On my days off I make a serious effort to get some writing done. Part of that involves my bizarre sleep schedule and the fact that my body never knows when it should be sleeping. I can’t always sleep at night. And when I do, it’s more toward daylight that I fall deeply asleep. That’s the time when my alarm is set to drag me out of bed and get writing. So, 0400 on the alarm clock and I’ve just fallen sound asleep at 0310. Not a great thing, two to five hours of restless sleep with the mind going 90 miles an hour before having to get up.
My solution for the past few years has been to reset the alarm for an hour later and snooze a bit. That frequently turned into 4 extra hours of sleep. Not much writing while I’m sleeping. (Although, come to think about it, that might be an improvement over chapter 9 that I just edited…) Thankfully I’ve got the new and improved Sheltiscratch Alarm Reminder.
This model comes in a 30 pound container. Once the alarm goes off on the phone you have 14 minutes before the backup unit paws your arm. No sleeping for humans if their alarm wakes up the Sheltie. It dawned on me this morning that she’s trying to keep me on the straight and narrow path toward novel editing. After her first scratch I dozed off again. No dice. Scratch again.
I just laughed and pulled her up on the bed. Stormy is not just beautiful, but she’s my ally in getting my work done.
I couldn’t have a better backup alarm if I tried.
What do your dogs do to help you move on down the road?
My local radio station, KTIS 98.5, has a project called “The Drive Through Difference.” This is really simple: you pay for the order of the person behind you at the local fast food place. Once you’ve paid for the order you give the clerk a card that says – just click on the link and go read it. They say it better than I could paraphrase it.
I’ve been doing this for years, even before the station came up with the idea. For the most part it’s designed to be done remotely. But on occasion I’ve picked up a tab in a bakery, grocery store, etc. People are mighty suspicious when you do something nice and are within arms reach. But if you have already driven off when they find out about your kindness it’s probably cool.
More than one window person has smiled when I handed them the card (I keep a stack over the visor.) They know about it. They’ve done it before. This tells me that the message is out there. A simple evangelistic gift for a stranger. Rather lovely.
This morning I loaded the world’s most suspicious sheep dog
I don’t want my picture taken. It’s obviously a trick.
into the car and headed to McDonalds before starting the day’s writing. I have made some errors in this life, one of the most painful is not taking the Shelties for rides other than to the vet or the kennel. Every car ride is a deathmobile journey in their minds. We’re working on remedying that little error with random road trips to make the car a good experience.
Back to the point of this babbling. I did the drive through difference and pulled up to the next window to get my order. Behind me I see a woman pull up to the cashier with a bill in her hand. She gets a shocked look on her face when the explanation is given to her. She whips her head forward with a giant smile on her face and looks toward my rapidly vanishing vehicle. As I drive away the entire back window is lit up with the glow of her smile. I made her day. And my own.
Stormy and I got home enveloped in a good kind of fog. She got a ride in the car that didn’t involve pain or a new home. I got to see a woman’s face light up with joy. And just a little bit of that great commission got spread around. Pretty darned good morning’s work.
What are you going to do today to spread that Good Word?
I’m working on editing today and have the radio on in the background. The news had an item about Egypt. The White House Spokesperson just finished saying that *(and I paraphrase rather loosely)* we’re miffed that the head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is under arrest. That’s not in accord with our human rights policies.
REALLY! How about some indignation over the murder of Coptic Christians by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. A bit of outrage over the church burnings. Some ennui over the rape of young Christian girls so that they are “ruined” and must marry the Muslim man who did it and convert to Islam? (Google that one, it’ll blow your mind.) Gosh, even a bit of angst over the Christian Pastor being tortured in Iran over his faith would be kind of nice.
No. We (as a nation) are supposed to be upset that the group that gave birth to AlQaeda has found itself on the losing side of a crackdown in a country that speaks Arabic. I’m not even going to think about how to phrase this, I’m just going to run to the cliff’s edge and jump while screaming:
Barack Obama is the worst foreign policy president of my lifetime.
Before they can chime in, I’d just like to add – Shut up, John McCain and Lindsey Graham. They haven’t been right yet in 2013 about anything in the Arab world and I don’t expect that string to break today.
