On Grazing.

Little blocks of time and effort may yield great outcomes.
--D. Lyn Wood.

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I was reading this blog, pondering a bit, and wondering how applicable this concept of "grazing" was...no, wondering how generalizable it was. When I was a family physician teaching my patients about dieting, I would often tell them a similar story of grazing as did the author of the blog link above. "Eat a little here, a little there, and make sure it's healthy, avoiding dips and dressings on your fruits and veggies."

I quite enjoyed how that author and the many who commented applied "grazing," particularly to the task of writing. My first book, JOURNEY TO THE HEART OF GOD, was written while I was still working full time, taking my nights and weekends on call, teaching Sunday School, attending board meetings, and giving attention to my wife and three kids...oh, you get the drift. Anyhoo, I wrote that 500 page book in spite of other things going on.

What have you been putting off, "I don't have enough time"? Especially, "I cannot put enough time together at once to be worth it."

Humbug, say the majority of comments on that blog about grazing, agreeing that, as with most things in life, slow but steady still wins most races. It's just a case of redefining "steady" to mean, "steadily coming back to the task and adding another several strides down the road."

Longings.

Do you long for the day when political parties are really parties? With cake? And ice cream?

Do you long for the day, back when a child's birthday party was just the biggest event in the world?

Do you long for times ago, or times ahead?

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Reading Mitch Albom's THE TIMEKEEPER, it's an interesting reflection on how we spend so much of our lives wishing for things that aren't, or can't, or mayhaps will be...but, we don't do a good job of being in the here and now.

A good writer captures that sense of yearning, a sense that seems to be pretty much universal, IMHO. Is there something innate in all of us, a yearning for the divine, a "God-shaped hole" that we (sadly) try to fill with everything apart from the one peg that perfectly fits that hole? What's your experience? My experience...well, I think my awareness of a need for God grew and matured over the years, but I never tried very hard to hammer anything else into God's place. Oh, sure, there were other little gods yammering for my attention, often successfully, but they were never anywhere near as good as the God of the Bible at explaining things, at focusing my vision, or at forgiving me when I wandered, wander, and will wander again!

What keeps you grounded in the here and now, the people you are with right now? I'd like to bless you with the thought that Jesus, teaching His disciples how to pray, told them to focus on the simplest, most basic things: daily bread, the tiniest temptations, and forgiveness--given daily and accepted daily. And, to do the simple little things as per "All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten": take care of one another, be nice, always say please and thank you...and, I think the Bible would put an extra emphasis on that part about taking care of one another.

What do you yearn for? What indeed keeps you focused and useful and on task? What is your relationship with God like? Or not? Let's talk.

On Editing.

Are you willing to murder your darlings? Uproot some well-loved plants? Jettison comfy old furniture? If so, you may have a calling as an editor.

--DS.

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   To write well, one must write a lot.
   To edit well, one must lop and chop and prune and hack and attack...whilst keeping an eye on the good stuff that was masked by underbrush, pretty but crowded flowerbeds, overhanging branches, and the like.

Most of us are hoarders rather'n tossers, eh? So too with writers. Gosh, I hold onto a comma as if it were an oldest friend, and a favorite phrase like a life preserver.

Some internal dialogue as I respond to the editing done on THE ANIMALS OF CHRISTMAS:

---"Hey, I liked that comma there. It made the reader pause for a sec before plowing on, just a breather so that the next phrase is seen as related-but-not-merely-more-of-same."

---"Hey, I liked that adverb, too!" I know, I know, 'Show em, don't tell em' is the right way. You should have picked me up on this chump whom I had "...casting glances greedily at the coin." It's hackneyed. I shoulda said, "His gaze drifted back to the shining gold coin a third time. Then a fourth." The first way tells you what to think...the second shows you the scene and lets you figger out for yrself the guy is greedy.

---"I wish I'd caught that earlier, but now that it's in proof format I cannot make big changes. Otherwise, I'd hack that messy ppgh up into a two or three additional sentences that were shorter and clearer."

---"Sheesh, every time I read this passage, I get a lump in my throat. Sure hope my reader(s???) will, too!"

What books to desert isle?

Yesterday I asked you what books you'd be happy to be marooned with on a desert isle...here's my list:

-Bible
-Tolkien's works
-Lewis' Space Trilogy and Narnia
-Since it is "just" one volume, my COMPLETE WORKS OF WM. SHAKESPEARE.

Interesting, they're all "classics." I guess there's something to be said for "standing the test of time."

Waiting to hear your list....

David

re-re-reading King's ON WRITING

A good book is still good on the second reading. A great book remains great on the third, fourth, and more!

--DLSmith, MD


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Okay, it's a vanity to make up my own quote and then cite it as if it were innately wise and inchoately profound. Guilty.

That said, great books are ones that I reread, by choice, repeatedly. What's on your list of such books?

My list will be posted later this week.

I'm reading Stephen King's ON WRITING yet again. Always both amusing and inspiring. Makes me want to write more, and more vividly. No boredom when the King is at the keyboard...can't say that my writing is always scintillating, but Stephen would be the first to agree. At least, about the first draft. I love the quote from his early boss, a newspaper editor:
   The first time you write the story, you write it for yourself.
   When you rewrite it, you are writing for others. Your task now is to cut out everything that isn't the story.

   Or, as the old-fashioned saying about editing goes, "You need to be able to kill your darlings." That refers to loverly words and well-turned phrases as well as to your characters.

Okay, let me know what books you'll be bringing to your desert isle that'll be good to read and re-re-read!