Graham's Words

The story is sweeping, epic. Forces of good grapple with the “bad guys” in a class for the centuries. The fight spills from scene to scene, intensifying as the end of the page draws near. It’s breathtaking, awe-inspiring. It’s–

OK, so it’s a comic I helped my 4-year old draw.

I noticed that lazy Saturdays can quickly turn into media-related days of cartoons, movies, and games on my iPad. Katie is much better at heading this off with trips outside if it’s warm or other activities. Games and movies and shows aren’t necessarily bad in smaller doses, but when you walk into the living room and look at your kids plopped on the couch and you can’t tell if they’re watching a show or turning into a zombie, then you realize that perhaps you should unplug your house and jumpstart their imaginations.

This comic was a compromise of sorts. Nick wanted to draw “the castle game,” which is a tower defense game he and I will play after dinner (if he’s eaten his dinner, of course). You would think that drawing a comic would be a slam dunk activity, but it took a little coercing for Nick to engage his imagination. But think about the media we show our kids – movies, TV shows, games. They’re all from someone else’s imagination. With books, coloring, drawing – our kids own part of the story with their imagination.

At first, Nick simply sat at the table, tapping his pencil on the placemat and staring at a blank page. I placed a couple “towers” in the boxes and then asked him what happened next. The light went on, and his eyes got really wide, then be began to tell me the story. Then he began to draw his towers, and “the bad guys” they were going to defeat.

The first drawing session wasn’t the last. He’s gone back a couple times and added things, and he will bring it out when I get home and talk about the story with me.

Hopefully, he’ll end up drawing better than me.

Like a lot of Grady grads, I was saddened by the news that our legendary teacher, Conrad Fink, had passed away this weekend. The man was a journalism giant – reporter, war correspondent, night editor and AP vice president. But that was before my time. To my generation, he was a mentor, coach, professor, and icon.

A number of fellow Finksters have written some amazing tributes:

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15980/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=3buJ7jvq

http://joshkatzowitz.com/2012/01/15/for-fink-rip-you-rascal/

http://blogs.ajc.com/kyle-wingfield/2011/11/23/the-thanks-we-owe-to-mentors-like-conrad-fink/

Perhaps his greatest contribution to the field of journalism was his red pen. He molded countless editors and reporters with red ink, correcting mistakes and pointing out flaws in our reporting. There is a legion of Finksters doing tremendous journalism because of the lumps taken in his classes. I pulled out a few of my Fink papers from my college days this weekend and had a look. It was almost like he was having a conversation with us through those papers, through our trial and error, and I laughed at a few of the comments as I imagined myself back in his classroom, waiting for either his approval or correction of an article I’d written for that day’s edition of the Red & Black school paper.

In the beginning of my senior year, Fink called me to his office and offered an opportunity of a lifetime – a 3-week internship at the Army’s National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif. I turned it down. What did a sports reporter with an interest in magazines have any business training to be a war correspondent, I asked myself. I remember him being disappointed, but not overly so. I’m sure he’d seen plenty of knucklehead students let opportunities like that slip through their hands. A month later, our world changed, when the Twin Towers came crashing down, and so did a lot of our youthful innocence. I was angry, conflicted, a million emotions. But most of all, if men and women my age were going to war, I wanted to at least know some of the hardships they would endure, some of the training. I walked into Fink’s office the next day and asked if the internship was still open, and if he would consider me. He said yes, and didn’t ask for an explanation.

Maybe he knew me better than I knew myself. I didn’t have the instincts for investigative reporting or the debating skills for a career in opinion columns, but I had a desire to dig deeper to understand the people behind the stories, their motivations, hopes and fears. I think he knew that even before I could communicate it myself. And that’s essentially what I got on that internship. I’d never be a war correspondent like he was, but I watched a group of men and women train for war, and was able to use some of those observations in writing Hero’s Tribute.

“Take hold of my words with all your heart; keep my commands and you will live. Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or turn away from them. Do not forsake wisdom and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you. The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it costs all you have, get understanding.” – Proverbs 4:5-7

I’m in a different season of life, but the need for wisdom, for a mentor, is just as vital. Mentors provide instruction; they point out our blind spots; they encourage (a simple nod of approval from Fink might as well have been a Pulitzer); they break down to build up. But it all hinges on our ability to submit to that instruction.