After a plasma infusion I went back home and got working on the book. Editing is that magical time when you admit to yourself that some moron wrote the words you’re looking at on the screen, and it’s your sacred duty to make said moron look somewhat less stupid. It can be daunting. Today we snipped excess words. Excess words are a blogger’s friend – pads out the post. In a novel it’s the six little words that the potential publisher can’t stand to see that cost you the deal.
Sunday I removed tumors from the book. There was a cancerous growth around chapter fourteen that was a data dump. It didn’t do much for action and plot, it was simply a big bag of stinky background information some dimwit thought the reader needed to know. Fie! I have opted for the Otte Editing Method (OEM) and decided to eliminate data dump. You now have a short chapter of dialogue instead. I like it much better. It reads better. I don’t get sick reading it. Etc.
Following just enough editing to make my eyes glaze over I went to my church and did some lawn care. No murders today. I admitted the weed whip was smarter than the blogger and put it away after 10 minutes. I only went to college for 7 years (the happiest freshman year anyone ever had) and got three nuclear rocket surgeon degrees. That self-feeding thing is too complicated. Seriously, which way does the cord wind?
I did something I hadn’t done since my knee surgery: I walked about two miles. I figure that’s how far it was to trim all the areas I did at the church with a hand mower. (The grounds cover the better part of a city block.) The deacon will do the riding mower Monday afternoon, and with my thousands of hours of lawn care experience I knew where to trim in advance. Combined with my Roundup murder spree a few weeks ago it was looking pretty good when I got done.
Sweaty, dehydrated, and stiff from the car ride home I made peanut butter sandwiches (with honey) for lunch and took a nap. Bad idea. I’m so stiff I can barely shamble. Good grief – but it felt good to walk that far. It gives me hope for my exercise plan. My knee is fine, I’m just stiff from the overall exertion. The plan to get up and mow my own lawn after the nap fell through. One blast of joint pain per day is my limit. Most of the wild animals that live in the yard can rest assured that the triple-canopy jungle will remain for another 24 hours.
My neighbors have by now returned to their yards after the bear scare – it was me using a clipper on my head. I’d let my hair grow for three weeks and it was timed to return to the skin head. The DNR showed up wanting to know if my wife had a permit to keep me. Boy, does she ever. Filty Filner projects a better image than I do at the moment. I have a head full of stubble that needs a razor more than Richard Nixon in the debates.
Back to the book after a shower. I don’t do the tortured/smelly author thing well. I’d prefer to be hair free and smelling like Lava when I hit the keyboard. Only 40 more chapters to do in the next ten days. No problem. No sleep.
So, what project is keeping you awake and shambling these days?
A bright and pleasant Sunday to you! Thanks for coming by the blog to help sponsor some of the greatest kids you’ll ever meet. Each week there’s a new face to see, a new child that needs your help at Grace Village. Please take a few minutes to read the entry and prayerfully consider sponsoring one of these children.
Romual and his brother Isaac are abandoned orphans who are happy to be together and call Grace Village home. Romual is a talented musician and enjoys playing piano and singing gospel songs. Romual is a thoughtful boy who likes to do good things for others. Romual wants to be a doctor or an accountant when he grows up and enjoys studying science in school. Romual’s prayer request is that he can go to medical school.
Romual came to Healing Haiti in September, 2008. Romual and his brother, Isaac, are orphans. Both of their parents are deceased.
Birth Info
Birthdate: October 10, 1997
Place of Birth: Cap Hatien, Haiti
It is my hope that one of you will find your heart touched by this child and take up a bit of Christ’s work by sponsoring them for an extended period. My wife and I are sponsoring a pair of sisters and we took on the commitment based on having to only gave up a fast-food dinner each day to change the life of a child. God came through with a very lucrative bit of voice over work for me that covered the bill that same day, but it really is as easy as skipping a value meal. Healing Haiti will do the right things for these children and I have full confidence in their work. I am not affiliated with them, they don’t endorse this blog, nothing like that at all. I just love kids (can’t be Santa and not love children) and know that Grace Village is the difference between life and death for many of these children. Please open your heart and prayerfully reflect on the opportunity God’s giving us to sponsor these children. Some of them have come out of slavery and have some of the toughest lives you could imagine prior to Grace Village.
