Letters From John

From left to right: John, Graeme and Ben

The next day we hiked down to the creek: Ben, John, Graeme and I. The descent into the valley was sheer, steep, and we clung to small trees as we slid into the field below. Once there we followed a winding path on high ground – that time of year the entire meadow was nearly under water, practically a bog. On the rocky banks of the stream we cast old lines, looked for fish in the still pools, then skipped rocks when we didn’t catch anything.

* * * * *

A few weeks later, long after Maile and I had returned to our house outside of London, I wrote a letter to John. I guess I wanted to somehow encourage him to keep on the straight and narrow, not to let his old life destroy him.

He wrote me back in a large, loping script. Now that I have kids, I recognize it as the handwriting of someone who is only learning to write, or perhaps hasn’t done much of it for a very long time.

John thanked me for writing. He was surprised and happy to discover that Shawn and John are actually the same name, just with different origins. He told me how excited he was to have started a new life, and how he wanted to help other guys in his situation.

* * * * *

A few years later we received sad news.

John was dead. The circumstances were questionable. He had died of a heart attack – we didn’t know if he had overdosed or if his heart had just given out after years of misuse and brokenness.

Not long after that, more bad news.

The pull of Graeme’s old lifestyle, the influence of his old friends, proved irresistible. He had left Ovis Farm, gotten back into trouble. The social workers were looking for him. The constable was looking for him. Then, one day, while running from police, he darted out into the road. He was struck by a car, and killed. He was only in his twenties, and his girlfriend was about to have his baby.

* * * * *

There’s a war waging right now for people’s lives. For some it’s trying to stay clean one more day. For others it’s that whisper telling them the time has come to end it all. For all of us, it involves choices. This or that. Life or death.

I guarantee you one thing: this struggle is so much bigger than the paltry little contests on the gridiron or the ball diamond that grip our attention. So much more hangs in the balance than a trophy or a title. Lives. Real lives. Why do we pay so much attention to entertainment, and so little to the contests that really matter?

There’s so much to do. I feel like I do so little.

* * * * *

“To preserve a man alive in the midst of so many chances and hostilities, is as great a miracle as to create him.”  ~Jeremy Taylor

* * * * *

To read part one of this story, go here: The Boxer and the Caged Wolf

Five Writing Lessons I Learned By Having Dinner With B & E

You’ve seen me do this before.

I’ve learned writing lessons from Napoleon Dynamite and Dumb and Dumber. Last weekend, it got even more real.

I learned writing lessons during a social event. Namely, the couples’ date my wife and I went on with our good friends, B & E (whose identities will remain anonymous, at least for as long as they choose).

So here they are: the Five Writing Lessons I Learned By Having Dinner With B & E:

1) Too much can be a bad thing. We went to The Chocolate Cafe in Lititz, PA, and this place just oozed with amazing food, uniqueness (is that a word?) and friendliness. (Let’s be honest – the kids weren’t along, so I may or may not have felt the same way about McDonald’s). But one thing that immediately became a challenge for B was the sheer number of specialty drinks they had. He couldn’t decide, and eventually went with a shot glass-size serving of tap water.

So if you are preparing for your next novel, and have just completed your 147th character profile, you might want to start killing characters off. Too much can be a bad thing.

2) Make a decision and go with it. My wife occasionally struggles with pulling the trigger regarding what she’s going to order. There’s lots of hemming and hawing, lots of  “needing more time,” and a whole lot of deliberating.

She’s my wife, so I love her for it.

If you are writing, and you can’t decide what blog post to write, or where to direct your protagonist, or how long to go before submitting that piece you’ve been editing for 14 years…just make a choice and go with it! I understand that everything on the menu looks good, but you’ll never enjoy the meal if you don’t make a decision.

3) Choose your breaks carefully. At one point during the meal, Maile turned to me and said, “So, are you going to ask them about that thing?” Pause.

That was not a good place for a pause. B & E nearly thought I was about to pitch them my writer’s pyramid scheme, and began planning their escape. The pause did not work there, because it was deceptive. One deceptive break in your writing, and everyone will laugh and sigh with relief (as did B & E); too many deceptive breaks in your writing, your reader’s will get pissed off, and you might lose them. As Anne Lamott says, your readers want to be massaged my a masseuse, not whacked by a carpet beater (or something along those lines).

4) Tell your story in order, from beginning to end. As we were leaving B & E’s house, I nearly backed into two vehicles. Going backwards or out of order in writing almost also leads to wrecks. Unless you’re Stephen King, or trying something just for the fun of it, start in the beginning, then tell the middle, and end at the end. Believe me, that’s challenging enough for most of us.

5) Don’t write in isolation. I could have gone to the Chocolate Cafe by myself, but I wouldn’t have had nearly as much fun. I wouldn’t have learned more about someone else, and I know I wouldn’t have ordered that chocolate pretzel for dessert.

While the act of writing is almost always done alone, surround yourself with other writers, people who will rejoice with you in your success and encourage you when everything stinks.

So there you have it, five more lessons learned.

Have you learned anything about writing recently that you’d like to share?

The Boxer and the Caged Wolf

I remember my first trip to the southwest of England. It was like someone had taken all the beautiful things about the countryside where we lived, just west of London, and put them under a magnifying glass: the hills were steeper, the hairpin turns sharper, the green pastures somehow more alive.

