Dune, Fifty Thousand Screaming People

A Productive Evening

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My wife is gone again, with our daughter and son-in-law in the big OKC, tending to our grandchild. When she’s gone, I try to maintain our normal routines. I found out I sleep much better that way. So last night, I fixed and ate supper first thing, but instead of then going into the living room to read (as we normally do), I went straight to the computer in the “Dungeon”, as we call our computer room, intending to do some personal business stuff. I found out I couldn’t do the task due to lack of the necessary papers, wasted a bit of time on computer games, and headed back upstairs to read. Twenty pages later in Dune, and I was ready for the Dungeon again.

The project: make some more progress on In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I had hoped to have the proposal ready to send last Thursday, so I’m obviously behind on my intentions. The actual proposal document is done, subject to tweaking and expansion of the competition section. What I lacked was about five pages of text. I’m supposed to have the first thirty with the proposal, and I only had twenty-five.

Even though I have outlined the book, so that I know the major events that must take place to put my main character into the cross-fire at the World Series (more on that someday, perhaps), I have not outlined it to the point where I know each scene. Those are coming as I get the inspiration, still switching gears from non-fiction to fiction. I have two scenes out of sequence, later in the book, mostly finished, but I needed that next chapter, that next scene, to have the full thirty pages to send. Plus editing, of course.

Last night I couldn’t seem to concentrate on the task at hand. I got some other things done, such as filing, organization, reading writing blogs, re-read the last chapter in sequence and did a few edits. But what to do with that elusive scene wouldn’t materialize. Should I switch to one of the Mafia Dons, and have them going through the routines of business? Should I do a scene at the farm in Kansas, how the family was reacting to Ronnie’s success? Or should I do another baseball scene? None of these seemed right at that point in the story. I thought of scenes later in the book I could work on, but that wouldn’t get me where I needed to be as soon as possible. Was this my first case of writer’s block? Computer games became a diversion.

Then, about 10 PM, the perfect next scene hit me. I’ve been intending to have Ronnie, the main character, interact with a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, a man I’d introduced briefly in the second chapter. Why not have their first one-on-one interview now. I was immediately taken to the Tribune newsroom, to the sports desk, where John Lind was trying to figure out how to interview the farm boy cum pitching sensation, and pounding keys.

At midnight, I had an almost finished Chapter 6, and was up to thirty-one or thirty-two pages at the start of the book. That put me way, way out of routine, for I don’t normally go to bed that late. When I went upstairs and to bed, my mind was full of plot and dialog, and no way could I sleep. Twenty minutes later I got up and went to my reading chair. I couldn’t face another chapter of Dune, so I wrote some in my journal, then picked up my Bible and read in Numbers, deciding on the next two possible lessons in my desert wandering Bible study. The words on the printed page were big and bold, the way they always are when my mind is sharpest. How could this be, a sharp mind at 1:30 in the morning? Nevertheless, I had a great time until tiredness came over me in waves about 2:00 AM.

I used to think my most creative time was between 10 PM and 2 AM. Years ago this manifested itself in solving all kinds of engineering problems I took home with me. Then the routines of life crept in, and I no longer worked on creative things at those hours. Is a change coming? Stay tuned.

letters, Wesley

When friends fall out

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In my continuing (and slow) reading of John Wesley’s letters, I came today to his April 27, 1741 letter to George Whitefield. Whitefield was in Georgia, America, and has written Wesley on December 24, 1740, a letter that appears to have been critical of a number of things Wesley was doing: handling money, deeds for properties, ‘adornment’ of sanctuaries. Most important, however, seems to have been the growing rift between the two over doctrinal issues. Wesley was an Arminian and Whitefield a Calvinist concerning the issue of the permanency of salvation.

