Book Review: The Land That Calls Me Home

 Among the many failings of the Western church in the late 20th and earliest 21st Century is its benign negligence to rural America.

Were rural America - small farmers, small agriculturalists, or those that make their living by them - to be an impacted urban group or a population in foreign lands, likely the Church would be up in arms speaking, praying, and proposing ways to support them.  But to those that are their fellow citizens, albeit buried in small towns or slowly being buried as the land about them turns into housing tracts, they scarcely give a second thought.  Food continues to appear in the stores; why any need to intervene in what is obviously an example of progress and freeing people from the drudgery of labor?

Enter Reverend Hughey Reynolds and The Land That Calls Me Home:  Connecting God's People to God's Land Through God's Church

The book was suggested to m by friend of this blog Leigh Tate at Five Acres And A Dream.  Her recommendations, when given, are something that I immediately pay attention to - and once again, I am glad that I did.

The thesis of the work is to be found in the introduction:

"The church has a key role to play in restoring the viability of small farms in America.  No other organization or entity is better equipped or positioned than the church to lead people to overcome our increasing estrangement from the soil and help us reconnect to it physically and spiritually through small-scale diversified farming (Note: Small scale diversified farming is defined elsewhere in the book as "one that produces food for the household that lives on it to eat with enough in addition to sell at market for a modest income").  I have come to this conviction as I have reflected on my life experiences in light of the Biblical story in which a healthy relationship between humanity and the soil is indispensable to a right relationship with God".

Reverend Reynolds - at the time of the book (2012) a 40 year clergyman in the United Method Church in Alabama - divides the book up into four sections. In the first, he recounts his own history as the child of a small-scale farmer and the conflict he felt growing up as his own family moved farther and farther away from the land as the times changed - and of his own call back to the land (Of note, his history would like reflect in some ways my own father's history and those of other readers or their parents here).  In the second, he discusses the growth of agribusiness and its impact on small scale farming, both at a high level and at the scale of his local parishes.  In the third, he talks over a series of questions to help an individual evaluate their interest and ability in farming (one chapter is very practical:  "Managing Finances on the Small Farm").  The fourth section is what the Church's responsibility and response should be to enabling all of this.

One of the key things about this book is that Hughey's belief is not that "everyone should farm".  He understands that not everyone wants to or can; what he does feel is that it is the church's responsibility to connect small scaled diversified farmers with people that are not farmers through the mechanism of farmers' markets, direct sales, and supporting small agriculturalists.  For Hughey, this is just as important as any other aspect of the Church's ministry and should be practiced with the just the same vigor as any other outreach program.

What would that look like?  As mentioned above, farmers' markets are one example (and something that Hughey's church created locally as discussed in the last chapter of the book).  Community Gardens are another mode, as well as working to give farmers a voice:  "I want the church to raise awareness of the impact of government actions and corporate practices on rural communities.  I want the church at a denominational and judicatory level to inspire and equip local churches with the training they need to speak to and resist powers that diminish their lifestyle and drain resources from rural communities".

One may recall that recently reviewed another book - Almost Amish - and there decried the fact of a sort of high level review of a somewhat similar subject with no research. That is not the case here:  the book is reasonably footnoted and has 6 pages of 10 font, single spaced references.  When statistics and information are quoted, it is based on data.

The book was written in 2012 - how successful was Hughey's vision for his church?  That is hard to assess: a web search does not indicate any other books by him and a single blog that is effectively defunct.  That said, the farmers' market started by him and his congregation is apparently still an actively going concern 10 years later although Reverend Hughey is no longer there (he currently is shown as "retired clergy", but he apparently still posts on The Book of Face).  That is actually not a small thing, given the last 10 years and in some small way, hopefully his vision survives.

It is probably no surprise (if you are a long time reader) that I enjoyed this book.  It matches two things that I am passionate about, Christian theology and small scale agriculture.  For those that are not of the Christian persuasion, it is not at all preachy or using the book as an apologetic.  It is directly facing inwards at the Church on its own failings and what it can do to act in conformance with itself as it would for any other group in distress.

I leave you with two quotes, both which I found thought provoking:

"Not knowing much about agriculture is my friend's prerogative.  Yet, that choice separates him from the soil and makes his food security very dependent upon others to grown, select, process, package, deliver, and many times cook, the food he eats.  He does not go hungry because of his income and access to food.  He would go hungry if eating depended on his knowledge to grow food."

