Saradactyl.com

Day 2:21

2007 sucked. In going through some of my more recent archives, there is a dark undertone to everything I've said. Grief. Death. Loss. Those three things have kind of been the underpinning of the past several months. For the second excerpt, we're continuing on that same theme (whoa - could this... maybe... possibly... be, like... continuity? *gasp*).

Welcome to Bizzaro World. Welcome to Grief.

Yesterday, I wore my dress as a shirt.
Yesterday, I wore my necklace as a bracelet.
Yesterday, I ate a sub for lunch and had coffee for breakfast.
Yesterday, I did my hair before I got dressed.

I woke up, and tripped head long into Bizarro World. For its regular inhabitants, the bizarre is normal; the normal - bizarre. It's normal to eat hot ice cream, and take a bath in dirt. Even their speech patterns are different. To an outsider, it sounds a lot like they're saying - "Sucks to be here, it does!" Which translated roughly into English means , "This is a wonderful place to live!". In Bizarro World, everything opposite; backwards. Wrong is right, good is bad, happy is sad. It's the world as the world shouldn't not not be.... but is.

Grief is a lot like that. Everything that SHOULD be right with the world - isn't. It isn't normal for women to die young and leave their babies behind. It isn't normal to lose a best friend, or for your parents' marriage to fall apart. It isn't normal that a widow should be left alone with no one to care for. Death. To the outside world, NOTHING about this seems normal or right. But to us who have known and have believed and were persuaded - we're well-versed in this thing called grief. We know that nothing TRULY lives until first it dies. It sounds poetic. It sounds... right."

© Sara Parkes - 6/21/07

Day 1:21

The book won't really be a devotional, but sometimes it kind of accidentally happens that way. I have found on a pretty consistent basis that when I share the absurdities of my life, God makes sense out of the convoluted situation in such a way that typically there is SOME kind of spiritual or life application that springs up out of no-stinkin-where.

 

On Suffering...

"In the narrowly constructed hallows of my psyche - Suffering is the name of my book-not a subcategory-having come face to face with a grief too heavy to bear. When you're waist-deep in mire, inching along toward perceived normalcy, it requires all the strength you can muster. Do we really believe God to be who He says He is? Do I really believe God to be who He says He is? I've heard it said: "Trust is a beautiful act of worship." That it is.

"Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong." Job 1:20-22 

Our lives here on earth are just.... breaths in the wind. It's a very flawed glimpse of a holy eternity, and we get so caught up in the subcategories that we often forget our books are being penned by a Sovereign Hand."

© Sara Parkes - 6/22/07

Well, crap.

This weekend I have tripped into some kind of bizzarro alternate universe filled with opposites, margaritas, and conundrums. Yesterday was March 1st. But time literally stood still, and in MY mind I had convinced myself that March 1st was like..... next week. SURE. I have ALL the time in the world. Which means.... my rent was late, and I failed to do the first day in the 21 Day Challenge.

Welcome to my brain. 'Pull up a pile of clothes and sit down.' (1,000 extra  points if you can tell me what movie that's from...) SO - I'll be RETRO posting this as yesterday's (3/1/08), and will have another post for TODAY (3/2/08). That way I can keep things straight. Yo.

So, what will I be doing for these 21 days? 21 Days of going through past and recent blog archives to see if i can make a book that no one will publish and only my friends and family will buy. You know - the pity buys. And I probably won't even get those.  I hear a lot of, "Dude. You should write a book." But when it comes to actual interest in BUYING my book - I'm very skeptical. In spite of that, I WOULD write a book anyway - it's just I have several things that get in the way:

1. Lack of continuity. I do best with shorter "article" type writings. I can't wrap my brain around how I could possibly weave together a novel with the same characters, same events. Chapters? Eeep. It scares me. I know that it CAN be done, but the thought of it has overwhelmed me to the point of doing nothing. Then I remembered these little books that I picked up - written by Laurie Notaro. Talk about lack of continuity. She writes kind of the way I blog, and it made me realize - Hmmmm. Maybe I could do that, too.
2. Over-saturated market. Walk into any Barnes & Noble and the sheer VOLUME of books available is simply overwhelming. It's always seemed kind of presumptuous of me to think that any thing I have to say could be important enough to publish. I've been waiting for that one STAND OUT idea that would make even the teensiest ripple in that over-populated ocean. Sooooooo - I actually CAN self-publish and self-promote. At least for now. I'm not opposed to that. AT. ALL. *shrugs* Make it available on Lulu. Even if it's only a kick-back of a few dollars, it would be worth it just to get my name out there.
3. Laziness. I've grown accustomed to writing at my own pace, my own subject matter, whenever-the-hell I feel like it. My job, while it is something I enjoy and is highly gratifying, is emotionally draining. At the end of the business day, I just feel like I have nothing more to give. Truthfully, it's when I'm at the end of my SELF that those lucid dude-maybe-I-should-blog-this moments actually occur! It's just a matter of making myself do it. So, I will.
4. I'm petrified. Not so much of failure, honestly. My life is a shriveled house plant of under-watered failure, and I've grown fond of its face. It's where I'm most comfortable. What REALLY scares me is that I might actually succeed. Be published. Book tours. Oh I'm scared. REALLY scared. It's one thing to put myself out there ... you know, HERE. But an entirely different thing to consider "it" being out there for the world at large. The truth is, I know God gives dying-grace to the dying, and He gives successful-author-grace to the successful author. In other words - let's cross that bridge when we get there, shall we?
5. I'm unoriginal and mediocre. Let's be honest here. Sometimes I have an interesting take on things, but there really is nothing new under the sun. Coupled with the fact that my writing? Is really .... meh. So-So. Friends and family probably beg to differ, but that's only because I pay them to think so. There are TONS of people out there who FAR exceed my skills, and aren't nearly as adept at butchering the English language as I am. I'm constantly putting myself in my rightful place, lest said butt get too big for said britches. But you know... there are plenty of unoriginal and mediocre authors who are very successful in the marketplace. (*coughnicholassparkscough*) Why NOT me?

So. How is this thing supposed to work? Well... for the next 21 Days, I'm committing to compile my existing writings into small-book form. Like maybe 10-12 chapters - 120ish pages. I've been blogging for YEARS. Surely, I can come up with at least that much material. I'll be posting excerpts from my findings and posting them here, as well as printing out the material and filing into really cool brown and blue polka-dotted folders.

*nods*

Here we go..... hang on to your butts.