Blender

Over the past 48 hours I feel like I've been working inside a blender.  But writing can feel that way . . . or at least it can for me.

I have, for example, whipped up the following in the past two days:









A sermon (which I ended up memorizing and offering without notes)
Two memorial/funeral messages
A study outline for a Psalms study
The beginnings of a ministry brochure for Calvary
A grant report
Several blog posts
Four poems
Scads of phone messages scrawled on scrap paper
Revisions of several short stories
Several hand-written letters mailed Monday morning
A query letter mailed to the editor of a Men's Health magazine
A humor piece about ageing
An article on fishing for smallmouth bass (what do I know about smallmouth bass?  See previous blog about beavers!)

Yes, I stay busy.  But sometimes the blender effect threatens to spin my brains out of control.  I sometimes have to take a step back and ask, "What am I working on now?  What's the tone of this piece?  Have I fully engaged "the voice" I'm trying to convey in words and does it work?

As for other voices in other rooms (that's a veiled reference to a Truman Capote work, by the way!) I often hear my wife's voice calling out to me in the darkness, sometimes well past midnight . . . wondering . . . when are you coming to bed? 

And sometimes I hear another voice calling back, almost not my own, saying, "Just give me another five minutes."  Let me punch the "puree" button on the blender.