"The American economy will remain sluggish, uncertain, and volatile as long as it relies on the greed of investors, on foreign or domestic petroleum, and on profit-driven food distributors who, in order to keep prices lower than their small-scale farm competitors, offer empty-calorie-food that is mass produced and processed.  The church has a role in the economic recovery of America that is more than reading last rites to the dying and binding up the wounds of the injured.  The church can rally, organize, and empower those who choose to farm on a small scale in rural communities to stand up to the organized effort of government and corporate powers that drove most American famers from the land and made their way of life untenable."

Book Review: A Sand County Almanac

As you may recall, one of my great (and rather unexpected) reading loves is that of the agricultural writer, an author that writes of farming and land use and using older ways and asking questions about our relationship with the land and (frankly) returning to a stable rural economy.  My great model for this, of course, is the late Gene Logsdon (his book A Contrary Farmer's) was what hooked me on the genre in the first place.  Ever since then I have looked and added to my collection.  Some authors - for example David Mas Matsumoto (Epitaph for a Peach:  Four Seasons on My Family Farm) - are lyrical but do not strike a chord with me.  Others - Wendell Berry and Joel Salatin - are enjoyable but sometimes too strident in their politics.  A few - Sepp Holzer (Permaculture), John Lewis-Stempel (The Running Hare), Masanobu Fukuoka (The One Straw Revolution) - I do not have enough of their other works to judge - or perhaps, having read the work I listed which was so good, I fear to read another lest I am disappointed (To date, only Logsdon is the author that reliably produces for me time after time).

So it was with interest that I received a recommendation from a friend of a similar sort of book A Sand County Almanac And Sketches Here And There by Aldo Leopold.  For my friend, it was the book that had finally convinced him to ditch the city life and move out to the country.  Obviously, a book to take note of.

From the back cover:  "Aldo Leopold was born in Iowa in 1887.  His professional career began in 1909, when he joined the U.S. Forest Service.  In 1924  he become Associate Director of the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin; and in 1933 the University of Wisconsin created a chair of game management for him.  He died in 1948, fighting a grass fire on a neighbor's farm, shortly after he had become an advisor on conservation to the United Nations." 

The book is divided into three sections parts.  The first, A Sand County Almanac, is literally an almanac:  an observational diary of the land he lives on in Sand County, Wisconsin.  Interestingly, Leopold does not seem to be a farmer (although he lives on a farm) but is (a rarity these days) a writer that hunted and fished and so his descriptions are written with the observer's eye for detail and the hunter's eye for finding clues:

"No prudent man would risk a dollar's worth of fly and leader pulling a trout upstream through the giant tooth-brush of alder stems comprising the bend of that creek.  But as I said, no prudent man is a fisherman.  By and by, with much cautious unraveling, I got him up into open water, and finally aboard the creel."

"During every week from April to September there are, on average, ten wild plants coming into first bloom.  In June as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day.  No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them.  He who steps unseeing on May dandelions may be hauled up short by August ragweed pollen; he ignores the ruddy haze of April elms may skid his car on the fallen corollas of June catalpas.  Tell me of what plant-birthday a man takes notice, and I shall tell you a good deal about his vocation, his hobbies, his fever, and the general level of his ecological education."

In the section his description of sawing down a 80 year old oak, counting the years as the cut the rings, may itself be cause to buy the book.

The second part is called Sketches Here and There and are Leopold's observations on various areas of wilderness he has traveled:  Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa, Arizona and New Mexico, Chihuahua and Sonora, Oregon and Utah, Manitoba.  These were interesting to me because of when he is writing, he describes these areas as one step away from the wilderness they were unlike the less wild and more developed places they have become.

Describing Lightning in Arizona:  "The explosions are fearful enough, but more so are the smoking slivers of stone that sing past your ear when the bolt crashes into a rimrock.  Still more so are the splinters that fly when a bolt explodes a pine.  I remember one gleaming white one, 15 feet long, that stabbed deep into the earth at my feet and stood there humming like a tuning fork.

It must be a poor life that achieves freedom from fear."

"Man always kills the thing he loves, and so we pioneers have killed our wilderness.  Some say we had to.  Be that as it may, I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in.  Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?"

The third part, The Upshot, is Leopold's synthesis of his experiences and his beliefs.  He calls for what he names "The Conservation Ethic", a sort of acknowledged agreement between people and the land that calls for management, not for over utilization.  He is dismissive of the increased (even in his day) "Mechanization" of outdoor activities which destroy the value of the outdoors themselves:

"If we regard outdoor sports as a field of conflict between an immensely vigorous process of mechanization and a wholly static tradition, then the outlook for cultural values is indeed dark.  But why cannot our concept of sport grow with the same vigor as our list of gadgets?  Perhaps the salvation of cultural value lies in seizing the offensive.  I, for one, believe the time is ripe.  Sportsman can determine for themselves the shape of things to come. 

