Last week I spoke before a group of historians and archivists at the University of Indianapolis for an annual Jurisdictional dinner. Afterwards, one gentleman began talking to me about his writing, but was equally perplexed by the question: "How can you write so much while also spending 50+ hours a week pastoring a church?" This is a question I get all the time--and surprisingly, it was a conversation that I had with three other people the very same week.
"Where do you find the time?"
Answer (s):
My wife makes it possible.
Sure, I joke about my wife, and she's a good sport to take my good-natured ribbing and Henny Youngman-esqe marital in stride. (Youngman's signature line was: "Take my wife, for instance. Please, somebody take her!")
But the fact is, for nearly thirty years my wife has been the better sport about leaving me alone when I'm in my writing zone. She doesn't get up at 4 a.m. most mornings and she doesn't stay up until midnight because she wants to be by my side or she can't get enough of me. (Well, she can't get enough of me, but that's another story!) When she sees I'm working at my station, reclining on the couch in my underwear, nacho chips strewn in my chest hair and coffee dribbling down my chin, she just sighs and walks away. (Can you blame her?)
She does get frustrated, however, when she talks for thirty minutes, face-to-face, and I claim the next morning that the conversation never happened. But really, I was working . . . .
Time is what we make of it.
I could wax on here about the choices each of us make in life regarding our time. But the fact is, I have time to write so much because I make time to write so much. I enjoy the physical endeavor of writing (not just thinking about the finished product, or the article, or the poem, or the book). I write FAR MORE material than I ever get into print.
The point being . . . writing takes time. But so does watching TV, doing a crossword puzzle, or painting or sewing or working with wood. (I'm not knocking any of these pursuits, mind you . . . I'm just saying I spend time writing every day. I enjoy it. But I work hard at it . . . every day. (And I've been doing it for nearly 40 years now.)
I like to talk about writing, too. (And authors and editors and publishing.)
I do. I love helping others with their books, their ideas, and discussing what I know about getting into print, or enjoying writing, or creating, or "how to" do it. I don't know everything (in fact, I know very little). But I like to help, and I like admitting that I don't know much about writing. After 40 years, it's still a mystery.
The gentleman wanted to know if I'd read his book or give him some pointers. Check. Check.
And if there are any others out there who would love to take a writing class with me (not by me, but with me!) let me know. I'd love to see what we could create and learn together.
Your friendly neighborhood nerd,
Todd
Sunday was a marvelous day for writing. And after encountering dead-ends in many of my newest writing projects, I decided to dance to the oldies.
I broke out some of my ancient floppy disks, located a half dozen good (but promising and redeemable) pieces, and began revising them. Over the course of several hours, I had rounded out five science fiction stories--each now highly-marketable and compelling--and also completed several poems-in-progress, an essay for a Preaching magazine, and a few proposals (which I sent along to their respective editors-in-waiting).
In short, Sunday was oldies day.
But dancing to one's oldies is often the most difficult dance of all. Time is a cruel mistress and after months, or even years, in the distillery of the mind a piece of writing can either sing or croon. Whenever I locate those pieces that still have a voice, I am elated . . . though for the life of me I now have hundreds that I cannot recall with any accuracy of time or place. I may have written them in the shower for all I know--yet here they are, still waiting for me on those floppies.
A writer should be grateful for the home slush pile. The larger it is, the more the evidence mounts that the writer has made a life out of words and that these words could matter to someone . . . informing, entertaining, challenging.
But writing is work. Hard work. Demanding work. And yes, there are times when I literally sweat from the toil and the strain of completing a better sentence or crafting the perfect paragraph. May it never change.
I was glad to lose a few pounds on Sunday. I actually sweated over my oldies. And my hope is that someone out there will experience them as new.
Last week, before leaving for New York, I was revising a long poem about Odysseus. The editor couldn't bring herself to reject the poem, but thought I could improve upon it with some work. So . . . I worked on it and I appreciated her editorial comments for coaxing the poem toward publication.
