Wrapping Up

Actually, a new school year just started last week, so really it's a new beginning, but it feels like the summer is wrapping up, and I'm attempting to condense the summer's experience into a short space here.

What to say? It was an odd duck of a summer. It was a delight to have a summer without teaching and to be able to devote so much time to the writing. I got to go on more trips and spend more time with the family than in past years, so that was fantastic.

I was reminded, though, in rereading some of No Plot? No Problem!, that Chris Baty suggests that what we really need is a "friendly but firm" deadline to make writing go. With too much time, we simply poke about at the writing and make a thousand excuses to do other things. And he was right. I never set myself anything more stringent than, "Get a novel written over the summer." I gave myself all kinds of leeway and outs so that I didn't have to commit deeply, afraid I would muff it if I set a date in stone. And, of course, because I didn't have that deadline, I whiled away my time. I did get quite a bit done, which is gratifying, but much still remains and I'm trying to figure out how to work the writing into my schedule every day, because gol durn it, I still want this to be my labor, my "tent making," my vocation. Slater continues his invaluable service as cheerleader and taskmaster (though he kind of slacked off by not making me stick to that deadline; give the guy some massive project of his own—like building his own house—and he just runs off and leaves you flat...), and perhaps I'll be trying to work out a definite series of deadlines with him (or anyone else on here willing to take up that onerous task). And NaNoWriMo starts up again in just a few months: I want to see some of you onboard this year.

Speaking of writing, I got through King's Everything's Eventual and am happy to report that much of it was good. Some of the writing still felt like the man was just paying the bills, but a few stories were very good (including a few non-horror outings, like one about gangsters in the 1930's)—and not only was there a story in the early style of The Gunslinger, but, by golly, there was actually a story about Roland himself! Hallelujah! Good stuff.

On a last note, I've got a ton of pictures from the various camping and hiking expeditions this summer. Were I a good person, I'd have downloaded them and put them up here as they happened—but I'm not, so I didn't. Instead, I picked one or two from each outing and I'll put them up now:

First, from my desert hike back in May:



This was the huge dropoff I was not expecting because there's no sign it's coming up until you stumble on the edge and just about fall off and kill yourself. Though I wouldn't have suspected it, there are some starkly beautiful views from out there.

Next up, the Great Journey up to Thousand Island Lake in the Sierras:







The first image is of Legolas and Gandalf just in front of Thousand Island lake itself, at about 10,500 feet. It was a gorgeous day, though they didn't join me in my swim in the lake itself. The others are just two of almost a hundred photos I took during the 20 or so miles and 3 days we were there. It was just so beautiful that it made my heart hurt. For those of you who still think I'm crazy to want to do the Pacific Crest Trail, does this at least give you some idea of why I want to do it?

A week or two later, we were up in Mammoth with the family. We were in the condo much of the time (much nicer than sleeping next to Legolas in the wee tent... though he was cuddly...), but we went out into the wilds quite often, including a nearly five-mile hike with the kiddos.





The first image is of the family in front of Devil's Postpile (Joanna was taking the picture and could not add her beauty thereunto); the second is of Rainbow Falls, the goal of the journey. A fine time with the fam.

Last but not least comes our most recent foray, up to Sequoia National Monument with some friends and their kids:







Picture one of this set shows one of several cabins set right among the sequoias themselves; I wanted to get one of the eponymous trees in a photo, but they were all to big to fit into a single image. Awe-inspiring stuff.

Picture two, hard as it may be to make out, is all six of the older kids and their catch on our fishing day. They were all worn out and we were about to give up when the Forest Service men came down to stock the stream we were on; once they tossed three buckets of stunned trout into our pool, every kid caught at least one fish (as did Joanna, her first!). It was fantastic, though we've decided we can never go fishing again because we'll never have that kind of success.

Picture three is of our warrior princess, Born Dancin', who looked this way every second from the moment she woke until she got a bath and was carried into her sleeping bag for the night. The kid loves dirt, and there was not a thing we could do to stop her. She'll be my hiking buddy one day.

(I have, at a conservative estimate, a bazillion more photos of these events, should anyone be interested.)

To finish up, a couple of photos of our trip to Legoland for the boys' sixth birthday. (It wasn't camping, I know, but it was an epic journey, and I was just about as worn out at the end as I was after three days of Sierra hiking.) The first is another of Born Dancin', who may be the cutest child of any kind ever, and the second is of the three men of our family, doing what we do best: goofing off. Enjoy.

Book Update

I've got a great deal to put down here, but since the volume is overwhelming, I'm going to break it down into individual posts. So here's the latest on the reading front.

I finished Kushner'sThe Privilege of the Sword. It became more compelling the further I got into it, and Kushner always has a deft touch with dialogue and detail, and the characters were fun to watch—though Kushner switched between first and third person narratives with abandon, which always feels something like cheating, as if she couldn't get the story told from a single perspective, which she could have easily. Thomas the Rhymer employed shifts in point of view as well, but it was only among three characters, each in first person, and each of the three voices had their own section of the book, so it worked more smoothly. PotS also caused the cognitive dissonance in me that always occurs when I'm reading about characters with a very different moral compass from my own. I'm all for reading the stories of characters different from myself, but some are easier to sympathize with than others. Here, the characters seemed to have very flexible morality simply from convenience (as opposed to, say, necessity or difficult upbringing or the like). So it was readable; I liked it but didn't love it. I still highly recommend TtR as one of the better fantasy novel's I've read.

I curse Stephen King, and not for the first time. I plowed through The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon in two days and, in Garrison Keillor's words, "I couldn't put the sucker down."