The last decade, for example, has disclosed a totally new form of sport, which does not destroy wildlife, which uses gadgets without being used by them, which outflanks the problems of posted land, and which greatly increases the human carrying capacity of a unit area.  This sport knows no bag limit, no closed season. It needs teachers, but not wardens.  It calls for a new woodcraft of the highest value.  The sport I refer to is wildlife research."

His "land ethic" (he goes in to much greater detail) seems to be a bridge between environmentalism as it is practiced today and a social education and sense of what the land is and why it is valuable inherently as wild land.

I am ambivalent about this book.  His writings and observations are lyrical and some of them are indeed worth the purchase of the book.  The part that has me somewhat hesitant about fully recommending it is some of the implications of his idea of a "land ethic" - not that the idea is bad, but that I have seen his methodology work out in practical ways (he was writing in the early 1940's after a lifetime of working only in government and educational service).  He saw land from a management and use as a sportsman standpoint, not from the standpoint of someone like a farmer or husbandmen or forester who lives on the land and uses it for purpose and in many cases is more in tune with and caring of the land than a governmental authority could ever be.  Leopold sees only social approbation and government as the vehicle for making this happen (I have seen this worked out practically in my own home state, when the smelt overcame the farmers and the owl overcame the loggers).  Rather than arguing for sensible use, he argues for uses which preserve his concept of what is appropriate - to be fair, he is often discussing the preservation of wilderness as wilderness but does not make the distinction well between wilderness and land which is being used.

So I would recommend it for the descriptions.  Be ready to be thoughtfully challenged (he is never incendiary in language) and to at least give a greater consideration to what a sensible land use policy and preservation policy means to you.

On Publishing Another Book.

So I published another book this week.
I have come to the point that I never really know what to make of this moment.  On the one hand it is big accomplishment and a goal that I set for myself which is now completed; on the other hand I wonder how much difference it is really going to make.

I have sort of given up the idea that somehow I am going to be a professional writer.  This was sort of disappointing but the sales of my books (I have seven now) have convinced me that this is not really the sort of thing that is going to happen for me.  Yes, there is always that outside chance that I will become a new undiscovered writer, but my writing is such that I am not mainstream enough to ever really be discovered.

So pretty much I write for my own pleasure and in the hopes that I will do some good for someone.   Yes, occasionally someone will buy a book and I will get that sense of having accomplished something but it is few and far between at this point.  Trust me, I am hardly getting rich at this.

How many more will I write?  I have one more definitive book that I am working on, in a sense my magnum opus for this genre that I am writing in.  After that, a compilation of my shorter writings is doable (I have written enough to make a book of them).  And after that?  I am not sure. I will have done what I originally set out to do, which was to publish a book (and more than one).  I will have (probably) found out that I am not a writer, or at least not a self supporting one.  Lesson learned, goal achieved, and move on.

Will I continue to write?  Certainly. It is a good exercise in many many ways, not the least of which is pushing one's self to a daily discipline of writing and (hopefully) some self discovery along they way.

But that is what is is and will be - a voyage of self discovery and documentation.  The other dream, it seems, is gone.

But I can always now say that I am a published author.

On Finishing

So I finished the manuscript of my latest book tonight.

It has been languishing since September, when I stopped work on it because it did not feel "right".  But it did not feel as not right as what I tried to type in November - it was not so much a painful experience as writing as it was I seemed to have reached a block.

But on Saturday I decided that it needed to be done.  So I sat down and did it.

It took surprisingly little time - a little over two hours.  The words that would not come for months suddenly flowed through my fingers like electricity.

In a way, I have to finish.  I have other ideas that I want to move on to, but I find that I cannot move on to the next.  It is as if the idea gets lodged in my head and it will not allow me to go forward unless I complete what I am working on.  Not a bad habit, really - it just sometimes seems annoying at the time, when you are ready to move on and cannot (which, actually, is one of my biggest issues:  not sticking with things long enough to truly succeed).

Just because I am finished does not mean that I am done, of course:  there is still a lot of editing to be done (a great deal probably, since this essentially written in two different time frames) with the catching of spelling errors and rough words - and then the fun part of course:  cover design.

But today I will be glad in the fact that finished is finished.  I can still hold to - and finish - things I start.

On Picking Up Where One Left Off

I picked up at a writing place I have not visited in 3 months.