Sometimes, these conversations with editors are journeys in themselves. There is give-and-take, suggestion-and-comment, and trial-and-error. In the end, one hopes to have a decent poem in print.
I'm always grateful for editors who have an opinion, who make suggestions for improvement. They are like Tiresias, the blind prophet of Hades who guided Odysseus through the underworld.
I often feel I'm in the dark, too. And it helps to have a companion to guide the way.
Recently I was invited to be a "guest blogger" on a magazine's website. I've been blogging for some years now, mainly using my various blogs as writing and humor practice, but the idea of guest-blogging intrigued me.
Come January 2013, I'll be listed as one of the guest bloggers on the magazine's masthead.
But I really don't know how to be a blogger. I didn't have the heart to explain this to the editor. She was so kind, and seemed to want me very badly. And, well, my wife knows I can't say "no" to women . . . especially the ones who beg me over the telephone.
And so, come January . . . I'll be a guest-blogger.
I'm not used to being a "guest" of course. Very few people have the gumption to invite me into their homes, as I generally spill things on the carpet or make a mess in the bathroom. My wife doesn't like to go out with me either, as she always asks, "You're not going to wear that are you?" when we get to the car. She never likes my color-combinations or style selection, and she is always reminding me that my lack of fashion is one of the reasons people don't invite us into their homes. That, and I tend to talk too much about esoteric subjects such as rotisserie chickens, how to trim a candle wick, or how the lemming got its stripes. I can also wax on about such interesting topics as SP-70 sunscreen protection, the subtle shade differences between the colors maroon and burnt sienna, and how to cook one-minute oatmeal.
Most people ask me to leave their homes around 7 p.m., pointing out that they have an early meeting with an IRS-auditor or are slated for a gall-bladder operation the next morning. And they usually mention that the former are preferred to my company.
I'm not used to being a "guest". Even my parents refuse to see me at times, and I am their executor and power-of-attorney.
Naturally, I'm going to bring all of this out on my first guest blog. I've got an ax to grind and a great deal of vitriol to spew. Anyone who reads my blog is going to get an eye full.
But after that, my second guest-blog is wide open.
Perhaps a piece about how to take a shower with a piece of soap the size of a Tic-Tac. I've got to stick to what I know.
While walking along 57th Street near Central Park, I happened upon a book kiosk--one of many that seem to crop up like mushrooms along the streets in New York. Lots of used books here--like new--and more than an ample selection of novels, top-class non-fiction, and titles of such esoteric nature that they naturally draw the eye to their titles.
I stopped for a few minutes to browse, but spent more time watching the other patrons going through their paces. As a rule, I'd say that New Yorkers know how to look for books, and at books. They have the eye for cover art, binding, and paper quality like no other city.
But the Central Park Zoo was calling, and so was a much-needed bottle of water to offset the 97-degree heat. I had to step away from the kiosk to go see the white leopard, the red panda, and a wild assortment of tropical birds--each vibrant with color.
Later that night, while exiting the subway for a final time, I did my good deed for the day and handed off my Metro card to a Bronx-accented gentleman who was attempting to purchase a ride uptown. He accepted my gift, but looked quizzically at me and asked, "Is there any money left on it?"
I quickly explained that I was from out of town: "Way out of town." And I added, "There should be three-days-worth of rides remaining on the card."
He thanked me, still suspicious of my intentions, but I walked away before he could deduce that I was a Jehovah's Witness or a lunatic. (Well . . . maybe the latter.)
But I was tired from fighting shoulder-to-shoulder and face-to-face crowds for five days and eager to get back to Hoosier-land, where life is so boring and the lawns are so dry. And I had books to read back at the hotel.
Joey Chestut, 5-time world hot dog-eating champ and his iron stomach.
