Month: January 2023

On January 1st I wrote “A New Year’s Challenge.” Let’s not make this more difficult than it is. Recall, the challenge isn’t to write a story every day, but a snippet every day (of course, you can do more).

When I think of story I typically think fiction with its standard three divisions: a beginning, a middle, and an end. Further, a fictional story will contain five basic elements: characters, setting, plot, conflict, and resolution.

As for snippet, recall it’s simply a small part or piece of a story. For our purposes, it can be most anything. To name just a few: a snippet could be a sentence or two, even a paragraph, about a particular character, a certain setting or part thereof, something about an event, or a snapshot of conflict, such as an argument between two characters or a struggle between a character and a raging sea. Finally, it could be dialog that takes place during the story’s climax.

If you need a little nudge in writing a snippet, look at a newspaper or two (this is why I titled this post, Cheat Sheet). Granted, ‘story’ isn’t limited to fiction. We tell stories all the time that are true. For example, I’ve recently written two non-fiction stories: “The 2022 Orange Bowl,” and “A Plumbing Adventure.” Both are based on my own personal experiences.

Back to using newspapers. Start with a non-fiction story or two and use parts of both and fictionalize them. Of course, you don’t have to use two stories, you can fictionalize one of them.

Here’s two headlines I read earlier today: “New year, new babies,” and “Tragedy strikes twice.” I picked these at random and couldn’t help but notice that the first one reveals a happy, joyous occasion. The latter, is a heartbreakingly sad story of parents losing both sons to auto accidents in eight months.

When I say fictionalize, I obviously intend to change names and any fact (s) that would prevent someone from thinking I was writing about what actually happened to the people in the original newspaper accounts. Of course, you can do this but it comes with risks that I won’t address here.

My idea of combining the above two headlines into a fictionalized story is rooted in what a grandfather said of his newborn granddaughter. “She a gift from God.” My thinking is I could write a snippet, say of a grandfather at a funeral of his fifteen year old granddaughter who was killed in boating accident. As a song (name the song) is sung he thinks back to her birth and how he claimed she was a gift from God. He now, sadly, he questions himself. We obviously could go on from here.

Again, the purpose of this is to find a seed for a snippet (of course, seeds can grow into full blown stories). It’s simply a brainstorming exercise to get us writing. Again, for our challenge purposes, to write a snippet everyday during 2023.

I’ll close with a couple of snippets, one Lydia Davis’, and the other mine own. By the way, I’ve recently discovered Ms. Davis and her writing, a lot of which are mere snippets.

Here’s one titled, Ödön von Horváth Out Walking, from her book, Can’t and Won’t:

“Ödön von Horváth was once walking in the Bavarian Alps when he discovered, at some distance from the path, the skeleton of a man. The man had evidently been a hiker, since he was still wearing a knapsack. Von Horváth opened the knapsack, which looked almost as good as new. In it, he found a sweater and other clothing; a small bag of what had once been food; a diary; and a picture postcard of the Bavarian Alps, ready to send, that read, ‘Having a wonderful time.'”

Here’s mine. It’s actually a longer snippet but it meets our definition of being a small part or piece of the whole:

The afternoon had been a week long. So it seemed to Millie as she tossed her purse and computer bag into the back seat of the twenty-year old Sentra. The going away party was the only thing that had made today tolerable. Actually, it wasn’t a party at all, just a holdover gathering in the conference room after the weekly case review meeting. After the others left, Matt and Catherine had huddled around, wishing her the best. These two were the only ones at work who knew she was leaving. Both had been so nice, so sympathetic. Matt had even slipped her five hundred dollars in cash, and whispered, “I hate losing the best paralegal I’ve ever had, but know your secret is safe with me. Forever.”

Now, it’s your turn.

It’s early, but I’m planning on being delighted today? This sounds like I’m fantasizing about the future. What’s wrong with being delighted now? Heck, I’ve just written thirty or so words. That, in itself, is something to be delighted about.

What does it take for you to experience delight? This begs a definition. Delight. “a feeling of extreme pleasure or satisfaction; something or someone that provides a source of happiness.”