It was a book I was working on, a book that seemed to be going not quite as well as I had hoped - the narrative did not seem to flow correctly or well and the characters seemed, well, wooden.  So I set it aside, thinking that I would get back to it in a little while.  And then a little while got longer

I tried to work on something else for Nanowrimo, but found that the genera of the book was not working out.  The simple reality is this:  I like to write - and believe I am good at writing - a certain kind of book, the parable.  That is how I think and how I seem to write.  Other forms just seem less fluid and more forced.

So last night I went back to the manuscript I had.  Re-reading it, I suddenly thought "This is not nearly as bad as I remember".  Sure, the characters were a little rough and the plot not nearly as well developed as I would of liked, but I did stop in the middle of writing it, after all.

Ironically it was Nighean Dhonn that decided me fully last night.  She sat at the table last night writing a starter story on what she would do if she was an eraser.  Her dedication to sitting at the table and writing in pencil made me question my own - after all, if she can write for half an hour surely I can.

Because I forgot the most basic rule of writing:  write.  Always.  Even if it seems terrible and even if you do not like the way that it sounds.  Just keep writing your way through it.  Because if you do not write, you simply will never get through the part that you do not like to a place where you do.

Nanowrimo 2014

So National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) is almost upon us. The question is, will I do this year or not?

I ask because I attempted it last year but fell off the band wagon pretty quickly - other things came up and I simply was not really committed to what I was writing.  This year is a little different already.

So the question is, am I going to do it?

The one year I successfully completed it - 2012 - I went in with a definitive idea in mind that sustained me through the struggle of generating 1567 words a day (it is not as hard as you think, but it is an endurance race).  This year, I find myself 2 days before I would start writing without the foggiest idea in the world what I would write about.

But I am wondering if this, too, is not a different aspect for writing.

The reality is that I have ideas rattling around in my head - lots of them, actually.  Most of them I simply self censor because they're not "good enough" or actually ready for prime time.

But what if I simply took one out and started watching where it went.

It is not that I will write The Great American Novel - I get that.  But it is interesting to wonder what I could write if I just let the story start telling itself.  Because the remarkable thing I have found about writing is that if I will simply start writing, the characters will begin to fill the story in themselves, sometimes so much so that I scarcely recognize the work as something I typed.

So maybe this year the question is not so much "Will I do Nanowrimo?" as much as it is "Where will Nanwrimo lead?"

On Deciding in Writing

I am almost through my backlog of books I am working on.

Just getting to this point is always a struggle for me.  I tend to be one that likes to get to a certain point and then immediately move on to the next project, leaving this one almost finished.  I have had to set aside the manuscript I was working on to finish proofing the one that I had just finished (editing - not my favorite thing).    But that is almost done now and I can move to editing/proofing the manuscript in my possession (the goal is that I finish with that by the end of April).

And then what?

Well, I have one or two projects of course (I always seem to have more than I can do):  one more fable and one more theological book (comparing Highland Athletics and what the Church is supposed to be - I kind of like the concept). As with the rest of my writing, these could potentially be done by the end of the year depending on how quickly I write (I am trying to set aside some time on regular basis for that now to make sure that I start consistently doing it).

And then what?

A splendid question and one I do not know I fully have an answer to yet.  I have one or two conceptual ideas but at least one of them is something that I have never written before:  fiction.  Real fiction, not the sort of fable that I have written heretofore.  I find that a little daunting, actually - it feels like I would be writing something which is totally beyond my abilities (if you have read good fiction, you know how rare it is).  And yet I suppose I should not - 5 years ago I did not believe that I could write anything at all and I have self published 3 books with two more on the way.

So maybe the question is not so much what I will be writing next, but if I am willing to step things up to the next level to do so.  After all, I love writing - a great deal.  Why would I not try to get better at it?

Nanowrimo 2013

So I might not have mentioned it yet but I am doing Nanowrimo 2013:






You may remember the challenge from last year:  50,000 words, 30 days.  The idea is to get a manuscript written in 30 days.  Not a final manuscript necessarily you understand - this is as rough as it gets.  The point is to get one writing every day.

My plan was messed up, of course.  I had not decided what I was going to write until the last second - good heavens, I had not decided I was going to do it at all until the day before.  I was waffling because I did not think that I had the time.  It is ridiculous of course - you always have time to do the things you really want to do.

The second impediment was that I thought I was not ready to write what I was going to write.  I had it all planned out in my mind:  what I was going to write about, the research I needed to do, the plot.   But I ran out of time:  the book sat unread and the day was approaching.  I had a second idea, more of an undeveloped thought than a real thing, that was laying in wait.  I grabbed it and ran.

