Influential Books

I love reading the question and answer interviews in Sunday supplements. Given how unlikely it is that anyone will ever want to publish my answers I thought I'd have a go at the question about 'influential reads'. I reckon all books influence me, even if it is to eliminate the author from my future enquiries. But what tomes really changed me? If we are honest they are rarely the books alleged to be 'improving'.

Here are ten. They may not be quite the top ten because I didn't want to overthink. I may do ten more later. The order, by the way, is the order in which I read them:

Aboard the Bulger
Ann Scott Moncrieff
1935

Not very old I was taken to Selly Oak library by my Dad. Here I was amazed. We didn't have many books in our house but Dad was always reading. So this is the secret. Borrow them and take them back. For nothing. Wow. This was the first book I borrowed. I read it wrapped in an eiderdown on my bedroom floor in front of an inadequate electric fire.

The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (Increasingly improbable trilogy)

Douglas Adams

1979

Adams probably stands in a long line of great word-play authors but I had slowed my reading habit between the age of 12 and 18, perfectly undoctrinated by a school literature list which failed to move this adolescent teenage male at all. I read nothing but cheap thrillers from 1973-1979. Then this. Someone told me I should read it so I didn't because I am a recommender not a recomendee. Then I did. If writing can be like this, breaking the rules once you understand them, then it made me want to write. A few years later I had a go.

'The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.' One of my favourite lines of all time.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Robert M Pirsig

1974

The Late Review used to be tagged on to the end of Newsnight but I saw some precursor of it around the time this book was published. I probably (aged 19 or 20) thought the discussion was a load of pretentious rot. I can't recall. It would have been late night midweek and once I started work I only ever stayed up midweek to watch the footie.

Anyway I found a copy in St John's College Library sometime around 1983/4 and, as an enquiring theological student, felt that it was rebellious to read something not on any lecturer's book list. Zen Christianity has accompanied me ever since and I swear that having a cool head in a crisis is something I decided to have rather than was born with.

I also learned that there is usually a good reason why some books get reviewed and others don't.

Illywhacker

Peter Carey

1985

College, despite my previous post, did get in the way of reading for pleasure. Then, in my first curacy in Nottingham, I met some lovely new friends who helped by lending some books they had enjoyed once I had announced at a dinner party that I was fed up with the quality of my reading. At the same time I started enjoying bookshops (libraries were going a bit downhill) and (yes, design does matter) the boxed-out Faber and Faber logo always caught my eye.

This epic narrative about coming-to-terms with what Australia actually is, narrated by a confidence trickster and liar, was a lucky find. It meant a lot that, despite Carey being a double-Booker winner and well-known, I had not heard of him before I bought this book and, having now read everything he has ever written and only found one book I didn't really enjoy, feel I discovered him for myself. I always recommend him, knowing that the reaction will be a bit Vegimity.

Dispatches from the Front Line of Popular Culture

Tony Parsons

1994

This sat on the shelf above my desk for many years when I worked in the late lamented youth department of the Christian home mission agency CPAS (Church Pastoral Aid Society). All the other staff bookshelves seemed to be full of things conservative evangelicals are supposed to read. All you imagine they ever learned was the result of a massive echo chamber. It seems to me that teaching people to live the gospel in contemporary society is pretty hopeless if you have no clue how contemporary society works, what it means and who the movers and shakers are. This set of columns, articles and essays from 1976-1994 was a priceless journeymate. What does it mean to be a Christian amongst this?

Passage to Juneau

Jonathan Raban

1999

Robert Runcie - The Reluctant Archbishop

Humphrey Carpenter

1996

The Case for God

Karen Armstrong

20009

These three books changed my attitude to genre. If all travel books were written like Jonathan Raban writes I would read them all. I would read about anything if Jonathan Raban held my hand. Even a yacht journey from Seattle to Juneau.

Likewise Carpenter taught me to read biography if the biographer can write and Karen Armstrong renewed my sense of enjoyment in theology

Unapologetic

Francis Spufford

2012

Some books help like a session of psychotherapy. You rarely know which one it will be. Spufford's sub-title is 'Why, despite everything, Christianity can still make surprising emotional sense'. As I read I found that he had written what I wanted to say. Christianity does give me a place of emotional safety from where I can explore the intellectual complexities of doing theology. If I had spent the first term at College reading this it would have saved a lot of time.

Thinking Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman

2011

Having read a book that explained to me who I am this was the book that helped me understand everybody else. What is going on when people make decisions? How do we choose? Why do we decide some weighty matters without all the necessary information?

