David Michael Bruno

Writing A Book - Time

It’s been a while coming. If all goes according to plan, though, I will receive a hard copy of my copyedited manuscript in the mail today. A two-hundred page book that just needs a few more edits before becoming an advanced reader and then a real live book on the shelves of bookstores.

The plan was to write my book in about ten months. The plan was to hand into my publisher, HarperCollins, a finished manuscript about my year-long 100 Thing Challenge a couple weeks after my simple-living project ended in November of 2009. When I missed that deadline by a month and even then didn’t have anything like a completed book, it got real discouraging.

In retrospect, I don’t know what possessed me to suggest I’d finish writing my first book in ten months. I had a full-time job, a two-hour-a-day commute, three daughters, one wife, nine pets, and, well, the 100 Thing Challenge to live out. Oh sure, there was plenty of time in 2009 for me to dream up fifty thousand coherent words.

I recently found some consolation in a passage from Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life that my wife read to me the other night. Dillard says that it takes between two and ten years to write a book. Most full-time authors, she claims, write a book every three years. Fine. So with some pain and suffering, and with excellent help from my editors, I managed to crack out my first manuscript in about sixteen months. Of course, I am not comparing what I’ve done to anything that Dillard has done. She’s a remarkable author.

It feels nothing short of a miracle that I am close to publishing my first book. A memoir of sorts. A short breath in the long-winded narrative of authors who have sought out and written about simplicity. I believe in the supernatural. Don’t get me wrong, it seems that book publishing requires some otherworldly intervention, or else books would never get thought up by authors or picked up by acquisitions editors. Of course, is this creative inspiration our reflection of the Divine Image, or does it stem from other powers and principalities? Only time and reviews can tell.

With regards to the time it takes to write a book, I have discovered no formula. The chapter of my book that received the most praise from my editor was outlined one night before bed and written the next day. That chapter will go to print with remarkably few edits. Other chapters, too, were conceived in a night, but then came out like birthing triplets, sideways. Still other parts of my book were thought up over months of contemplation and written down across more months still, like a challenging hike that you don’t regret that you set out on, even though you still have many miles to go.

So time has not been the most consistent factor in my writing experience. Time has been there always. At points exerting itself. At points quietly giving me its blessing.

An author has time to write a book. That’s that. But I found other factors more important than time when writing about the 100 Thing Challenge. People, for example. Who can write a book without other people?

Review: Hunger Games

My friend Melody recommended that I read Suzanne Collins' book The Hunger Games a while back. She said that there might be some connection to the 100 Thing Challenge. Well, I put her off for a few months until my wife finally got the book and read it, as she does with most all books, in a couple days. Then my daughter read it in a few days. Then my wife got the second book in the series, Catching Fire, and read it in a day, followed by my daughter reading it in a couple days. I had no choice, two women and a young lady whose literary judgments I trust.

I will not spoil either of the books for you. My "review" is short and to the point: these are great books! I will warn that they are pretty graphic in their description of violence. This is particularly disturbing since the violence is mostly carried out by youth against youth. And yet this is not voyeurism, the way that we see killing on television or in the movies. (They are, of course, making movies of the books. Unless they change some things around, I cannot imagine -- and don't want to -- how these movies could be anything but extremely troubling.) Back in the days when I was at ChristianAudio, I did an interview with Ralph C. Wood in which we discussed Walker Percy's novels. Wood pointed out that while Percy's novels can at times be quite explicit, it's never in an inappropriate way. It's never in a way that makes you want more violence or more sex. Rather it makes you appreciate the difference between what is right and what is wrong. The violence of the Hunger Games does the same thing, it gives readers the ability to process atrocity without relishing barbaric acts.

Hope this doesn't scare you away! Really these are great books.

What about the connection to the 100 Thing Challenge. Well, I think there is a solid link. In the Hunger Games there are Districts that serve the Capital. The people in the Districts are impoverished and ruled by the iron fist of the Capital. They serve the opulent whims of the Capital people, who indulge in luxury to the point of boredom. The commentary on our own culture is unmistakable. At its extreme, American-style consumerism is endlessly indulgent, seeking evermore pleasures through luxury, permissiveness, and entertainment at the expense of others. The Hunger Games paints our daily lives and the outcomes of excessive capitalism with dramatic strokes. Yet if you can force yourself to stop and think about it for a little bit, what we demand for ourselves -- fancy cars, clothes, meals, and more -- isn't unlike what the Capital people want. And the way we go about getting our luxuries -- on the backs of impoverished people around the world -- is not unlike the means by which the Capital people get their luxuries.