I and countless others will miss him. I’ll miss the brief e-mails updating him on my career or the next book project. Of a shared interest in the Civil War. Of listening to him grumble about the next crop of students as if it wasn’t pure joy for him to begin a semester.

He would often tell students as he handed back papers that, “You’re lucky, you rascals. You couldn’t afford my editing.” He was right. His instruction was priceless.

Thanks for your wisdom, pal.

I’ve been reading through the last draft of Legacy Road before it goes to press. It’s mainly to look for typos and minor inconsistencies, of which I hope there are few. But as a writer, it’s enjoyable to take one more walk through the story, and the characters. The reason being – they’ve both changed so much. I can read the plot and remember the trial and error of putting it together. I can read through the dialogue and how the characters reacted to their circumstances, and how in a few cases it led to writing plot twists I hadn’t considered in the first draft.

Aren’t we kind of like that? We see the Point A to Point B, but throughout our journey God is at work in our hearts. The work ranges from subtle tweaks to major, foundational revisions. Sometimes you can see and feel the revisions, other times they’re hidden. But how often do you get a few miles down the road, turn around and look at where you’ve been and just shake your head at the turn of events that got you there?

Each of us has a story, but they’re part of a much larger story. His story. And though our author may know what’s ahead in the next sentence or chapter, for us each day is a page with fresh ink and unlimited possibilities.

“No one has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, [but] what God … has revealed to us through the spirit.” – 1 Cor. 2:9-10

Ok, back to work.

I’ll come right out with it — I enjoy making New Year’ Resolutions. I enjoy even more writing them down in a notebook (or in 2011′s case my iPad notes) and tracking progress. I will usually categorize them into things like Writing, Career, Family, Faith, Finance, Health, etc.

Some I followed through. I resolved to write a book for my boys based off our family history. Check. I resolved to make some improvements to our house, like having the exterior painted. Check (although a little more to that CHECK than I’d like). I resolved to go on a trip with Katie into the North Georgia mountains. Check (and tons of fun).

Some I didn’t. You can keep pretty much all of the Health section unchecked (fried chicken is my downfall). We didn’t follow through in all the financial resolutions, which is to be expected. Expenses don’t always fit into the budget the way we’d like. And there were a couple in the Faith category that didn’t materialize, which was a little surprising.

Or maybe not. I remember at the beginning of last year sitting in a covenant group and declaring what 2011 would look like for me spiritually. I had God’s plan all figured out 12 months ago, apparently. I would do the things I felt called to do, and just those, and somehow grow in my faith. The problem with that was two-fold. First, although at the time I thought my intentions were good, I was essentially boxing God in. Putting Jesus in a neat little box based off of my comfort zone and asking, sometimes pleading, for him to just stay in there.

The other problem is related to the issue with resolutions in general. They are basically outward declarations to resolve inward issues, right? I want to be better at my budget because in actuality I spend too much on self-medicating things like comfort food or entertainment. I want to get into the Word each day because if your thoughts are what you read and digest, then too much of me is devoted to college football and random news tidbits.

God knows this of course. That’s why if you read the Gospels, Jesus is always trying to get his audience to think harder. To go deeper. The rich young ruler discovered his salvation involved letting go of the treasures he coveted and identified himself with. The folks listening to the Good Samaritan parable probably didn’t want the inner reflection it demanded of them.

In 2011, after I’d made my resolutions, God went ahead and crumpled up the figurative piece of paper and tossed it in the trash and gave me one simple word to follow: Deeper. To not spend so much time on doing, but rather experiencing His fullness. To listen on prayer walks, to seek first His kingdom when I’m reading the Word rather than looking for self-help verses to fix a challenge in my life. Most of all, to see the world through His eyes. For what breaks His heart, to break mine.

I can’t say with authority that I’ve succeeded at any of this. This last year has been a combination of incredible joy and pain. But I’ve also noticed the subtle differences as He works on my foundation, as He gently turns my neck to whatever horizon His plan and my walk follow.

What does that mean for 2012? I’ve still got my list of goals\resolutions; I want to go whitewater rafting, climb Yonah Mountain and then eat a Yonah Burger up in the North Georgia mountains; memorize verses with my children; participate in a mission trip; save more and spend less; eat less fried chicken and run more etc. In all of this, though, my biggest resolution isn’t one that involves any action on my part besides listening. To not swim farther, but dive deeper.