Let me start with the word ‘satisfaction.’ Most all my life, especially my adult life, I’ve been dissatisfied, discontented. I always wanted more. I believed that if I accomplished one more thing, I’d be the person I was meant to be. In other words, I’d find my god-given purpose. I became adept at creating challenges for myself, and I would, as they say, “bust butt” to achieve the goal. Ultimately, all this changed once I realized no one (including God) had a plan for my life, that my life purpose wasn’t created before I was born. No, it was up to me to create my own meaning.

Now that I’m sixty-eight, it’s relatively easy to see the many wrong turns I made along life’s journey. I might say I’ve come full circle back to my early childhood. Then (at least that’s what I’ve been told), I would spend hours playing in the dirt with my toy army men, driving nails in an old wagon anchored by time to the back pasture, and exploring the woods and fields surrounding our place with my dog Laddie.

Better late than never, the saying goes. The words ring true, at least for me, today. What about you?

Whatever the path that got me here, I have a growing interest in the present. Some say that’s all we have, and we don’t have much of that. For example, I duplicated this writing at 5:23 AM and at 5:28 AM to measure my progress. Turns out, both drafts were the same. I hadn’t written a single word during that five minutes. But, you know what, it’s now 5:58 AM. Gone forever is that five minute span. So, time keeps marching on. I want to be satisfied, DELIGHTED, now. Forget, tomorrow.

I still remember Psalm 118:24: “This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Although I no longer believe in anything supernatural, I draw meaning and encouragement from these words. Today is the day, now is the moment, to experience delight. And, the things that stir such feeling don’t have to be complex or expensive. The simplest pleasures are the best. Another saying I recall.

As a young boy I found hours of delight in playing in the dirt with my little green army men. It can be the same today, even now. It’s been two hours since I poured my coffee and it has grown lukewarm. But, it’s still tasteful, enjoyable, with its tad of milk and a little sweetener. I’ll rewarm it later, but this shouldn’t deprive me of delight right now. Another sip, another feeling of satisfaction.

Delight seems to spawn thankfulness. I could be that person who doesn’t have any coffee but yet wants a cup, or two. He doesn’t have any because he’s poor, or he’s facing some medical procedure that forbids coffee. This morning, I can have my coffee. I’m thankful.

One thing that used to drive me to the next challenge was that I was bored. Or, that’s what I thought at the time. Now, I know I was deluding myself. Sam Harris says that “boredom is simply the lack of paying attention.” I think he’s right.

Living in the now is all about paying attention. Could we say that finding delight in the ordinary things of life, the mundane experiences of the every day, depends in great part on paying attention?

We don’t have to go on vacation, or to a party, or orchestrate anything. Most of us are blessed with an abundance of ordinariness all around us. I suspect you might be a little like me. Paying attention (and feeling pleasure or satisfaction) is something that might take some effort, some self-training.

Trained or not, let’s begin. Find something to look at. I’m sitting at my desk writing this but, as I often do, I see a five inch by five inch plaque someone gave me. It has a saying by Theodore Roosevelt (I’ve since learned he, in his autobiography, attributed the words to Squire Bill Widener, of Widener’s Valley, Virginia). Here are the words: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” I might simply add, do it now, or, start doing it now.

Isn’t life just a cumulative pile of individual moments? Whatever you’re looking at, it soon, very soon, will become a part of your pile. For some of us, our moments are gathered together into mountains, even ranges of mountains. I’d rather many of my moments stay buried, but they’re quite a few that bring delight.

Take time today to pay attention to the dripping faucet, the half-filled glass, your reflection in the window, the grandkids toys sitting idle awaiting their next visit.

Afterwards, think about the feeling you got from paying attention. Can you align it with delight? Are you delighted with delight?

Describe this feeling in words. Write a few of them down.

Over the past few days I’ve noticed—somewhat subconsciously—water pooling on top of the ground next to the cutoff valve that controls the water to the barn. We’ve had little rain so that’s not the source. Here’s the picture: the PVC line and cutoff are around eighteen inches underground, with the valve accessible via an eight inch by two-foot vertical pipe. I keep a small bucket over the top end of this cylinder to keep out the rain.

