My First Project, Draft #2

Pestilence has invaded my home tonight so this will be brief.  Here is the 2nd draft of the devotional that I posted yesterday:

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit…

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.  Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

                                                                                -Matthew 5:1-3

There is a hole in my living room wall.  It is a dent, really, but I’ve never fixed it.  Never considered covering it up or replacing that section of drywall.  The hole is the size of my fist, which is what I used to hit the wall late one night when I had come to the end of my rope.

The first few years with my son were hard, really hard.  Specifically, he would not sleep.  Three hours on, three hours off for months at a time.  There were some seasons where he would not sleep before 4am.  When he got sick, he slept less instead of more.  I was working two jobs but my wife was exhausted so I would take some late night shifts in an attempt to walk the boy to sleep while he screamed.  Sometimes I could get him to pass out in a half an hour.  Sometimes it was closer to two hours or not at all and I would stagger back into our room, defeated and feeling so guilty that I had to give a screaming child back to my overwhelmed wife.

This particular night the crying was especially loud and the walking was especially ineffective. By the second hour I was so tired and so angry…and I had no one that I could be angry at…so I punched the wall.  It was at that moment that I realized how insufficient I was for what I had been given in this life.  I did not have the skills…I did not have the character to be the father that my son needed.

This is being poor in spirit.  The awareness that we are too broken and insufficient for the lives that we have been given.  It is not a fear to run from, it is the reality of existence.  We were created to be not enough so that we would seek out the One who completes us.  Jesus is the one who gives strength and hope and patience to get through those sleepless nights.  He is the one who builds character and pours resources into our lives to handle the children he has gifted to us.

Recognizing your poverty of spirit is not a cause for despair; Jesus calls you Blessed because you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you need Him.  His Eternal Kingdom is reserved for you and for me…and I would not have known this truth if it were not for my kiddo yelling at me all through the night.

My First Project, Draft #1

     When you start off writing, "They" will tell you to write what you know.  As much as I would love to write about how to eat a large chocolate bunny in one sitting, I do not think there is much of a market for that piece.  I have an idea that has been bouncing around in my head for a couple of weeks now.

       I have a lot of experience in teaching and encouraging people through the use of Scripture.  I have a lot of experience in parenting and the special needs community.  What if I put those together?  What if I were to write a devotional for the parents of special needs kids as a way to bring a few minutes of encouragement and peace into lives filled with chaos and exhaustion?  That would be a population that I would be proud to serve in a format that has very few options at the moment.

      Here's what I know:  Parents of Special Needs kids are all a little bit crazy.  I say that with no shame and no hesitation in the slightest.  Parenting is hard to begin with.  Then you add physical complications, developmental delays, poor communication and education/medical systems that seem to fight you at every turn and "overwhelming" does not begin to describe the experience.  We are always the exceptions.  We can't come to your social gathering.  We need to sit near the back or near the exits of concerts or church services because we don't want to make too much of a scene.  We are almost always sleep deprived and every small health issue has the potential to escalate into a full-blown medical emergency very quickly.  Look closely into the eyes of a special needs parent and you will see flashes of panic mixed with fatigue.  I tell my staff at Morning Star that you cannot expect parents of our participants to be calm and logical all the time.  They have spent years, sometimes decades, fighting everyone in order to get what their kids need.  If they snap at you it is probably because you are the final tiny straw in an enormous mountain of challenges that they have faced for their children.

     So I thought that I might look to write a devotional for that population in the hopes of speaking peace and encouragement into their lives.  Maybe if I can figure it out and put out enough content, I would even create a mobile app that would have 1 entry per day.  That would be an enormous project, but the first step was creating one devotional.  One day's worth of content.  I decided to start with the Sermon on the Mount.  Here's what I wrote:

"Blessed are the Poor in Spirit...

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.  The he began to speak, and taught them, saying:  'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'-Matthew 5:1-3

This passage has tripped up a lot of people that I know and respect.  Who is Blessed?  The Poor?  The Intellectuals?  Everyone?  No One?  Jesus goes up a mountain in order to see who will follow him.  Those who choose to follow and hear what he had to say are rewarded with the following amazing teaching.  

He starts with blessing those who know that they are broken, as opposed to those who are living under the illusion that they have it all together..."

------------------------------

I stopped and read what I had written.

And then I deleted it all, closed my computer and left my desk.

It was boring and bookish lecturing that did not come anywhere near connecting with my target audience.  There was nothing about the chaos of their lives.  Nothing about the sacrifices that they made for their kids.  Nothing with any theological meat on it.  And since it is a devotional, it should not be very long so every word has to count...every sentence is valuable grammatical real estate and if it doesn't add to the value of the entry it must be purged.

That entire passage had to be purged.

I came back to the computer to try again...but that is a story for tomorrow. 

So you want to be a writer...

If one were to go to Google and type in the phrase, "So you want to be a writer," there are about 277,000,000 results that pop up.  At the top of that list is a poem by Charles Bukowski that addresses would-be authors.  He tells them to turn around and go do something else.  He advises his readers not to write "unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don’t do it." Writers should be driven by passion and zeal. It should physically pain you to not write if you really feel called to be an author.

Well. That's an interesting perspective. I would not say that my soul is withering away when I am unable to write. Maybe there are some other points of view further down the reading list.