This difference must have been under the surface, or seemed unimportant, as the two began the great work of the revival. Certainly, it is hard to imagine Whitefield begging Wesley to come to Bristol to substitute for him in a revival that was breaking out there (Whitefield having to be elsewhere) if he thought Wesley to be in error in his doctrine. I just now found Whitefield’s letter on line, but have not yet read it. It contains five main points spread out over twelve pages of twelve point font, so it looks like I have lots of interesting reading in the days ahead. I will likely add this to the Wesley letters book, so that I have the full impact for when I read these again, perhaps in a decade or two. Apparently, Whitefield had the letter published in London, with a wide distribution.

Whatever their differences, and whoever was at fault, I’m saddened to see these two giants of the faith have a falling out. Somehow we have to make room in our hearts for those who interpret the gospel differently than we do. For Whitefield to have said Wesley preached a different gospel, and so they could have no fellowship together, seems extreme.

When Paul and Barnabas had their famous falling out, the result was the work was multiplied: two missionary teams went out, with more workers, than would have happened had they stayed together. Later in life, these two giants of the apostolic church were reconciled in friendship. Their dispute was over administrative issues, not doctrine, but still, could not Whitefield and Wesley have looked to their example? Well, maybe they did, sort of, for they divided their efforts.

I have much more to read on this, and possibly will come back and modify this post or make another.

book reviews, reading

20 More Pages in DUNE

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I didn’t read any in Dune last night or the night before, but I did tonight, after returning home from writers critique group; twenty pages, bringing me up to page 316. My edition has 515 pages of book, plus about 30 of appendixes. Tonight I read when Paul and Jessica are accosted by a group of forty Fremen, but are able to work their way out of it and to gain the protection of this desert community. These were two nicely written chapters (found one typo; just a missing close quote). Paul quickly becomes enamored with a Fremen girl his age, and his mother seems to have an opening for a romantic relationship with the leader of this group.

In the next to last scene, Jessica takes advantage of the superstitions planted around the universe by the Bene Gessirit, and as a result we see a Fremen religious ceremony. I found this scene hard to follow. My mind drifted off twice, and I had to re-read to get it; even on the re-read I found it tough. I don’t know if that was the writing or just a normal (for me) aversion to pagan religious stuff.

Despite that one difficulty, the book continues enjoyable. Hopefully I can cover the remaining 200 pages in not more than 20 days, and come back to give a full report.

book reviews, Dune, reading

DUNE: the half-way report

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Yesterday I reached, and today I passed, the halfway point in Dune, Frank Herbert’s 1965 science fiction novel. My son gave this to me for Christmas (or birthday; they’re pretty close together), and about three weeks ago it finally came to the top of the pile. My son gave it a good endorsement, saying it helped to define, or maybe it was change, the science fiction genre. I’m not much of a science fiction or fantasy person, but with that endorsement, and trying to please him, when it came to the top and it was time to read fiction, I plunged.

The first fifty pages were very hard reading. So many terms to learn, so many flips to the glossary. So much going back to re-read paragraphs that didn’t seem to make sense. Actually, this went on for closer to a hundred pages (my version is 540 pages, including appendixes). I found myself unable to read more than five to ten pages a day.

After a while, though, I fell into a rhythm, and began to find the work enjoyable. Some terms started to become familiar; others could be deciphered from context. The main plot line became clear, and the characters became real. The writing is stellar, and this book has one thing I really like in a book: omniscient narrator point of view. In all my writing instruction sources, they say omniscient is out of favor, and new writers should avoid it. As a reader, however, I prefer it, so why wouldn’t I write in it? Tonight I finished a chapter where Paul and his mother are the only characters in the scene. In one paragraph we are in Paul’s head; in the next one in Jessica’s. And I say, “Hallelujah!” What an exciting way to write. The caution against head hopping is, IMHO, way over stated.

Back to Dune, I can’t imagine how much time it took Herbert to create this. It seems more fantasy to me than science fiction. Possibly these two genres frequently merge when the science fiction is so far out there to make Earth invisible. His creation of the desert situations–the sand worms and the Fremen and stillsuits and the whole concept about water conservation is outstanding. The empire, with the tripartite arrangement between the royal house and the guild and the leading families, which has barely come out, is an interesting foundation of the plot. Back story is worked in expertly by Herbert.

