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“No man can be an exile if he remembers that all the world is one city.”
–CS Lewis, Till We Have Faces

* * * * *

The sky over Memphis tonight is cobalt blue, the color of an old bruise, the kind that lingers after a heavy storm. The streets glisten, the cool macadam smells like summer, and even though I cannot hear the cars through the hotel window, I know the sound they make on a wet night like this, their tires shushing everyone.

Cade lays on the fold-out sofa by himself now that Sammy’s been banished to our bedroom for the continued performance of acrobatics. Lucy is on the recliner, at her insistence. Abra is tucked away in a corner, cuddled up on the sofa cushions that were discarded so the bed could spring into being.

And it is mostly quiet.

* * * * *

“Are the gods not just?’
‘Oh no, child. What would become of us if they were?”
-CS Lewis, Till We Have Faces

* * * * *

Yesterday between Nashville and Memphis the voices started up again.

Maybe this was a mistake. You do remember that your current projects end this summer, right? Going on this trip wasn’t exactly the most fiscally responsible decision you’ve ever made.

I kept driving the bus, staring straight ahead.

And what about the kids? They could probably use some stability, especially the older two. They are 8 and 7 after all – how are they ever going to make close friends if you keep moving on?

The narrow road curled through the Tennessee countryside. Endless acres of forest stretched out in both directions. The bus crested each hill like a large boat sweeping to the top of a massive wave.

This whole thing is going to lead to your ruin. Gas prices will skyrocket. You won’t finish your current projects in time. You’ll go broke. Everyone will use you as the poster child for what goes wrong when someone tries to exist outside of the system. And your glorious, splendiforous failure will put smug smiles on the faces of people who’d like to see such irresponsible behavior nipped in the bud.

I downshifted, let the bus coast up against a lower gear, drifted to the bottom of the swell, then started back up again.

* * * * *

“As for all I can tell, the only difference is that what many see we call a real thing, and what only one sees we call a dream.”
-CS Lewis, Till We Have Faces

* * * * *

There was a valley on 412 somewhere east of Ridgetop, TN, that looked like a river should flow through it. But when the trees parted, and we spanned the bridge, there was no water – only an endless river of yellow flowers, winding off in both directions. Yellow as the sun in a child’s coloring book.

In another instant, it was gone. Maile had been at the back of the bus, and when she came front I tried to describe it to her, but I couldn’t. It was like trying to describe the color yellow to someone who has never seen. Wrinkles of doubt formed in the corners of my mind.

I wondered if perhaps it hadn’t been as yellow as I recalled.

* * * * *

In other news…if you recently purchased a copy of my E-book Building a Life Out of Words, for a limited time (this week only) you can let me know three friends you’d like to share the book with. Simply contact me with their email addresses and I’ll send them a PDF copy of the book for free (and I won’t keep their email addresses in my database or anything sinister like that).

If you’d like to take advantage of this but haven’t yet purchased the book, what are you waiting for? Click on the title in the previous paragraph for links to buy the book.

Tomorrow we leave Nashville. Cozy Nashville with its rolling hills and skyscrapers hiding amongst the forest and so many new friends. Our stay here has felt much like I imagine base camp feels to mountain climbers – the last stop, the last stretch of almost-level ground, the last nervous smiles, and all the while the mountain rises up in the background, through the clouds.

Just about everywhere we’ve been up to this point has been some familiar place. But tomorrow we head west from Nashville, destined for Memphis. Never been there. Then we go on to New Orleans for Easter weekend. Never been there. Then west through Texas.

* * * * *

Occasionally a foreboding feeling creeps up on me, nags in the periphery of my imagination.

This trip is going to change everything, the voice whispers. You have no idea.

In some ways I feel it already has. I feel like a different person – it’s impossible to meet so many intriguing people, hear so many fascinating stories, see so many different places, without changing.

Yet I can’t quite put my finger on it, the exact ways I have been changed. It’s like a subtle itch under the skin, or growing pains. It’s an ache, an absence, a tremor.

A sigh.

* * * * *

This is the exciting part of Christianity. Waiting for the resurrection. Knowing that any day now, the ground will shudder, a light will shine, and I’ll hear the crushing sound of a massive rock rolling.

The damp smell of a hole in the ground.

And the weight of an unexpected emptiness.

This adventure, the one Maile and I began when we stood at our kitchen counter in Leesburg, Virginia and realized we were going to have to move into my parents’ basement: it’s just beginning. For the longest time I’ve been waiting for it to come to an end. I thought that after making the “right” decision, taking on writing as a career, the end was nearly in sight. As if that decision would stand as the marker of what I had done, and from then on we could work our way back into the kind of life that everyone else lives.