Yesterday, it was sunny and warm and my cold was worse if anything. What better time to piddle outside? I donned my khaki Levi’s, tee shirt, hat, and work boots in the mudroom and walked outside. What a beautiful New Year’s Day. I was greeted by Eddie, the lab lookalike, AKA, the Black Tornado, who thanks me every day for rescuing him last May. I estimate he’s now twelve to fourteen months old. The two of us amble around the yard a while and fortuitously wind up staring at the pooling water by the barn. What better day will I have to address the issue and exercise my tenacity? I remove the bucket and notice water covering the valve a good five or six inches. I have a leak.

This wasn’t the first leak I’ve recently discovered. Thankfully, they’ve all been in the barn kitchen and not in the house. I’m confident all of them were caused by the recent cold weather. Several nights a week ago the temperatures plunged below ten degrees, two nights below five degrees.

Eddie strolls off to explore. I grab a shovel and wheelbarrow, and start digging. I’ll need to remove all the dirt and mud and pooling water in a two or three foot square to diagnose the problem. The ground is soft but heavy, saturated with water. After removing the top eight or ten inches the ground turns to a mixture of half-mud and half-slop. The wheelbarrow is almost full and I don’t want to add the messy mixture. I walk inside the barn and find a two-foot by six-foot piece of discarded metal roofing to serve as a holding place for the mud until I remove it in the days ahead.

I use the bucket to scoop the muddy slop and toss onto the metal I’d placed a couple of feet away. Ultimately I have to get down on hands and knees to reach inside the deepening hole. The bucket finally grazed the PVC pipe. I keep scooping and tossing until the water level is below the bottom of the piping. The sound of pressurized water escaping its confined space confirms my suspicions. I have a leak. What surprised me was the location of the leak. It was not from a split in the PVC pipe, but from a small hole in a Tee fitting, in the curve of one of the two sides that form ninety degree angles. It’s like a sixteen penny nail has bored a hole through the PVC creating an unobstructed pathway for water to escape.

By now, my clothes, hands, and arms are wet and slimy. And, I’m an inch taller because of the mud sticking to the bottom of my boots. Since it’s New Year’s Day, I doubt FarmTown or any other local hardware store is open. Thankfully, I have an inch-sized PVC cap I can use as a temporary fix. I walk sixty yards or so to another valve that controls all the incoming water to our place (the water meter is over a quarter-mile away on Cox Gap Road). I close the valve and return to the work-site.

Now is the perfect time to exercise my tenacity. I bucket out the water that’s filled the hole since the last bailing, then go grab a hacksaw. I have to lay horizontal on the ground to make the cuts, three are required to gain the needed access to easily install the cap. The first one is the main, the incoming line. With saw in my right hand I start making the cut but have to use increasing force to lift the PVC line on the left of the cut to provide just enough space for the saw to pass through the inch line and complete the cut. I maneuver my body enough to complete the two other cuts. To be clear, two years ago when we renovated the barnhouse we’d dug up this same area and connected a new line that carried water to a faucet at the carport. Now, both lines intersect prior to the cutoff. The third cut was somewhat optional but in order to remove the section of pipe and glued fittings, thus to make easier access to the to-be capped line, I opted to make it also. By now, I’m a muddy mess.

I bail the water that poured into the hole after the cuts, grab some dry rags and use several to wipe down the pipe. I use some rubbing alcohol to clean the end of the targeted pipe. Thankfully, I’d bought a new can of PVC glue last Thursday at FarmTown so that wasn’t an issue. I again maneuvered myself in position to apply the glue to the cleaned end of the incoming line and twisted on the cap. All this just for a temporary fix. Since I didn’t have the fittings needed to reconnect everything, the ultimate goal still lies in the future.

It’s time to wait. I know ‘they’ say PVC glue drys almost instantly but I always choose to give it a while. Unfortunately, I have other things my mind demands I do. Earlier, when attempting to move the heavy-laden wheelbarrow away from the job site I’d turned it over and half the load spilled onto the ground. True to nature, I had to pour it all out because it was too heavy to set upright half loaded. It wasn’t too difficult, but did take a while to re-shovel the water-laden dirt back into the wheelbarrow. When I finally finished, I carefully rolled the load a couple hundred feet to the edge of the woods along our south gorge and dumped it opting not to reuse it to fill the hole.

