holiday break. Two of our regulars had e-mailed me to say they wouldn’t make it. We have fifteen on our mailing list, so that left twelve other possible attendees other than me. Of those twelve, only four had ever attended any meeting.

But I refused to be pessimistic, as difficult as that is for me. I pulled out scrap paper and wrote my next column for Buildipedia.com. It’s not due until Friday, so I’m way ahead of schedule on it. Then I made up a to-do list for at home after the meeting. Then I began writing this blog post on paper. 6:30 PM came around, with no one else there but me. It promised to be a quiet meeting. I decided to give it till 7:00 PM before leaving.

Five minutes later Linda walked in, afraid she would interrupt a meeting already begun. She often has work or family conflicts, and hadn’t been at a meeting in over two months. She brought nothing for the group to critique. Ten minutes later and no one else having showed up, I read my short story, “Too Old To Play”. As I read it I saw a number of typos, and one or two places where the words could be better. Linda found a couple of redundancies. Ten or so minutes and we were done.

We talked on for another half hour: about childhood experience with death (the subject of my short story), about writing in general, about our writers group and how we could help our fellow writers. We had a productive meeting, the two of us, if kind of quiet. I could hear lots of background noises. The sounds of a major basketball practice in the gym were evident, as was a vacuum running somewhere. The wind blew against the building side, and I recognized uplift noise of the roof.

So we parted. The next meeting is not until February 6, unless I can convince anyone to come on the fifth Monday for an extra meeting. And we retreat into our quiet little writer worlds, interrupted by day jobs and family responsibilities and church activities and…a thousand other things. The writing dream seems as strong and as elusive as the winds, buffeting all around yet impossible to catch. Constantly shifting. Some days blowing a gale, other days as still as the inhabitants of a cemetery.

I will continue to chase that wind, obeying God, and doing what I can to see the dream come true.

A Blog in Search of a Theme

I didn’t mean to go a week without writing to this blog, but life got in the way. Work, health, and other writing endeavors pulled me away, and I neglected here.

One of the problems is I’m still searching a little for a revised theme for An Arrow Through the Air. My other blog, at the davidatodd.com website, is for documenting my writing life and promoting my writing. I figure that, if I ever have hoards of fans, that other blog is where they will go to keep track of my writing news. This blog I hope to make something different. I thought of building on Wesley’s “arrow through the air” metaphor and making this blog about metaphors of life. That still seems like a good idea, but I haven’t been able to bring it off yet.

So I continue to flail about here, posting about writing, about life, about health, about death—about anything that happens to be in my mind at the moment. In my mind right now is accomplishment. Yesterday I completed a number of small tasks at work, as well as taught a brown bag class on the noon hour. At home in the evening I proofread my second short story, typed the edits, formatted it for Kindle, uploaded it, created a dummy cover, and saved it as a draft. I’m not going to upload it until I receive the final cover. Although, if it takes too long, I may use the dummy and activate the e-book. Or, possibly I’ll learn graphic software and start doing simple covers myself.

 Also last night I came very close to inputting all checkbook entries for 2011 into my budgeting spreadsheet. That included finding and correcting a nagging error in the spreadsheet. I still need to find out why I have a discrepancy in some of the categories (too much in housing, not enough in medical), where apparently I made an error in allocation early in the year. But I think I’ll wait until I have all the year entries made, and see what needs to be done about reallocation.

 Today, I have had similar accomplishments even to this time of day (12:36 PM CDT). I have completed many tasks for my day job, including finding and processing a nagging invoice for $300 to a contractor. My time sheet is up to date, with annotations. My December billings are out the door. A major clean-up of my office has begun, as I transition out of project work and into full time training. And I made progress with my co-presenter on the full day class we’ll be teaching at the erosion control conference on February 26^th.

 For personal stuff so far today, I called a credit card company and took care of one problem. I went on-line to check for debits not recorded in the checkbook and have those up to date. I went through three months of expense reimbursements so that tonight I can record them in the right categories on my budgeting spreadsheet. And the noon hour isn’t over and I have time to work on this.

 Tonight, Lynda and I will most likely watch a couple of episodes of The West Wing, season three. I’ll try to finish my budgeting spreadsheet for the year, including allocating those expenses. And I hope to work on one remaining medical reimbursement claim for 2011, maybe even complete it for mailing tomorrow. Writing tonight? Probably not, but that’s okay. Perhaps with these many tasks completed, I’ll have a productive writing weekend.

On Heinlein's Rules

At some point in the past I alluded to Heinlein’s rules for writing. I said I would come back and discuss them, but never got to it. Now I have.

