You Gotta Keep at It

A basic truth about creating (or teaching or nursing or painting) is that you'll only get better if you keep at it. Longterm practice breeds longterm expertise.

It's unfortunate for twelve-year-olds learning to play the piano and seventy-year-olds who've never thrown a baseball—but it's true. You don't get to be an expert without perseverance, and hours and hours of saying no to EVERYTHING so you can get good at one thing.

This ability to keep going requires keeping your mentality healthy, which takes intentionality and grit.

What if someone tells you that you're not really great at this, you're not going to make a longterm difference, and your best work is something else—like labelling cans?

There's a whole lot of things you can do: weep, yell, slam doors, break bottles, lock yourself in your room, mope, try harder, got more opinions, set the painting on fire and try again.

But you must not stop trying.

Because if you do, your work won't make a difference.

Because nobody ever changed anything by quitting.

The Old Man: A Vignette

Walking in Chicago means looking in windows—I do this all the time, which stresses Curtis (he's very wonderful) out because sometimes I don't look where I'm going and occasionally I walk in front of people and very rarely I bump into them and then they're upset and I'm flustered and Curtis is shaking his head. Today, following my usual pattern, I was looking in the window of a jewelry store and just sometimes looking at the sidewalk in front of me. The building had indents about every eight feet, forming natural benches.

In one of the benches a little ahead of me still, I saw a man sitting.

He wore dark dress shoes, navy slacks, a tan shirt, and a dark brown felt fedora. Thoroughly unremarkable attire. But his bulbous nose held up actual bottle-rimmed glasses with small, almost opaque lenses—the biggest nose and the thickest glasses I've ever seen. I couldn't even see his eyes through them. He sat there hugging his deep brown leather briefcase in his lap and rocking back and forth slowly. On the sidewalk in front of him was a bus stop with several young regular type people waiting for the bus. Presumably he sat there waiting for it too.

That's all. I walked twenty feet past him, and turned to look again just to cement his picture in my mind, but all I could see were his shoes and the pant legs.

If he was one of my characters, I would give him a mildly eccentric but very solid name—like Abner or Eldridge or Quint Schable. He'd be waiting for the bus to take him back to his one-bedroom apartment in Roger's Park, where he'd eat the same thing for dinner that he's eaten for the last 19 years: a slice of bread, a chunk of cheese, and a can of tuna fish. While eating, he'd pull the newspaper inches from his nose to read. But it would still be hard for him to see under the feeble light of the kitchen tiffany lamp.

After eating dinner, he'd retire to a deep burgundy wingback chair in front of the window of his second floor apartment, to watch the young couples walk dogs and the children jump rope and the old couples hobble slowly, hand in hand. Once or three times during the evening, a single tear would slip down his wrinkled face and leave a dark splotch on his tan shirt. And after a very long time he'd pour himself the smallest glass of port, and drink it very, very slowly.

Then, when his miniature grandfather clock struck eleven, he would take his glasses off and lean his head back in his chair and go to sleep—because he hasn't slept in his bed since his wife drifted off in it and never woke up, 19 years ago.

* * *

Creative People Are . . .

Know someone creative who you can't quite understand? David Ogilvy (in Confessions of an Advertising Man) cites research from a study done by Frank Barron about creative people. 

Creative people are especially observant, and they value accurate observation (telling themselves the truth) more than other people do.

They often express part-truths, but this they do vividly; the part they express is the generally unrecognized; by displacement of accent and apparent disproportion in statement they seek to point to the usually unobserved.

They see things as other do, but also as others do not.

They are born with greater brain capacity; they have more ability to hold many ideas at once, and to compare more ideas with one another—hence to make a richer synthesis.

They are by constitution more vigorous, and have available to them an exceptional fund of psychic and physical energy.

Their universe is more complex, and in addition they usually lead more complex lives.

They have more contact than most people do with the life of the unconscious—with fantasy, reverie, the world of imagination.

Biking and Fear

Yesterday it was almost a hundred degrees in Chicago—the kind of heavy, humid heat that hits you like a rolling wave when you step outside. The cicadas were crazy buzzing, the beach was mobbed by high schoolers and mothers and babies escaping stuffy apartments, and Curtis (he's very wonderful) spent the day drinking gallons of water and sweating more while he worked at a picnic in the park.

I set out to ride my bike to the store. Put aside the granular details about context (do you really care how high the curb was or how busy the road was or how it seemed like THERE WAS BROKEN GLASS EVERY 20 FEET?).

About three minutes into the ride I started regretting it—but by then it was too late to turn around. I continued along the narrow street with too much traffic and not enough space for me and my pretty red bike.