Not really. Other articles on this list are not nearly as passionate as Mr Bukowski's poem, but they all say very similar things:

• think long and hard before you decide to become a writer.
• You should live an interesting life before you devote yourself to writing
• There is a lot of competition out there...1,000 new books are published every day
• If you can, do something else

So why become a writer?  I don't think that madness or murder will result from me doing something else.  If I write I will have less time to work with non-profits which directly invest into the good of our community.  My internal critics consistently ask me whether anyone would want to read my works and laugh at the idea that I could make a living in this way.

Again I ask, So why become a writer?  I have come up with three substantial reasons.

• Reason number one:  It is an area that I am good at.  I have the skill mix that enables me to write clearly, connect with the reader on both an intellectual and emotional level, and put in the time and effort to knock out content in a disciplined manner.
• Reason number two:  I enjoy it.  There are a couple of pieces that I really enjoy about writing.  I love wordplay and the clever turn of a phrase.  I love problem solving and writing through solutions for characters to solve in a realistic way.  I also really enjoy writing truth that cuts through all the distraction and chaos of our daily lives in order to shine light on the reality of our lives.
• Reason number three:  I have things to say.  This is the part that I am most tentative to put down, but also what I feel strongest about.  I have received exceptional training in so many arenas:  leadership, the non-profit sector, ministry, Scripture Study, disabilities and developmental delays.  Things that I have a solid foundation in are glaring needs in our society and I am eager to share what I've learned.
• Reason number four:  10 years.  I've got 10 years until my two oldest kids are through college and off on the paths of their lives.  I would rather not spend this next decade too busy and away from home for too many hours to be able to invest in their lives.  This career path could allow me to invest into my kids' lives while we navigate these vital years.

Are these enough to get me through the tragedy and misery that was promised by the internet?  Here's hoping.

Scattered

     As the title of this post suggests, I am all over the place at the moment so I am just going to dive right in.

     My last day of my current job is this coming Friday.  This transition is happening about a month earlier than we planned so I do not have another position lined up yet..  Needless to say, I have been scouring the job boards and local websites to see if there are any great fits just hanging there, waiting for me to walk through the doors.  So far, the answer to that is a resounding "No."

Hold on for a second while I go and check Craigslist again...

Still no.  Disappointing.

For those of you who do not know me well, allow me to introduce myself through one of my favorite mediums:  Bulletpoints

• I am a lifelong Alaskan.  Born and raised in Fairbanks, I went outside for college and a couple years of college ministry then moved back in 2000 with...
• My amazing wife of 17 years, Carina.  She is an artist, spiritual director, avid reader and lover of the strange...which is how she ended up with me.
• I have three kids.  A 15 year old boy on the Autism Spectrum.  A 12 year old girl who is destined to rule the world and a 4 year old girl with enough personality to hold her own in the face of the other two.
• My work background is filled with service.  I was a college/youth pastor for 15 years right out of college.  After a transitional two year stint of managing receiving at Sears (otherwise known as the dark days) I discovered the Non-profit sector.  I was the Executive Director of a youth center/skate park and then moved into being the ED of a day services center for individuals with Disabilities and Delays.

For someone who graduated college with a BA in History and has lived in the middle of Alaska for most of his life, my resume is actually coming together and looking fairly substantial.  I have experience in management, grant writing, fundraising, communications, strategic planning, supervision, human resources, budgeting, facilities management, public speaking/training and lots of other bits and pieces.

I've also published a book.  It's a young adult Christian Supernatural Adventure Novel called "The Seer."  It's great.  You should pick up a copy and enjoy it for yourself...or at least you should if you could find it.  My publisher just went out of business so that book and the sequel that is 85% done are now back at square one for publication.

So here's where I find myself.  I will not have a job in a week.  I have a large number of marketable skills but Fairbanks does not have an overabundance of employers looking for those skills. I have a few applications submitted and I a waiting for the interview process to begin.  Best case scenario, I find a great new job in the next couple of weeks, but all options are on the table. Moving is on the table.  Finding a new career here in Fairbanks is on the table.  Working from home and becoming a professional writer is on the table.

Actually that last one is more than just on the table; that is the direction that I want to go in the long term.  My books and blogs and short stories have been well received, but writing has mostly been a hobby up until this point.  I would love to become a full-time, professional writer, but the road map for how to do that is fuzzy.  It is a combination of style and skill and market and finding a niche and being disciplined to produce content and outreach and several other pieces that I don't even know yet.  According to experts on the internet and books that I've read, I should start a blog and finish my books and get an agent and make an app and create a instagram/twitter presence and submit articles and attend conferences and do NaNoWriMo again...all at the same time.  While still making sure the family can eat.

As you can tell, I'm feeling scattered.  Dozens of potential options and scenarios are racing through my head about what comes next.  But I know that I want to start writing consistently.

So I bought myself a desk.  It is nothing elaborate, but it is new and an upgrade from the recycled door sitting on file cabinets that I have used off an on for years.  The desk has my computer, a printer and a lamp on it at the moment.  I am sure that it will accumulate more, but right now it is pretty sparse.  This space is specifically designated to be where I write.  New books or articles...blog posts...edits of older works.  They all start here.  It is functional and symbolic.  If I really want to become a writer, this is where it will happen.  It will be utilized and organized to meet deadlines and roll out pages worth of content.  If I don't have the commitment to become a writer, the desk will become just another shelf, filled with all the other things that pull at my energy and attention.

So this is my desk and this is my blog about my journey to become a writer with all of the excitement and fear and frustration and joy that accompanies it.  You are welcome to come along for the (hopefully long and successful) journey.

James