These came from Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988), in an essay titled, “On Writing Speculative Fiction” published in 1947. I have never read anything by Heinlein. A little research reveals he wrote science fiction, both short stories and book length. He, along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, were considered the top three science fiction writers of the 40s, 50s, and 60s.

In the referenced article, Heinlein gave his rules for writing. They are:

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.

This is usually interpreted as: Don’t self-edit; don’t rewrite; trust the instincts that are in force when you are writing your first draft, which comes from the creative side of your brain. Self-editing comes from the critical side of the brain, and will not produce a better result than the first draft. This flies in the face of what is reported to be Hemmingway’s comments, “The first draft of anything is [crap].” (sanitized for a PG website). It flies in the face of the current conventional wisdom, which is write, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, etc.

Dean Wesley Smith, on his blog, has made frequent mention of Heinlein’s rules. Smith says he does three drafts of any short story or novel. The first draft comes first (duh), as quickly as the creative processes of the brain can be put on reproducible medium. He then does a typos and grammar edit. At this point it is given to a trusted first reader. When that reader gives comments, Smith has two ways to go. If the comments are minimal, which he says is most of the time), he makes those few changes and submits or publishes the work. If the comments are more substantial, he abandons the story, in the belief it is fatally flawed and no amount of non-creative brain work can fix it.

This may be a bit of oversimplification, both by Smith as he describes his process and me as I’m summarizing it for this blog, but I think I’m pretty close to what Smith writers. He encourages writers to not rewrite. Create the story/book fast, trust your creative instincts, and run with it. At the same time, he acknowledges that not all writers are the same. This might work for some, he says, but not for others. That acknowledgement, however, doesn’t change his recommendation. And he is very critical of any workshop/MFA environment that encourages extensive edits.

For me, I just don’t see how Heinlein’s rules could work. I do tend to write fast, using maximum creative powers without a lot of critical thought or self-editing. But for book-length stuff, the plots are so complex that I don’t see how I could possibly not edit. As an example, in In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, by the time I came to the final scene I decided to use the point of view of the protagonist’s mother. The protag was not in a position to observe everything going on, nor was his girlfriend, but his mother was. I think the last scene worked well, but that left me with a character making critical observations when she really had a bit role before that. So I really need to go back and review all the scenes she’s in, and see that they are consistent with how she acts toward the end of the book; or, if not consistent, at least produce a reasonable character arc.

No, I don’t see how Heinlein’s rules work for me. An unstated part of Heinlein’s rules is that you have to keep writing. Write creatively and fast, complete it, submit of publish it, and move on immediately to the writing the next piece. In the time you would extensively edit a completed piece you could write one or two more new pieces. You will learn and improve more, Smith et al say, writing more pieces than “improving” completed pieces. Plus, they say, the completed piece is already at its best before the critical brain destroys what the creative brain has done.

Do I agree with Heinlein or with Hemmingway? I have no answer for this. I just throw it out to see if it generates any comments.

A Quiet New Year's Eve

Lynda and I are in our reading chairs, each with our laptop, listening to the NY Philharmonic concert on PBS. Right now they are performing Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue", one of my favorite pieces. Since my tax dollars paid for the program, I might as well listen to it.

Earlier, we went out to eat at a Chinese buffet with Lynda's mom and brother (here visiting from Santa Fe). This was my birthday dinner. Yes, I'm 60 years old today. Our celebration, other than the dinner, was to go to Wal-Mart and do our weekly shopping. Yesterday, though, Lynda brought cake and pizza to the office, and everyone gathered for a brief party. That was nice.

So 2011 ends, a momentous year, not to be judged by the quietness of the last day of it. 2012 promises to be quieter than 2012, I hope. Other than getting a new roof next week, some siding repair, inside repainting due to the leakage. Other than giving three papers at a conference in Las Vegas in February. Other than self-publishing at least three books, and five if I can do it.

Yes, 2012 promises to be a quiet year.

Christmas Morning

It's Christmas morning. The house was quiet when I got up around 10:30 AM. We are at our son's house in Chicago. I guess he and his partner had been up earlier, but were not when I got up. Now almost everyone is up, the TV is on with some Christmas special, and I hear many voices. There are no young children in the house.

How different from 50+ years ago. In the Todd household we had quite a Christmas ritual down. It started Christmas eve, when we put the tree up and decorated it. Many other decorations went up that day, some after we three kids went to bed.