Well, to use a technique that the book describes, I'll answer an easier question than those. Should you read this? Yes. In fact you should study it.

Advent Thought 10 and Number 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21...

People think writing is important but its first use was as a way for traders to record increasingly complex business deals. Sumerian record keepers between 3500 and 3000 BCE kept themselves strictly limited to facts and figures. Our oldest record is of one called Kushim's record of his barley receipts.* 50 Shades of Grey was a way off.

Fascination with numbers over letters was dominant for approximately two further millennia.

Fibonacci was an Italian mathematician born in 1170 in Pisa. He posed a simple problem about how many rabbits there would be at any given time if gestation took a month and maturation a month. In other words he introduced a lag factor to exponential growth (2,4,8,16,32...)**

It turns out his sequence describes a lot of things in nature from petal patterns to the development of snail's shells. Da Vinci saw it as a divine proportion.

The sequence is constructed thus:

0 + 1 = 1
1 + 1 = 2
1 + 2 = 3
2 + 3 = 5
3 + 5 = 8
5 + 8 = 13
8 + 13 = 21

...and so on.

So, when you see nature, what sort of beauty do you see? God's invisible qualities inferred from what has been made (Romans 1:20)? 'Nature red in tooth and bloody in claw' (a phrase popularised by Tennyson)? Or lovely, simple mathematics?

Bitter-sweet and strange
Finding you can change

* Source - Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari
** click here for source

Sabbatical News

It seemed quite a downer the other night to head off to bed knowing that I only had three more weeks of this sabbatical leave to go. Then a little voice pulled me over into the corner (do your little voices do that?) and reminded me that this would be longer than any holiday I had taken in the last twelve years. Thanks, little voice.

I have met a few people over the last couple of weeks as I wandered around town. The way the questions are phrased can be interesting. There are very different, qualitative answers to:

How's it going?

Are you looking forward to coming back to work?

How have you got on?

Pretty soon after the sabbatical began I knew that I should not beat myself up about outcomes. I have done lots of writing, but far more reading than I anticipated. That was a surprise but not a problem.

But with a work of fiction to try and finish (now plotted out and ready to be completed), being in the company of Peter Carey and Jim Crace can be depressing. Why would anyone ever attempt a sentence again while these two walk the earth?

I'll do it.

One thing I know I will need to do is be careful going back to conversations with groups of people. I haven't done much of that. Over this last weekend there were a couple of points in a small social situation when I wanted to run away. I had clear things to say and was interrupted and then the interruption was interrupted and by the time four more minutes had passed it felt rude to continue 'As I was saying...' Too self-important. Ten weeks free of small talk has been a blessing. Making someone who hates parties go to church to celebrate every Sunday has been crueller than you can imagine.

Just because you have cleared your head don't expect everyone else will have done so.

So to answer my questions:

Well.

Yes.

Well.

Going away for a few days retreat next week. Catching up with friends for the weekend first.

Sabbatical News

So, how's it going? You may not care but I know some do so here is a wee update. I am coming to the end of week five of a thirteen week sabbatical.

During the first week I was weary. Chatting to a couple of colleagues who had recently enjoyed sabbatical leave I discovered that this was a common theme. People who work with people and spend a lot of time giving out - speaking or listening; writing or reading - invariably survive on adrenaline quite a lot. Take away the deadlines and the stimulation and your body, often for the first time for ages, realises it can wind down. During my first week I successfully tidied the office, went to the gym and had a haircut. That's about it. Although I must say that having only one appointment in my diary for a week was both fun and stressful. I am used to waking up in the morning and running through a mental check-list of what faces me today. I had to keep checking that the answer was really 'nothing'. I also noted that not thinking ahead or planning ahead was weird. I am used to spending downtime contemplating stuff to happen in the future. I wonder at what point in the thirteen weeks I will need to place next spring in the mental sorting tray?

Week two was holiday. We travelled up to the north-east and visited a few old haunts from our Chester-le-Street days. One encounter was particularly helpful. Twenty-five years on, someone, a teenager then, thanked us for our work with young people. 'You made us feel we were the most important thing you did each week but by the time of the Sunday night meetings you must have been knackered.' That was lovely. Also true and we are glad it was noticed.

Returning home for week three I got going on the novel. I have always planned that this time would be about writing and had two ideas for books without a clear notion as to which one to pursue. Shortly before going off duty a new friend had advised me to go with the novel rather than the factual book (the other idea being volume three of my Christian help manuals) as it would be a more varied experience and thus more like a sabbatical escape. It is funny how people who barely know you can give you good advice. I took it.

