Tim the Upbeat Retired Guy has been kicking the edits in my direction. I have looked at some poems, some short stories, and a couple of chapters today. I think I am going to try and edit another chapter before I go to bed. I like to roll while I can. When I am in the zone, I get to work. I have learned not to stop when you become the muse. I am starting to enjoy the writing more and more even the editing. I went to O’Henry’s (best coffee shop in Birmingham) again tonight to just sit and get some work done. I closed the joint down.
I never really know who reads this blog and who keeps up with me via Twitter or Facebook – James Cartee’s Book Club. You have to join the group if you have not already. I hear the first book is always the hardest and then it gets easier with each successive work after the original one. I guess I will find out as I write more and more.
God has really blessed me with some incredible support. I had a graduate school friend tell me she was praying for me tonight. That meant a good deal to me because sometimes you wonder if anyone is paying attention to your efforts. I know that my attention should not be given to the attention of others (whether they are “following” me or not) but rather to God’s plan and to my own enjoyment in just doing something I love in this season of life. That is more than many people can say. I have time to do this. Not everyone gets that luxury. I have to remember that I am writing for me and that I believe this is something God wills my passions to fulfill. Whether I am successful in the world’s eyes does not matter so much. What matters is doing what I know God wants me to be doing in this very second.
For those of you who may just be getting caught up on my thirty-two day endeavor to write as much as possible, I really admire Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, Searching for God Knows What, and so on) and the work of his life through his writing, The Mentoring Project, The Burnside Collective, among many other things. I would really like to work with these two mentioned organizations in Portland, Oregon, but who’d thought New York Time Best Selling authors are really hard to get a hold of? To say the least, I have exchanged a few emails with his secretary, but that is about as close as I have gotten to that dream. On the other hand, other authors have definitely been receptive to meeting with me, talking over the phone, or grabbing coffee. Who knows? I may meet Miller after all volunteering at some point with his organizations and his causes. I am sure one day I will have the pleasure of shaking his hand. He is probably a busy man after all.
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