I’m on a roll now, reading twenty pages a day or a few more. I’m anxious to learn how Paul and Jessica return to civilization; how Thufir Hawat learns who the real traitor is; what the emperor’s gambit is; etc. A few things I question, but imagine they will be explained later. For example, the last chapter I read this evening told of the death of Kynes, the Fremen planetologist who served as the judge of the change. Given that he died, and will have no more part in the story (unless he really didn’t die; we don’t have a corpus delecti yet, and I always maintain until you have the corpus delecti you don’t have a death), why did Herbert spend so much time on the death? Was it just to work in some of Arrakis’ physical characteristics, which Paul will pick up on later in this (or a subsequent) volume? The weeks ahead will tell.

Fifty Thousand Screaming People

Worked a Plan

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Yesterday, before making made my late afternoon post, I made a writing to-do list. This included a couple of e-mails not strictly writing related, a couple of over-due replies to old friends. I did those, then tackled the list. As I completed each one, I recorded them in my writing diary with the time. Actually, making a post to this blog was one of the early items on the list, working on In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People one of the last. By the end of the evening, all but one item on my to do list was done, and FTSP was more than 2,000 words further along. My dreams last night were of a completed novel.

I’m not a big fan of to do lists. Oh, I write them, not so much to guide me in what I have to do but to help me to realize all that I must do, to help not slack off before I have enough done. That was the purpose of yesterday’s to do list–although I did tackle it in the approximate order I wrote it down.

Today I faced a different problem of work, another time of shifting gears. Returning to work after a weekend for me is always difficult. Not that I don’t like returning to work; rather, that the weekend away from work causes me to be inefficient when I return, doubly so after a holiday weekend. I have one main project I need to complete ASAP, a flood study that refuses to cooperate with me. Consequently I’m looking for any excuse not to work on it. But, knowing I should work on it, I bring it to the table and try, but find myself allowing distractions to enter in. I’ll waste time on the Internet, even writing stuff or Christian studies stuff, I’ll read technical magazines I don’t have to read, I’ll organize over and over, etc–anything to not work on the difficult task.

I knew I should work on it today, but also knew I would be terribly inefficient if I did. I needed something to work on that would allow me to work efficiently and stick to my work during the time my employer pays me. As I made the 24 minute commute this morning, the perfect task came to mind: write a construction specification section from scratch. This is part of my self-start stuff I always have trouble starting, to keep up with standards. Yet, I love writing specs. It’s about the most favorite part of my job. I’d rather be writing a spec for a specific project, but there’s a certain satisfaction from taking a blank sheet and creating ex nihilo something the company really needs. So, after my devotionals, my reading in Wesley’s letters, and checking a few web sites (all of which happen before I’m “on the clock”), I began writing a guide specification for underground storm water detention systems, something we’ve been needing for a long time. In two hours I had the basic structure done, and about 80 percent of the writing for one of the eleven manufacturers that will be included in the specification.

Other scheduled activities got in the way, along with people needing assistance–always a welcome diversion, but I had a concrete task to come back to during the day as thirty minutes free came up. By 5:15 PM I had the one manufacturer fully specified and proof-read. Since much of what I wrote for that one manufacturer will work for the others, I’m really pretty far along for about a half day’s work. And I didn’t waste my employer’s time today, praise the Lord.

Of course, my brain is fried tonight. After reading twenty-some pages in Dune, and after an evening walk of about a mile, my brain is as tired as it’s been in a long time, and I’ve barely been able to complete this post. I feel a good sleep coming on. Will my dreams be of completed novels, Bible studies in the planning stage, or underground storm water detention structures?

career, fiction, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, non-fiction, Screwtape's Good Advice

Shifting Gears

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The month of June, what time I could spend on writing, was mostly on miscellaneous tasks that had fallen by the wayside for a while, and on pulling together the proposal for Screwtape’s Good Advice. With that in the mail last Wednesday, I turned my attention to the proposal for In Front of Fifty-Thousand Screaming People, my baseball thriller. I first started on the proposal, and tidied up the synopsis and wrote the sell sheet. Actually, I did some of this overlapping the SGA proposal, while waiting on my beta readers to respond. I did some market research, and figured out what books out now would be reasonably like mine.

Then I turned to, or rather returned to, writing the book. I began FTSP in June 2004, after pitching the idea to an editor at a conference. At that time all I had was a concept with some plot outline. He liked the idea, and said to send him a few chapters. So I quickly pounded out a prologue an two chapters and sent them. He still liked the concept, but wasn’t as thrilled with the writing as I would have liked. I set the book aside, partly not knowing what to do, and partly from the busyness of life.

Over the next three years I pulled it out and worked on it from time to time. I ditched the prologue, as the editor suggested, and polished the writing of the first two chapters. I added a third and polished it. I began a fourth. An idea came to me for a scene well into the book, which I thought would be about 2/3 the way through, and I wrote that. I worked on a plot outline and character development, writing page-long essays in the words of the four main characters, stating in their own words what their motivations were for the events in the book. But I did not do any serious writing, continuous writing for days in a row, as I had done with Doctor Luke’s Assistant.

Friday night I decided I’d better get back to this. The agent wants the first thirty pages with the proposal, and when I merged chapters 1, 2, 3, and the partial 4 I had only twenty pages. I figured out what to do with Chapter 4, and finished it as a short chapter. The plot analysis I had done as part of writing the synopsis told me I had to move the scene I thought would be 2/3 the way through to become the first plot point, meaning it needs to be 1/4 to 1/3 the way through. I did that, and made a couple of related changes. Then I sat down on Friday, Independence Day, to write the fifth chapter, intending to do serious writing.

Lo and behold, I couldn’t write it! I wrote “Chapter 5” at the top of a re-use page, then sat there, not sure what to do. My plotting did not get down to the level where I had to plan what the next chapter would be about. Yesterday (Saturday), I went back to it and managed to write about half a page. That was a start, but not the type of progress I needed to make. Was this a case of writer’s block, my first? I have had times when I was not motivated to write for various reasons, usually the whirlwind of life causing my brain to shut down for a while, but never have the words not come to me when I wanted them to.

After a while the reason for this inability to add this chapter became clear. For the last seven months I have been concentrating on non-fiction as a probable easier way to break into publishing, and purposely laid fiction aside. I brainstormed the SGA book and began it. I turned my Elijah and Elisha study into a potential book and brainstormed it. I thought about ten other Bible/small group studies I could write as follow-ups. A fruitful career as a writer of Bible and small group studies danced before my eyes in waking moments, and through the subconscious in sleeping moments. I had done no fiction writing at all, until after the Blue Ridge conference, with the interest of an agent staring me in the face, I at least read my manuscript and made some edits. I shared chapters 1 and 2 with my new critique group, and received feedback. Now that I’m ready to return to fiction, I can’t get my mind around it.

It’s hard to change gears between fiction and non-fiction–at least it is for me, this first time to do so. What will the future hold? If my career goes the way I want it to (at this stage of my “career”), I will be switching regularly between fiction and non-fiction. I’d better learn to shift those gears effortlessly, on a day to day basis if necessary. This will be especially true if I follow-through with plans to market and publish the Documenting America newspaper column.

Help! I’m a prisoner of a career that hasn’t even started yet.

The good news is that, as I fell asleep Saturday night, a scene late in the book came to me. I wrote it mentally lying in bed, then wrote it on paper Saturday morning. Today, while eating lunch, the way to write chapter 5 came to me, and I’ll be hitting the keys for that after I finish this post. So maybe the gears shifted over the last couple of days. May it be so.

