Religious Re-Revival
Oct. 7th, 2013 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madwriterThis past Saturday my friend Mary / viedma and I headed up to the still-open despite being federally-run Blue Ridge Parkway for a scenic tour, lots of photography, and a 3-mile hike to a 150-foot waterfall. The sky was blue and clear, and the day warm and pretty much perfect for October in the Appalachian Mountains, so we decided to keep most of the political chat to a minimum aside from making fun of the government for closing all the public restrooms and picnic areas. She doesn't much care for most political discussions in general, and at one point tried to ascertain why I keep jumping into them when their usual effect is to raise my blood pressure.
Some of it is knee-jerk reaction. I've also said, partly seriously, that written arguments in the heat of the moment help me sharpen my writing skills. But honestly it rarely has anything to do with the discussion at hand at all. I've half-joked that my writing is just an excuse to do research, and the same applies to online arguments as well.
Never mind the big stuff going on right now, though I have been reading up on Obamacare (I even read the entire bill once over the course of two weeks) and what the various factions have said about shutdown possibilities over the past three years. It's the smaller stuff that's garnered my interest.
Nothing structured, just wherever the current takes me. A discussion about the House of Representative's powers led to a reading of Federalist Paper #58 with commentaries, for example. Federalist 58 urges the House as a check and balance against the Senate, including the power of the purse. I'm always intrigued by picking apart the mind of James Madison.
I also got into a civil argument about the first three chapters of Genesis--the Creation and the Fall--but eschewing the English translations as much as possible to study the Hebrew text. I don't even resemble having any skill with Hebrew, and I don't take the English translations completely literally. But a pretty direct translation I own with facing Hebrew text allows me to revel in the poetry of it and plunge into the multiple shades of meanings of words. My favorite is that "living" in the term "living creature" is neshem, which can mean living, or breath...or possibly soul, creatures with a soul (including the animals!), though I gather that neshama is more properly translated as soul. But in the Hebrew--like many other languages, especially ancient ones--breath and soul are intertwined.
It's likely that Federalist 58 and neshem will never wind up in any fiction of mine (though anything seems possible, especially when I throw in poetry too). Maybe they will; I draw ideas from everywhere. But that's not really the point. I revere ideas and the language used to express them when that language is meant to unfold rather than obscure, and James Madison and Hebrew are among the top of the list. This is the thrill of discovery for me--and at least at the moment I wouldn't have jumped into either of those if not for online discussions I might "logically" have avoided. They might raise my blood pressure, but the after-results mellow me back down and carry me someplace farther than I'd been before.
Such breaths and my soul always get intertwined.
And even better, I also committed book-writing and exercise today.
PROGRESS REPORT
New Words: 1600 on Chapter 3 of Copper Heart. (I didn't include the chapter name here since I plan to change it, and stick the original name as Chapter 1 of Book 4.) Just as the religious revival in Copper Heart following the town's burning is simmering down, a familiar face from the Becketts' past (that is to say, from Book 2) re-emerges and rekindles it in a big and somewhat disastrous way.
Total Words: 115150.
Reason For Stopping: Off to exercise, eat lunch, then get ready for work.
Book Year: 1884.
Mammalian Assistance: None. As is often the case, Vegas realized his mistake too late and tried to get me to go back into the Writing Room for more work after I was done.
Exercise: Walked Tucker around the neighborhood. At the fitness center, I did a mile on the elliptical with a 3-minute cool down: An 8:45 mile, mostly 6-7.5 mph and a high of 9.9 mph. This was followed up with five ten sets on a pull-down weight machine, three sets at the 8/12 setting and two at 9/12. I'm still amazed at how just that little bit of lifting will wipe out my backaches for days.
Stimulants: None.
Today's Opening Passage: Will held tight and sat out the religious revival that swept over Copper Heart in the months following the town’s burning. There were still stubborn embers here and there two years later. But they were finally starting to go out until the old man appeared, carrying little more than the clothes on his back—not even a Bible—and a name that Will only heard his father mutter in anger, a best-forgotten ghost of someone the Becketts had thought long dead.
Darling Du Jour: He was in his eighties and looked every day of it. Each crag and wrinkle was testimony of a year under the Arizona sun. He hardly appeared to be stronger than a tumbleweed at first, his back bent and his clothes so travel stained they would never be clean again, but his body was so etched with soil that clean clothes on him would be permanently dirty by day’s end anyway. His voice was frail and his white beard long. He claimed to be a preacher but he was a preacher without a Bible, though he couldn’t remember if his Bible had been stolen by Apaches or white miners down to Bisbee or Tombstone, or maybe if he’d lost it somewhere just north of the Tanque Verde or on a failed journey up to Fort Defiance. He wasn’t of a mind to replace it just yet, though, since he said he’d memorized all the most important parts anyway.
Submissions Sent Out In September: 2 to magazines, 1 to an agent, and 2 to publishers.