A metallic grey Audi whizzed past me, notable only because it was going a little too fast. Moments later, after I'd passed the line of traffic in the constant ebb and flow of biking patterns, the Audi reappeared. The driver, a well dressed, manicured woman, had rolled down her window in preparation for the moment when she would pass me again, so she could give me 

a
piece
of
her
mind.

I still don't understand what she thought I was doing wrong—something about me being on the sidewalk or not. It's probably hard to be articulate while yelling expletives and instructions at a biker out of your passenger side window as you're driving 30 miles per hour.

I spent the rest of my afternoon thinking about what would prompt someone to react in that way, and had a few ideas:

• A past offense. The biking culture in Chicago is startlingly arrogant. Bikes do whatever they want, wherever they want to, with little regard to rules of the road and other cars. An accident or two and about a half dozen close calls later, I try not to ride this way—but when there aren't any cars at a four-way stop, yes. It's very hard to want to obey the law on a bicycle.

Maybe the nice lady hit a biker the day before and was still upset about it. Maybe she was a biker once and got hit and was trying to help me. Maybe her husband works in the emergency room and always tells her about the bike accident patients he has to stitch up, and she's secretly trying to put her husband out of a job by preventing bike accidents. Maybe she just hates Chicago bikers.

Your guess is as good as mine.

• A bad day. She could have just been fired. Maybe her teenage daughter got a tattoo that says, "My mom's breath smells awful in the morning" and she was upset about it. Her husband could have walked out on her, her neighbor could be stealing her mail, her father could have told her he was disappointed in who she's become.

If these are the case, I'm happy to help her out, though I'd rather do it by expressing sympathy for her than by being a human punching bag.

• Fear. It's likely that the first time she whizzed around me, she was closer to my shiny red bike than she wanted to be. In some combination of being afraid to wreck her car and not wanting to hurt me, she decided to express how she felt about me (which wasn't great).

Giving her the benefit of the doubt, I think her fear motivated her. If you have any experience with fear (if you say you don't, I'm moving into your house and taking your job and stuff and hoping that works for me too), you know it's a strong motivator—unfortunately, often it motivates us to make poor decisions.

David Ogilvy, in Confessions of an Advertising Man, lays out ground rules for clients to keep a good relationship with an advertising agency. One of them is to "emancipate your agency from fear."

Most agencies run scared, most of the time. This is partly because many of the people who gravitate to the agency business are naturally insecure, and partly because many clients make it unmistakably plain that they are always on the lookout for a new agency. Frightened people are powerless to produce good advertising.

After I resigned the Rolls-Royce account, I invited myself to visit the Ford Motor Company, "to get acquainted." To his everlasting credit, the advertising manager of Ford refused to receive me. He said: "Detroit is a small town. If you come to visit me, you would be seen. Our present agencies would hear about it, and they might be alarmed. I don't want to alarm them."

It's not that fear automatically makes people make the worst decision (i.e., agency sees client with other agency and all copywriters automatically commit suicide). It's more of a chain reaction: fear often brings out the worst in people as they scrape around for a shred of protection (e.g., agency sees client with other agency and everybody assumes they'll lose jobs so stop trying to write ads and start looking for other jobs). When I'm operating at my worst and seeking protection, I don't think about the implications of my actions. I become reactionary, lash out, and hurt the people who are closest to me, all for my own safety.

I used to think I was the only one responsible for being afraid—if I'm scared of the dark, of war, of death, of insignificance it's up to me to get over. But I think there are two parts.

One part is the story I'm telling myself. Do I believe there's a monster in my closet that only comes out at night? Is death going to be eternal separation from all that I love? Is war coming over Lake Michigan at every second? Will my grandma and my mom be the only ones in the world who ever read any of my books?

The stories you tell yourself become your reality, so work to keep your reality grounded in the truth.

Look in the closet.
Know the truth about death and eternity—that while we yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Read the news, pray for the authorities, trust God's plan to do good to those who love Him.
Remember that your significance doesn't hinge on the number of people you impact, it hinges on Who you're doing things for.

But the second part is new to me. As far as you are able, surround yourself with people who help bring you freedom from fear. Make friends who tell you the truth—both when it's hard, and when it's easy. Don't jump to conclusions when people say something, ask for clarity. Find colleagues, associates, and relationships that care enough about you to work on protecting you from fear. Know too, that in His very nature Jesus is freedom from fear. Find refuge in that.

I'm still learning to do both, and it's not easy. But it is healthy.

That way I don't go out and scream at an innocent biker on the side of the road.

In Honor of Writer's Block 01

One thing here is not like the others . . .

The Dawg Ayt My Homwerk . . . ?

Plausible excuses become more rare the older you become.

Teachers snap photos of your note in kindergarten when it reads, "The dawg ayt my homwerk." They send it to family and friends because it's cute. They may even laugh a little. Perhaps a more demanding teacher would dock you a few points and tell you to make sure to finish everything tomorrow.