Prior to our brief trip to New York, I had loaded my Kindle with several free books, including the entire corpus of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, Moby Dick, and War and Peace. I began reading War and Peace on the flight east, went thirty chapters deep into the text, and then grew despondent when I realized I had not even read 5% of this massive tome. What was Tolstoy thinking? Well, it was another era. But he should have titled this one: War and Reading.
One of the highlights of this New York trip was witnessing the International Hot Dog eating contest in Queens (Coney Island). We rose early that morning, rode the subway for forty-five minutes, and arrived 3 hours prior to "eat-off". We secured our place among a massive throng, stage right, and waited it out, shoulder-to-shoulder with seven thousand strong in a blazing 95 degree heat. Why we'll never know! After standing for nearly 4 hours in the sun, we were burned and thirsty.
What we witnessed was history: at least hot dog eating history. Among the women, the "black widow" won her second consecutive contest, eating her age in hot dogs and buns--45 in ten minutes. A world record. And Joey Chestnut tied his world record of 68 dogs and buns in ten minutes for his fifth consecutive championship and a $20,000 prize. (You can watch what we witnessed live by checking out the ESPN coverage on YouTube of the 2012 Nathan's competition.)
Naturally, we had to eat a Nathan's hot dog later that day (a Queens eating landmark) and I'm sure we drank our weight in water.
Later that night I began writing an essay on eating . . . and I'm still working on it. But as I think about witnessing that kind of gluttony, it's difficult to write. I seem to lose my appetite for words very easily. And I'm not sure I will ever eat more than two dogs for a meal. Anything more just seems . . . well . . . wrong.
The hotel Pennsylvania (across the street from Madison Square Garden): our New York home away from home.
New York always brings me to my senses and last week, with more than 3-million visitors descending on the Big Apple for the annual 4th of July fireworks on the Hudson, the sidewalks and the subways were teeming with humanity. The occasion was a graduation gift to my son, in the hope that he might appreciate the slower-pace of his Midwestern roots and realize that New York is a fine place to visit, but isn't suited for his plodding mentality and more sedentary pursuits.
As far as my sentiments go, I always experience New York as one of the few remaining holdouts--and perhaps the finest vestige--of a literate culture. There is no other city where one can still buy books or practically every street corner, encounter old women on park benches who are reading Voltaire or James Joyce, or overhear discussions about novels, playwrights, or the latest biography of Walter Cronkite.
There is no other place where one can daily encounter a person reading a book--usually on the subway--and during the five days I was in New York I smiled at, and took note of: an Italian woman reading a yellowed, tattered copy of a prayer book of Saints; an Orthodox Jewish gentleman reading a large, ornate copy of Talmudic literature; a group of women heavily engrossed in their individual ruminations of various pop novels.
My favorite was a young woman on the subway who was reading a used copy of a Woody Allen humor collection--a book that I recognized right off as one that was resting on my bookshelf back home, and one that I had read several times myself. But I didn't have the nerve to rouse this woman from her interior pursuit to ask, "What do you think of Woody's copious references to herring in that old New Yorker piece?"
As I walked the sidewalks (or "pressed" myself through shoulder-to-shoulder crowds), I also took note of those publishing firms that occupied the higher spaces of office buildings, the familiar names rising above me like a siren call. At one point I passed in front of a publisher's office--a firm that has continued to keep my oldest book in print--and I felt a deep desire to ascend to those offices and introduce myself to the staff there, announcing that I was "one of their own", and to thank them for holding out the hope that my book might one day sell enough copies to provide for one of their salaries. But after realizing I was hot and sweaty, and clad in shorts and sandals, I came to my senses and struggled on toward Times Square, certain that no publisher would want to entertain a loser like me.
But the thought of those offices were enough to inspire, those offices retained on floors high above Manhattan, where editors and agents often meet and where, yes, some have even met over the years to discuss my work . . . a guy living in a small, out-of-the-way borough in Indiana who still writes his guts out most days and who will, God-willing, get back to New York another day, perhaps to sign a contract, or meet the editor who has such high hopes for a book written by a Hoosier.