King is just a brilliant storyteller. Let's get over whatever snobby resistance we have to that fact (if, in fact, you have any). He is not a brilliant writer, but he tells a story like gangbusters, which would be plenty for me if I could master it. His language is often lazy and/or out of character (his nine-year-old narrator uses words even I would never use); for a guy who so strenuously recommends avoiding adverbs, he uses them constantly, perniciously, and often unnecessarily; and while having minor mental tics—like the repetition of commercial jingles—is realistic, it's also often quite annoying. And he, too, loves to switch perspective: this can work sometimes (as with The Stand), but here it's applied so inconsistently that it just feels random and, again, lazy. And yet, darn it, I couldn't stop reading the thing. His deft touch with specifics, the honesty of some of his passages, and his pacing are superb.

Because of that, I went ahead and picked up Everything's Eventual, a short story collection. I'm more interesting in his storytelling techniques than the horror aspects of his works, so I thought I'd stick with the short and sweet. To date, I still believe that his best work is The Gunslinger (and not his "revised" version, either), which was brilliantly terse and mysterious. I'm hoping to catch more of that along the way. By the way, if you're looking for a good book about writing, you could do much worse than King's On Writing, a combination of autobiography and instructional guide. I don't agree with all of his advice, but it's a good read.

I haven't cracked the King again, though, as I'm just finishing up Beagle's The Line Between, another short story collection. I'm enjoying it much more than his last, The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche and Other Odd Acquaintances, though I did like that. The stories here are more in the mode of my favorite Beagle book, The Innkeeper's Song—in fact, one of the stories is set in that world. In this collection, Beagle ranges into a lot of historical fiction and even a mystery with Sherlock Holmes as a supporting character. He's got a couple of preachy "parables" included, but overall it's a really nice collection. I'm on the last story now.

I also picked up Robert Howard's The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane which Devin pointed out to me long ago and which has obsessed me ever since. Anything with a subtitle like "The Adventures of the Legendary Puritan Swordsman" is a winner in my book. Howard also wrote the Conan stories, of course, and I haven't gotten beyond a couple of pages yet, but I'm looking forward to some old-school fiction.

The final book on my list, An Autobiography of Fireflies, you won't find over at Amazon.com because it's a manuscript written by our neighbor, Debra. I was fascinated to learn that our neighbor also has aspirations as a writer; I was shocked and terrified to learn she'd already written four novels which she has never done anything with. We finally convinced to her let her work see daylight, and she gave me a copy to peruse. I won't really report on it here, because manuscript reading is a different monster than that of published novels, but it's fun to be on the reading end of a manuscript for once. In related strange news, it turns out there's half a dozen aspiring writers in our neighborhood and circle of contacts, which I never suspected. I'm hoping we can get together and commiserate from time to time, and maybe I can get them to sign up for my creative writing class up in Big Bear come January.

I hope you enjoy reading about books, and you must if you've made it this far. Normally I don't enjoy such a high turnover of reading, but with classes starting up in a week, I'm cramming in all I can. As for my writing? I'll report on that next week or so.

Goodnight, all.

Three Things

(1) I updated the template on my blog, so there are a few minor changes lurking about. The Blogroll is cleaner and now includes Liann's spiffy new blog, Patriot to Heaven. Also, because I was jealous of her layout over there, I've included a "Books I'm in Now" section. I hereby order all those in our circle of bloggers to add such a list, just so's we can see what other people are reading and learn from/check out/mock their interests.

(2) The writing continues apace. I had a very good day last Friday, so that what were large, unconnected scenes now hang together as one fifty-eight page single-spaced narrative. A few folks are previewing this chunk o' draft for me as I continue on. I had a fair day on Sunday, and today has been a bust so far. But I'm still at it. Lord willing, the practice of just sitting down at the computer every day is a good habit into which to get. I take comfort in Joseph Heller's comment, "Every writer I know has trouble writing," and Katherine Mansfield's adjuration, "...better far to write twaddle or anything, anything than nothing at all." I think this blog counts as twaddle...

(3) Nothing. There is no third thing. (Have I made this joke before? Probably. Curse Monty Python and their mentally indelible sketches! Blame this one on the Spanish Inquisition...)

Where's My Elephant?

That title is apropos of nothing, save that I like The Simpsons and I'm feeling pretty low at the moment.

I went out to "write" this morning for a few hours and came back with very little. I'm feeling rather depressed about the novel. The writing just isn't getting any easier, and my nature as a "generator" could not be more apparent. I'm just no good at follow-through. I know I almost certainly am letting too many issues crowd my brain at the moment to be objective about the book, but it is just a slog. I'd take a break, only that's almost all I've done in the past two weeks. (And yes, I'm aware that's probably a large portion of the problem. Hush up and leave me to my whining.)

I'm reading The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner these days, and her easy style and ability to paint characters quickly and engagingly are frustrating. I haven't been drawn in as effortlessly as I was into the extraordinary Thomas the Rhymer, but it's impressive none-the-less. And I've been reading all the comments about the new Harry Potter book. I've never been a Rowling fan, but what she's created certainly appeals to a great many people and tells a story well. For someone simply mixing up elements of the fantasy worlds of others, she's certainly done a bang-up job.

The novel, by contrast, feels endlessly clunky and unoriginal. I feel like I'm falling into every fantasy cliche there is to be had, and the spots where I attempt to avoid them feel clunky and obvious. The tone is grim and unpleasant, and while I like the characters, it's hard to imagine anyone else doing so. The writing itself is endlessly repetitive and wordy and just bleh. I've never pretended to be an artist (much less an artiste), or even a particularly good storyteller—I'm just a guy who likes words and the way they sound and fit together. I'd love to tell stories that weave worlds, that unfurl with natural grace to reveal greater and greater depth, like some glorious rose opening its dew-bedaubed petals to the new sun. I'd like readers to be drawn along and lose themselves in the tale, finding both the comfort of good, engaging language and the joy of new wonders. I don't feel like that's happening here at all. Honestly, I'm ready to just chuck the whole thing and start over (well, maybe save the whole thing for later and move on), but (1) I already have a store of a thousand unfinished projects—I don't need 1,0001, and (2) I'm almost as intimidated about starting something new as I am of continuing with what I've got. I'm on that old downhill slide in which my inner self convinces me that the world is full of other fantasy stories much better than mine, so my efforts are pointless and feeble.

And yet, I'm dead certain God gave me a talent and a mission. The words, "There are some stories that, if you don't tell them, will never be told," were given to me, and I don't doubt them. Much of this may just be mood and/or the normal process writers go through during composition and/or my infinite self-absorption. (Just count the number of times the words "I" and "feel" show up in this post.) And, Lord willing, these feelings will pass. I'm just grasping at the moment.

It was good to get this all down, though. Hopefully it will be one of those things I go back and read and think, "How could I have doubted?"

It's no fun being in the doubt, though.

My Family and Other Animals

Well, after Beth's blog and Devin's blog started in with this, I could hardly refuse. I think I captured my look of combined thought and concern at the state of modern literature, my own writing and/or lack thereof, and general confusion in the face of the world. I nearly went with the "crazy eyes" and a tongue sticking out, especially after returning from our recent vacation in Mammoth Lakes, but I'm not quite at that level of insanity at this moment.

Just because she won't do it, I made one for Joanna, too. Curse you for leading me to this time-eating site, Beth Fox!



Note the slightly crazed expression—toy in one hand, food in another, taking care of a pack of absolutely insane children. Through it all, though, she still retains her angelic wings (awww...).

Speaking of insane children:



This is how Denver would like to picture himself, I'm sure. No, he doesn't have a Gameboy (and never will, by my hand), but he'd dearly love one, I'm sure. (And we'd never be able to tear him away from it, either.) If there had been an Optimus Prime mask available, I'd definitely have put him in that. He's also quite the artist, but you can't hold a crayon and a sucker...



Poncho, complete with soccer ball (he's the sportier of the two these days) and handy ice cream cone. He's singing a praise song of his own creation in a very loud voice here.



And, of course, Born Dancin'. She's talking more and more, and especially enjoys repeating the last word on each page of whatever book she's making you read to her 137 times. She also sings the Veggie Tales theme song delightfully. The teddy bear and wand and ball are real—the axe is metaphorical for the destruction she wreaks wherever she goes. (Indeed, I have often considered changing her name on the blog from Born Dancin' to her moniker around the house, Destructo-Baby.)

Anyway, there's no time left for much else today. Our vacation was a terrific and exhausting (Swimming every day! Forced death marches! Summer blockbusters! Natural wonders! 137 readings of Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?! Lack of sleep! Bears! Fishing! Grandpa's jokes!), the Sierras remain my idea of what Heaven must look like, and a child with a sensitive stomach + way too much sugar + 5 hour car ride = an extremely unpleasant cleaning session in the middle of the Mojave. Next week the writing cranks back up again in earnest, and so will my trips down to the college to get things in order for the Fall semester (eurgh...).

Now it's back to the house to continue The Unpacking from the Vacation. More later, perhaps.

Pressed for Time

As usual, when I don't get in here often I end up putting off posting even longer than necessary because I feel like I have to catch up. And frankly, these days there's just no time for that. So a quick recap:

The writing got a little better after my last post, and I've made some progress. Then, of course, a thousand things have been coming up, throwing me off yet again. I need to learn to make the writing time sacrosanct—so far, I'm bowing to other pressures or just not putting myself into it as I should. This week will offer today, and then the family is off to Mammoth for almost a week. The vacation will be great, but I've got to try to get some writing done up there, too.

The Great Hike this year took us up to the High Sierras via the Rush Creek Trail out of Silver Lake. It was 17 miles and about 2000 feet of elevation gain in the first five, so it was quite an undertaking. Sadly, Pippin was otherwise engaged, and Gimli had to drop out at the last minute. Legolas and I were going on our own, but then we were joined by Gandalf, the wizard of ultra-light hiking with more years of experience at this thing than all of us other Fellowship members put together. Let's put it this way: he's lead hikes in parts of the world where you have to watch out for lions and crocodiles—and terrorists. It was a humbling trip for me, as I found my recent hiking adventures up here in the San Bernardinos had not adequately prepared me for what we ran into up there. It was absolutely gorgeous, however, and in the end we had a fine time and saw some amazing sights. I'll post more about it after I get all the photos I took downloaded; I filled up the memory card over two days. I'll also have to fill you in on the harrowing back-road adventure that came after the hike...

That's about it for the moment. There were trips to Sea World in there, as well as many car-related adventures and expenses (our local car guy has identified our new minivan as "a mechanic's dream" due to the cost of fixing anything on it—praise the Lord that Toyotas rarely need maintenance, because we couldn't afford it very often). But those tales will have to come later, if at all.

Sunlight on your road.

Poking Up My Head

If you've been imagining my long absence is due to my deep involvement in my writing—wherein I have been slaving away at every odd hour, pounding out thousands of words in pursuit of this dream of mine and the "calling" I profess—I have some disappointing news.

It isn't because of that.

In truth, when I'm doing well (or even reasonably) on the writing, I'm more apt to post, because I want everyone to know I'm not slacking. It's when I'm doing poorly that I am embarrassed to get in here and report my lack of progress. It's been a poor couple of weeks on that front. There have been some good times of late: a good hike with my dad over Father's Day Weekend (despite his calling it repeatedly a "forced death march"); a wedding for dear friends this past weekend and a nice overnight holiday for Joanna and I while the grandparents watched the kiddos; the preschool "graduation" ceremony for the boys and the end of the school year. There have been some good conversations with friends and some old contacts.

But the writing is icky.

Partly, I think, this is due to the fact that I've come to the end of the first section of strict "revision" of old material and now have a large chunk of brand-new prose to be filled in. Back in the NaNoWriMo days, it would be easy to crank out a few thousand words a day, but that was when I could skip around and didn't care about the quality. Now that I've got proscribed events that have to be covered and more concern about making it match the revised quality of what's come so far, I'm feeling stymied (if only because I've always wanted to use the word "stymied" and this is the first time in three and a half decades of life I've had the opportunity). My guess (and I think Slater suggested it) is that I should just switch back to NaNoWriMo-mode for these sections and worry about revising later.

I also know it's just an issue of scheduling. Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo, warned that having a lot of time to write in only makes the writing harder, not easier. I so wanted to disbelieve him, but I don't think I can any more. Despite the fact that this is (in my head, at least) the most important time I've had to work, I'm squandering my days with frivolous details and junk. By evening I'm swearing to do better the next day, but then I end up staying up too late, fiddling with this and that, ignoring my duties until the last minute, then starting off already six steps behind the next day. I know that regular sleep, prayer, avoiding distraction, and dedication are the elements needed, but I seem regularly unable to achieve these. I liken it to a diseased man being told clearly that there is a cure for his disease, one that is simple and not terribly difficult, who nods and smiles and agrees that the cure is wonderful, and then wanders off and totally ignores the cure until his next attack, at which time he takes just enough to keep himself from dying, then goes back to his old habits.

Okay—enough of this. I appreciate you, my loyal fans, for being my sounding boards in all this, but of all the tiresome things to read, self-pity and complaining are among the worst. I'll be trying to get in here more regularly for updates, and I'll be continuing the fight. Your prayers, as always, are desperately needed.

Five Peas

Five. This is how many peas Denver was required to eat at dinner the other night. You'd have thought we asked him to saw off his own limbs. The crying and pleading were interminable. We tried every bit of reasoning ("If you don't start eating some vegetables, you will get sick. The doctor is worried that you're not getting enough good food to eat."); we tried bribery ("We're going to watch a movie, and you can join us as soon as you're done. We're having popcorn."); we tried everything we could think of, but he was not allowed to leave the table until he ate those five peas.

Two hours later, it was bedtime. He stopped whining forty-five minutes in and just decided it was okay if he couldn't leave the table. He was almost cheerful about it.

I love the kid, and I pray that he will hang on to that strong will when he becomes an adult and has to fight for what he believes. But in the meantime, good gravy...

Sorry to fall behind for a bit on the posting—it's been a busy week, as is the normal state of things. My times have been off, and so have I. More than usual, I mean. The writing continues apace, though still more slowly than I'd like. I'm pleased with the revisions and even though it sometimes hurts, making myself stick to the story is a good thing.

I thought I'd fill in here with some hiking stuff that hasn't been talked about, because everyone loves that. Back in April, young master Smedley came out to hike with me for a couple of days, and Dan joined us on the second day. He missed all the fun. This is a photo of dashing Ben at the start of our hike:



And this is a picture taken about fifteen minutes later:



We started in cool weather and ended up with a blizzard by the time we hit the top of the ridge. This is me a bit higher up:



We hiked about eight miles and thankfully the storm passed rather quickly, leaving us to descend to Fawnskin under cloudy, breezy skies. We set up for the night at Little Bear Springs trail camp and the next day Mr. Bloomer joined us for another 13 miles, this along the back of the ridge from Big Bear to Cedar Glen and down into desert-like conditions. Really, we went through every major climate type along the way, so you get your money's worth when you come on a hike with me. Here's my favorite picture of Dan from the trip:



We made good time and had a good time, I think. Here's one more picture—the one that will go on the back of my autobiography about the epic journeys I have undertaken:



On that note, I did a day hike yesterday out at Lake Silverwood—from Silverwood to the 15 freeway, actually. It was something of a test. On average, I have been making about 2 miles an hour while hiking, a number that may sound pathetic to runners but is not too bad for a hiker. Still, if I ever want to get out on the Pacific Crest Trail, that's got to come up. So I tried to see what I could do, hoping to make the 13.8 miles in six hours, but planning on 7.

I made it in five, which means my average was around 2.7 miles an hour. That I can live with, and I think after a rest I could have done another ten or fifteen miles. Whoo hoo!

It was interesting desert country out there, through Horsethief Canyon and Little Horsethief Canyon (I imagine the description is based on the canyon being small, and not the diminutive stealer of horses I kept imagining), moving through yuccas and pines and down through sand dunes and great yawning chasms, and finally into a rocky canyon with a burbling creek at the bottom for the last leg. The weather was great for June, just hitting the low eighties and with a good breeze all day. I felt a bit bad about taking a day from the writing, but I end up getting a lot of really good ideas for the book while I'm out there (most of which I remember and write down in my little notebook), and I needed what the gents up at the Bootcamp call a DAWG day—a "Day Alone With God." (Though "day" shows up twice then, but it sounds very strange to just say, "I need a DAWG." Sounds like Smedley asking for dinner when we were studying in London, actually.) A lot of prayer and sorting things out went on, which was good.

Okay—back to work. Sorry for the blather. Since I'm trying to keep this updated and not spend a lot of time editing it, you get the raw stuff spilling out of my head. Enjoy it anyway.

Overdoing It

So it turns out that two hours of hiking before getting to work in the morning is probably too much. I was somewhat disappointed—I had hoped I could do more. I hiked up about half of the Exploration Trail, a delightful four-mile path that winds up from the highway in Arrowbear to the Strawberry Peak fire lookout tower. It's a beautiful trail and I'd hiked it last year before the Sierra trek with a full pack. It wiped me out, but I had imagined I'd gotten more hale in the meantime. I had planned to hike it all this morning, but halfway up I decided that four hours might be too much time to spend. Even with only an hour up and an hour back, I was tired and I didn't succeed in getting much of anything done on the writing.

I'd still like to get in the exercise, though. (One of the revelations I had during the hike—and one which I've had on most of the hikes I've been on—is that the best way I could reduce the weight I'm carrying on my journeys is to reduce my weight.) I really enjoyed being out today, and having such an amazing resource right in my backyard is too much to pass up. And, I figure, if I keep hiking more regularly I'll actually build up the stamina I keep imagining I have. Next week, I'm going to try and spend an hour out there: half an hour up the trail (it's pretty much all uphill from the highway), half an hour down. Hopefully that'll leave me enough stamina to write. Otherwise, I'll have to give the forest up for a while (and yes, I have considered writing first and then hiking, but it's getting far too hot in the afternoons now for that).

Well, I'm sure that was a fascinating read for most of you. I think I've pointed out that this is the kind of stuff you get when I blog every day. Lord willing, the writing will move more powerfully tomorrow and I'll have something to report on that front.

Paper and Ink

So yesterday there was no progress—Denver and Poncho ate up most of the day. They did well, though, and we had some time to relax in the afternoon, so that was a goodness.

Today went a bit slowly. I'm wrestling with dialogue, something I've always been terrible with—so, of course, my novel is full of it. I am attempting to figure out how to avoid the clunkiness that arises, the odd, stilted nature of my exchanges; coupled with a more archaic style of diction, it's often messy. I've been reading Tolkien and LeGuin again, to see how they accomplish so much passage of information with such a minimum of dialogue, and almost all of that of a natural timbre.

To that end, I worked through one sticky place with the old-fashioned paper and ink, which is slow going but often leads to more insights than the cold glow of electrons. (It also gives my eyes a break from staring at the screen). So my output today was relatively low, but it's useful stuff, I think.

With any luck, I'll be taking a little hike in the morning tomorrow before I jump in. This will either be inspiring, or it will ruin me. We shall see.

Smackdown

Man. Today was tough. The excitement from yesterday was kind of missing this morning. I'm not sure if it's due to lack of sleep (Born Dancin' was up in the middle of the night for unknown reasons, and I am the Baby-Minder General at night), or depressing news stories I read this morning (I probably shouldn't read the news at all before I write), or annoying school matters that keep haunting me (in the form of student e-mails asking why they got the grade they inevitably did). As I'm moving into a section of more dramatic revision on a part of the novel I've never been at all happy with, I think I'm also putting too much emphasis on getting the language just right the first time through. On top of all that, I'm forcing myself to go through the novel from beginning to end because it's so ugly integrating all the random scenes I came up with during NaNoWriMo. It's a good thing, but means that I can't just skip somewhere else when the slog gets tough.

At any rate, tomorrow I'm not sure if I'll get to write much at all—Denver and Poncho have appointments in the morning to get cavities filled, and who knows how that will all end up. (On that note, if there's anyone we know and love out there who wants to watch Born Dancin' tomorrow at 7:30am, you'd be an answer to prayer.) My goal is to try to get into the novel again at some point tomorrow, if only to keep the momentum up.

I'm off home.

Stealing Time

It's been a strange, wonderful day. The writing went well this morning--I worked for about four hours and cranked out about 3,000 words. I know I can get out 2,000 words an hour when I'm in a go-for-broke, write-down-anything-that-pops-into-my-head gear (as I was for the entirety of the NaNoWriMo competition), but right now I'm revising original material so it takes a lot longer. I'll be revising, splicing together the scenes from the two NaNoWriMo efforts, and writing new material, so the count is going to be jumpy. I think I've settled on the idea of spending at least four hours a day on this, if not six. My ideal is to get up at 5am (the same time I rose for my 7am class this past semester), get writing by 6, and work until noon on the novel. Today I got a bit of a late start, but it still went well, and was probably a good chance to ease myself into the process.

The time issue is one that threw me off today. Whenever I was writing for NaNoWriMo, I was always stealing time from grading, or other menial work for school, or shirking some responsibility at home. My brain and my heart still haven't adjusted to thinking this is really, truly, time to write, and that I don't have to feel guilty for doing it. Ideally I'll settle in to feeling like this really is my job and not just a guilty pleasure soon. (Though I wouldn't mind feeling like it was a guilty pleasure all the time...)

It was fascinating to immerse myself in Leaf's world again. (For those outside of the loop, Leaf is the main character of the novel I'm working on.) I was worried it might be dry after more than a month without working poking at it, and even longer since the serious work last November, but it all came back and I was there. I've found I have to kind of sink into the world and let it percolate to get the writing going well. I'm still working on really getting a unique feel for the setting, but that's coming along.

One last note before I head home: I'm writing this from The Bus Stop, a coffee shop in Running Springs (for those in the know, it's where the old Manic Man coffee shop was, and whatever other name it had before that). I'd been putting off coming here, sticking with my standby, the Grounds for Enjoyment shop on Highland Ave. at the bottom of the mountain. I am sorry, now, I didn't come here earlier. It's terrifically cute (I'm at a wee table next to a paisly overstuffed couch with a little cast-iron stove behind me), the staff is tremendously friendly (and said they didn't mind at all that I would be parked here for hours every day, as long as I mentioned them in the acknowledgements of the book), the coffee is great, and the wireless is free. Plus a few folk from our bible study come here for a "gospel jam" open-mic session every Sunday night. If you're local, come give these folks your business.

The Journey Begins

I almost called this post "The Experiment Begins," but that would indicate that the next two and a half months would be some kind of oddball attempt at something, a stab at a half-baked idea that might or might not pan out. Yet what I propose to do is nothing less than start the work for which I believe I've been formed for the last thirty-four years or so.

For the first time since I started teaching, I do not have to work summer school. With the blessing of my ever-generous wife, this is the Summer of the Beginning of the Writing (which doesn't roll trippingly off the tongue, so I'll have to come up with another title—or perhaps I'm making too much of this already). I'm not sure exactly to what standard I'll be working—whether I'll attempt to crank out a certain number of words or pages per day, or if I'll simply work for a set number of hours. I'm leaning heavily toward the latter, because I'll be doing a good bit of revision on my novel and sometimes that is slow work. But we've agreed that this will be my "job" and that the writing time will be sacrosanct.

I'm in a good place for this and I have confidence it will be a success, but I'm reaching out to you, the vast horde of my reading audience. Any who'd care to lift a prayer on my behalf—for inspiration, motivation, and dedication. I'm going to try to keep a short log here about my daily progress here, so feel free to check in and drop a note to encourage, to question, or browbeat me as the situation warrants. It'd be much appreciated.

Off I go...

Because of Guilt

And because the other cool kids are doing it, here's my "Visual DNA":

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

I'll put up a real post soon, Lord willing. Thanks for stopping by.

Another 7/10 of a Percent!

It's been a bit—last week I was grading like a maddened yak trying to get caught up before the break, and this week is The Break. We had a lovely visit with the young Eldeviks on Friday in their sweet little house (and its gigantic yard, perfect for children save for the excessive proliferation of Spiny Death Cacti—John has a strange sense of humor), and Saturday was all about visiting Granny Mel and Bud whom we've not seen for many a long month.

I had planned on doing a day hike on Monday to kick the break off, but once again my more-wonderful-than-could-be-expected wife offered more than I asked—she sent me off on Sunday afternoon. So my plans changed from hiking the Silverwood to I-15 PCT segment to something I've wanted to do since the start: hike down off the mountain completely. So I set off from Cedar Glen and made it down to Summit Valley by the next day--about 20 miles in 23 hours. (Hence the title of this post—my 20 miles is aboutt .7% of the 2,650 mile length.)

My goal was to really see how far I could hike in one day, since hiking the full PCT will often call upon the hiker to do 20 or 30 miles in a day. Clearly, I'm still not there. The odd thing is that I somehow think I should be after doing almost no hiking for years and taking on half a dozen treks in the last 9 months. I still didn't quite make my real desire, which was about 25 miles, but it became clear to me at around mile 17 that I had taken on too much. My legs were responding only erratically to my commands, and I was looking at calling for my ride home after the kids' bedtime, so I cut out early. (An apology to the good people at Los Flores Ranch, whose access road I used to get to the highway, and over whose fence I had to clamber to escape.)

Still, the hike itself was beautiful. I got to see Deep Creek again—I hadn't been down there since the early days with the Scouts—and I finally got to see the famous hot springs which I'd often heard about but never seen. (A nice spot, but so overrun by teenagers looking to party that the litter and graffiti are pretty overwhelming.) The winding canyon down the back side of the mountain had everything from thick pine groves to plunging stone cliffs to rolling grass-sided hills to shifting scree slopes, and though it was warm, it wasn't overwhelming.

I told Joanna that if she wants to disabuse me of the Ten-Year Plan, she ought to just let me go hiking more often—by the time I limp in from a trip like this, all I can think is that trekking for five months would be insane when I'm wiped out after two days. I've got physical stamina on my side, and some nice gear, and that's about it.

Ah, well. That's why it's a Ten-Year Plan, I suppose. Right now, I have to get to writing, which is what I'm doing in the mornings during the break. Your prayers on that front are appreciated.

Me Want Grading Be Done

It's affecting me to the point that I've apparently lost my ability to use subject pronouns correctly, and I'm leaving out possessives and the first half of infinitives to boot.

I'm trying to get caught up on grading before Spring Break next week. We'll be trying to do some work around the house, and I'm also hoping to do some writing work each morning. If I'm to do that, I have to get the school work done now, or my time will all be eaten up with that. However, we're also hip-deep in scholarship season, so I've got some hundred or so applications to read and take notes on for the daily two-hour meetings all this week.

And then I've got to plow a field full of snakes. Man.

I was recalling this morning that my posts used to be, you know, interesting. Or at least amusing. I'm not spending an hour at a shot on them any more, which is probably a good thing, but it seems I just pop on here to blurt out some drivel about what daily tasks I'm working on and then scarper. I thought that posting something would be better than posting nothing, but I'm beginning to think that that may have been a miscalculation.

A lot of philosophy and wit and poetry are going on in my head, really. They're just not coming out in the blog, or much of anywhere else.

All right—it's back into the dark, deadly wilderness of online papers. May I have the power to defeat them!

Tents and Truths

On Tents: I think I'm in love. And no, this isn't a threat to my dear wife.

I'm always perusing the journals of people taking on the PCT thru-hike (I must admit that every time I write the word "thru," my lip curls in annoyance, due to the vast percentage of my students who spell it like that in all circumstances. My hands are tied in this case--that's how the name is written), checking out what they've gone through and how the hike changed them (and if they made it at all). At this point in the year, most folks are preparing for the start in April or early May. One of the favorite bits of information is the gear list, wherein the potential hiker lists what he will be carrying. If you're interested in this sort of thing, you can read some of the journals here.

At any rate, one of the hikers mentioned her deep and abiding devotion to her tarptent. Holy cow! The testimonials are pretty convincing, and the thought of having a good, solid shelter for under three pounds and which can be compressed to the size of a softball is fantastic. If I were going solo, I'd be looking at the Contrail (one and a half pounds!), but the Cloudburst 2 is probably where I'm headed. One for Joanna and I, and maybe a Rainshadow 2 for the kids...

I probably spend far too much brainpower thinking about a journey I'll most likely be making ten years from now. As the basis for my non-fiction book, a modern-day pilgrimmage, it has a powerful draw on my psyche. Some day, O mighty trail... some day.

On Truths: On the way into preschool this morning, the boys and I were discussing how it is a good thing to try new food. Denver is the more adventuresome eater at this point, generally trying things at least once. (Oddly, he invariably tastes something and claims that it is delicious, but when more is offered he refuses it utterly. Weird kid.) Poncho, on the other hand, lives on string cheese, crackers, and peanut butter. Getting him to eat an apple can be a trial.

At any rate, I was congratulating Denver on his bravery, and encouraging Poncho for his small steps (he tried cheese pizza the other day and is very proud of this fact). As we were walking into the classroom, he said seriously, "If you love God, you will go to heaven, even if you don't try new foods." I had to heartily agree.

Journeys of the Heart

Sounds melodramatic, doesn't it?

I went on Saturday for a drive to have some alone time with God. I drove up through Wrightwood. I had never been before, which seems odd as I've lived in this place over 30 years and they're just the mountain next door. Wrightwood itself wasn't too spectacular (those of you in the know, think Running Springs but without the charm), and there was a fair amount of traffic headed for the Mountain High ski resort. However, just up the highway the valley opens out to present spectacular views—Phelan and the Mojave dim and distant to the north, the great valleys of the San Gabriels to the south. The highway ends not far past the ski resort, as most of it fell off the mountain during the heavy rains of a few years ago. However, I did find the spots where the Pacific Crest Trail crosses the highway, and walked along a bit from here to find a spot from which to take in all this grandeur. (If you zoom in on the map, you'll see a forest road leading to the right on the photo, NF-3N06; just above it a dirt trail leads up the crest of the hill. That's the PCT; follow it along to the first large tree—that's what I was sitting under.) I toted along my bible, a truck blanket, and the green brimmed beanie I got for Christmas (which Caleb has dubbed my "boo-boo hat" because of the small red cross logo). I sat under a spreading pine, the wind chorusing through the branches and shaking off large chunks of ice to rain down into the scree pile at my feet. It was a good time of prayer and thinking, but didn't clear up any of my current confusion. An issue upon which I need to meditate and with which I need to wrestle further.

On Friday, an appraiser came to look at our house, so it was a day filled with frantic cleaning and repair. It's always a bit nerve-wracking to have someone come in and judge your home; now we just have the wait to find out what value he sets, which in turn will determine how our current refinancing venture will go and what our budget looks like for the future. The good news is, if this goes through (Lord willing), we'll pay off all our credit card debt and our car loon in one swell foop (that last reference was for you, Slater).

Otherwise, only grading lies ahead. Endlessly. Forever and ever...

Well, not really. But it seems that way.

Weird

A great deal has been going on, and yet I've neither the time nor the brainpower to talk about any particular aspect in detail. Some highlights from the past month or so:

—Still coming down off the birthday thing. Actually, I'm talking with the good folks over at Freeform Games about turning the extra characters I worked up into an "expansion pack" for the party, so that's fun. Now if only I can get the time to get on that...

—Went on a day hike with young Dan last weekend, which was a bunch of fun. A beautiful puppy showed up early on and went along with us for the whole trip (about six miles). She was a great dog, and I was sorry to have to return her to the spot she joined us. Our hike was along the shores of Lake Silverwood, along the Pacific Crest Trail, and the weather was beautiful. This brings my total miles hiked on the PCT up to about 32--which is about 1.2% of the total trail. Impressive stuff.

I also got to test out my nifty new camping stove (the MSR Dragonfly, which I picked up for my birthday) for more than just boiling water. It makes fine Spam, mushroom, and pepper scrambled eggs—hooray for precise flame control.

—Got to see my sister a few times, as she was back to finalize the sale of her old house. I spent a couple of days cleaning out the odds and ends she and her roommate left behind before escrow closed—a tiring and surreal experience. Another link to the southland severed.

—Picked up and have been reading voraciously Eldredge's latest, The Way of the Wild Heart, which has grabbed my heart and my head nearly as much as Wild at Heart did, and I think this one may have at least as much to unpack. Blame Skaggs for bringing it up—I certainly do. A good thing, but it's put me in a strange philosophical place. A lot of prayer and soul-searching and questioning going on. Perhaps that's part of why this post is so strange.

—Sent off an audio demo to the good people at Blackstone Audio, but I haven't heard back anything yet. That's another matter for prayer—it would be a lot of fun, but I don't know which way to lean on that one.

—Big things may be moving in my life, and the life of my delightful, patient, understanding, brave family. We'll see.

So there you are. Not much coherent. But then again, neither am I much these days.

Weird, I tell you.

The Whole Shebang

The time has come to share the results of the grand murder party, Court in the Act! It took some time to recover, as well as to get the photos uploaded to the web so I could get them over here. Good luck if you're on dial-up; this page may be loading all night.

For those who did not attend, the party took place at the court of Queen Elizabeth in a loosely historical Renaissance extravaganza. I was Thomas Radclyffe, the Lord Chamberlain and host, and Joanna did an amazing job as the Mistress of the Robes (the head of the ladies-in-waiting) and kept the table full of deliciousness throughout the night. Explorers vied for attention, courtiers vied for the queen's hand, and plotters vied for the throne. Intrigue was rampant. Before the end of the evening an ambassador lay dead, several nobles were sent to the Tower of London, and the Spanish Armada successfully invaded and conquered England--so it was a busy night, as you can imagine. The costuming was amazing across the board, and I think a fine time was had by all. I said at the time that I knew I was loved when 32 people would put on silly costumes and come play pretend for an evening, some having had to fly in for the privelege...