Total Submissions Out Right Now: 8 to magazines, 6 to agents, and 2 to publishers.
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: None.
viedma and I headed up to the still-open despite being federally-run Blue Ridge Parkway for a scenic tour, lots of photography, and a 3-mile hike to a 150-foot waterfall. The sky was blue and clear, and the day warm and pretty much perfect for October in the Appalachian Mountains, so we decided to keep most of the political chat to a minimum aside from making fun of the government for closing all the public restrooms and picnic areas. She doesn't much care for most political discussions in general, and at one point tried to ascertain why I keep jumping into them when their usual effect is to raise my blood pressure.Some of it is knee-jerk reaction. I've also said, partly seriously, that written arguments in the heat of the moment help me sharpen my writing skills. But honestly it rarely has anything to do with the discussion at hand at all. I've half-joked that my writing is just an excuse to do research, and the same applies to online arguments as well.
Never mind the big stuff going on right now, though I have been reading up on Obamacare (I even read the entire bill once over the course of two weeks) and what the various factions have said about shutdown possibilities over the past three years. It's the smaller stuff that's garnered my interest.
Nothing structured, just wherever the current takes me. A discussion about the House of Representative's powers led to a reading of Federalist Paper #58 with commentaries, for example. Federalist 58 urges the House as a check and balance against the Senate, including the power of the purse. I'm always intrigued by picking apart the mind of James Madison.
I also got into a civil argument about the first three chapters of Genesis--the Creation and the Fall--but eschewing the English translations as much as possible to study the Hebrew text. I don't even resemble having any skill with Hebrew, and I don't take the English translations completely literally. But a pretty direct translation I own with facing Hebrew text allows me to revel in the poetry of it and plunge into the multiple shades of meanings of words. My favorite is that "living" in the term "living creature" is neshem, which can mean living, or breath...or possibly soul, creatures with a soul (including the animals!), though I gather that neshama is more properly translated as soul. But in the Hebrew--like many other languages, especially ancient ones--breath and soul are intertwined.
It's likely that Federalist 58 and neshem will never wind up in any fiction of mine (though anything seems possible, especially when I throw in poetry too). Maybe they will; I draw ideas from everywhere. But that's not really the point. I revere ideas and the language used to express them when that language is meant to unfold rather than obscure, and James Madison and Hebrew are among the top of the list. This is the thrill of discovery for me--and at least at the moment I wouldn't have jumped into either of those if not for online discussions I might "logically" have avoided. They might raise my blood pressure, but the after-results mellow me back down and carry me someplace farther than I'd been before.
Such breaths and my soul always get intertwined.
And even better, I also committed book-writing and exercise today.
New Words: 1600 on Chapter 3 of Copper Heart. (I didn't include the chapter name here since I plan to change it, and stick the original name as Chapter 1 of Book 4.) Just as the religious revival in Copper Heart following the town's burning is simmering down, a familiar face from the Becketts' past (that is to say, from Book 2) re-emerges and rekindles it in a big and somewhat disastrous way.
Total Words: 115150.
Reason For Stopping: Off to exercise, eat lunch, then get ready for work.
Book Year: 1884.
Mammalian Assistance: None. As is often the case, Vegas realized his mistake too late and tried to get me to go back into the Writing Room for more work after I was done.
Exercise: Walked Tucker around the neighborhood. At the fitness center, I did a mile on the elliptical with a 3-minute cool down: An 8:45 mile, mostly 6-7.5 mph and a high of 9.9 mph. This was followed up with five ten sets on a pull-down weight machine, three sets at the 8/12 setting and two at 9/12. I'm still amazed at how just that little bit of lifting will wipe out my backaches for days.
Stimulants: None.
Today's Opening Passage: Will held tight and sat out the religious revival that swept over Copper Heart in the months following the town’s burning. There were still stubborn embers here and there two years later. But they were finally starting to go out until the old man appeared, carrying little more than the clothes on his back—not even a Bible—and a name that Will only heard his father mutter in anger, a best-forgotten ghost of someone the Becketts had thought long dead.
Darling Du Jour: He was in his eighties and looked every day of it. Each crag and wrinkle was testimony of a year under the Arizona sun. He hardly appeared to be stronger than a tumbleweed at first, his back bent and his clothes so travel stained they would never be clean again, but his body was so etched with soil that clean clothes on him would be permanently dirty by day’s end anyway. His voice was frail and his white beard long. He claimed to be a preacher but he was a preacher without a Bible, though he couldn’t remember if his Bible had been stolen by Apaches or white miners down to Bisbee or Tombstone, or maybe if he’d lost it somewhere just north of the Tanque Verde or on a failed journey up to Fort Defiance. He wasn’t of a mind to replace it just yet, though, since he said he’d memorized all the most important parts anyway.
Submissions Sent Out In September: 2 to magazines, 1 to an agent, and 2 to publishers.
Total Submissions Out Right Now: 8 to magazines, 6 to agents, and 2 to publishers.
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: None.
