So You Want to Write a Book

Dikkon Eberhart

[Sometimes I am approached by those who want to write a book. Often their excitement is delightful. When it is their first attempt, they may not be as alert to the difficulties of writing a book as I wish they could be. I don't want to discourage them, but I don't want them to be blind-sided either.

[I posted a piece like this a few years ago and thought I'd update it now because these encounters continue to happen.]

You came to me and said you want to write a book.

I applaud you. I’m excited about your excitement. May your excitement carry you through.

Yes, you can do this. Here’s one way to write a book. Sit down and write five pages each day for two months.

How hard can that be? Only five pages. Only two months.

It’ll take discipline, but in sixty days, you’ll have a manuscript that is 300 pages long.

My most recent book that I had published also came from a manuscript that was about 300 pages long. However—different from you—writing that book took me ten years!

The new book I am close to completing has taken about two years, and that includes the one year during which I knocked off writing all together because I couldn’t figure out how to pay attention both to my family and to the book at the same time, for the benefit of each.

When you are done with your two-month manuscript, then I will be happy for you as a person.

I will be happy because evidently you are a person who has had a very strong sense of three things during your past two months.

Here's the first thing you have been aware of -- where your book came from inside of you.

Here's the second thing -- where your book was each day, while you pushed it along, page after page.

And here's the third and most important thing -- where your book was going to end up--that is, what it is about.

That’s impressive; very.

I had none of those assurances while I wrote any of my four books. I thought I had, but I needed to write much of the books over and over again to work these issues out, especially the third issue--what is this book about?

You are able to work quicker than me; good for you!

However long it ends up taking you—whether two months or maybe three—one day, your manuscript will be done.

Or anyway you’ll think it is done.

Because it had better be done.

Because you really, seriously need it to be done.

You really, seriously need it to be done because your brain will hurt just as my brain hurts when I am done. My brain hurts with a hurt that isn’t assuaged by two fingers of bourbon and a night’s hard sleep.

My brain hurts because, now having re-read my whole manuscript five times over again since I deemed that it was done, I still can’t tell whether it’s any good or not.

It's done, yes, but is it any good?

Maybe you’re different. Probably you are different because it only took you only two months to write your 300 pages. It’s likely that you do know your book is good.

By the time I finish my new book, I will not want even to see one more word. Nor will I want to create anything with words. All I will want to do is to absorb.

Even the smallest act of creating with words will make my brain hurt. Instead of creating, I will desire to absorb that which has already been created…and not by me.

I would gaze upon that which is pure, and upon that which, being pure, is holy.

Perhaps I would gaze on that which is holy with the same intensity as that beachcombing, rusticating, French painter, Paul Gauguin, when he gazed, in the 1890s, on the maidens of the far South Sea. Those same maidens were the ones he used as icons while he wondered upon his canvas, wondering at his answer to the same three questions you mastered during your two-month book— Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

After my most recent book was published, we moved from Maine to the Blue Ridge of SW Virginia. We chased our first three grandchildren—now there’s another one there and one in New York, too.

Pretty soon after the move, I started out trying to capture the voice for my next book, the book I’m somewhere close to (maybe, possibly) finishing now.

Took me a while to get it right—took writing three times deep into that book to decide what is the voice that should tell it—and now does. I discarded the others.

Each writing-into-it brought me closer to understanding what my book is really about, since each of the now rejected earlier voices told the story in a lesser way than the present more robust and straight-forward voice does.

I envy you if you knew what your book was really about from the get-go. Lotta people don’t, like me.

Regarding your book—indeed you may finish your book in two months. People do. I hope you do, proving that you know the answer to these three vital theological, literary, and practical questions, and that you can work your answers into the weft and warp of your tale.

Write it all down, my friend.

Write it all down and tell us about it.

We need to know.

Thank you...and--I mean this deeply--may you prosper!

Darkest Hour

Dikkon Eberhart

I used to publish politically oriented posts. During the past several years, I’ve forsaken them in favor of posts that fall instead under one or another of the general topics GOD, LIFE, and WRITING.

