December 2024 Update
“Our virtues now are the high and horrible
Ones of a streaming wound which heals in evil.”
— Roy Fuller, “Autumn 1942,” found in Richard Adams' Tales from Watership Down
“Peace maketh plenty;
Plenty maketh pride;
Pride maketh plea;
Plea maketh povert;
Povert maketh peace.”
— Anonymous, 15th Century, from the Oxford Book of Short Poems (plea = lawsuit)
Sorry Professor, I am late again. Although I suppose since I am my own Professor I can give myself an extension since our family has had one sickness or other for what seems like all of November, and we're still sick. Thanksgiving saw over eleven people in our house. It was good but crazy, and while we took some steps to prepare for upcoming life changes there still remains a lot of uncertainty that can't be helped. I have been dwelling on the cost of the American Dream and the horrible virtues our culture encourages us to develop. I have seen the richest people I know enslaved to their wealth and desire, and on my smaller scale I have seen it happen to me. Thank God I don't have enough to get lost to it, and thank God He reminds me daily to struggle against greed. How very rich the average American is compared to the humanity of a hundred years ago, and yet how very wretched we seem for it. For it seems the only way we can heal the streaming wound of greed is to buy more and do more and present more and live in denial of death. I suppose I ought to be more cheerful in a season of hope, but I have been sick for about two weeks with a respiratory virus that is going away ever so slowly, and my duties seems to close more and more tightly around the little time I have to write and be creative. I look forward to Christmas break, and I hope we can truly make it a break instead of a mad dash, because we really need it.
Writing
I actually drafted what I believe to be the final statement of my fantasy book/series. This means that the story is more or less drafted through to the end. It is exciting, and being sick I have allowed myself to celebrate a little bit and just try to relax between chores and taking care of my baby girl. Soon however, maybe this week, I am going to start re-writing, since the second half of the story is really just a skeleton at this point, and I'll have to do a lot of work to flesh it out. I believe I have the opposite problem compared to many writers, especially fantasy writers, who report that they are always cutting down their draft material. I find that I have to add to mine and flesh it out rather than trim. I think when I am drafting I just jump straight for the essential and most vivid visions, rather than meander. But the creative process is different for everyone, and maybe I will write something one day that I will have to trim down instead of fill out.
Music
I have been playing guitar, but not recording or song-writing much (it is quite hard to sing when you cough every two minutes). I have been using it a bit as a distraction and respite, and somehow I think it has paid off to relax with it. It is very calming just to mess around with the sounds you can make (also experimenting more with slide and fingerpicking), without feeling pressure to try and develop yourself into a great guitarist. And I was able to incorporate the slide into a song when I played in the worship band this past week. I got some fun reactions and had a lot of fun playing. I am hoping to try and find some other opportunities to play outside of church soonish, but I need my health back in order to do it.
I haven't been intentionally listening to much, but still some Jeff Beck and some Temptations (particularly the song “People Get Ready”). I also discovered an album by Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem called Wintersong that I really like so far. It is a lovely combination of folk and country blues/gospel. I found it via a local non-profit radio station that is everything radio ought to be. You can check it out here: WWUH.org. The DJs are hit or miss, but my favorite shows are usually folk from 6-9am in the morning and Evening Classics around 5-7pm. They also keep recordings for a few days online so you can listen anytime, as well as a playlist so you can look up songs you like. Sometimes it is political talk radio, which I never listen to, but most of the time it is music that I would never find on my own, which is really what radio should be good for, and it's great to break away from those algorithms.
Audiobook
I have to re-record a chapter due to some edits I made in book 1, so maybe I will try to get that done this month now that my cough is going away (knock on wood).
Reading
I read two Thomas Hardy books, Far From the Madding Crowd and The Mayor of Casterbridge and they were both lovely. One could say that Mayor of Casterbridge is a more perfect novel because the plot is so impeccable, but I personally enjoyed Madding Crowd more. To me Hardy is something of a comfort food. Yes, his plots are sometimes (almost always) tragic, but this is a comfort to those of us who, like Elizabeth-Jane in Casterbridge, feel “that life and its surroundings... [are] a tragical rather than a comical thing; that though one could be gay on occasion, moments of gaiety [are] interludes, and no part of the actual drama.” Is this pessimism? I call it wisdom, and so did King Solomon (Eccl 7:4). And just because a writer or reader resonates more with tragedy than comedy does not mean he or she is unaware or hateful of comedy (which would then truly be pessimism). Hardy himself was often accused of pessimism, and this is what he said:
“Some natures become vocal at tragedy, some are made vocal by comedy, and it seems to me that whichever of these aspects of life a writer's instinct for expression the more readily responds, to that he should allow it to respond. That before a contrasting side of things he remains undemonstrative need not be assumed to mean that he remains unperceiving.”
Life is not a party, and if it were I think we'd get sick of it. I know I would. The struggle makes those moments of joy all the more sweet, rather than passing by our dopamine addled minds into the endless stream of pleasure. Either way I will keep reading, and writing, and I hope you will too.
Thank you for reading! I greatly regret that I will most likely never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand for reading my words; but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.
Send me a kind word or a cup of coffee, and peruse my other work: