The Word

I had a very brief email exchange with a dear friend last night about our desire to rush to Haiti to help. We both speak French, so that would be a plus, as would our experience with West Africans who share so many spiritual traits with their Caribbean cousins. She, though, is a nurse who could go with the ability to heal. What could I bring? All I have is words.

As I’ve thought and prayed about Haiti today, though, I’ve been reminded that Jesus came to fulfill many needs. He came as the Great Physician, true, able to heal maladies both spiritual and physical. But he also come as the Word, the human representation of what God would have told us if we’d had the attention span to listen long enough. He came as the climax to the story God has been penning since before time began.

It comforts me, the fact that words are important enough to God that he give his son the nickname Word. Carpenter, farmer, servant, teacher, friend. Whoever you are and whatever you do, Jesus validates your value by taking on those characteristics.

I can’t go to Haiti this week. I’d probably be in the way if I did. And eat way more than my fair share. But I can pray for Haiti and send a little something perhaps. And I can store up my words on their behalf and hope that someday they will bless the people of Haiti I love so much though I haven’t even met them.

Yet.

Iguanas Falling Out of Trees

Most headlines are so boring and predictable, like these from today’s edition of the New York Times:

E.P.A Asks for Stricter Rules for Pollutants Causing Smog

and

Chinese Decision on Rates Seen as ‘Turning Point’

Important, sure, but those headlines could be from any paper anytime. Once in a while a headline comes along that captures the imagination, that tickles the mind and spurs the heart to imagine not only what is, but what could be.

Alien Iguanas Free-Fall From Florida Trees

It’s poetic. It’s slapstick. It’s the most interesting weather headline I’ve read in a long time. I hope the iguanas (who fell from trees because the temperature in Florida dropped so low the poor cold-blooded creatures lost their grip) don’t suffer too many bruises when it warms up and they wake back up. Can you imagine? You’re sitting there, not even aware it’s cold, though you do note the grayish cast to your fingers and toes. Next thing you know, you’re lying on your back, staring up into the sun. “What day is it?” you ask, as if you’ve just slept off a double dose of Ni-Quil.

I know it’s not important (unless you’re an iguana), but it’s interesting and unusual and sets a writer’s brain spinning after the various stories it could concoct from such an inspiring headline.

The Big Picture

December is my month off from writing. With all the whirling, swirling activity of holidays and family and company and chocolate overdose, I can’t concentrate on stories. Without fail, by the end of the month, I wonder why I am driven to write in the first place. Pent up angst surfaces its stubborn head and tells me I am a fraud. The thread of truth in my work  in progress eludes me. The magic element that can turn an ordinary person’s story to something worth savoring begins to look more like ashes than pixie dust.

“Sit Down,” I tell myself. “Write something. Anything.” But I look for other things to occupy my hands and my mind. Just look at those cobwebs. And the floors? Disgraceful.

“Just do it. You’ll feel better,” I say again. But what do I know?

I know that fiction has the ability to make you care. Afghanistan seems too distant and unreal? Read A Thousand Splendid Suns and suffer along with Laila. Not sure how you feel about the tension between Palestinians and Israelis? Walk with Danny and Rev or any number of Chaim Potok’s other memorable characters and they’ll explain it to you. People like Scout Finch and Elizabeth Bennett and Anne Shirley and Sherlock Holmes have changed our world. I can’t imagine life without them.

It’s a good time to back up, to look less at the problems of plot and character development and more at the reason for writing. It’s time to remember that, succeed or fail as a writer, there are characters living inside me that can make the world a better place if they’re only given a chance to live.

Anticipation

I held a nook ereader the other day. It felt sleek and comfortable and right… and somehow like someone else’s child. Beautiful, sure, but not like my own. For the wonder of the nook to me is not what it can do but in what words and information it will hold. That’s what makes it personal.

One of the gifts under the Christmas tree had a rattle. It was heavy for its size, but all the weight was in one spot. And no wonder. Mom’s bag of coins, wrapped in yards of tissue paper, was whisked from my hands before it even registered what it was.

“That’s not your gift. Open the card.”

The tri-fold card had only one letter on it.

u

No, wait… if you turn it right way round, it’s an

n

As in nook. Which won’t arrive until February. It was a big surprise, a very generous gift from the whole family, and I’ve already

been enjoying browsing bn.com for ideas on which books I should upload first. Once I got it in my head, I couldn’t wait to hold one. Good thing Barnes and Noble’s brick and mortar store is close by. And good thing they’ve got a nook display smack in the middle of the store. I can go visit whenever I want until my own machine arrives. In 5 weeks.