One thing that had been in place for a week or so was the manger scene, on top of the sewing machine in the dining room. The only figures in it were animals. Mary and Joseph were across the room in one direction, the Magi across the room in another. I don't think we separated the shepherds and sheep from the stable. On the days leading up to Christmas, Mary and Joseph began their trek to Bethlehem, moving across the room. They arrived at the stable on Christmas eve.

Christmas morning we put baby Jesus in the manger in the stable, and started the Magi on their trek. Twelve days later, on Epiphany, they arrived.

That seems to have been a good tradition. It was a somewhat accurate version of what the Bible says happened. I wish we had done it with our kids.

Another part of the routine was that we could open our stockings and one present before going to mass. The rest of them had to wait until after church, after lunch, and until family gathered. Or, if we were going to our grandparents for our evening Christmas dinner, we had our family presents in the early afternoon, then more at the grandparents in the late afternoon. I suppose not many parents these days have tried to train their children to wait on presents.

Once we children were old enough to attend Midnight Mass, the routine changed some. We still couldn't tear into presents, but the waiting time was greatly reduced, not being interrupted by morning church.

Merry Christmas everyone. May the Holy Spirit fill you today, and make it a special day of celebration of Jesus' birth.

Interview: Joe Pote, author of "So You are a Believer Who has been through a Divorce"

Joe Pote is a fellow Arkansas writer who I've come to know over the Internet. He has a book out titled Are You a Believer Who has been Through a Divorce?:

A Myth-Busting Biblical Perspective on Divorce. Let's have Joe tell us a little about his book.

AATTA: Can you give us a brief description of what this book is about?

JP: Sure.  This book discusses God’s heart toward Christians who have experienced divorce. The church has developed a system of biblically unsubstantiated myths encouraging legalistic attitudes toward believers who have experienced divorce.  These myths act as barriers, distancing relationships with both God and fellow believers.

In this book, I address seven of these misconceptions, discussing both the basis for the myth and what the Bible actually says in context of the complete scripture.

Readers will experience the liberating joy of lifted guilt and renewed intimacy with God as each myth is exposed in the light of God’s truth.

AATTA: We would normally expect a book on this topic to be written by a pastor, a theologian, or a Christian counselor.  You’re a structural engineer, one of my professional kinfolk.  Why did you decide to write this book, and what qualifies you to write a book on this topic?

JP: Yes, I am a structural engineer.  I have neither a seminary degree, nor a psychology degree.  I do, however, have a strong background in biblical study and inductive interpretation of scripture.  As a child, I was literally raised in church, attending multiple church services and Bible studies each week, and I have continued to study the Bible throughout my adult life.

Several years ago, I went through a divorce.  It was a devastating experience, at many levels.  As a child, growing up in church, I had been taught that Christians don’t divorce; that Christian married couples find a way to work through any issues, without ever even considering divorce as a potential option.  Yet, here I was, a Christian with deep convictions and a strong love for Christ, going through a divorce.

In processing that reality, I began studying what the Bible teaches on the topic of God’s heart toward His children who have experienced divorce, and was surprised by what I learned.  I began to realize that much of what I had believed about God’s view of divorce was simply incorrect. I had accepted certain myths as truth, based not on scripture, but on words, actions, attitudes and impressions observed as a child, growing up in church.

In the years following that divorce, in conversing with other Christians with similar divorce experiences, I discovered that I was not alone in those misperceptions. In fact, these same myths are widely believed and accepted as truth by many people within the Christian church. For believers who have experienced divorce, these myths directly interfere with our relationships, acting as barriers as we seek to draw close to God, as well as to our fellow believers.

AATTA: There are a lot of books on the market discussing divorce from a Christian perspective.  What makes your book different from any other book on this topic?

JP: The Bible really doesn’t talk very much about the specific topic of divorce of a marriage covenant.  Most books on this topic pull their information from a few of the passages that do mention divorce, while ignoring other passages that don’t support their viewpoint.  Then they lift a few sentences out of context, using them to create an inflexible set of rigid legalistic rules, which they attempt to apply to every situation.

Although the Bible says relatively little on the specific topic of divorce of a marriage covenant, it has much more to say on the broader topic of covenants, in general.  In this book, I draw from this broader scope of rich illustrations of God’s heart in regard to covenant and redemption. 

I also review passages that specifically reference divorce of a marriage covenant, discussing them within the context of the entire passage in which they are presented, as well as within the context of the broader body of scripture.

AATTA: You have titled the first chapter of your book, “Myth 1 ~ Divorce is Sin.”  By calling this viewpoint a myth, you clearly indicate disagreement with the position that divorce is always sin.  Does that mean you believe God approves of anyone suing for divorce, for any reason at all?