I greatly enjoyed the next ten minutes sitting in a lawn chair facing the sun. It was warm and fitting, an elixir for my bad cold, and aggravated sinuses. I closed my eyes and thought about what I’d spent the past hour or so doing, and how much writing is like plumbing. Both are arduous and messy. By messy, I don’t mean I get mud and watery slop all over me when I write. But, maybe there’s an analogy there. To create one we’ll need some figurative mud and watery slop. What could that be? Well, first, what function did the mud and watery slop serve in yesterday’s plumbing adventure? Weren’t they obstacles and barriers that huddled and hovered in the way of fulfilling the goal; they were warriors stationed at multiple lookouts, at every turn of the shovel, at every act of bailing. Their goal? To hinder, inhibit, or halt all progress?

You get the idea. Anything worth doing is difficult. There’s always an audience of excuses ready to be tapped. In my experience, plumbing does often require a high degree of tenacity, but, although it can be physically messy work, in a way it’s easy compared to writing. For me, the latter is something I literally hate doing and love doing at the same time. It is a battle every day I sit down to write. I can so easily be tempted by things pretty and ugly. The easiest thing to do is nothing, or to scroll Twitter, or watch a few YouTubes, maybe read an online newspaper article or two, or three. Writing is both physical and mental, but mostly mental.

I admit, I’m an elementary level writer and likely always will be, but there’s such power in having written. I normally start my daily writing time rereading what I wrote the day before. This does several things for me but one thing stands out. It reminds me that I was living in the moment when I wrote this. I wasn’t daydreaming, I wasn’t thinking of days gone by or days not yet seen. I was in the now, the place I yearn to be more and more every day.

As stated in yesterday’s post, writing, writing most anything, short or long, gives me a feeling of accomplishment, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Here’s something that has never existed before. I suspect it’s a similar feeling any artist gets when she does her own creating whether it’s a piece of music, a painting, or a clay pot. There’s another thing I suspect. No matter the artist, no matter the medium, tenacity is required. What is that? The dictionary says tenacity is “persistent determination.”

Back to my plumbing adventure. When I’d waited what I figured was long enough, I returned to the main cutoff and turned it counterclockwise. I could hear the water surging forward toward the barn. Thankfully, I’d waited long enough. The glue had done its job. The cap was anchored. No more leak.

One final thought before I end this rather long post. Travel with me to January 1st, 2024. What will it feel like to look back on 2023 and smile, smile heartedly at the ‘pile’ of snippets we’ve written over the course of the year? Could there possibly be 365 of these tasty and powerful morsels? But, even if the ‘pile’ isn’t what we’d hoped for, let’s start rereading. After a long while, we sense there’s a connection, currently undefined and mysterious, between the ones we wrote on March the sixth and September the twenty-fourth. Our minds sizzle, something snaps in place. Story? Could it be? Yes it is. We’ve discovered an idea for a story, whether short or long.

Oh well, this blog post is finished. It’s time to work on my novel in progress. Gosh, there’s mud and watery slop everywhere.

I challenge you to write something every day during 2023. And, file it in some retrievable format.

For many—maybe most everyone who reads this post—this will not be a challenge at all. If this is you, then pass my challenge along to someone who you suspect doesn’t write everyday.

So, why write every day? I could quote a hundred writers in answering this question. But I won’t, except for the one who matters most to me. You guessed it, ME. I write mainly for myself, not for an audience even though I publish my work. On the days I write, especially if I write a scene or snippet for my current novel in progress, I feel alive. I feel like I’ve accomplished something meaningful. If I’ve spent a few hours at my desk and penciled (or keyboarded) some words, my day is a success. If I do nothing the remainder of the day, I’m good. (I know. This is a psychological trick, but believe me, it works).

I relate accomplishment to production. Now don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t call myself much of a producer. I mostly consume. What about you? You may be like me in that during a typical day, you read something: articles, books (fiction and non-fiction), Twitter, Facebook (not me, I hate Facebook). Also, you watch TV, or, I should say the TV screen which now days includes a zillion streaming services. In addition, you may watch YouTube Videos and listen to audio books. There’s probably a thousand other ways we spend our time consuming what someone else has created. In other words, most of us consume a lot more than we produce.