Fast forward twenty years and try saying, "The monster ate my desk," when you didn't finish that high profile project. You'll be lucky if all you get is a raised eyebrow.

Guess that means it's time to stop making excuses and really get to work—and that goes for you too, kindergarteners.

Happy First Day of School!

Today, thousands of bright-eyed kids had their first day of school.

In kindergarten they read a book and ate a snack. 
In high school the girls looked at each other's clothes while the guys wondered if the army requires a high school education.
In college professors read syllabuses and the freshmen took notes on everything and the seniors took no notes at all.

And because I'm now a bona fide adult I went to work, came home, made dinner, and cleaned. Then Curtis (he's very wonderful) and I discussed our 50 year plan (just kidding, who has that, more like we tried to figure out our life for the next three days). After all that, I sat on the couch and stared out at the rain and thought about going to bed—but I couldn't let myself go, because everyone else in the world started school today. That means summer is over, and when summer is over I start to write again.

Every writer worth their salt (or pepper or turmeric or some other semi-ambiguous seasoning) will tell you that to get better at writing, you have to write. Conversely, if you want your career as a writer to screech to a grinding halt, take a long weekend.

I, unfortunately, have a rather thick skull (depending on who you ask: enormously thick, embarrassingly thick, lamentably thick), and refuse to be told that as an adult I can't take a summer vacation.

So I haven't written much at all this summer, and you're experiencing a display of the utter entropy of my mastery of the craft (for example, what an overworked sentence. should have just said I got worse at words). I did other things, like travel and eat as much ice cream as I wanted and go to the beach with Curtis (he's very wonderful) and watch the world whiz by from the saddle of my cherry red bike and see friends and family and all the babies. It was a great summer.

And now I'm back to real life and it's raining outside (as if even the weather is telling me to get down to business), and I've a manuscript to edit.

But I guess I don't really mind. Because it's the first day of school and it's the first day back to writing, and when it all comes down to it

—though I love swimming and sunshine and sand and travel and sleeping and biking and walking and playing ball and wandering in search of any old adventure and freckles—

I love writing more.

On Rest and Responsibility

Yesterday, for the first time in a month, I sat down to write, because I break all my own rules in the summer. I stay up late on "school nights" (yes, work nights, but everyone needs idiosyncrasies of phraseology, don't they?), eat ALL THE ICE CREAM IN SIGHT ALL THE TIME, and sometimes don't write for weeks on end. Maybe it's the writing for work to pay the bills thing that makes it easier to slack off, or maybe it was finishing the first draft (rough as dried lava, I promise) of my second novel in the beginning of June and now I'm rebelling from organized craftsmanship.

Either way, you're fortunate that after I spent an hour re-writing the same four paragraphs yesterday, my computer crashed and I lost all four of those ill-fated paragraphs. They were going to be cynical, choppy, and pessimistic—three things I try to avoid.

Instead, these cheery ruminations . . .

I paid for my college. Phrased positively, I learned independence, money skillzzz, and how to work hard for what that matters to me. Described bluntly, sometimes I didn't buy shampoo for a few weeks at a time, a third of the clothes I wore I'd found on the ground, and I had to say no to doing things because I couldn't pay for them. It's a lifestyle of poignant pride.

When a study abroad trip with my favorite professor loomed on the summer horizon, I immediately wrote it off. It was expensive, the cost of a whole semester in seven weeks—and counting the money I'd lose out on earning, another third of a semester's bill. I chose to leave the glamorous international travel to those who had received large inheritances from distant relatives (this has never happened to me—if you have one of these relatives looking for someone to sponsor, please contact me).

Staunchly self-sacrifical and determined to squirrel away my hard-earned cash for a more responsible cause, I stubbornly ignored my professor's advertisements all semester. I was unswayable. Wouldn't dream of dreaming.

In the beginning of April one of my brothers attended class with me then took me out for coffee. We looked into the street. People hurried by (people only ever hurry in Chicago—nobody takes their time. waste of life, if you ask me.) as we sat peacefully, sipping lattes and munching on macarons that cost several bucks a piece (granted, they were delicious. worth four bucks, though? is any cookie, really?). Then my brother asked if I would go on the trip to England, and I gave my practiced answer. He wasn't impressed and told me I should go.

I talked to a few more people, threw caution (and thousands of dollars) to the wind, and signed up. The caveat: I would only go for three weeks out of the seven. I made the bargain with my penny-pinching, cents-scrounging, ripped-jeans, dirty-haired self. I could pay for three weeks, come back and earn money the rest of the summer, and end up not quite flat broke.

Landed in England. Spent the night in a hostel. Turned my dad's hair gray (sorry dad).