I am about 7300 words in now - like last time, the concept seems to have taken on a life of its own and the characters have started talking amongst themselves without needing much prodding from me.  A good way to write, that - as a recorder, not a generator.

Will I finish?  I will.  I have no idea what it will look like -and having done this last year, I am far more willing to do major editing now that I know that writing all those words is not the same as having a good book (it is okay, I discovered, to cut things out).

But the exercise is good.  And I feel better after it.  That will make four books I have written in three years.

A bit of a surprise there - somewhere I turned into an author and hardly knew it.

Proof III

So my proof arrived this weekend.

I am excited because this looks like a real book - about 180 pages long - and represents my most significant attempt at writing to date - as you may recall, the genesis for this book was almost a year ago during National Novel Writing Month.  It is 50,000 words (more or less) - in other words, an actual book.

Going through the proof has been a little depressing - although I reviewed it three different times, I am still shocked at the amount of errors that I have missed.  That, of course, is a little disheartening as one continues to find them.  But I have to keep things in perspective:  1)  It is about 50,000 words; and 2)  I have no editorial staff (except myself) to catch these things.  Sometimes I am my own worst enemy.

But I need to makes sure that I do not lose the larger picture.  I have received back a proof - by the end of the month, I will achieve the goal of having released it.  In terms of writing, that now makes three books that I have self published - three books that, at the beginning of 2012, simply did not exist.

Perhaps I cannot do everything, but I can do more than I imagine.  I need only make the effort.

Manuscript

So my manuscript is essentially edited.

This has been a long uphill battle - not the writing so much (that was completed in November of last year) as the editing. Part of my reluctance has been the initial comments that I received and the subsequent doubts that I had about what I wrote; some of it was simply an output of the fact that editing is not something I have done a great deal of and so I am slow at.

Either way, the task is done.

I will make my corrections and upload the manuscript and order the physical proof. Assuming there is nothing that is significantly wrong that cannot be corrected via word processing, the book will be ready to release.

How do I feel about it?  More of a sense of relief than anything else.  This has been nagging at my mind for almost a year now, wanting to get completed so I can mentally move on to the next project. There is something to the quote "Artists ship" by Steve Jobs - not only from the idea that things need to be moved to completion and out the door, but that we need to complete our projects so that we can mentally and spiritually move on to the next one.

Nanowrimo is coming.  I want to be writing.

Stumped

I find myself in a reluctant position to continue with my book editing.

The puzzles me a bit.  What I would perceive as the “hard” part of the book, the creation, is complete.  What remains is the (to me) tedious task of editing and re-editing, of listening to the flow of the language, and then the process of publishing.  If I have completed the “hard” part, why then do I find myself so reluctant to continue on?

It is actually sort of remarkable.  I have become almost pathological about working on it, finding reasons that I have other things to do, conveniently not having the blocks of time necessary to do it.  I have almost reached the point where the thought of working on another book has moved from my mind.

Why is this?  I love to write.  I love the exercise of put electrons to paper and developing my thoughts.  I was excited to see myself in print and even more excited when I actually made some money on the books.  But now, nothing.

Is it something more profound?  Is it the initial thrill of dream fulfilled meeting the reality of the world as it is and realizing that the dream, while good, has fulfilled its purpose:  it brought me to one finish line, but it was hardly the one I expected to find?

The act of writing and publishing was one of the hardest of my life in years.  Why?  Because it meant bringing something to completion, to the point of completion that it was actually ready to be done.  Having done it, I found it easy to do again.  But having done it again, I found that the return was not the same the next time out.

 
Is this because of my own expectations?  Have I convinced myself that the important part is not so much me expressing myself in hopes of somehow impacting someone else as it is me wanting fame and fortune showered upon me because, for once in my life, I finally showed up with 100% effort?
 

The reality is that the third book will most likely not bring me that return.  But that is no reason not to complete it.  I initially started writing (I think) as an output of a soul that was seeking to find a way to influence others, to help someone, to make a difference.  Those goals have not changed – but neither has the equally important goal of learning to finish what one starts.

The finishing is the thing.  Anything I realize from it is merely frosting on the cake of accomplishment.

Done then. I will push on to the finish line – because only by finishing do you get the bragging rights.  All else is merely talk by those who simply could not push through.

Writing

It all seems to come back to writing.

It does not matter what other ideas I come up with, what other plans I try to make, what other things I think I want to do:  in the end, I come back to writing as the vehicle for doing what I want to do.