Some group shots to start things off:


Here the Queen is deep in conference with her Master of the Armory, Sir Henry Lee. Looking on is that dashing seaman, Sir Francis Drake. Ingrid, our Queen, took to imperious power like a fish to water.


Here several ladies--Lady Anne Cecil, Jane Dee, and Anne Vavasour--are deep in contemplation. There was a lot of paperwork to keep track of, and some studious review before the start was wise. So was holding on to your character reference material throughout the night (right, Budzik???).


Christopher Marlowe chats amiably with his chief rival, William Shakespeare (the thing behind the curly mop and the hat there). Mistress Hobbs, the sweet and loyal servingwoman, looks on with bemusement.


The Council of Four: Lee, the Spanish Ambassador Juan Futin da Greve, Sir Francis Walsingham, and Andrew Prim, Archbishop of York (for bonus points, try to guess which one is the archbishop!).


The captive Mary, Queen of Scots tells her sad tale to the sympathetic ear of another misunderstood nobleman, Prince Phillipe of France (the most foppish Frenchman ever, if that's even possible).


Elenor von Wallachia, a visiting lady from the Germanies. She spoke very little during the evening, but she had a delightful laugh, which made her possibly the best player of the night.


Our hostess and her real-life sister as Lady Jane Seymour. No one knows what they're laughing about here, and that's probably for the best. They've refused to reveal the secret--those irascible Court ladies!


The hairy beast that is Shakespeare (note the cool Goth fingernail polish there--what a drama queen) exchanges artistic comment with Levina Teerlinc, the royal Court painter. Meanwhile, Lord Robert Dudley is seducing yet another of his many lady-friends in the background...


Dr. John Dee, deep in contemplation of his Enochian texts. During this deep study, Dr. Dee's wife was off looking for a new man, his assistant was off seeking to make a quick shilling off the doctor's good reputation, and the Spanish Cardinal was off telling everyone that Dr. Dee was a madman, a sorcerer, and probably the murderer...



A couple of shots to try to capture the fullness of the assembled crowd at the close of the evening. The left half of the Cast...










... and the right. Several folks still did not fit into the frame--I should have gotten one group shot, but everyone had been so patient I hated to punish them further. There were some swords in the crowd, after all.









Some individual shots to cap things off:


I don't think anyone got more laughs than our delightful, effete Shakespeare, here in his fully glory. My favorite line of the night: "Some people say I'm the best playwright in England, but I wouldn't say that. Oh, look! There's Christopher Marlowe, the second best playwright in England! And I really mean that. How droll!"


The often unnoticed but always busy Irishman Edward Kelley, here with Lady Elenor. Note she is still laughing...


Mistress Nagel, the "other" servingwoman, alternately forming workers' unions and blackmailing the nobility. She had many names throughout the evening, most of which are unprintable here.


Mary of Scots, at her most innocent. This was approximately the expression she was wearing thirty seconds before Elizabeth had her removed to the Tower for plotting treason...


Elizabeth Gloriana in all her regalia. She commanded the Court with aplomb, keeping both her foes and her advisors guessing constantly, and pulled a few tricks that made the Chamberlain sweat.


Wizened, cautious old counselor to the Queen, Lord Canning. (It was more convincing with the huge grey beard you could lose a badger in, trust me. Deb was terrific in the part.)


It's Nell! Pronounced "Neil"; his parents were not good spellers. Dale stepped into this part at the last minute and ended up winning the "Best Character" competition--mainly based on looks like this one. The vote might have gone differently had he revealed more freely his past as a "rent boy."


Prince Phillipe, doing one of the little moves that made everyone look at him oddly all evening. Another of those great Shakespearean "girl-disguised-as-boy-fools-everyone" roles fulfilled admirably by sweet Anna.


The ambassador and the court painter, real-life sweethearts. Constance and Dave overcame the fact that I initially totally forgot to invite them and they filled in for others who couldn't attend at the last minute. Bravo, indeed.


Lord Robert the Absentminded. A brilliant strategist, save that he left all his secrets written down in a handy little stack early in the evening. He still managed pretty well, so that's a tribute to him. He owes me now, though.


Edward de Vere and his wife, Anne Cecil. Many couples were chosen on the basis of how amusing their height differences would be, and this one went spectacularly well. I am only sad I missed the moment when Christina pinned Aaron against the wall and intimidated him into revealing his indiscretions. Of course, if you know Christina at all, this is entirely plausible.


England's spymaster extraordinaire, Sir Francis Walsingham. Ernie was so good at this that he was nearly running most of the event. I liked his summary of his experience: "I failed at all seven of my goals and I had a ball doing it."


The brave and dangerous Sir Walter Raleigh. Watching him defend the magnificent treasure he had brought back from the New World--the much-maligned "Potato," the vegetable Philosopher's Stone--and hold his own against the wily Drake, and somehow evade responsibility for the disappearance of the Roanoke Colony was a wonder to behold.


The Old Guard did a fine job of holding their own, as well. Archbishop Prim and Katherine Ashley (Joanna's real-life parents) made great costumes and survived the strangeness of my friends. Meanwhile, my father hated every minute as Cardinal Diego Menendez de Aviles and had to be wrestled out of his costume by the end of the night. I'm glad my friends survived the strangeness of my dad.


Finally, your Host and Hostess for the evening. What a handsome couple!

We had tremendous fun, and I'm hoping to do something similar next year--so those of you many miles away, mark your calendars now. As I said in an e-mail to the participants, I was encouraged to make the costuming as difficult as possible, so it may be set in Ancient Babylon, or Feudal Japan--though I have received a lot of positive encouragement for my idea of a Mexican wrestling murder party...

Just call me El Mysterioso Blanco!