The novel I have sketched out is a narrative at the moment, not a story. I used a method I read about from Will Self where I put every idea, scene and character on a Post-it note and then re-arranged them into order. Using several colours of Post-it I managed to get the various narrative streams to converge. I read a few chapters I had knocked out some years ago. To be honest the quality of the writing shocked me. It was excellent. Nothing seems to improve style like writing a lot and this stuff was from the days when I was working as a writer part-time. Could I ever get to that standard again? I realised that the answer was not necessarily to get on with the novel but to do more writing about anything (my journal suddenly sparked into life). But the existence of a table of Post-its helped me to begin inhabiting the world of Marco (working title) again.

Week four I read a lot. Not on any theme but in a wide and varied way. I needed to observe others' style and beware of copying any one writer too much. And I had to get some new facts in my head. The ones I had been hanging around with were not good enough. I played with the Post-its. I now had a tale but it was a bit too Dan Brown and my target was slightly higher up the brow. Then I had a moment. What if this (dramatic music in head) became (dan dan daaaan) that! A twist. Not one I ever saw coming so the reader won't either. Clever old me.

On Thursday of that week I wrote a short story in one sitting. It was quite dark and based on one scene of a screen-play I had helped a friend conceive some years back. But it came out quickly and will be finished with a single edit soon. I say quite dark. It was rural January midnight. Where had that stuff been hiding? Oh the sweet catharsis of murdering an imaginary parishioner slowly.

It is week five. No work on the novel but much reading and musing. When I am being a writer I write all the time. This is the point I needed to get to. I wander around constructing sentences, dialogue and writing descriptions in my head.

I have spent little money this month. I bought two DVDs, two books and a new jacket.

Twice in my life I have been given a story. An idea has popped into my head so completely formed that seeing it as God-given is as good a way to describe it as I can muster. With these stories I know they are given to be told and they will help people. They will work. They are probably not to be published for money but shared for free.

This week I have another such story. All I needed in order to write it down was to go and see the world from the point of view of the narrator. I needed to be high up and looking out to sea at an island. Luckily I live where that is possible and this morning I walked up to Cadbury Camp to see what I could see. It is an astonishing place. An Iron Age hill fort. I was alone there. When built it was probably surrounded by sea on three sides. A perfect defensive strategy.

The People of the Island (working title) is on its way.

So, says TCMT, you had two ideas for books and you're writing a short-story collection? Do you know, I may be doing just that. It's fun.

But I have three appointments next week.

Sabbatical

A number of you will already know that I have been granted a period of sabbatical leave in the autumn. Many colleagues have sent helpful wishes and comments; many others have expressed jealousy that this is not available in their line of work.

Without wishing to get over defensive, may I try to offer a brief summary of what and why.

Sabbath is essentially a biblical concept. We are encouraged to rest one day in seven. The root of the word can be found in Latin (sabbaticus), Greek (sabbaton) and Hebrew (shabbat). It is all about ceasing. But in the Hebrew Bible book of Leviticus the fields are to be given a rest one year in seven - a fallow, sabbath year.

Essentially rest is at the root of the idea. The fields get their breath back and they can grow more and better crops in future. People get their breath back and focus on their creator (today we have tended to separate a day of rest from a day of worship as people often only work five days a week). Organic farmers tend to use this system today. The late Nigel Lee, a colleague in Christian ministry, took great pride in telling me that he was spending his sabbatical doing almost nothing.

However the word does usually mean taking an extended period of leave in order to achieve some goal. In academia this might be travelling for research or writing a book.

When I worked at the Church Pastoral Aid Society (CPAS) I was granted two months leave from other duties to study contemporary culture. It was fascinating and different work but it still felt like work and I had to produce a long paper for my employers with recommendations for future behaviour in the light of my findings. This would have been in the late 1990s.

When I worked at St Paul's, Leamington I was granted an extended holiday as an acknowledgement that their over-use of my part-time hours had infringed on my other part-time work as a freelance writer and thus they gave me the hours back. I wrote full-time for that period in about 2005 or 6 for seven weeks.

I have had a sabbatical dangled before me for three years now. I have left the fruit on the tree twice. Once to get Trendlewood Church's independence completed. Once to get Andy's (our congregational plant joint with St Andrew's, Backwell) off the ground. As a neighbouring parish is in vacancy I considered postponing it once more but a wise archdeacon said there would always be reasons not to do it and they can drown the reasons to do it, so I should go for it.

