Chess & Life

Last week I completed reading Garry Kasparov's book, How Chess Imitates Life. If you don't know the name, Kasparov was the reigning world champ in chess for nearly two decades and retired a few years ago. He recently tried to run against Putin in Russia, but was defeated soundly.

Reading Kasparov's book, I was struck by two things: Mr. Kasparov's incredible memory (he could recall chess moves, games, entire sequences that had transpired decades ago) and his belief that he is the second coming of Jesus. Somehow, he does believe he is going to be Russia's salvation for democracy.

Kasparov has bested me on both fronts.

I can't remember anything, including my wife's birthday or our anniversary date, and I know I'm not going to be anyone's salvation. If I were writing a book, I guess the title would have to be:
How Mediocrity Imitates Life or How Drinking Milk Out of the Jug Imitates Life or How Putting the Dog Out Imitates Life.

Chapters

I can usually think of decent book titles, but chapters are a little trickier. What do you want your chapters to communicate? How do they help move the reader along?

I've been pondering this question for my latest book and here's what I've got so far.

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three: How Am I Doing So Far?
Chapter Four: Please Read On
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven: Thanks for Hanging in There
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten: I Love You
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve: No, Really . . . I Do Love You
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen: I'm Only Writing Two More of These
Chapter Fifteen: Nearly Out of Ideas
Chapter Sixteen: My Wife Is Yelling At Me to Hurry Up!

10,000 Words

I completed an incredible display of writing this past week. On Friday (my usual day off) I wrote for nearly eight hours (stopping only for two pots of coffee, several pit stops, and a brief respite from a massive headache that I cured with three Tylenol and a fifteen minutes nap). Saturday and Sunday nights completed my run, and all told I put more than 10,000 words on paper--about 40 pages of material, including two articles that an editor asked me to write for a ministry journal.

My fingers ache today, but otherwise I've come down off the caffeine buzz and I've got a great start on a 250 page book I'm writing.

Still, I have a long way to go to break my own record. I once wrote a book over a weekend (all of it!) and it was published eight months later. That was about 30,000 words in two and a half days, no sleep, and lots of expresso.

But I'm not going there again.

More Quotes

A Spaniard named Sabino Fernandez Campo once wrote: "What I can tell you is not interesting, and what is interesting, I cannot tell you." And Aldous Huxley once observed: "Experience is not what happens to a person; it is what a person does with what happens to him."

Reminds me of my blog.

Or, to put it in my own words: "Anyone who thinks this blog is interesting doesn't have much of a life."

Sunny Day

One of the happiest days of my life was a sunny, May day in 1985 after I'd taken my last final exam at Duke University. I can still remember the freedom I felt as I walked off the campus for the last time, knowing I'd never return to those halls as a student, but also experiencing the delight of, at long last, being able to write again (no more of those dry, boring thirty page theological papers).

I rode my bicycle back to the apartment, grabbed a handful of yellow, second-sheet paper, a few ink pens, a blanket, some water, and spent the next six hours sitting outside beneath a blazing sun writing a novel that I never finished.

I'd been married ten months.
I was writing what I wanted to write.
No kids.
No money.
No job.

Who could ask for anything more?

Strange Books

Yesterday I was talking about the book, Charlatan, with some in the church office. They seemed confused by my reading selection about medical quacks, goat testicles, and mass media frenzy. "Why do you read strange books?" was the question.

Here's my answer.

I love to read works that are "out there" and tell stories of the oddities among us. We live in a big land, and Americans have always been known as a big people. It only stands to reason that our country would also produce some of the biggest nut cases in history, and the book on J.R. Brinkley is no exception.

I also believe there are some big religious nuts on the loose in America right now, and the book on J.R. Brinkley is a testament to the American penchant for buying into people who speak over the airwaves, who seem to live large, who seem to have some religious insight (or medical insight, etc.) that others don't possess. Americans (despite the fact that most don't "practice" their faith in a traditional sense) are still insanely religious, and many are willing to follow the first nut case who comes along and says what they want to hear.

I see this reality every day. It's why I read strange books. It's why I watch religious programming on television (where many nuts broadcast their views) and why I continue to write for The Wittenburg Door. As long as the nuts are out there, there's plenty of fodder for my pen.

Quacks

I finished a fascinating book on Sunday afternoon: Charlatan, by Pope Brock. It's the story of Dr. J.R. Brinkley, who, throughout the decades of the 20's, 30's, and 40's, was America's most dangerous quack. He killed dozens of people--mostly men--through the implantation of goat testicles. Yes, that's right...hundreds, nay thousands of men offered themselves on the altar of his vile ministrations and had goat testicles implanted (actually dumped) in their scrotums or rib cages in order to restore their virility and vigor.

Brinkley was also a pioneer in the use of mass media to run for political office (he would have been elected governor of Kanses in a landslide if the write-in votes had counted--and many think he could have been elected President based on his popularity) and he knew how to use urban legend, marketing, and mass appeal to the base religious desires of Americans to earn more than a million dollars a year selling colored water as prescription drugs.

What's equally amazing is that we still live in a culture where men, especially, pursue the fountain of youth through the use of steroids, HGH, and other so-called sexual enhancers. Women don't fare much better.

As a teen, I had goats, and I still wonder what might have been had Brinkley been around in my day. Think of it, with Brinkley's help, I could either be dead today, or enjoying life as one of the most virile men in America!