Each year pastors provide a "state of the church" report to their various charge conferences, outlining the achievements of the year past and goals for the future. Since this pastor seeks to be creative, we are offering this report card. We'll let readers decide if they believe it or not.
TEACHER'S COMMENTS: This pastor, though getting a little old for this classroom, still seems eager to learn. Fortunately, we have placed him in a wonderful classroom filled with remarkable students who help to hide his deficiencies (which are many). This pastor seems to play well in the sandbox and has been overheard bragging about his classmates. If it were not for these other students, this pastor would be eating paste and digging lima beans out of his ears. For this reason and more, we also deem it necessary for this classroom to remain intact for another year and we would be remiss to break up the dynamics of this well-oiled machine. We hope this pastor will, however, do better work in 2012, but as his knees and shoulders give out, we can see marked improvements, though many in the classroom regard him as "a little odd." We don't recommend remediation, however.
HISTORY GRADE: B
This pastor has been in his current classroom for going on eight years, but we don't think we should move him and torture another group of students. This group in the Calvary classroom is used to him now and we say they can have him. In the past year twenty-six new students joined this classroom by profession of faith in Jesus (along with seventeen others who just transferred in) and another seventeen were baptized.
SOCIAL STUDIES GRADE: A
We've had a problem in 2011 with people wanting to leave this classroom and go to other classrooms like Tanzania, Ghana, Belize, and even to foreign countries like Tennessee. Many other students serve in places like Metro Ministries, Sheltering Wings, Jails, Food Pantries, and Schools. This classroom also tries to clothe, feed, and assist in a variety of needs. This pastor, however, certainly can't have anything to do with it. It's got to be the Holy Spirit and the others who lead the classroom.
SALES & MARKETING GRADE: B
For some reason, people still want to get into this classroom. Not only is there a waiting list for the Learning Academy and Parent's Day Out (which says something about the quality), there are new people clamoring through the doors every week. The pastor purchased two news suits recently, and we hope this will help him to be more presentable and his wife is helping him to shave more often.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION GRADE: A
This kid loves gym. He would probably live in one if he could. He is frequently the first one in the doors when they open at 5 a.m. His classroom offers classes like Yoga and Zumba . . . and we don't even know what these are. We should also note that his wife assists him with his physical education and this student seems to have a grasp of human anatomy.
SEX EDUCATION GRADE: B
While we're on the subject, we should note that this student has been married to his first wife for twenty-seven years and has not strayed. But it's easy to see why. Who else would have him? And listen, have you seen his wife? She's a major babe and still has her high school cheerleader outfit with pom pons. This pastor is also encouraging his children (including his engaged daughter) to wait until marriage. (Wait for what, we're not sure.) We do, however, believe that after twenty-seven years this pastor has waited long enough. We shall be sending a note home to his wife.
ENGLISH GRADE: A
This student seems to have a decent understanding of the English language, but writes way too much. We would encourage him not to write six books a year as he can't find people who will read them. He does enjoy writing encouraging notes to people, however, and he continues to be impressed by the ways the other students are talking about their faith. He seems convinced, also, that Jesus has a sense of humor and that people might equate laughter and joy with the gospel.
TEACHER'S SUMMARY
As you can see, this pastor is a decent student and we want to encourage him in his learning. Lord knows he's flunked out of enough endeavors in his life, so we want to keep him in this classroom where he is surrounded by so many gifted and caring students who will help him with crib notes. He loves the people he works with and can pick himself up off the playground when he gets knocked down and scrapes his knees. He rarely cries . . . though we've seen others crying when it was announced he was returning to the classroom for 2012.
For a fuller summation of this student's thoughts, we would recommend people purchase his full slate of book titles (at retail price) or visit http://www.growmychurch.com/ and click on the October 24 interview. He's the student who looks like Lawrence Welk and talks like a hick from Sullivan county.
RECOMMENDATION: PASS (but we're being extremely lenient here).
Right now I'm waiting on so many people, so many projects, and so many expectations that I will never die. I can't. I won't!
I have no less than six books that are being read by editors right now. (Actually, it's more than six, but I've lost count . . . so I'll just say six. But I might have to make a count this week because now I'm intrigued.) And there are also stacks of essays, piles of poems, and a heap of humor floating around in editorial offices around the country, too. But in the publishing world, everything is hurry up and wait.
One editor wrote me last week informing me that I must wait until May of 2012 for a decision on a book manuscript. Seriously? Six months? In another six months, I'll have written six other books. Can't these editors keep up with their reading?
Or how about the editor who informed me that he would indeed be publishing one of my essays, but it would be a year from now before it would appear in the magazine. More waiting . . . .
I'm used to it, though. I wait on my wife, my kids, my slow-moving parents. I'm waiting for the cat to die. I'm waiting for the Colts to score a touchdown. Thank God, they don't play next week.
I would love it if, someday, an editor would be waiting on me for a change . . . waiting on me to deliver that 500-page-manuscript or that carefully-crafted piece about my four-month Hawaiian travel excursion or what it feels like to sleep in until seven-a.m. on a weekend.
But heck, I'd settle for an article on the empty nest syndrome. That would be worth the wait. And my wife might go for it, too.
Last night an editor of a news magazine wrote to inform me that one of my poems (a poem, really?) was receiving a lot of attention from readers and had been the number one page on the magazine web site this past month. Awww, shucks!
I'm actually flabbergasted by this . . . and I rarely use the word "flabbergasted." It's true, I do write a lot of poems (actually too many), but I also write a lot of essays, humor, fiction, and work that simply defies description or categorization. So when an editor sends me word about a poem receiving attention, I have to ask, "Why?"
I'm not used to attention, of course. My kids ignore me. My wife has other interests . . . and most of these do not include me. The cat takes one look in my direction and pukes.