If I am honest, after eleven years in the same job, I am a bit drained and need to fill myself again. Whatever your opinion of the necessity and style of full-time Christian ministry there can be few doubts that over the long term it is gruelling. I stood alone in front of an all-age congregation yesterday trying to get the dial to go up to eleven. It was tough. The tank's empty. The ideas are thin. I'm as tired as a pick your own rhetorical device.

I have had to devote a lot of extra time to making sure the things I normally do will be OK. Services are almost covered up to and beyond Christmas. Things I simply do without thinking about them (I have no secretarial or PA help here) such as our weekly communications and social media updates need not only to be passed on but others need to be trained in them.

So now, after thirty three years of ordained ministry, I am taking three months, from September 11th - December 10th inclusive. I intend to write. I have two books conceived and hope to finish one of them. Neither currently has a publisher although I have some contacts and have had  three previous books published. One is a spiritual book about the nature of faith; the other a novel.

I am looking forward to this with a sense of purpose and guilt. I know there are others who work hard who don't get the opportunity - although these days many demanding jobs offer career breaks in the contract and pay enough for these to be affordable. I will try not to waste the time. I accept that it is a privilege. Thank you if you have contributed to making it possible.

Jonathan Raban

A recent interview in the Guardian told me something that I had feared - Jonathan Raban has been ill. In fact the piece chronicles his recovery from a very serious stroke in 2011.

I have taken my time reading through the Raban catalogue. Part of this may be that the idea of reaching a point where there will be no more Raban to read fills me with pain.

Some people are universally acknowledged as great authors; they often receive awards and prizes. Raban has had his share of such.

My connection started with a review. The review in a newspaper in 1999 was so enthusiastic I felt I had to order it at once in hardback. I did and read half of it over the next few nights, before sleep. Then I decided it was too good to read that way. It needed to be finished uninterrupted and not tired - preferably sitting by the sea. I did that.

Passage to Juneau is a travel book, the story of Raban repeating a yacht journey from Seattle to Juneau in Alaska, reading and reflecting on the works and diaries about the journey along the way and encountering people as he sought harbour. It was also a commentary on where he was with his relationships and a marriage coming to an end. But mostly, it was a series of sentences every one of which was better than any sentence I have ever managed. It was a writer's book. A book for people who like to write. In the company of writers I can read about almost anything. Even boats and travel.

I discovered the huge back catalogue of Raban's writings from the jacket. It was a 'Why did nobody tell me?' moment.

I chose a work of fiction next - Surveillance. Again it was an experience of great writing. It was a giant metaphor for the way, in post 9/11 USA, everybody was watching each other suspiciously. It was still relatively early in the days when prospective dates googled each other.

It was a story about journalism, secrets and relationships. I loved it.

And currently I am reading Driving Home, which is a collection of Raban's journalism in newspaper and magazine. It includes reviews of books, people and places.

You mean that's it? Indeed. So why am I writing about an author of whom I have read two and a half books? Well, it's so you get to start earlier than me. And also because of a sentence in Driving Home. Some context.

I have never heard of, nor read anything by, William Gaddis. And, in effect, the piece Raban wrote for the New York Review of Books called At Home in Babel in 1994 tells me not to bother. Speaking of two Gaddis novels Raban says:

'Scaling The Recognitions and JR, one keeps coming on the remains of earlier readers who lost their footing and perished in the assent.'

Gaddis is going to be tough going. And with other authors this sentence is cruel. In Raban's hands it is an invitation. He goes on to extract the juice from the best of Gaddis' work in such a way as to leave the Raban reader thinking they might dare become a Gaddis reader. Because Raban is, and I think this is the point, a generous writer. He writes to find the good, the best, in people, places, journeys and books. If Jonathan Raban will hold my hand I, not much of a traveller, can journey.

So even though I am new to him and inexperienced I hope he lives long enough to write so much more that, if I read slowly enough I will never run out. I think that's a prayer.

Get it in Writing

In my days of having a proper job, as a claims clerk in the insurance industry, we were encouraged all the time to get things confirmed in writing and to confirm any offers we made in writing. Writing was important. Although verbal contracts do exist and are legal, they are easily backed away from and it becomes one word against another in the absence of witnesses. Getting it in writing provided firmer evidence of a deal done.

We offer you £250 in full and final settlement of all claims for personal injury arising out of this accident. This offer is made without any admission of negligence on the part of our client. Please indicate your acceptance in writing and we will send you a cheque.