“Soon, my life will look like everyone else’s. Soon my unorthodox decision will pay off big and I’ll be just like everyone else.”

I am beginning to realize that what I have chosen is not a specific vocation, but a worldview. The importance of the decision we made in Leesburg was not for me to pursue writing as a career, but to pursue life in all of its exciting, scary, adventurous permutations.

This is what I hope for you. Not that you would be know as “that person who gave up their job to do what they loved to do.” As good as that sounds, and as exciting as that would be, that step is just the beginning of a wilder, deeper, richer story.

I hope that you will be known as a person who lives. Really lives. Someone who makes decisions, not based on what’s expected, but on what’s possible. Someone who does things, not because everyone else is doing them, but because it’s what you want to do more than anything else in the world.

Now that would be a life worth living.

This is a small excerpt from my E-book released this past Tuesday, entitled “Building a Life Out of Words.” Like what you’ve just read? Then go buy the E-book HERE – it’s only $3.99.

Maile and I have been taking turns sleeping with Abra at night. The high pollen count here in the outskirts of Nashville have been keeping her up at night, coughing and itching, so one of us sleeps with her in a separate room where she won’t wake everyone up, and the other gets a good night sleep. One night off, one night on.

Tonight is my night for a good night’s sleep, so I’m keeping it brief.

* * * * *

I can already see the grins creeping on to the faces of two of my writer friends, Kristin Tennant and Jennifer Luitwieler. Some time ago the three of us each wrote a post about community – I was the bah-humbug of the group, the grumpy old troll who lives under the bridge. In other words, they talked about the virtues of community, while I mostly slobbered and scratched myself and talked about how wonderful it is to be a writer because I don’t have to talk to anyone else.

So why are their eyes lighting up? Because today I have to admit that they were right. I was (mostly) wrong.

You folks – the ones that read this blog, as well as my fellow writers out there – came through for me in a big way this week. You helped spread the word about my book, and I couldn’t be more pleased with how things have gone in the first 48 hours of its official existence.

Nearly 30 reviews by fellow bloggers.

More Facebook messages and Tweets than I can count.

Even three copies sold in England.

Without all of you, the book would be dying a quick death on the virtual shelves of the E-book world.

So thank you, you great big blob of a community. Thank you for your emails of appreciation for the book, the more than generous posts and reviews, and the words of encouragement. You all made Tuesday a fun and special day for me, and I appreciate it.

So I’ll keep writing if you all keep reading.

Community.

Who knew?

* * * * *

If you still haven’t bought a copy of my new E-book, you can read ten reasons why you should buy it HERE, or read a summary with links to buy it HERE. Please keep spreading the word! I can’t do it without you!

Two or three weeks ago, I called my mom. Maile, the kids, the bus, and I were somewhere in Florida. Maybe Jacksonville. I can’t remember exactly. Within a few seconds of my mom answering, I knew something was wrong.

“Shawn, I have some not-so-good news,” she said in a quavery voice reserved for funerals and personal catastrophes.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Someone very close to us has cancer.

It’s rather shocking, actually, to discover something like this. It felt like discovering there was a traitor in our midst. I found myself wondering which nearly invisible cells in my own body were planning a revolt.Which tree was going to fall on our bus. I started seeing death behind every oncoming car, or hiding in every shadow.

* * * * *

Yesterday I found out that some very close friends of ours are miscarrying their baby. I don’t know the details. But the sadness is recognizable. Reminded me of standing next to Maile at a routine doctor’s visit when she was pregnant with our third child. The doctor looked up with pursed lips and confused eyebrows.

“I’m really sorry to tell you this,” she said. “But something isn’t right.” A few weeks later, Maile miscarried. Friends hugged us. We walked around our house quiet and empty.

* * * * *

There is something devastating about hope unattained. The unexpected diagnosis. The bright candle that turns into a smoldering wick. The “something isn’t right” speech. Sometimes, just sometimes, it makes me wonder if hope is worth it. Makes me want to live a life where I always expect the worst, keep my hand closed, my eyes on the ground in front of me. Too much looking out at horizons exposes one to the possibility of disappointment.

There’s a world we’ve never seen
There’s still hope between the dreams
The weight of it all could blow away
With a breeze
But if your waiting on the wind
Don’t forget to breathe
Because as the darkness gets deeper
We’re sinkin’ as we reach for love

– Jack Johnson, “All at Once”

* * * * *

Tuesday evening I went outside to help Maile’s brother till his garden. He and I took turns pushing the rototiller around, pushing all the old dead grass and hay under the rich brown soil. Then I raked out the dead stuff to the edges and piled it all into the wheelbarrow. The soil went from looking barren and rather unwilling to expectant. Open.