As we turned off the highway and on to a single-track road, I began to wonder if we were lost. I had seen signs for Barnstaple, the closest town, but surely these roads weren’t meant for cars? They were lined with either high hedges or even higher banks. In some areas water ran through the road, small streams created by recent rains. We passed no other cars. Every few hundred yards a small space existed along the road where we pulled over and let the occasional tractor pass.

Then a narrow gap with a small sign: Ovis Farm.

We drove back the long, muddy lane and parked between a farmhouse and a converted barn. My brother-in-law Ben came out smiling, followed by my sister, Shar.

This was it. This was House of the Heroes.

* * * * *

Ben and Shar’s dream had always been to have a place to take the homeless men they met on the streets in London. Finally they had found a place. I couldn’t wait to look around.

We walked slowly into the kitchen – the table was surrounded by rough looking guys wearing ill-fitting clothes. Some looked so angry, I wondered if they were plotting the most painful way to tear me limb from limb. Others just looked sad, removed, as if they were caught in the midst of a painful dream from which they had no hope of waking.

But there were two men there that immediately caught my attention.

* * * * *

John was short, built like a bull. He looked to be in his late forties, although guessing those guys’ ages was always a losing proposition. He had a boxer’s nose and deep-set, solemn eyes. His smile looked like it had to fight its way through a broken jaw and more disappointment than I could ever imagine, but it still emerged. He smiled. A lot.

At dinner that night he ate as if he had never eaten before – the volume, the speed, the appreciation with which he threw that food down, it all gave witness to something that Ben told me later.

“He’s only been clean a few weeks now. We keep him busy with farm work, and he loves to eat. Keeps his mind off things.”

* * * * *

There was another, younger man sitting at the table. His name was Graeme. His hair was as black as those Barnstaple nights. He had a few missing teeth and dark purple rings around his eyes. When he smiled, he looked like a seven year-old boy; when he wasn’t smiling, he looked like a caged wolf.

Graeme followed John around the way a new puppy trails behind the old dog. Nipping at his heels. Yapping in his ear. Playful attempts to receive some sort of affection he never had before.

* * * * *

These men would eventually become our friends. Ben and Shar were always closer to them than Maile and I, but John sent me a few letters. They both sent pictures of themselves learning to roll soft pretzels. We hoped that, someday, when they had taken time to recover, perhaps they could manage or work at one of our stores in London.

But sometimes we cannot escape from the old things in life. Sometimes the past has a long reach.

Continued

Spring, a Contest, and Creative Constipation

Two days ago the weather was beautiful here in Paradise, PA. Unfortunately, I allowed myself to believe in the hope that spring had arrived.

Yesterday it was freezing cold again.

This got me thinking…I wonder when our first 75 degree day will be? So here’s the contest for today…correctly guess the first day this year that it reaches or exceeds 75 degrees here in Paradise, PA, and I’ll send you free copies of all three of my books: Twist of Faith, Think No Evil and 83 Lost Sheep. If more than one person guesses the correct date, the prize will go to the person who commented first (in other words, don’t pick a date that someone has already picked).

Today I’m guest posting for Alise Wright. Head on over and check out my thoughts on a common cause of creative constipation and why I sometimes want to injure my writer friends.

Only 32 days until Spring!

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(If you have never commented here before, it may take a little while for your comment to appear).

Tuesday’s Top 10: Reasons I Hate Fruit

When I was in kindergarten I wasn’t allowed to go outside for recess until I ate my fruit-filled jello. I didn’t like apples, so I sat there at the table while my five-year-old peers ran carefree through the gym, or played on the swings.

This is probably the primary reason that I hate fruit.

But there are ten more:

1) Seeds – raspberries are really the only fruit I remotely enjoy eating, but those little seeds are annoying. I’m always worried I’m going to break a tooth.

2) Cores – I don’t like cores. But my daughter never had a problem with them. Give her an apple to eat, and she’d come back to you holding a small piece of stem, having eaten the entire thing: apple, core, seeds, the whole thing. Did you know that apple seeds have cyanide in them? Why would I eat food that contains a poisonous substance?

3) Original Sin – without fruit, we’d still be romping naked through the Garden of Eden, playing with our pet lions. Now we mostly wear clothes, and lions eat us. I blame fruit.

4) Peels – there’s nothing peskier than a well-placed banana peel.

5) Pies – nothing ruins a good pie more than adding some fruit. Vanilla pie? Yum. Pecan pie? Awesome. Cantaloupe pie? Yuck.

6) Pits – peach pits look like little brains. Why would I eat something if it is going to expose that thing’s walnut-sized brain?

7) Texture – this is probably my biggest hang-up with fruit. The texture. I’m not into the springy crunch of apples, the mushy sensation of a banana, or the sandpapery feel of watermelon.

8) Fruit Cake – I used to like cake. Then I tried fruit cake. If you want to ruin a perfectly good cake, put fruit in it.

9) Fruit trees – I fell out of a cherry tree when I was young and hit every branch on my way down. This was not a pleasant experience. No fruit = no fruit trees = no pain in the world.

10) Fruit flies – these demons from the underworld come literally out of no where. One day, you have a bowl with some fruit in it. The next day, you have a bowl with fruit in it and a swarm of flies. According to my scientific analysis, this means that fruit flies are actually the offspring of fruit.

Am I alone? Am I the only person on the face of the planet who scorns fruit?