See. I can still recite it today. Sums of money have advanced a bit and cheques are antiquated but the principle remains.

In those early days as a house-owner I was introduced to the shady area of cash transactions.

Me: How much to fix the front gutter?
Builder: £90 should cover it.
Me: Can I have a written quote?
Builder: Ah. Then it will be plus VAT.

It is strange how our relationship with writing has changed. Because social media is writing or, at least, typing. A comment we might have made tongue-in-cheek, or in an offhand way down the pub is suddenly in writing. Or is it? Is that how people see it.

A few years back an irritated traveller tweeted, after appalling delays at Nottingham Airport, that he was off to blow it up. He was arrested and it took a while for a wise judge (on appeal, I recall) to see that he had been joking.

I really don't think that a lot of people see their social media outbursts as 'in writing'. Just as a young family member once told me that someone wasn't a friend but a Facebook friend (clearly having a difference in their head between the two types), I think that there needs to be a new word for posting, tweeting and updating that stops short of this being something that is being clarified 'in writing'.

You only have to look at the long string of appalling and abusive comments on certain celebrity posts to see that people seem genuinely not to have noticed that the person the subject of their opprobrium is actually listening/reading. I follow Gary Lineker on Twitter. He seems an interested and interesting character. He is not especially rude or crude and does not restrict his comments to the world of sport. People respond shamefully. By and large he reacts modestly. This exchange of views/insults reads like a conversation, albeit one with the drunk in the pub or the nutter on the bus.

And the trouble with writing is that it is not open to discussion who said what to whom. The evidence is there. This doesn't seem to dissuade the trumps of this world from saying 'I never said that'.

A few years ago I carried around a quote from Anita Roddick (her of the Bodyshop business). She said that ideas have wings. As soon as you pin them down they fail to fly. So she operated an ideas culture that didn't pin things down to paper plans too soon. Better paper planes in the air. Keep talking.

I like being part of a church where we all talk about everything all the time. Nobody is too insignificant to contribute to vision or strategy. All views can be shared and we are slow to minute them. We try to have as few secrets as possible. In this context a social media discussion has no more weight than a chat over coffee. And no less either.

That will be £50 please. For cash.

Block

We have discussed here before the whole problem of writer's block. Some writers just put it down to a lack of discipline; others can only get the words flowing when they are 'in the zone'.

In my ten years producing Bible-teaching resources for CYFA (Church Youth Fellowships' Association) and four years as a part-time freelance writer, I had precious few days when the words didn't flow. I think the sheer joy I felt at finally doing a job where I could sit quietly and write was a great motivator. But it is also true that in both those periods of my life I had other jobs - at CYFA I was a trainer as well as editor and when freelance writing I was a minister at a local church four days a week as well.

Having other occupations for my time gave me a wealth of situations and characters to write about. Not that that sentence convinces.

Why do we restrict the 'blocked' idea to writers? I don't have very much writing to do at the moment. But I do have a number of things I really need to get on with and I'm finding it tough.

I think it might be one of those times where living in the introvert/extrovert borderland leaves me running out of ideas when I spend too much time internally.

This seems to be true because in a couple of sessions with small groups of people yesterday evening I was really extrovert - fired and strengthened by the presence of others in the room.

The best advice I can offer to anyone blocked by a particular task, writing or otherwise, is to spend some time doing something completely unrelated and trying not to think about the blocked thing. It often helps.

Multiplying Money for Trinity Project

Starting cash = £10

Spent:
£10.00 (nice paper)
£3.00 postage
£3.00 parcel box

Donated:
Three click-frames

Payment received:
£30

Outstanding commissions = 3

Money in hand £24
Profit so far £14

Anyone else want to order a framed, illustrated, original story to give to a friend for a gift? Or to keep. Give me some life-details and I'll concoct a one page story.

Blocked

People who have never had to pump out two or three thousand words a day for a living may not understand this. And the fact that I am writing anything will seem a tad contradictory. But the last few days I have been stuck. Twitter followers and Facebook friends will have seen a list of an alarming number of jobs I have finally got round to.

Athletes have their wall. A point beyond which you cannot get psychologically even though you know you have some more energy. I guess they learn to get over it. They must.

But every now and again the dreaded WB hits. I have techniques to get over it. Displacement activities are part of it. Getting something done is better than moping. But only time will fix things and you have to be ready to pick it up when the mojo re-ignites (that metaphor is to prove the lack of talent currently available).