So when an editor writes with a compliment, I'm flabbergasted. (There's that word again!) I begin wondering how I hit upon a combination of words that others would want to read, or perhaps faun over. I wonder if I can repeat the performance, and I try to go back in time and figure out where I was, and what I was doing, and what the circumstances were surrounding the creation of the words. If I could duplicate the effort, I would. But I can't even remember where I was yesterday, and I certainly don't recall writing most of the drivel I churn out. When the editor wrote to say, "I love your poem," I asked, "What poem?" Don't even remember writing it or sending it in. Am I going Alzheimer's?!
But, alas, I realize I don't have any great skill at word-crafting . . . I just have an ability to turn out words like little sausages, lots of little sausages, and I send them out hoping that one of those little sausages will be good enough to catch the eye of an editor who will say, "Very tasty."
Lord knows I'll never garner any attention at home. I've got to look for these small accolades in the wild and wacky world of word-crafting!
I'm flabbergasted!!!!
Books about dogs and cats have exploded onto the publishing scene in the past decade, and this despite the one-story-fits all approach that publishers seem to require when it comes to canine tales. However, Susan Orlean has captured both a history and an iconographic image in her book, Rin Tin Tin. It's more than a dog book, as it reads across the decades spanning the origins of the German Shepherd pre-WW1 across the pond to Hollywood and back.
I have faint memories of watching Rin Tin Tin when I was a child, but there's far more to this dog story than the TV show, and Orlean manages to write a history and biography that is at once entertaining and compelling. In short, it's more than another dog book, but is food for thought.
Naturally, people like dog books because we extend some portion of our personalities and existence into our pets . . . which makes me wonder: where are all of my dead dogs now, and what does this say about me?
My list of dogs reads like Grade B horror movie:
DOG YEAR DEATH BY
BB 1969 Hit by car
Diego 1975 Hit by car/shot by my dad
Lovey 1997 Squashed under car by my mom
Tippy 1974 Died age 16 with 3 legs, 1 ear, wounded, no teeth
Buster 2010 Eaten by coyotes
As you can see, I wasn't meant to have a dog . . . and I can't wait for our fifteen-year-old cat to die. There's a story here somewhere.
I don't feel tired. In fact, I feel rather energetic. Probably as energetic as a man my age can expect to be . . . and perhaps more energetic than most younger men. I'm usually up early. Sometimes the first in the gym. I work a full day; I write a full day. I eat fewer donuts. I usually cook dinner. I am typically the last to go to bed.
But several friends have recently commented: "You look tired."
Tired? As in Geritol tired? Tired blood? Nahhh!
I point out that I may just be getting old. I woke up a few minutes ago with a pain in my left shoulder that nearly brought tears to my eyes. My wife tells me it's arthritis. But whatever it is--a torn rotator cuff, strained muscle, or uncle arthur--I keep lifting through it. And I write through it, too.
Becky points out that I've been doing the bulk of my late-night writing from the couch. But I'm just relaxed. I write my best love poems from a prone position.
When I really want to get serious about writing, I go vertical.
No, I'm not tired. All it takes is a few conversations with editors, a contract or two, and I'm up all night.
Pass the coffee and Tylenol.
My late-night forays in recent weeks have turned me into a pitcher. I've been throwing essays at some editors, fiction at others, and have chucked a fair number of book proposals, articles, poems, and humor toward the publisher's plate, too. Most have landed in the dirt, but I've thrown some strikes.
Of course, there's always the chance that an editor will shake off a sign and want me to pitch something else. But a guy like me is used to changing it up. After being married for twenty-seven years to a woman who changes her mind every morning, I never say to an editor, "But yesterday you told me you wanted me to be more romantic and cook chicken for dinner . . . what gives?"
No, I just smile, load up another fast ball, and throw again.
Naturally, whenever an editor does give me the nod (like the two who said "Yes" some weeks back and mailed me tiny checks yesterday so I can buy a creme-filled donut) it's a good day. And whenever Becky says "Yes" it's a good month. Heck, it's a good year!
Writers must master the art of the pitch if they are to earn any called strikes. One has to be able to throw an arsenal of pitches in order to get the attention of these deadbeat editors. The curve ball, the change-up, the fast ball, even, occasionally, the spitter . . . it's important to keep chucking pitches toward the home plate. If a writer doesn't pitch, there's no hope for a win. Gotta throw something. Gotta stay warmed up (write every day!). Gotta master at least one or two pitches and keep perfecting them. Stop tossing what doesn't work.
Pitching isn't necessarily fun. But it's necessary.
And I do hope Becky will wear that umpire uniform from time to time. I think the cleats are sexy.
Over the weekend I had a most unusual request. I was offered a record deal. No, not a record deal (as in cutting an album) . . . but a re-cord deal (as in, "we want you to record yourself reading).
The case, in this instance, was an audio book being produced by a publisher who believes that the future of poetry is "hearing" poems being read rather than reading poems in a book. OK . . . I get it. This sounds right, smart, and absolutely correct.
But the producer lost me when he said, "Use the settings on your computer to create your audio file and submit [these selected] poems to me by the end of the month." I thank producer Tim for the opportunity to record some of my published work, but I must admit, I don't know anything about these "settings" on my computer than can produce an "audio file". What the heck is an audio file, and how does an idiot like me learn the button sequence without setting off another Cold War?
Naturally, I turned to another expert for these answers. I asked my wife. "How do you create an audio file on the computer?" I wondered.
"Beats me," she said. "Sounds like you know as much about that as you do about making love to an older woman."
"Beat it," I said.
So . . . I'm up early today. Pressing buttons. But something tells me this older laptop of mine doesn't have a built-in microphone. The only thing I've managed to do so far is start the dishwasher. And I've not yet figured out where I can insert the blank cassette tape!