It seems ludicrous on the face of it, of course:  I am not a well known writer by any stretch of the imagination.  My books - such as they are - have made the best seller lists of precisely no-one. My blogs scattered here and there through interest seem to generate occasional interest, but nothing that would give any indication that this is the sort of career I can do.

But I must temper that with the other realities as well.  While I have not sold a million books, I have sold 30 to date in less than a year - 30 which would have never been sold had I never tried.  My blogs - especially this one, but others as well - continue to show modest growth over time as I continue to work on them. 

The ideas are still there and are still coming.  I am still learning, of course - dragging myself into the frame of mind where I enjoy editing, which has always been a chore to me, has proven to be difficult.  But I had the experience yesterday of working on editing and suddenly having an epiphany that what I was doing really was adding value to what I had written before.  There was a sense of improvement.

The greatest sense of possibility I have comes when I write.  Writing requires no equipment except a computer, no investment save time and energy - which is a bit misleading, since the time and energy come from the same pool as everything else that is going on in my life.

I must, however, be honest with myself:  there is limited time left in my days and in my life.  Investing it wisely is a trust that I have been given.  I must go with that which provides me the greatest joy, the greatest reward, the greatest sense of contributing to the world through the growth and (hopefully) the assistance of others to see things and consider things they had not previously done.

And that, it seems, all comes back to writing.

Re-Writing

I realized yesterday that I have made a fatal error in my writing:  I let myself become defined by what I was willing to do rather than what I needed to do. 

In a great many things I am self taught.  This has the advantage of 1) being able to understand how to pick up something and begin a course of study and 2) being able to learn something outside of the "normal" system of instruction.  The disadvantage, of course, is that one tends to feel that one may be missing specific or useful elements. 

And so one tries to compensate.  One writes, for example, but one has never had any formal training in creative writing.  The solution?  Buy a book of exercises and start doing those in hopes that additional improvements will present themselves.  Unfortunately, the problem with this theory is that exercises are never quite as exciting as writing - and so, one comes to define one's writing by what exercise one has completed.  Find a book with enough exercises to deflate the soul, and one stops writing very much at all.

Which is silly.  This is a paradigm that I really need to break away from.  In this era of multiple alternate learning techniques and technologies, I am still plodding away with something that does not seem to be working all that well.

What is the best way to improve writing?  Write.  Any published author would tell you that.  The important thing is to write - regularly, consistently - even if it does not result in the completion of exercises or a book.  By doing, we learn - not necessarily by performing exercises.

And so I have corrected this fatal mistake.  I have gone back to the model that did work for me via Nanowrimo:  a set number of words for a set period of time.  I'm not quite up to the level of November, of course- I'm not seeking to prove I can write a book in a month (I've done that already).  What I am seeking to do is to give myself a vehicle whereby I can insure that I write frequently and consistently.

Exercises do not determine results.  Results determine results - and reward.

Write on, Friends.

Editing

I am going through the process of editing the manuscript that I generated in Nanowrimo 2013.

I have never much enjoyed editing.  I'm not really sure why - for that matter, I have never really wanted to re-read anything I have written after I am done with it.  In fact, it is almost to the point of being something of a phobia with me.

Why is this?  I'm not really sure.  Someone who feels that I suffer from pride might say that I am too proud to consider the fact that I would not question that I could make a mistake.  Someone who feels I suffer from insecurity might say that I have no confidence in what I wrote.  Someone who feels I am lazy might say that I just don't want to finish the job.  Someone who feels I am too much of a perfectionist might say I avoid it to avoid confronting the fact that I am not perfect.

My thought?  A combination I believe:  on the one hand the very simple belief the editing is not part of the creative process, not part of the "fun".  Writing is the making of someone from other things - or in the case of writing, making something from nothing but your mind.  Editing, I perceive, is not "fun":  it is the crawling through of each individual character, word and phrase looking not only for direct error but an indirect phrasing or something that could be improved.

The other fact is, I believe, my underlying distrust of criticism.

I have trouble with criticism (there, I've said it).  What is new, you might ask - it is not as if anyone really gets excited to receive it.  True enough I suppose.  Still, I have always had an issue with criticism, even if it is offered in a professional manner, even if it is offered for things that are not personal.  Why is this?  A combination at play again, I suppose:  on the one hand a sense that everything for me is personal, that everything I do (even if it is not personal) is an extension of myself.  On the other, a deep and abiding sense - fear, even - of how criticism has been used in the past, as tool not to correct and improve but to destroy.

Common enough in everyone's lives I suppose - we have all been the victim of criticism meant to do something other than improve.  But I know few cases where the individual themselves is concerned that their own self-criticism is designed to destroy themselves.