This one is political, and it falls under LIFE. Life includes the political, especially when the point of the post is supported by ancient wisdom.

And especially when the point of the post is supported by Santayana, when he said "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." Not such ancient wisdom perhaps -- 1905 -- but relevant in 2022 with Putin invading Ukraine.

Have you seen the movie “Darkest Hour?” If you have not, please do. Amazon Prime.

Perhaps you have heard about it even if you have not seen it. It is a Winston Churchill biopic, directed by Joe Wright and starring Gary Oldman among others.

The movie covers one month, early May through early June, 1940. In early May, both France and Belgium fall to the German Nazi attack. With much of the British government disenchanted by the leadership of Neville Chamberlain, who favors appeasing Hitler, Churchill is brought out of relative obscurity—he is disliked and maligned as a Conservative—and he is presented to King Edward VI.

The King, with teeth clenched, asks Churchill to form a government, as Prime Minister. Churchill agrees, and, as they say, the rest is history.

In early June, the Miracle of Dunkirk occurs, and the movie ends. But, historically, that’s the beginning of many, many dark hours.

Why should you see this movie?

First of all, it is brilliantly done, in terms of acting, directing, set design, makeup, cinematography, and script.

Second of all, it happened (not all of it: the scene in the Underground did not occur in actuality.)

Third of all, its event begins an historical triumph of freedom and of western decency as a Christian culture over Axis tyranny. I believe we MUST remember and embrace this history, or else we may go through the same darkest hour all over again.

Churchill set in motion the wavering hearts of the British public and galvanized his government to resist the Axis. Hitler was poised to invade Britain. In order to soften the country for his invasion, Hitler sent his air force to bomb London, particularly, and other locations, so the British would crumble before his army when it waded ashore. This began the Battle of Britain, an air war that stirred the hearts of the Allied world.

Equally stirring of the hearts of the western world is the present ferocious resistance of the Ukrainians against the invading army of tyrant Putin.

Here’s a snapshot--

Thursday, August 15, 1940 ... seventy-one days after Dunkirk and after the conclusion of the movie.

Blue skies over Britain.

Never before have more sorties of German bombers been flown against the battered democracy in Britain than Hitler sends that day.

Luftflotte 5 strikes northern England from its base in Norway. Luftflotten 2 and 3 hurl themselves once again across the Channel. It is high tide in the Battle of Britain, and Hitler’s invasion itself is only moments away. Britain is virtually bankrupt.

Despite the evacuation of 338,226 troops from France—the Miracle of Dunkirk—Britain's army is toothless, nearly all of its weapons abandoned on the French shoreline.

Hitler owns Europe. His U-boats own the North Atlantic. The RAF is stretched too thin: every fighting plane—every spitfire and hurricane—is airborne. There are no reserves at all. The War Cabinet calculates that “pilot wastage” is running at a rate of 746 men per month, way more than are being trained.

When asked for his war plan, Churchill replies, “My plan is we survive the next three weeks.”

The question then, possibly the question which might emerge nowadays: Will the democracies consent to their own survival?

A secret warrior, code named Intrepid, is even at that moment negotiating with President Roosevelt for the loan of 50 rusty, outmoded destroyers…anything, in fact, that might stem the tide. He’s the one who phrased the question above. Will the democracies consent to their own survival?

Three hundred twenty-four years before this, Shakespeare died. Here’s another way to ask that same question. Will the democracies be Hamlet, or Horatio? Will they dither and muse? Or will they—as bluff soldiers do—march across a stage strewn with the corpses of the better-notters…and survive?

Roosevelt can do nothing openly to help. The dithering American public will not allow it. This conflict on the far side of the world is not theirs.

Only twenty years before, they consented to pull Europe’s chestnuts out of the fire, and what good has that done? Now three massive tyrannies are spreading like cancers across the other side of the world--Hitler’s, Mussolini’s, Tojo’s—the capitalist system seems to be in ruins. If there is any hope during this bloody 20th century, it must be in the Soviet Socialist worker’s paradise.