America

Musing on America

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Seventeen years ago I was on my last overseas trip (the ones to Mexico in 1996 and Canada in 1997 not counting as overseas). I spent about 30 hours in the Bahrain airport, writing for my visa into post-war Kuwait to come through. It finally did, and I arrived in Kuwait July 4, 1991, where I joined my wife. She had been there about six weeks as a Red Cross nurse, and was about to leave for home. We overlapped three days, I think.

At that time I had spent five of the previous nine years living out of the country: from 1981-83 in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, and then from 1988 to 1990 in Kuwait. I remember my first flight back into America, in September 1981, when I came to fetch the family and bring them to Saudi for our life there. Charles was 2 years 8 months old, and Sara a mere 5 months. I flew on Pan Am, which to me was a symbol of America. Upon touch down at JFK airport, many on the plane broke out in cheers and clapping. Home again, to the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Several times since then Lynda and I have commented on how reckless and foolish we were, as young parents, to take our children to the Persian Gulf region while the Iran-Iraq war was on. We saw few effects of it while in Saudi, but it was still on when we began expatriate life in Kuwait years later. Several times we saw smoking ships being brought to land somewhere to the south, close enough to see what it was but far enough away to not know what type of ship, or if they were putting into a Kuwaiti or Saudi port. I suspect the Saudi ports were over the horizon, and that they must have been foreign vessels–probably Iraqi–putting into Kuwait ports for repairs. My first month in Kuwait four terrorist bombs were set off, though always in a place that seemed to be to damage a business, not kill people.

In those five years, I had six homecomings to America, plus the one in the trip after the war, so seven overall. I’ve been to Canada twice, and Mexico once, so in all I have returned to America ten times in my life. Each time was an exhilarating feeling. Home again, to a nation where peace prevails and sanity rules. Home again, to where economic opportunity is bounded only by the effort you put in and the amount the government takes out. Home again, to safety and security. Usually to cheers, always to relief.

The world has changed in those years since the long trips for oversees residency, not for business or tourism. I had the opportunity to be in about twenty-five or thirty other countries. I love this country most of all. Yet, as I’ve said in an editorial, I see the United States as a fragile experiment, a mere 232 years after declaring independence, 217 after finding a workable form of government. We have outlasted some nations, but many others through history lasted longer. The experiment is still fragile. Forces foreign and domestic want to change us from being the nation we were formed to be. I won’t list the changes, and not all readers would agree with the specifics.

Has America passed its zenith? Are we now on the decline? This would take many posts to write about, which I won’t do at this time–too much writing to do otherwise. If we have passed our zenith, I hope it is momentary, and that another score of years will find us on the ascendancy again. As I said in the closing line of a tribute poem to Ronald Reagan, “Long live your shining city on a hill.”

Church History Novels, Doctor Luke's Assistant, Screwtape's Good Advice, Writing

Fear Rises

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Well, yesterday evening I heard back from the agent who has been considering Doctor Luke’s Assistant. As expected, he passed on it. I say “as expected” because I have learned the book is unpublishable for a first time novelist. It’s way too long by industry standards—forgivable for someone who already has a fan base, but not for a first timer. And, it’s Bible era fiction, which is a dead genre right now per the book buying public. So, I guess I chalk this up to writing practice, and move on. Hey, most authors don’t get their first book published. Why should I be different?

Last night I finished the final edits on the proposal for my study guide for The Screwtape Letters. Based on the meeting I had with the publisher in May, I have high hopes for the success of this book. Today I wrote the cover letter, tweaked the proposal slightly based on something I had previously missed on the publisher’s web site, copied the whole thing, went to the post office, and mailed it. I’m $1.68 poorer, plus mileage. I really had to make myself do those final steps, internally reminding myself, “The worst that can happen is they turn it down.” But fear rose up again, as I’ve written about before:

Fear of Failure : This isn’t a big deal. Rejection happens in the publishing business. You learn to live with it and get over it quickly or you go crazy.