My Favorite Books…

I got the sweetest note from a missionary friend who just received the box of books I sent to his children. When they opened the box, his young son cried, “Oh, these are my favorite books I’ve never read before!”

I love that. And I know the feeling. I browse the aisles of Borders, Barnes and Noble, and – the pièce de résistance – Powell’s City of Books. Millions of books begging to be given a home. They don’t want to live on the bookstore shelf. They call out, “Pick me! Pick me!” They entice with their bright covers and clever titles or their comfortable old spines. I choose one at random and hold it in my hands. A nice book, but not the one. I choose another and it snuggles down into my palms. The first page shows promise.

Yes. This is the one. My favorite book I’ve never read.

Tick-Tick-Ticking Away

Visiting with a friend this morning, I was gently reminded of the importance of following your dream while you have a chance. For me, it’s writing. And missions. And preparing my kids for their future.

My friend’s wife has been battling MS for the past 20 years. She always wanted to write. She could have been brilliant. But she’s losing herself, first her muscles, then her memory. She redefines herself morning after morning as she adjusts to a life that’s a little more difficult with each passing day. Her husband imagined years of retirement filled with trips and fun together and now sees a future of running the errands, keeping house, and visits to the doctor.

When you sign up for better or worse, you never expect worse to come, but it does for so many.

Carpe Diem.

Seize the day.

Now put your butt in your chair and start writing. (Or whatever it is you need to do before it’s too late.)

editing

some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.

t.s. eliot

I’m editing part time now.

About 10 years ago I drove my friend Suzanne and her father to the hospital in Togo, West Africa. I watched, helpless, as Suzanne dropped handfuls of coins on the desk of the admitting nurse. She had to prepay for a week of care in order for her father to receive treatment. She needn’t have bothered. Within the hour, he was dead.

I drove Suzanne and her father’s body back home to Tabligbo and, for some reason, I went straight to my computer to capture the feeling of that day in written form – the light, the smells, the frustration of our helplessness.

An urge to write was born in Africa. This week, so many others are following that same urge. LittWorld begins today in Nairobi, Kenya. This workshop offers support and training for writers and publishers around the world to produce local materials by local authors in a way that communicates to local peoples.

I’m not a part of LittWorld, but I believe in its mission – to help people communicate the gospel. Some day, I hope my love for Africa, for people, and for good writing can come together as a complete circle. I don’t know exactly what that will look like yet, but LittWorld gives me an idea.

The Green Tomato Chronicles

I think The Green Tomato Chronicles would be a great name for a book. But this is just a blog post. It’s about – of all things – the step from verb to noun.

I garden. Or at least I mess about in the garden, but one skill has eluded me. The first year I gardened (v.), I mourned when all the green tomatoes froze and blackened on the vine. Year 2, I picked all those green tomatoes early and brought them inside to make a big pot of green tomato ketchup. Only, when I went to turn off the heat under the saucepan, I turned it on high and made scorched inedible ketchup instead. Year 3, still gardening (v.), I brought the tomatoes on their vines in to ripen in the garage… and watched them get black spots and turn to mush.

Year 4. That’s this year. I’ve been gardening (v.) when I’m not writing (v.). I picked all the green tomatoes before the frost and brought them in. Today, I turned them into green tomato relish. Don’t ask me what I’m going to do with it all, but I’m claiming the step as a victory, as step in the journey from being someone who gardens (v.) to being a gardener (n.).

Am I someone who writes or am I a writer?

Am I someone who edits or am I an editor?

Am I someone lives or am I a liver? (OK, there are a few kinks in the metaphor)

My point is that you can start working on a skill when you have little or no experience. The longer and more deliberately you work at it, the more likely you will progress from verb to noun. And a noun is a very good (person, place or) thing to be.

book nook

As if there wasn’t already enough technology for us avid readers to covet – first the Amazon Kindle and then the Sony Reader – Barnes and Noble is getting into the electronic reader game with its new gizmo, the nook.

It has all the wireless and electronic ink technology of the Kindle with a few interesting extras like a small color touch screen below the black and white text screen, a great looking bookmark system and – get this – you can actually lend ebooks to your friends.

disclaimer: Barnes and Noble is NOT giving me a free nook, but if they decide to, I won’t turn them down.