Luckily I no longer rely on writing for my salary, but I do need some words to be back soon. It would be good if it wasn't before Monday now.

Multiplying Money

In our parish we are living out the parable of the talents. This is in order to stimulate interest in the last push to raise the necessary money to finish our imaginative Trinity Project. The project has involved taking three run down buildings and turning them into the hub a modern church needs for its mission and ministry. Two buildings are completed. One to go, plus the equipping and the striking piece of modern architecture - a sweeping glass foyer roof to link the three together.

Today I have been giving out ten pound notes to people inviting them to use the money to pump prime a business to generate more by Harvest this autumn.

What am I going to do myself?

Well all I have going for me is a bit of writing skill so here's the plan. I am going to invest in some nice paper and a clip-frame or two.

Then, if you tell me the name of someone you would like to give an unusual gift to, I will write a one page story featuring their name, print it, frame it and send it to you. All I ask is that you send a donation to cover the frame and the postage plus whatever you think the writing is worth, or can afford.

Any other details of the name you want me to write about will help. E.g. Bill, loves golf and DIY, hates football and is a terrible loser. That sort of thing.

Contact me on my private email stevetilley9@gmail.com to order a commission. I look forward to a full order book with the optimism of a complete fruit loop.

Quote Book Index 611-620

Back to the task of indexing my quote books. Day 62. Not managing it at ten a day sadly but thanks for being my company as I do this:

An expert copy writer can make you see the beauty and wisdom of murdering your own Mom.
(John White - Changing on the Inside)

Writing Analysis

I use a number of writing analysis tools to help me, and others, improve their scripts. One thing I have noticed is that none of them are really adequately helpful. Take this example.

Today I wrote my morning words and submitted them to a web-site for analysis.

It tells me that I talk about the past less than average the present less than average and the future less than average. I'd like to think that this means I have found a style of writing that the analysis tools can't quite measure, which may mean I have a unique voice or possibly that I am just weird (stop sniggering).

It further tells me the answer to this question:

How big is your world? Is it all about you? Or do your thoughts also stretch out to include others? Pair this information with whether or not you have a positive or negative mindset to see if perhaps you spend too much time ranting about others, or criticising yourself.

The answer is that I speak of I, us, you and them (the four choices) all less than average and recently considerably less than average. Who on earth am I talking about?

The tools go on and I find that in almost every category I am below average except that I use slightly more numbers (+3%) than the rest of the world and a few more conjunctions.

The best tool I have ever found for a piece of published work is the sentence length plus fog-factor tool which Bryn Hughes taught a load of us on a management skills for Christian leaders course over twenty years ago. Purists hate it because it involves adding an integer to a percentage but it does give quite a reliable score of readability.

Meanwhile my writing today is divided equally between sad, affectionate and upset and I am concerned mostly about money, death and religion. Well I did write a prayer so whose fault is that?

750 Words

People who follow me - @s1eve - on Twitter will be greeted, most days by a post such as today's:

I wrote 767 words in 21 minutes (3 day streak): http://750words.com/entries/share/2318875 …

I have explained a bit about this before. The idea of 'Morning Words', for that is what the exercise is, is that a brain dump of the first things you want to say without a great need to worry about style or typos will be of benefit. You can also try and capture your dreams.

If you follow the link to my stuff my sharing preferences will tell you things such as how many words I wrote, how long it took me, how many days in a row I have managed and a list of the most common words in each entry. I will not let you read my work and sometimes, if the list of words has a dead giveaway, I don't share at all. You would worry if my most common words one day were church, warden and brake-pipes. They aren't.

Having done a couple of months I have subtly tweaked how I use the tool. For years I have suffered that slight evangelical guilt that a daily 'Quiet Time' to read the Bible and pray is a good thing. I have never found it easy, or good. Indeed the more I read the Bible the less I found the necessity to read it every day as biblical.

So, as someone who spends a great chunk of his day with a Bible open, I don't need an extra ten minutes at the beginning of the day on an unconnected passage. I don't do that dualistic thinking that it is not quite Quiet Time if you are preparing something. And I find the Bible is enthusiastic for me to pray continually - to involve God, as I understand God, in all I do and say.

So I have decided to make my 750 word exercise my prayer. For what is prayer but blurting your heart out in faith? And in those gaps where I know not what to write? Well surely that is listening for the still small voice - inner or outer - to inspire me.

After many years I have made the connection between the ability to type fast and the desire to take time out at the start of the day to think, reflect and wait in hope.