Fear of Success : How would life change if this is successful? If they then want another one? If I have to go thither and yon to promote the book?

Fear of Error : This is the worst, I think. Who am I to claim to know enough to write a book on this Christian classic? I’m just a man who fell in love with it three decades ago, and who recently renewed that love affair, recently helped teach it to an adult life group, and found a lack of materials available to help teacher and student. But, what if I say something in the book that’s really stupid? That the publisher doesn’t catch, but that some theological sharp-shooters do? Oh, the scorn and derision I could direct on myself. Maybe it would be better to just not mail it and watch television every evening.

Fear of commitment did not enter into this. If the book is accepted, I will have to add to the four sample chapters written: a minimum of 28, and possibly as many as 30 additional chapters, probably in three months. That is a pace I believe I can do.

Let’s see, I think someone said that irrational fear is anxiety. Why borrow worries from tomorrow’s legitimate ones? Each day has enough worries of its own. First item of my July goals accomplished, within schedule.

goals

July Goals

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This will be the first month in a long time that I set writing goals, and the first time I’ll post them here. This may be a progressive post, edited several time today as these goals come to mind.

  • Type final edits on the Screwtape Letters study guide proposal; mail to the editor by July 3.
  • Complete proposal on In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People; edit; mail to agent by July 10. This will include work on the first 30 pages of the book, which are to be included.
  • Begin work on proposal on the Elijah and Elisha small group study guide. By the end of the month I would like to see the proposal essentially complete, and the weekly study sheets I prepared for Life Group expanded into chapters. If I can have it ready to mail to the editor by then, fine, but I’ll be satisfied mailing it in August.
  • Attend critique group twice. At the first one present the synopsis for In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People; at the second present the concept for the Documenting America newspaper column, including marketing letter and one or two sample columns.
  • Finish organizing the scattered piles of paper about the house. Actually, I’d be satisfied to simply bring improved organization to this, even if I don’t finish it. At least I want to have all papers of all works in progress filed together, and drafts of all poems put in their assigned places.
  • Organize the business end of writing, including establishing a mileage log so I can get rid of the scraps.
  • Continue to post to this blog, at least 10 posts this month, and preferably 15 to 18.
  • Begin outlining the next life group lesson I’ll teach, and prepare it in a way it can become a small group study guide.
Fifty Thousand Screaming People, poetry, Wesley, Writing

The June Report

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Although I did not set any goals at the beginning of the month, I think I should give a report on my stewardship as a writer during the past month. If one is called, one should be a steward of that call. This month I accomplished the following in my writing.

My main activities were following up on the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference in May. This included: a large number of e-mails to faculty and fellow conferencees; recording of expenses and proper filing of receipts; filing of conference materials.

I worked on two of the three proposals requested of by an editor and an agent. One is down to final edits (tonight, I hope); another is almost complete. The third one I will start on tomorrow. This will be a main project for July. The other requested item, a couple of page outline of a mystery series I have in mind, will follow the last proposals (translated: nothing done on these last two items this month). However, I did finish the research for the third proposal subject matter.

I found a new critique group and began attending this month. It meets every-other week; I attended both weeks available, and received good feedback on the two chapters of In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People that I shared.

I wrote two poems: one haiku, which I posted for critique and pretty much finished; and one rhyming, metrical poem not to any pattern. This one is simmering, waiting for additional self-editing, then posting for critique.

Critiqued seven poems at Absolute Write poetry forums. Each of these was a thought out critique, with a fair amount of time in it.

Read in several books that will add to my writing efforts. This included: The Letters of John Wesley, The Lost Letters of Pergamum (re-read), the letters between Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Carlyle, Dune by Frank Herbert (about 1/3 the way through), and several on-line helps for writers.

And, blogged here quite a few times.

All in all, a productive month.

Author | Engineer