JP: No, not all!  In fact, I spend far more pages of this book explaining the importance of honoring covenants than I do explaining that divorce is not sin. 

However, I think it is very important to make a clear distinction between violating covenant vows, and choosing to justly end a covenant that has been repeatedly violated.  The Bible is very clear that violating covenant vows to love, honor, cherish, protect, and forsake all others is sin.  The just dissolution of a covenant that has been repeatedly misused as a tool to enslave or abuse is not sin.

AATTA: I’ve noticed that you use the phrase, “believers who have experienced divorce,” rather than simply saying, “divorced believers.”  Is there something you don’t like about the word “divorced”?

JP: Yes, there is, when used as an adjective.  In fact, I discuss this topic in the chapter titled, “Myth 4 ~ Divorce is a Perpetual State of Being.”  To summarize, we tend to categorize people as being married, single, widowed, or divorced.  Within the church, we often extend these categorizations to also include divorced-and-remarried. 

We affix the label “divorced” to people, and never remove it no matter what happens, for the rest of their lives.  That’s just not scriptural.  Divorce is an experience I have lived through, not a defining characteristic of who I am.  My covenant relationship with God through Jesus Christ defines who I am.

AATTA: The very first sentence of the book’s Introduction asks a question, “What does Jesus look like going through a divorce?”  What is your answer to that question?

JP: Well, I obviously wrote an entire book in answer to that question.  It is difficult to answer without first providing all the background contained within the book.

However, as a concise answer to a concise question, I would say that Jesus, going through a divorce, looks much as He did leading the exodus of His people out of Sheol, the place of the dead.  He walks with His child, justly redeeming them from their covenant of bondage, and delivering them through the divorce.

AATTA: In this book you target seven myths held by many people within the church, today.  People tend to hold very strong opinions about matters of faith.  In writing this book, are you intending to stir up controversy?

JP: No, it is not my intent to be controversial; though I’m sure some will take issue with my position.  Actually, as a writer, I am more concerned about whether or not I have adequately explained my position.  If someone understands my position and chooses to disagree, I am completely fine with that.  I just hope they will take the time to first read the book and understand the position, before disagreeing with it.

My intent in writing this book is to share a message of hope and healing with people who have suffered the devastation of a failed marriage.  I pray that God will use this book to liberate fellow believers who have experienced divorce to a greater fullness of joy in the love and redemption of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Author Interview: Susan Todd and "Five Smooth Stones"

My cousin Susan Todd is also a writer. She has both fiction and non-fiction published, and recently started a blog titled, No Rhyme or Reason. She and I have discussed writing for many years, and have read each other's writing. She recently served as a beta reader for me on my second novel, providing me with excellent character feedback in addition to proofreading.

Among Sue's books is one titled Five Smooth Stones. It sounds like it would be a non-fiction work about a biblical theme, but let Sue tell you about it.

AATTA: Give a short summary of what book is about.

ST: It’s about five women who start out thinking that they are each unique in their own way, and they are. But they soon learn through an unexpected prolonged stay at a Bed and Breakfast just how much they have in common and the commonalities bond them together.

AATTA: How did you choose the characters?

ST: The characters really chose themselves out of a rich abundance of human nature. Just looking around us at the variety of people we meet, friends and often times family, we probable know someone like these ladies.

AATTA: What was your intention is writing this book?

ST: It was an interesting challenge personally to interact with characters that I had to create with personalities that differed from my own. I started out, as I hope the reader will, having likes and dislikes in the beginning. After all, not everyone is our cup of tea. But the more I got into each quirk the more I began to shelve some of my own judgments. As I wrote I began to see a link between their differences. I began to write from the perspective that possible what one saw in the other, that they didn’t like, was either a similarity or something they lacked. Then I began to wish these charming characters could see what I was seeing. And so they did.

AATTA: What do you want the reader to take away from Five Smooth Stones?

ST: I hope that if they see themselves or someone they know acting like these five, and that they will take another look. . Because in the end we are not really all that different in the area of basic needs. There is something to be said about reconciliation. Everyone has some redeeming quality. I once worked with a very contrary lady that I thought that God had not given one good quality. Even though I could not find one on a personal note about her, I came to appreciate the fact that she knitted beautifully!

You can find Five Smooth Stones at CreateSpace, an Amazon company, and on Amazon as well.

Her other published books are:
God said, "Tell Them I Am"

Eternity's Portal

Whales in the Pond