I think like anything else editing is a process - not only in learning to do it, but in learning that it is not the fearsome thing you perceive it to be, and that it is possible to trust even yourself to deliver criticism which is of use rather than destructive.

I do not know that I will ever come fully to terms with editing - as I said, it is not the most entertaining part of the process.  But perhaps I can at least come to a sense that it is a valuable one - and one that perhaps I trust myself to do without tearing myself down too much.

Tuesday Morning, 11 December

One of the great privileges of being an early morning riser is the opportunity to be an early morning writer.

That's not always the case, of course.  There are plenty of mornings where the "privilege" feels quite similar to a form of punishment as one staggers out of bed and tries to avoid the slalom of furniture in the bedroom as one careens to the stairs hoping (in the still semi-comatose under brain) that one does not careen down the stairs.

But this is not one of those mornings.

The temperature has fallen here in New Home to some of the coldest we've had this year:  slightly above freezing.  That makes the fact that I finally turned the heat on all the more inviting as I sit here.  A cup of fresh coffee sits beside me, the heated cup warming my heart almost as much as the coffee does (ah, coffee - what won't it solve?).  Yesterday's pumpkin muffins, cold from the room temperature but with the advantage of having a day to slightly compress, promise a delicious breakfast.

These are the mornings that it is a privilege to write - not just from the fact of being able to write, but the fact that appreciates all the things that go with being up early in the morning to write.  That seemingly rare convergence where the mind and the will coincide with the words and the physical sensations (ah, coffee) to make the inner space and outer space as one.

These are the times when the words just seem to bubble up from inside, not dragged from the mind kicking and screaming but willingly yielding themselves to the process.  The sense of stress is gone, replaced by a sense of being at peace with one's self and the practice of what one is doing.  This is one of those moments where one can really use the words "The Craft of Writing" and not feel as if one is mouthing a phrase for others, not one's self.

What is being written about is less important - indeed, one could probably just write about writing and the physical environment around one.  Those words of direction, of import - they will come in their time as well.  Once the streambed is prepared, the stream will come.

But every now and again it is simply good to stop, take a look around, and realize that such moments are out there and available to us - with the sincere hope that, like other exquisite moments, they will come to more a part of our daily lives.

Nanowrimo 2012

Guess who met their goal last night?

Final count: 50,031 words, 28 chapters, 21 days (of a possible 30) spent writing to create it.

I would be lying to relate that I felt no rush of adrenaline when I put the text into the word calculator and it spit the number back out at me.  I was extremely elated.  This was a goal met - in less time than it was supposed to take.  Even better, this was something which I attempted and failed to achieve the previous year.

Sweet, sweet victory.

It gave me pause to look back upon the year and consider things - and realize that I had met many goals that I have set for myself:
- Participated in Highland Games (did two, actually).
- Ran in a race (two actually, with times that were respectable).
- Complete and publish a book (Completed and published two).
- Completed Nanowrimo
- Made more cheese (and found some that were quite popular, actually).
- Dehydrated fruit (and found some favorites for my family).

There were many others that I haven't completed yet - and this is what gives me pause and reason to think:  what is different about the things listed above that I achieved versus many of the other things (some of them very important) that I failed to achieve?  The only things I can think of off hand are:
- Opportunity (either something I created or something that is known and available).
- Control (All of the activities listed above are completely within my purview as to their ability to be completed as they are all dependent on me)
- Time based (in some kind or fashion, from the rigid time of cheese making to the self-imposed goal of writing 50,000 words in 30 days)

So how do I take this victory - these victories - and use the lessons that I've learned and apply them to my life? 

Certainly the greatest difference for many of these goals that I have yet to resolve is that they are partially or completely outside of my ability to control.  But I'm equally as certain the individuals have dealt with things just like this - events outside of their control - and managed to move forward regardless.  By focusing on that which lay in their control?  Perhaps.  By putting a time limit on it or understanding what the opportunities are?  Possibly.  But there is a core to all of this.  Something that I can take and apply to the rest of my life.

But that is to be evaluated and considered moving ahead.  Today is a day to revel in the fact that I can do things which previously I believed to be impossible.

Hurray to me.

On Passing A Writing Guidepost

Characters I made,
now telling me what to write:
A bit alarming.

Halfway There

So today I passed the halfway point in the 30 day novel writing challenge.  I'm currently standing at 25,139 words.

This is fascinating to me.  My first manuscript was in the range of 15,000 words and took me almost a year to write.  My second manuscript was in the range of 6500 words and took me 3 months to write.  I have now not only exceeded each individual word count but the combined word count in..I'm not that good at math, but a whole lot less time than it took the first two times.