It takes a lot of turning over to reach that point. A lot of pounding and tearing and grinding of the soil. The rototiller grasped at the ground like giant claws. Our shovels bit into the edge of the garden.

As I worked the soil and the sun dropped behind those Tennessee hills, I thought of my friend with cancer. My friends losing their baby. They are being tilled. They are being ground.

But I know them, and I know their hearts.

And while it will not diminish the pain they feel now, I marvel at what rich soil they will become.

* * * * *

Have you ever been tilled? How did it change you?

If you know of whom I speak, please respect their privacy and refrain from mentioning their identities in the comments section.

Today is an exciting day for me! My E-book, Building a Life Out of Words, is finally available! I wanted to try to tell you what it’s about, but then my friend Stacy Barton (author of Surviving Nashville) wrote this, and I love how she describes it:

sometimes you try something based on a hunch, you stride out, hopeful that your instincts are true.

so is the case with my friend shawn smucker’s book, Building a Life Out of Words. i had read his work on his blog, enjoyed his perspective on life, faith, writing and family…appreciated the lyrical quality of his words.  and so when he asked me to contribute to his latest project, i was downright glad.  he published two of my short non-fiction pieces in this book and today i finished reading the whole of it.  it was as lovely as i had hoped…as honest and as hopeful.  i cried at least three times at the beauty and purity of his struggle and his hope.

Building a Life Out of Words is the story of his early travels as a full-time writer – how he fell into it almost accidentally, but not quite.  it is about the difficulty we face when being true, and the possibility of hope fulfilled for those of us who persevere.  it is a compelling story.

You can save yourself some time and purchase it now for your Nook, your Kindle, or you can go HERE and purchase the PDF version to read on your computer. But if you need some more convincing, here are ten reasons you should buy Building a Life Out of Words:

1) It costs $3.99. You can get a box of cereal, or a Starbucks coffee, or one gallon of gas, or……you could purchase my book that contains over 25,000 words of hope and encouragement.

2) If you wish you were doing something for a living besides what you’re currently doing, this book might give you some ideas on how to begin making the transition.

3) If you’re a writer, the following alone makes it worth the price of admission: nine awesome contributors give practical advice about how to write for a living. Andi Cumbo talks about Kickstarter; Bryan Allain regales you with tales of aliens and roller coasters; Ed Cyzewski gives away his number one way of finding work; Jason Boyett talks self-promotion; Jeff Goins gives practical advice on where to begin; Jennifer Luitwieler is the reluctant PR master; Ken Mueller talks about life on the other side of a pink slip; Kristin Tennant reframes the introvert’s writing life; and Stacy Barton likes rejection. Sort of.

4) Going through a rough patch financially? During the time frame covered by this book, my wife and I were $50,000 in debt. Two and a half years later, we’ve almost climbed out. And not by pursuing wealth, but by pursuing our passions. This book tells the story.

5) Feeling stuck in one of life’s semi-comfortable ruts? This book might just give you the motivation to hop on out and live a more effective life.

6) Feeling financially behind your peers? Read about a writer (me), and you’ll automatically feel like Donald Trump! (Wait, that might not be a great reason…keep reading.)

7) If you’ve been following our trip in a bus named Willie, and you want to get some back story on what brought us to the place where we would travel around the country for four months with our four young children, you’ll find some explanations in these virtual pages.

8) Enjoy all the free posts I put on my blog? Show your appreciation! Buy a copy of my new E-book!

9) Despise all the free posts I put on my blog? Buy a bunch of copies and convince your friends to do so as well. Then I’ll be a millionaire, inherit all kinds of problems, get sued by loads of people, and become too busy to blog. You could be solely responsible for the demise of my blogging career! Go for it!

10) If you take the few minutes required to put in your info and buy this book, it might teach you a small lesson about patience. When you’re in your car later today, this small lesson on patience might keep you from engaging an idiot driver with hand gestures and profanity. By refraining from this exchange, you won’t get shot by this stranger in a fit of road rage. Don’t get shot by a stranger in a fit of road rage – buy my book.

Enough already! You can purchase my book for your Nook, your Kindle, or you can go HERE and purchase the PDF version to read on your computer.

Thanks! I hope you find the courage to build your life out of whatever fulfills you.

What’s that? You say that not only do you want to buy it, you also want to help me spread the word? You ARE generous! In that case, click on the Facebook “Like” button at the bottom of the page and share it on your wall. Or click the Twitter button and share it with the hashtag #BuildingALife.