Sometimes, you select a book at just the right time to digest a message you need to hear. Rooms, by James Rubart, was one of those books for one of those times. First, the plot:

Young Seattle software tycoon Micah Taylor receives a cryptic, twenty-five-year-old letter from a great uncle he never knew. It claims a home awaits him on the Oregon coast that will turn his world inside out. Suspecting a prank, Micah arrives at Cannon Beach to discover a stunning brand new nine-thousand square foot house. And after meeting Sarah Sabin at a nearby ice cream shop, he has two reasons to visit the beach every weekend.

When bizarre things start happening in the rooms of the home, Micah suspects they have some connection to his enigmatic new friend, Rick, the town mechanic. But Rick will only say the house is spiritual. This unnerves Micah because his faith slipped away like the tide years ago, and he wants to keep it that way. But as he slowly discovers, the home isn’t just spiritual, it’s a physical manifestation of his soul, which God uses to heal Micah’s darkest wounds and lead him into an astonishing new destiny.

Another writer said it was The Shack meets C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, and I’d agree with that. It was about 15 years ago in Seattle when I heard the first description of Christ entering our hearts as someone entering a house. There were rooms we didn’t mind him going in to, others we wished we’d tidied up – and then spaces where he poked and prodded that we tried to hide from him. Rooms hits the mark with this metaphor and its promise – that God is after our hearts, and if we let Him in, it can be a place for Him to dwell in us. And our lives will never be the same.

I wish I could go back in time and give my younger, DINK (Dual Income No Kids) self a swift kick in the butt. “Ugh, I’ve got no time to write,” my DINK self would say, remote in hand and a bag of popcorn by his side. “I’ve got a full-time job and freelance and other stuff, there’s just no way.”

Dude, whatever.

Somehow, despite suffering from a severe case of complacency in my mid-20s, I was able to write Hero’s Tribute. When it was time to sit down and map out the sequel, my responsibilities had soared. More responsibilities at work, more freelance, a Sunday School class and two kids. Fortunately, having the editing experience of Hero’s Tribute helped me organize my thoughts and plan.

But the moral of the story is – you have time to write. Even if it’s a lunch break, or a coffee break, there’s always a window of opportunity. In the next few blogs I’ll examine what I think are some of the main obstacles to keeping people from putting ink on paper (or digits on keyboard).

The news pertinent to this site and Hero’s Tribute first – the sequel is moving along, with a tentative release date of November 2011 to February 2012. That’s a few month’s worth of tentative, but I’ll fill you in on the specifics as they become available. First up will probably be the title of the release, which I’ll post along with the cover. My original title fell through, as original titles almost always do – and thankfully so. The story changed from its genesis into something different and the title needed to reflect that.

So what else is going on? You have no idea. Lots, behind the scenes and some out in the open. I’ve got a full slate at work, freelance, home, church and then writing. It’s enough to drive me crazy, and sometimes it does, but recently I’ve come to realize it’s driven me in a new, unanticipated direction. Much better than I could have imagined on my own, and yet, it’s as if I’ve been walking in the dark all this time with only a general sense of where I needed to go, and now my toes can feel the cool surface of a stone path – firm and direct – telling me that A) This was my destination all along and B) My steps have always been guided.

Yea, I’m being ridiculously cryptic, but isn’t that what writer’s do?

Here are the basics … I’m in a good spot to do some blogging leading up to the release of the sequel to Hero’s Tribute. I’ll try and use the blog for more than that, including: finding time to write; other projects I’ve got in the works; the differences in writing a sequel vs. a stand-alone; how the story changed; balancing creative projects with a full-time job; my amazing wife; my two boys; my sometimes frustrating beagle; my alma mater; and of course, God. Specifically to my faith walk will probably be some insights I’m getting in quiet times, which seem to be anything but, in the figurative sense.

If you’ve ever been on a whitewater rafting or canoeing trip, this is the part where you see the water underneath begin to guide your raft with a little more urgency. You can hear the rush around the bend, you know full well you’re about to hit another patch of rapids, and your heart rate picks up. You dip the paddle in the water ahead of schedule, with no progress down the river to show for it, but not to worry, it’s coming.

Feels kinda like that.