And, of course, you can all know if I am keeping it up.

Works for me.

(That was post 2,500. Thanks for reading.)

750 words

I am on a five day streak of having used this site. I have investigated some of its more advanced features and it tells me some interesting things about my writing. There are stats:

About this entry
Words today: 752	Time to 750: 00:26	Total time: 00:26	Words per minute: 29	Distractions: 0 Good job!
Since beginning
Total words: 3,775	Quickest entry: 00:23	Word record: 766	Total completed days: 5	Longest streak: 5

But there are also details about my style, mood and inadequacies:

Rating

PG

Violence, Sexual content

Feeling mostly… Upset Upset Affectionate Self-Important Happy

Concerned mostly about… Religion Religion Death Money Home Work Success Leisure Family Eating/drinking

Mindset while writing… introvert, positive, certain, thinking

Time orientation = the future

Primary sense = hearing

Us and them = us

Frequently used words beingbelievechristianclosecomeday dead downhavingjustknowmaymemy neednonotradioroomssaintssale storedstuffus

I commend this site to all who want to improve their writing but not to any who get upset about retaining formatting when cutting and pasting to Blogger.

750 Words

I have been put on to a site which helps writers to write. It gets you to write the first 750 words of the day as early as possible on the basis that they need to be blurted out, won't be very good, but will help you dump your mind on to paper and stop it disturbing any other writing task you have for the day. I have only been going two days but it is helpful. Like doing gym this 30 minute stretch gets the juices going. Here is today's effort. Don't worry about the grammar, typos or content but I thought you might be interested in the exercise.

Time for my writing exercises. Sunday was a good day to start doing this but a Monday will test things a litle more. I have already sorted out the recycling and green waste (in the rain) which is probably not the best place to have been on the first day of a cold.

I've noticed (I expect I will notice a lot of things as I am doing this exercise) that whilst I normally keep written pices short and precise, editing out every word that is not doing something useful on the page, in this case I am lengthening, strecthing and adding like a man whose life will be saved by 750 words, any 750 words, as long as he gets there as soon as possible.

'I'm sorry I have a cold.' I always hear John Cleese saying this in a Monty Python sketch from the late 60s or early 70s. He used it as a rather baffling excuse for incorrectly identifying a man as a woman ('Excuse me, miss...'). Python gave my generation a lot of its go-to phrases.

As ever at 7.30 a.m. radio 4 is on in the background. Although I have the possibility of listening to it online in my study I prefer the sound of the radio in the kitchen. It is like, I have said before, having intelligent friends chatting in the other room.

I only have two days to work this week as I am taking two days holiday and my monthly double day-off to leave me free Wednesday to Saturday. That means my Sunday prepartion needs completing by tomorrow evening and I need to hit the ground running not ambling. What a day to have a cold.

There are things to look forward to this week - perhaps rather too many but one of the costs of our busy lives is that social time with people needs squashing in where it will fit even if that leads to us being tired some weeks. We accept this and so will go and see Skyfall tomorrow night ('cos you just gotta see new Bond movies at the cinema in the first week) and then will spend two nights in London visiting family, returning for Bonfie parties on Saturday. I've just rebranded Saturday as a light day rather than a day off. I will then feel less guilty about attending a church function.

Colds dominate your space don't they? You don't necessarily feel more than a bit grim but everytime you stop for breath, or pause to think, you don't find your mind wandering over the thing you are pondering but it spreads itself over your runny nose, sore throat whatever and tells you to feel sorry for yourself. You can keep working as long as you avoid coughing and sneezing on people (I was probably most contagious in church yesterday before I felt ill) and take honey and lemon drinks, hot baths and an occasional snooze. being mildy ill deserves a treatise doesn't it? Wouldn't you like to be someone else for a day simply in order to assess what their pain is like compared to your own? Then you'd find out if you were a whinger or not.

I think, based on evidence but not proof, that I tend not to be bothered by colds as nmuch as some. One of the bits of evidence is temperature. I often find people telling me they are cold and at that point I notice I am but it hadn't bothered me. Clearly at that point I get psychologically damaged and haver to adjust the clothing or radiators but by and large iof nobody oans I am OK. Mind you I hate it when it is too hot but tend to cool myslef down rather than moaning. I can do holidays in the sun as long as I am taking a holiday in the shade.

I think, as an exercise, I will blog this pice of writing and see what my other readers make of it. I am pretty sure my editor readers will find it hard to resist the temptation to correct it but that is not the point of this. I have been reading back through each sentence but it has ben speed-reading, to go with the speed-typing, not proof-reading. Anyway you can't proof your own stuff. Your eye makes the sense of it you were trying to make in the first place. Hopeless.

