JUST WORDS: Sacrificial Interruptions

I once wrote for Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion radio show. It was not a long gig. Almost as soon as I had started, GK decided to end the show and move to Denmark. I don’t think my writing was the reason. It was the Danish woman. I’m sorry for him that the marriage to the Danish woman did not work out, but I’m glad he moved back to the US. Humor, and poetry, and music, and story-telling are all so much better for his contributions to those arts every Saturday evening.

One of his staff members was once asked about how to approach him so as not to interrupt him. “Any time you approach him, you’re interrupting,” she said, “because he is writing in his head ALL the time.”

I think that is true of most writers. We are working on our writing all the time—doing the dishes, mowing the lawn, driving to Mother’s, just staring into space.

When William Faulkner went to Hollywood as a screen writer, his producers complained that he didn’t work hard. “All he does is stare out the window,” they said. He may well have been working harder than anyone there. Kierkegaard would have approved.

So if you speak to a writer, if just to say “Hey,” you are interrupting.

How, as a writer, do you deal with this? I have no answer, except to say that we learn as much through sacrifice as any other way. Sacrificing for the sake of those we love, and who love us, by accepting the interruption to pay attention to them, is better than any mental writing we might do. Everything, to a writer, is material, including the interruptions, including the sacrifices.

John Robert McFarland

My novel, VETS, will be published by Black Opal Books in late 2014 or early 2015.

In case you missed it, a Tweet Repeat: “When will there be good news?” When you read Kate Atkinson.

I tweet as yooper1721

           

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

MY OTHER BOOKS:

NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”

AN ORDINARY MAN [HarperPaperbacks] Randall MacLane just wanted to be an ordinary man. But sent with a message for Custer, he became a drifting lawman with a knack for killing, and a deep well of loneliness. Then a twist of fate brought him full circle…

THE STRANGE CALLING: Stories of Ministry [Smyth&Helwys] I didn’t want to be a preacher, but I made a deal with God to save my sister’s life. Was that really a “call,” though? I said, “I’ll try t for 50 years, and if I still don’t know, I’ll do something else.” These are stories of what happened in those years of questioning the call.

WHEN FATHER RODE THE MAIL and Other Stories of Christmas [lulu.com] ISBN 978-1-300-38566-0

If you like baseball poetry, take a look at “Frosty & the Babe” http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/frosty_and_the_babe.shtml