As we left for Orlando yesterday, we stopped at a red light. Here in the South we call all traffic lights red lights, but this one really did happen to be that color. A person on a motorcycle revved his engine repeatedly until the light changed. Did it make the wait shorter? No. did he waste gas? Yes.
When we got to downtown Orlando, we sat amazed when a car zoomed through a red light immediately before it changed to green. I’m sure he was in hurry or feeling anxious or mad, or something. Did he get where he was going faster? Maybe. I doubt it. When you are that heedless, you may not get there at all.
I have impulses too. Mostly it’s when I’m on the computer. If I were in less of a hurry and more careful I wouldn’t stress myself out nearly so much. I’ve been deciding for months that I want to hurry and finish my most recent novel quickly. In the mostly German community where I grew up the older people used to say, “The faster I go, the behinder I get.” That seems to apply to me, as well. I get nervous and overwhelmed and it spreads out from the computer to all the other rooms of my life. When I’m at the bathroom sink brushing my teeth I feel overwhelmed, or when I’m in the utility room ironing Bill’s shirts, I fret thinking I need to be doing my real work. I have a writer friend who once said, “The world waits for me, what am I doing cleaning toilets?”
When I started writing books, I said it wasn’t going to be this way. I was going to live, enjoy all the little nuances, and not rush through anything. But alas, now I’m trying to get finished so I can have a little vacation I’m planning. That would be a good reward for accomplishing what I set out to do. Alas, now that I have that deadline I feel worse than ever.
Do we know what all this rush and hurry stems from? Basically, for me, it’s fear. Did you know that the everyday ordinary child today has more fears than a psych patient in 1950? Just think how many more we may have accumulated over the years.
So, if I don’t get my book finished by the time of my own deadline, does that mean I’ll die or kill anyone? Nope. Does it mean I’ll go hungry or lose the respect of someone I love. No.
The Bible says we are but smoke; here today, gone tomorrow, and yet we think we have to rush around, make our mark, measure up. Then in the middle of all that…poof, she’s gone. I hope she had a good life. Oh, look at those pretty books she wrote.
I guess I’m saying that I really do love writing books. I love my characters, I love putting words together. I really enjoy working with others to make them the best they can be and get them off to market. But it’s possible that when I rush, the quality of my work diminishes.. Writing books definitely has its place, but so does brushing teeth, and ironing shirts.
Paraphrasing 2 Timothy 1:7. I heard the Lord say: “DiVoran, I have not given you a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power and of love, and of a calm and well-balanced mind.” My answer:, “Okay, Lord I’ll slow down and receive it. Thanks.”
Researching my current work in progress, Jessie, has been more fun and educational than I could have ever imagined. I grew up in the shadow of the Space Shuttle program. Nearly everyone I knew had a family member working at Kennedy Space Center, and we were all personally touched by the Challenger disaster, and yet, there was so much I didn’t know about the early years of this amazing endeavor. I’ve read books and news articles, watched television specials and documentaries, but what really made the stories come to life for me was taking a tour of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, where the first launches took place. (The tours have since been suspended due to sequester.)
For those of you who may not know, the original space missions took place on land owned by Air Force that was used as a long-range missile proving ground. These sites are not available on tours available through the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex.
Block House Launch Complex 1
My heart broke when we drove through the dilapidated blockhouses, cracked pavement spattered with weeds, and encroaching mangroves of launch sites one through three. However, the Launch Complex-26 blockhouse where misson controllers stood by breathlessly watching Explorer I, America’s first satellite rocket into orbit and nearby LC -5, the site of Alan Shepard’s triumphant race into space are better preserved. We even had the chance to walk through LC-26 and learned that our basic digital watch is more technologically advanced than all of the computers in that room combined. It’s pretty amazing how much the early pioneers of space exploration were able to accomplish.
The moment that nearly brought me to tears though, was when I walked out on LC-34, where the
Memorial Benches for Grissom, Chaffee and White
Apollo 1 fire killed Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffey. Gus Grissom plays a role in Jessie’s story and being in this place I felt a deep connection with Jessie, almost as if he was walking the site with me. Off to the side, there are memorial benches for each of these brave men, although I’m not sure how many other members of the tour even noticed them. I don’t know that I ever took the Space Shuttle program for granted, especially after the Challenger tragedy, but I can tell you that I have an even deeper respect and admiration for all those who have shed their blood, sweat, and tears to provide us with the advances in our daily lives that are by products of space exploration. Many of the crew at Kennedy Space Center had vehicle license plates that read “Doing what others only dream” I pray that the hunger to learn more, travel farther, and risk it all will take the baton passed by these leaders and push us to even greater things in the coming years.
I love crime. CSI, Criminal Minds, Magnum PI, NCIS, The First 48, I find them all fascinating. I also love reading crime novels from David Baldacci, to Brad Thor. When I saw a Groupon for the CSI Experience, I gobbled it right up. Now, I’m supposed to be dedicated to completing the first draft of my work in progress. I’ve worked on nothing else in my few spare moments and I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I needed a break, and my Groupon was getting ready to expire, so I called up a fellow crime junkie and we went to check out this CSI Experience.
There were more people at the venue than I expected, but the staff processed them effectively and before we knew it, we were zipping up our “official” CSI vests. We were given a clipboard and assigned to one of three crime scenes, then we were off. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who might do the experience themselves so I won’t go into detail. We gathered our evidence, “ran” all of the forensic tests on computer simulators, and came to our conclusion who the killer was. Along the way there are videos with cast members from the original CSI series and when you think your know who did it, you file your report. I can’t imagine how you wouldn’t be able to solve the case, but it was still fun to have Gil Grissom tell me how well I did. There is certainly room for improvement in this experience, but I’m glad we did it and I even feel more energized in my writing quest after taking the afternoon off. You can find out more about this experience at CSI Crime Exhibit
Maybe one day I will even write my own crime novel, but for now, I need to finish my work in progress. What fun things have you done to take a break from writing?
The best bit of advice I ever got was to write a letter to God. Why? Well, it got me started communicating with Him and by default with myself. I’ve written a letter to him almost every day
Sometimes I have help
since about 1970 or so. Some were short, most were several pages long. I learned from doing it that God is always there for me and he doesn’t care what I say or how long it takes me to say it. I’ve learned that He really loves me, and that to him, I’m a unique and special person.
Now some people just talk to him, and I admire that way of doing it, but it doesn’t work as well for me. Maybe I I can’t concentrate, or I get bored with hearing my own voice, or thoughts run away with me and I get distracted. But a letter? That’s different. It’s as if my whole mind, soul, and body gets into the exchange, and exchange it is because God writes letters to me as well, in many different ways. I’ll tell you about some of that later on. For now, though how about you? Are you a talker or a writer?