(Of course a few eggs need to be broken to make an omelet, but Stalin should be given a tolerant pass concerning his breaking of both eggs and people.)

The question then, the question now: Will the democracies consent to their own survival?

That which is great is also that which is miserable. The greatest single idea of democracy is that the people rule; they have their say. The greatest single weakness of democracy is that, while the people are saying—on and on—the gray ideas will ensnare them, and they won’t see the black and the white.

What is the case today, in 2022? Hitler wrote Mien Kampf: he told the democracies what he planned to do, in advance.

Today, in Iran, in North Korea, and elsewhere, tyrants almost daily tell us what they plan to do, in advance.

One of those tyrants today is Putin, who has told the West what he plans to do, in advance.

Will the democracies consent to their own survival?

It takes a mighty provocation for a democracy to fight and especially to fight to the death. Tyrants always get the upper hand right away quick: they don’t hold back. But the democracies cry, “Wait! Wait! Let’s talk. Surely, surely, we can talk this problem through.”

It’s what tyrants count on; it gives them time.

Which they need…because there’s this other thing about the democracies. As Victor Davis Hansen has pointed out, when the democracies are finally put to it, when they finally perceive the choice to be either black or white, at long last, free men and women stand up to be counted, and then the tyrants are toast.

Ancient wisdom.

Churchill, evening, August 15, 1940.

The Battle of Britain lasted through mid-September, but this day was the end of its last, worst days—before little Britain and her spitfire pilots banished the massive German air force from its skies:

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

Peace Like a River

Dikkon Eberhart

Some readers may remember Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” It is a long poem from 1798, an early example of English romantic poetry. The poem recounts the adventure of the Ancient Mariner, who tells the tale. His story is of fate, chance, guilt, endless wandering, and perhaps redemption. Those who remember the poem will probably recall its opening lines-- It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. 'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin; The guests are met, the feast is set: May'st hear the merry din.' He holds him with his skinny hand, 'There was a ship,' quoth he. 'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!' Eftsoons his hand dropt he. He holds him with his glittering eye— The Wedding-Guest stood still, And listens like a three years' child: The Mariner hath his will. My post today is about a novel in which, akin to the ancient mariner who stoppeth one of three, its narrator reaches out and grips my arm while I hurry along to the wedding feast or to whatever other event attracts me, and he compels me, instead, to stop and to hear his tale of supernatural and saga-like truth. The teller of this novel is aware that his story is an old-fashioned kind of a story in which he recounts elements of miracle and of faith interspersed with events of daily life in a way that doesn’t get told much in fiction nowadays. His tale is of a sacramental kind; it draws upon the Christian supernatural to show life’s richness and to reveal the nature of God. Like the wedding guest, I am captivated by this “ancient mariner” and cannot tear myself away from his tale, not only because of the fascinating events he describes, but because of the extraordinary mastery of English prose that the teller has at his disposal and reveals to us. Further, I am a man familiar with the Bible, and I am one who wonders, as some other readers of the Bible may do, what life would have been like in a world and time when miracle and faith—and journeys prompted by miracle and faith—simply occur. In biblical time, miracle and faith were woven within the weft and the warp of reality. They reveal the nature of God, in all its surprise. As a modern man, I know, of course, that nothing akin to the biblical experience, say, of Abraham, who is called by God to go on a journey--and without argument or insisting on explanation just does so—nothing of this ancient kind can happen in our modern world and time. Silly me. The world and time we encounter in Peace Like a River is indeed our modern world and time. Minnesota. North Dakota. Rural. Mostly winter—deep winter. 1962. And later. This is a story about family, and about a family. It is about an admirable father who must raise two boys and a girl alone. A shooting occurs. The older son, at sixteen, hard headed, defends his family and is forced to flee. The father, the second son—at eleven—and the daughter—at eight—are called to a journey of miracle and faith. It is the eleven-year-old son who plays the part of the ancient mariner, and who reaches out and grabs me by the arm and compels me to listen to his first person tale. His name is Reuben Land. He is asthmatic; sometimes the full and easy wind does not blow through his lungs as it ought. His sister is Swede, a poetic savant even at age eight, who loves and literarily inhabits the Old West and its romantic hero tales (I can imagine that Swede may already have memorized Coleridge’s poem as a precursor of such western myths—though with mountains and desert, not ocean—as written by Zane Gray!) To those readers who have not read this tale, I plead with you. Allow yourself to be fed and exuberantly nourished by this story. If you have already read it, here’s a call to read it again. Peace Like a River was published in 2002 by author Leif Enger. People were captivated. The book is a best seller. Readers are divided in their response. Amazon shows 1,013 reviews, 854 of them extolling the book as a masterpiece, and 159 of them saying “boring,” “too slow,” “unbelievable characters,” “too wordy,” and asking “what’s the point?” I’ve read through most of the 159 negative reviews, and I’ll react to some of them below. But first: Peace Like a River resonates with each of the qualities I expressed above. It resonates with a sacramental revelation of miracle, of faith, of human decency, of family cohesion, and of wonder. Furthermore, most Christians (and even some others) probably know the title of the hymn, and its refrain, that is evoked by the title of this novel – It is well with my soul. Having read nearly 159 negative reviews, my reaction is this – With due deference because I cannot know another person’s heart, and speaking with humility because I do not seek to impose my literary taste on another, I need to say – those poor people; they just don’t get it. I cannot read this captivating tale and not be powerfully acquainted that, due to my hours and hours spent following the journeys of father Jeremiah Land, oldest son Davy Land, middle child Reuben Land, and daughter Swede Land—and reading with breathless joy and surprise, it is well with my soul. …and with the souls of 854 other reviewers, too. Reuben speaks to us as an adult recounting the tale of his family as he saw it through his eyes when he was an eleven-year-old. Some negative reviewers complain that eleven-year-old Reuben would not speak with the sort of diction or vocabulary that he does. Two answers to that complaint. One, the writer isn’t eleven. He’s an adult. Two, how do you know he wouldn’t? At eleven, he’s a boy raised by a father who has most of the King James Bible in memory and who speaks to his son, sometimes, using the King’s English. Furthermore, Reuben’s little sister, with whom he most intimately communicates, actually is a literary savant, and that rubs off on Reuben. Reuben is charming in his tale, sometimes by going off on tangents, and he is self-deprecating. I like to listen to him. As for his supposed unbelievable felicity with the English language, he makes it clear that Swede far surpasses him in that respect. And she does. “Too slow,” some reviewers grumble. Just because there’s a shooting and a journey does not mean that modern taste for flash-bang thriller pace is warranted. Read Peace Like a River and exercise your taste for slowness, thoroughness, contemplation, and charm. Discernment is Ruben’s effort as he tells us his tale. Regarding the Land family’s uncommon supernatural experiences, Reuben doesn’t agonize in our modern way over why; he just tells us what happened. Make of it what you will (this is a line that is repeated in the book). And Reuben tells us what happened while he—as an adult—draws us in, entices our minds, tickles our fancies, and leads us along what appear at first to be verbal tangents that humanly enrich the story’s attachment to duty, honor, self-sacrifice, and love. “What’s the point?” There is a point. It would be a spoiler to tell you what the point is, so I won’t. But think Bible. There’s a point in that book, too. But you might not imagine the whole of the point when you first pick it up to read. Now, of course this novel is not the Bible. But remember I enticed you to follow this post because I am interested—and you may be interested also—in the subject of what the nature of biblical times were, when what we term miracles and what we understand as faith were part of the weft and the warp. What if life could be that way now—or now, as of 1962 and afterwards on the wintery northern plains of the everyday USA? What if it could? If it could—listen to me now: if it really, truly could—then after I hear Reuben’s tale, it is well with my soul. Make of that what you will. ​