Just yesterday I was driving and noticed an obese man in the passenger seat of a high-end luxury sedan. He wasn't buckled, probably because it isn't comfortable to wear a seat belt when you're that fat. His wife was done up. They both looked rich. Whether they were or not, I could not know for sure. But what did strike me was that this is the primary difference between the fiction of the Hunger Games and the reality of our American-style consumerism. In the Hunger Games the Capital and the Districts are separated. In our case, the opulent and the average and the impoverished all share the same places. Think of Hollywood or Santa Monica or even Beverly Hills. Places that are the very symbol of luxury and celebrity, but are rundown and full of poverty.

Ok. So the Hunger Games could sound like a downer if you're only reading them like a nutty guy who did the 100 Thing Challenge. But they aren't only about toil and injustice. There's a pretty good love story brewing. And for what it is worth, I'm going with my wife's theory that Gale really is Katniss's cousin (their father's were brothers!) and eventually Peeta will get his love. Cannot wait for book three!

Review: Jayber Crow

This is a quick review. I just don't have the time to go in depth.

First, read it. Definitely read Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry. You might consider listening to Jayber Crow, too. This time through, that's what I did. Overall, the audiobook version of the Jayber Crow is marvelous. Wonderful! There is, however, one complaint I'll get to in a minute.

Short review: Wendell Berry's tells stories in ways you've not experienced before. He is a fresh and unique voice. But he's kind of depressing, too. And inspiring. Jayber Crow leaves me melancholy and invigorates me at the same time. It's a delightful, if exhausting, experience.

There are thoughtful arguments against modernity in Jayber's prose. It is probably fine that sometimes the critiques are a little over the top and lacking in nuance. Ministers are only the fools Berry makes them out to be? Young couples recreating in motor boats are only oblivious to the unmechanized natural beauty they speed by? This time through I got a little tired of Jayber's analysis of the rest of the world. It's as if he'd do good to spend at least one chapter down in Hargrave eating a meal with some suburbanites, finding out that even yuppies with 2.5 kids, 3 garages, and a computer can be hospitable once in a while. And yet, I'm sympathetic to Jayber's frustrations. So I don't want to be too hard on him.

I will end by being hard on the audiobook production. Paul Michael's narration is simply amazing. I think it might be better to listen to him read than to read the book in the quiet of my own head. But too often the audio mixing seemed off. The sound levels changed unexpectedly. Some distortion made its way in, too. Though perhaps that was a result of the download, which can sometimes corrupt parts of a file. Yet my biggest gripe had nothing to do with any corrupted digital file. Less than 2 seconds. That was the length of the pause after the quiet, tear-jerking climax of this love story before the narrator's voice returns out of character, shouting out the credits. Give me a chance to sniff away at least one tear before slapping me over the head with the credits. This didn't ruin the book for me. But I suggest you prepare for it when you listen.

Consumerism Bibliography

In another day I will join a business class - Building Sustainable Organizations - at Point Loma Nazarene University for a day to discuss the 100 Thing Challenge. I am attempting to prepare a short bibliography to hand out.

How does anyone put together a "short" bibliography?! It is so painful to be removing books from this list. Arrrr!

One of the things I'd like to communicate, both with the bibliography and with the discussion, is how understanding cannot be compartmentalized. There are excellent writings about the troubles of consumerism, books like Bill McKibben's Deep Economy or Wendell Berry's essay, "The Whole Horse" in The Art of the Commonplace.

But I seriously doubt either of those authors would have affected me the way they have if I had not first read Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory and C. S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces. The books "about consumerism" are especially powerful because of the books "about life."

Just curious: What book(s) have been most meaningful in your life?

Educational Advantages

Today is New Student Orientation at Point Loma Nazarene University, where I work. I'm excited.

My work (in the Marketing and Creative Services department) is enjoyable. We're redesigning the school's Web site, which is shaping up to be an epic project. But what gets me most enthused about my job is the opportunity to interact with students and their education. You just cannot deny that college is about the best time of life. It's a shame that most of us have to stop going to college at some point and move on into the "real world" - oh how I hate that lame criticism of college life. I once heard Bill McKibben suggest that college is about as "real" as this world gets. Community. Friendships. Accountability. Education. Vocation. Thoughtfulness. Everything but the food at the caf is "real" on a college campus.

Anyhow, in honor of NSO, and with deference to my good buddy Jon who's doing an amazing job shaking things up at eduFire, I'd like to celebrate the return of students to PLNU by recognizing Nicholas Carr's excellent read of the recent report that was completely blown out of proportion online.

Long live the classroom!