In about a week I will be submitting my latest accepted manuscript for production.This was a work long time in coming and probably exposes me more as a writer, scholar, person of faith, and individual than any other I've written in the past. It is a memoir though surely not a typical one and it seeks to combine two audiences that have never had much to do with each other. It is the kind of work that conjures up possibilities but which is often more difficult to write and find a publisher for than the usual products of that genre. But as all of those who have gone through this process know
all the work and pain involved is forgotten once the acceptance notice comes and even more so when the product is in hand.
Getting to this stage of my writing life has been a steep challenge but one that I planned, prepared and worked hard to make happen. As a young boy, after reading my first essays and having been exposed to Octavio Paz, the great Mexican essayist, reading El Siempre (Mexican political magazine) and knowing a little about Shakespeare, Tolstoy and just getting an inkling of C.S. Lewis, I began to conjure up images of the things I wanted to "create". I was too young and unsophisticated to think about a "writing life" but I knew that I wanted to communicate and to put ideas into the public square. But in the first few years of my youth my syntax, sentence structure and punctuation horrified many a teacher though a few were willing to admit that I had good ideas and told a good story. The journey is too long to retell here but needless to say I am here because of hard work and some friends who were good writers and "suffered me" as I sought to learn from them.
My story is not remarkable other than in the amount of time I invested and so I'm always encouraging others to work hard and set goals. In fact, there are people who probably make a quick exit when I appear because they don't want me asking about "their book". In my mind, when someone says to me that they're writing a book I believe it is my obligation to be supportive and occasionally to painfully remind them that they could work a little harder and smarter.
Because this work had been in the "works" for a while I did not expect I would have another manuscript accepted after my last one was published. It really takes away pressure from having to contemplate a next one too soon. With this manuscript "not hanging around and staring" at me I feel like I have the luxury of some time to myself to contemplate and reflect. Oh, I do have a few items to take care of this academic year but nothing major except to promote my last book and to prepare for what might be the reaction to this one when it comes out. More importantly, this memoir said much of what I wanted to say and I need time to reflect and read some more before I start thinking of what else to say.
For that reason and others more personal I need this period of "silence". This silence does not mean I won't write in this blog--something I hadn't done in quite a while anyway--or make some small presentations but only that the highest priority will be a more profound contemplation of what comes next and about my "beloved community" which I feel I have ignored for a few years. I need to do things that have no professional "outcome", no bricks to build upon, and which are out of the public eye. Too much of our lives are taken by our "roles" and "obligations" that we forget that there are many things that don't have a timeline, a reward or a legacy beyond the immediate.
I truly need some of that downtime. It was that kind of time that kept me close to people and to the community that was so much a part of me before I became an endowed professor and saw my time consumed by the academy. The urgency in doing much came not from pure ambition but from the fact that I came to the academy much older than most.
The memoir--which takes me through my college years--will show who I was before I became what I am today. There will probably be a lot of silent time over the next season but it may also be a time of sharing, church plays, public service and lots of lunches with friends, both old and news. It will be a time to re-invest in things infinitely more important than another book.
Of course--if my department chair or dean are reading--the preliminary research on the next book began a while ago. But it can wait, for now.
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