After a week of being in England with the group, I couldn't imagine leaving in 14 days. I wanted to stay for the rest of the summer—to eat bananas foster and eton mess most days, see places I'd only ever read of, rest from the past two years of constant work—and stay with the friends I'd made. But I didn't know if I should. It seemed like a good idea, but then so does pepperoni pizza at 11:50 p.m., and it rarely is. So I called my mom.

She listened to my desires, rationalizations, worries, and said,

“Consummate responsibility deadens the soul—and having a dead soul is irresponsible.”

That ended the discussion. I spent the rest of the summer in England and have never regretted it. I got the money somehow—it just ended up working out (thank you, kind parents, thank you, kind God). Today, I am me because of that trip. And the simple phrase from my mom became one of the guidelines for my life.

Often, I get caught up in responsibilities. Have to work. Have to clean the house. Have to cook so we don't DIE OF STARVATION OR SCURVY. Have to buy this present or go to that event or wash those clothes. I'm convinced the list actually never ends.

So how can my mom be right? How can it POSSIBLY bet better to occasionally shirk responsibilities just to do lazy things I love—really love—that feed the soul?

Because at the end of the day, what will I remember about my summer? Cleaning? Cooking? Washing another sinkful of dishes? Buying groceries? Folding laundry?

Nah. I'll remember the long bike rides in the hot sun—the lazy evenings at the beach with Curtis (he's very wonderful), two dozen barbecue wings, and IBC root beer—the spontaneous trips to faraway places to see people we love—the long walks in the evening sunlight that makes no enemies and keeps every promise—these are the moments of my summer that are different, that are free from responsibility and worry, and that keep my soul alive.

And you? What makes your soul thrive? And do you do it?

The classic "Hey Dad, everything went fine till I got here" picture—Birmingham, England

It's Summer and I Can't Write

It's summer and nothing I write sounds good. Normally I wouldn't give up like this, but . . . Actually, I have no good excuse.

Instead, here are my three favorite things about summer (and if you pushed me, also life in general).

I Officially Can't Hail Taxis

This week I went to the doctor on my first day of being sick.

Please understand: this is shocking. I usually refuse to visit the doctor until I've been hanging onto life by a thread for over a week. Curtis (he's very wonderful) tells me more than a dozen times I should go, and I come up with more than a dozen excuses. When I get discouraged beyond hopelessness, I cave, gather my wits and tissues, and go.

This time was different. A good friend who visited our tiny home last weekend was diagnosed with strep on Wednesday. I don't have time to be sick for more than a weekend, and strep can beat you into the ground for a lot longer than that. Ain't nobody got time for that. There's too much summer happening everywhere.

I knew I was getting sick the night before because THOUSANDS of tiny gnomes were marching across the back of my throat wearing hobnail boots (the real kind, you know, the ones with NAILS STICKING OUT OF THE SOLES). The next morning, each one of the the thousand gnomes had invited ten of their friends—so 11,000 gnomes, each with multiple nails in their boots, were wreaking havoc on my throat. You get the idea. So, I hauled myself to the doctor's office. 

I walked there because I'm too timid to hail a taxi.

Every movie ever features the classic 3-second taxi call. Not so in today's film, featuring sick Anneliese. After half a dozen attempts, I gave up and decided a mile and a half isn't really that far to walk. Basic conceptual problem highlighting my inability to stick something out? Maybe.

Got to the clinic and made friends with the nurse who took my vitals and also doesn't own a scale or know how much she weighs. The doctor came in eventually, did all the things doctors do, and eventually told me I didn't have strep. She gave me somewhere between 5 and 100 pieces of paper about the common cold, told me it was going to be painful for a couple of days, and sent me home.

I walked home too. Maybe if I'd been diagnosed with strep I would've taken a cab—but I couldn't justify spending the money now that I knew I really wasn't at death's door.

Anyways, for the past three days I've sat on the couch sneezing and honking and watching the world go by for three of the warmest, sunniest, cheeriest Chicago summer days this year. It felt hopeless. I missed watching Curtis (he's very wonderful) hit a home run at the softball game on Saturday. I missed meeting my brand new nephew (I'm assured he's very cute, but pictures just aren't the same). I missed going out for pizza with everyone, and sat at home blowing through boxes of tissues, reading Louis L'Amour, drawing, and watching a British cooking show (I quote Curtis: What is it with you only watching cooking shows?). The list of things I missed felt long, as did my face and soul on Saturday morning.

Then, somewhere on Saturday afternoon, I remembered that for weeks I've been complaining to myself because I want to finish the sequel to The Cup but I never have time. And God gave me three perfect days with nothing to do but finish it. And I got over moping because even though I couldn't swim in the lake and throw the softball and eat ice cream—I could stay home and write. Being sick is being sick, but now it feels more like a blessing.

“God doesn’t always give us what we want. But He always gives us what’s best for us.”