Pity about West Brom conceding a last-minute lucky equaliser to Newcastle yesterday. Good morning.https://750words.com/

New Book

I'm working through the proofs for God's Church; My Place - what it means to belong to a Christian community. I'm off to the offices of the Bible Reading Fellowship today to discuss the book with the marketing department. Hopefully it will be published in June.

Here is a brief extract to start your pondering:

'And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
(Acts 2:47b)

'The Lord adds to the number. He added daily to a church which had recently baptised three thousand new converts.

'You are the best advert your church has. God grows your church. Not you. If God sees you planning to improve your welcome you should expect that he will send you some people to practise on.

'There may not be time to buy three thousand matching coffee cups but you can still smile.'

If you enjoyed Mustard Seed Shavings then you will find more of that style directed at a different subject. It contains two good jokes.

Signs

If you were to put three words on the side of your van what would they be? I know you haven't got a van, stupid. Take an imaginary trip.

Thing is, I bet that after a bit of work you'd have only those words remaining that were really worth keeping. They'd say a lot about you. Even the words you jettisoned to get, say, six down to four, would be interesting.

I passed a van on the M4 today. In fact I passed three vans from the same company, Downton. Of the three words on the side of their van, a strap line which you will find on their web site, I contend that two are unnecessary:

Real Distribution Solutions

One way to test a slogan is to see if the opposite is clearly stupid. If it is you don't need to say it. So:

Fake Distribution Solutions
Surreal Distribution Solutions
No Distribution Solutions

And as for 'solutions':

Downton - Really Solving Nothing
Downton - Not a Real Clue
Downton - No Real Answers for 55 Years

I rest my case.

I bet some creative types were involved in finalising the slogan. I used to do this for a living. I wish I was back in that line of work sometimes. People will pay good money for that level of stupidity.

May I suggest:

Downton Distribution

Alliterative, simple and memorable.

There will be no charge.

Unless, of course, it was only one van and it kept jumping beyond me at light speed. Now that would be a solution.

Bit Weary

Sometimes, in order to encourage myself, I read back in the blog twelve months. It is interesting to see what I was concerned about then.

Bit of a shock today. I discover I used to be interesting and able to write. Thirteen weeks since the last break and eighteen months since working in a full team have sapped a bit of oomph. See. Oomph sapping is not a metaphor anyone who could write would come up with. Or even up with which they would not come if you care about not ending a sentence with a preposition. Although you can end a sentence with the word preposition. Isn't English fun?

I also found the first few chapters of a novel I started. I'd forgotten the plot. It's really quite good.

I feel encouraged that it is only weariness that keeps me from those heights (certainly it isn't modesty) so a few days off in a few days time will be restorative.

Working with an Editor

I have another book in the pipeline. Again to be published by BRF it looks as if it will be called:

God's Church; My Place
(Finding my place in the Christian community)

It's designed to be read by people who find themselves as members of church wanting to contribute but with no aspirations of leadership. It's short, quite light yet full of practical ideas. I guess it's a slight antidote to the feeling I have that para-church organisations are only interested in leadership these days. One day they'll turn round and find there's no-one left to be led.

If you're excited thank you, but have patience. It's not due out until next spring.

I had a page of suggestions from the commissioning editor to work through. My experience of her work is that she tones down all those bits where insensitivity will come over too harshly for the publishers' panel. These bits are removed before they hit the copy editor's desk. 'Nobody likes a smart-arse' fell at the first.

She also, helpfully, tells me where I haven't quite completed an argument or made something absolutely clear. When you write, and you know the point you are making, it is amazing how many times you fall short of actually and specifically making it.

When re-reading a work I have put aside for three months I also, usually, find typos. This despite a long proof-read back in April. It is so hard to proof your own text as your eye makes the sense your fingers may not have done. This teaches me one thing - if you can put copy down, leave it and come back to it you will see more errors. A good argument for trying to finish well before deadline.

If you work with editors do love them. They are on your side. It can feel a bit like your work is being marked and bring back bad memories of school. In fact your work is being improved yet you get to keep most of the credit. Your name remains on the cover.

And then the copy editors will improve things further. Sentences without verbs will be treated with suspicion, spelling mistakes will vanish, grammatical goofs will be adjusted and yet the book will still appear to have been written in what you laughably call your style.

This is all very good and a privilege.