The important question is why.

Was the story more fully developed?  I'm not sure.  Yes, I had wrestled with the current concept and had even started writing something - in fact, I ended up scrapping everything I wrote and started over. The characters were theoretically in place (although not, as it turns out, in the final form) and the concept was there.  But I'd be hesitant to say that I fully knew where I was going this time.

Is it the exercise?  Well, it's probably helping with the word count.  Getting the habit of having a target and having to produce a certain amount of words a day certainly makes progress add up quickly.  But it's not enough to just type words into a computer:  without some sense of structure, I can see where one would get very depressed as the word count would be there but the story would not.

The key, upon thinking about it, seems to be the commitment to do it.  Commitment is not just to doing the exercise, it's to doing the exercise in such a way as to complete it.  I am committed to a certain word count.  I am also committed to having that word count become a book of some sort or fashion, something that hangs together and makes a modicum of sense.

The output is interesting, the progress inspiring.  The question for myself is this:  how do I translate this into other parts of my life?

Nanowrimo 2012

It's that time of year again:

Nanowrimo, for those that don't remember or aren't in the loop, is the annual Writing Exercise organized by the Office of Letter and Lights, a fine non-profit organization designed to get people writing.  It's a challenge in which thousands of people all across the country (and probably beyond as well) spend a month writing a 50,000 word novel.  It sounds like a lot - but it's an average of 1,667 words per day.

Okay, that still sounds like a lot.

This is my second year of participation.

Those who are sensible might ask the question why I'm doing this.  I did it last year of course, but didn't make it to the end.  That's okay - I tried, of course and even if I failed to complete the task I learned a great deal about writing and output  (biggest thing:  have a clear idea what you're writing about).

Part of the reason I'm doing this is that I'm at that point.  Having just put my second book to bed (literally yesterday) it's time to move on to the next thing.  Moss not growing, rolling stone, that sort of thing.

Another part of the reason I am doing this is that I want to try and reduce my cycle time. I went from one year to 4 months in creation.  Can I drop it more?  (Yes, I fully understand that editing is just as big a job as writing.  But it's a different kind of big job.  You're revising, not creating).

The last part of the reason I'm doing it is the same reason I'm doing other things this year:  because I want to push myself.

I've written about it before but it bears repeating:  many of the limitations in my own life are there because I put them there.  To simply surrender, to say "Nope, can't do that" is to let that part of my brain win that seems to revel in the fact of what it can't do.  To do this - to finish - is another step along the path of teaching myself exactly who is in charge and what I am capable of.  We will never find the limits of our lives and capabilities unless we keep pushing right up to the edge of them and discovering what they are - for me, I'm continually finding they are always much greater than what I thought them to be.

So come, Nanowrimo.  Let us test ourselves and see if my will to write is greater than my will to tell myself I can't.

Completed II

Book #2:  Published.

It happened over the weekend with not nearly the amount of sweat - or tears -  at the end as last time.  It took me some few hours to figure out the conversion to Kindle instead of the five days of last time.  I learned another valuable lesson as well:  wait until everything (Amazon, CreateSpace, and Kindle) is available before announcing they're available.

I'm happy about the book. It's not as long as my first one, but then again it's not meant to the same as the first one.  It's meant to answer a simple question - well, a question anyway, not so sure about the simple -  rather than propose a way of doing things. 

The interesting thing to me is how much less time this took than the first go around.  I believe the first manuscript was well over a year in writing and publishing.  This time is was 4 months or less.  The idea was again generated by a blog post - once again pointing out that this entire process of blogging has impacted my life in more ways than just letting me write. This blog has not only provided me with a sort of ongoing journal and way to communicate with my family and friends (especially since the move), it has become a mechanism for learning to regularly write and generating ideas that become other things.

A pleasant surprise was simply the fact that this was a bit easier to write this time. Things flowed faster.  The writing was a little better.  The editing process was especially a better, as I learned from last time where my typical errors occur (quotation mark, thy name is evil).  All in all, a good experience all around.

Like the first book, do I expect to make money on it?  Again, probably not.  I'm covering costs at this point, which is more than I can say for many other hobbies and projects I've undertaken in the past.  I'll make a little bit I'm sure - enough to buy myself one of those signposts of accomplishment I keep reminding others about.

The next book has to come, of course - now I'm hooked.  Fortunately, November is National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo), the national exercise in writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.  I've got my characters, my title and my plot.  I need only set digital ink to paper.

It's good to celebrate achievements.  But it's just as good to be on to the next one.