My challenge is for us to change that, to start writing something every day. Now, granted, there’s many other ways to be creative, to produce something. You could use your mind and ear to score a new song, use your hands to paint a landscape, build a doghouse, or add a room to your own house. You could rebuild a car engine. You could design and create a robot to cook hamburger helper without guidance, one so smart it would wash the dishes afterward. I’m certain, you can quickly list a dozen other ways to produce.

Certainly, you might argue you’re not a writer. I beg to differ, at least for most of you. If you can talk, you’re a writer (or can be). If you cannot speak but can remember, think, or imagine, anything, then you’re a writer (or can be). I’m not saying you are, or ever will be, an Ernest Hemingway or a William Faulkner, or a John Grisham, or a Michael Connelly. I simply mean you have the ability, right now, to transfer some words from your mind, through your fingers, to a sheet of paper (or computer). And, don’t forget dictation. Simply say your words outloud and watch them appear on the computer screen (think WORD software).

Have you ever written a grocery list? Probably, even if it was simply, “buy milk, bread, and eggs.” You already have the memory of a trip to the grocery store. Write about it. Just write down what your memory is telling you. Don’t worry about grammar or format to start with. If your memory is foggy, that’s okay, just make something up. Hence, use your imagination. Add in some mystery. Questions are always helpful. You might write, “why was the 600 pound redheaded woman who was riding the motorized buggy buying all that Crest toothpaste?” If you want, answer your question, or attempt to. Write more than one reason.

Let me digress. You may not have noticed but I just did something no one else in the world has ever done (if you believe Google knows everything). I copied and pasted my 600 pound question into Google, including the quotation marks, and here’s the result.

This just proved (kinda) that I created/produced something unique.

Sorry for that. Notice that so far I haven’t said anything about creating stories. And, I won’t now other than to say you will decide if and when you want to enter that wonderful world. For now, it’s quite okay to stick with what I call snippets. Here’s the formal definition from Merriam-Webster: “a small part, piece, or thing.” And, here’s a few synonyms for snippet: bit, fragment, morsel, smidgen, scrap, and snip.” You get the idea.

I bet you’re already producing snippets. Things like this: “Call Howard at Snead Ag.” I wrote this one yesterday. It’s about reminding him to do what he promised—to send a rollback and haul my tractor to Wilks Tire to fix the right rear tire I’ve already paid for. You guessed it, the tire wasn’t properly repaired; it still goes flat. The above quote is all I penciled on the 3 by 3 inch paper square. But now, I’ve written more about that note. There’s a lot more I could write about it. Like the conversation I had with Howard on (I forget) where he made his promise.

It’s time I work on my current novel in progress, but I want to end with the second part of my challenge, “And, file it in some retrievable format.” This obviously depends on whether you write with pencil or pen, or using a computer. Either is fine, just store your snippets in a way you can return to them when you want. For a physical system, you could write on notecards and date and file them chronologically. For a digital system, you could use something like Evernote with the date written as the title. There’s a zillion ways.

I basically have two forms of writing. My blogging and my novel writing. For the later, I use Scrivener. It allows me to create a project for every book. Admittedly, I no longer keep up with my daily word count for my novel writing. I sensed such was producing unneeded/unwanted pressure. Further, I know I’m rewardingly immersed in my current project if I’m producing a book every year (and that’s another story since it’s now been a little over a year since I published my last book), but I digress.

For blogging, I use WordPress. Earlier, as I thought about what I would write today, I wanted to see if I’d written a blog post on January 1, 2022. Thankfully, I did. I wrote it in pencil, snapped a photo, and posted it to my blog. Here it is if you want to read .

I feel better now.

I’ll leave you with this. Dorothy Parker once said: “I hate writing, but I love having written.” Doesn’t this go for a lot of things in life? They aren’t all chocolate candy and pickle juice (I love pickle juice) when tantalizing our taste buds, but for one or more reasons, after the task, we feel good about what we’ve done. We might even say, the world is better off, at least our own little world.

For a better life, write. Write something. Write every day.

And, every once in a while, reread what you’ve written.