Where I Am - How I Am

I had this funny picture in my head of a freak-show barker shouting, "Come, See a Real Live Preacher".

RealLivePreacher.com. Click to find out more...

Where I Am - How I Am - What I Am

I am currently pinched between four lives. I sacrificed pieces of three to buy the fourth, but now I am dealing with some realities. I have no regrets, nor are there any tragedies, but the truth, she always comes back in the end.

I am holding onto writing with a ferocity I did not know existed in me. But yes, my three other lives are slowing me down. They are demanding their due, and my production has slowed considerably and will probably continue at this pace for a season. This is good news, not bad news. It means my life will be okay and Real Live Preacher will continue. At least that’s how it seems to me now.

That’s where I am.

I am beginning to think of Real Live Preacher as a writing studio, a place to work and a way to work it out for myself. Everything in my head has always been more real to me anyway. Why would I need anything more than a virtual place to write?

I need a place to spread them all out and lean them against the walls. I need to see the canvass I just marked with charcoal alongside the collection of things I started last year then tossed into my virtual file folder. The folder is getting fat. It’s time to haul that stuff out into the light.

I need sketches on the walls of my mind. I need light. I need a place, but I have no place to go. I only have this imaginary place, but I’m wondering if it might be the right place.

I’m thinking about what I am doing and how I am going about it. I’m wondering if this virtual space I call Real Live Preacher could help me preserve this new, fourth life I am nurturing.

I’m changing the way I think of myself and this work.

That’s how I am changing.

I have given a proposal for a second book to the person who helps me be wise about these things. It is a collection of the stories surrounding the birth of Jesus. Christmas stories told Real Live Preacher style, and you are the first to know about it except for a few close friends.

The first one I did last year, you might remember, publishing it here in eight parts and then removing it from my story archive. That one is done, four are rough, two are only in my mind. I’m thinking of working on the story of the magi here, posting it in parts. I’m looking for an astronomer to advise me on the opening chapter.

Anyone know a good astronomer? See what I mean about this being a studio?

I’m in the middle of a new Real Live Preacher dramatized story called, Where Is The Man? I’m also beginning a thing that might be hard for my mother, but will be tender and sweet despite the title. I think it might be called, “My Own Papaw Was a Racist.” I know it sounds mean and hard, but it won't be. I don’t think it will be. If it is I'll throw it back into the place where ideas are born and let it grow a little more.

There's a Foy Davis story in the works, inspired by the day I took my youngest to the bowling alley. No title yet.

And finally, I’m working on a little ditty called, “Congratulations to the Southern Baptist Convention.”

We’ll see where that one goes.

That’s what I am doing these days.

I'm changing and being changed. I have no idea where all this is going.