The past few months I’ve been finding myself “spinning” more than usual. I don’t want to say that this period of life has been unproductive. If nothing else, I’ve driven the kids around to and attended all their many awesome events, have fulfilled (I hope) the standard duties of the pastoral office, have blogged with some regularity, and then also engaged in the (admittedly) more enigmatic acts that make me the particular kind of person I am: non-profit board meetings, protests, grant-writing, Pokemon Go, jogging, reading, etc.
So the spin I’m identifying is in the various transitional moments of the day or week. I’ll find myself far more fastidiously scanning my little black book to see if I have really truly done everything on one of the lists I maintain, or if I’ve forgotten to write down some essential task that will otherwise go undone.1
There’s a certain kind of item I sometimes add to these lists I wish I was better at activating: I often try to add daily routines back into my life that I at least gesture at valuing. Top of this list would be 1) writing the next book, 2) practicing a musical instrument, and 3) studying a language.
On the language thing, I end up with some excuses (such as) there are too many I want to study, from Marshallese to German to Greek to Spanish.
On the instrument front, I literally have the trombone on a stand in my office and just don’t carry it most days from my office to the sanctuary to put my lips to the mouthpiece.
But it’s honestly the book-writing item I’m most flummoxed by…
I mean, I write all the time. If you’re reading this you are aware. I write columns for multiple journals, publish book reviews on the regular, blog here, and write lots of content for many purposes.
So it’s specifically writing a book that is the barrier. The last time I truly sat down to write something like a book was last fall, when I self-published A Guidebook To Progressive Church in a series of 30 installments for NaNoWriMo.
What I haven’t done is task myself with all the rigors that surround publishing an actual book. Such rigors include a) submitting a proposal to a publisher and have it accepted, b) write daily in an organized fashion to produce a manuscript of greater length than a blog post, c) edit that content and form it into a coherent whole.
I’ve got some excuses I offer myself. For example, since 2014 I got incredibly busy building organizations and movements, and such communal localism is on many levels more attractive (if the goal is to create things with durability that last and help people long-term) than publishing books.
I mean yes, a book is a big meaningful product to the person publishing it at the time of publication. It can result in book tours, impact in various spheres, additional book deals, etc.
And a book is (sometimes) a meaningful presence in the life of readers. Books can change lives. I’m a lifelong reader myself. It’s one of the vows I’ve made to life: I read.
But books are also ephemeral. Even the authors of books don’t always remember what they wrote when they think back on them later. So readers will work their way through a volume, it will fill some of their time, and then it will pass on by.
A lot of contemporary publishing resembles this. Books are a flash in the pan. They have to sell a lot of copies quickly, the media cycle is brief, then they drift out of collective attention.
All of this impacts how I’ve thought about the writing process. I think I could with some ease produce an ephemeral type of book, something you might read in one or a few sittings. Examples of books I’ve thought of writing in this vein include a memoir on pastoring the last twenty years, or a more organized and formatted for publication version of A Guidebook To Progressive Church.2
But if I’m going to write a book, really invest time in a creation that might, might have enduring impact, I’d like to have it… matter.
The set of topics on which I’d like to write that would actually matter all require a level of research and rigor that feels intimidating. For example, for years now I’ve been interested in writing a book on privacy, surveillance, and theology. I’d like to think theologically (in writing) about the opposite of what I see as a popular current trend: public theology.
I think such reflection could have tremendous value, not only because our surveillance society is increasingly troubling, and because we are not thinking as clearly as we could about the impact of our highly privatized but diminishing lives, but precisely because I think the rise of a surveillance society is somehow directly related to our conceptions of God. The dialogue about A.I. and ChatGPT adds an even greater level of saliency and urgency here.
But then I have certain kinds of doubts: can I over a long period of time actually discipline myself to write such a book? Am I the right person to write it? Do I lack the expertise? How would I gain the expertise?
Another book I’ve considered writing would be a modern commentary on a specific biblical text, likely one of the letters of Paul. I find such work to be productive both because it remains situated within the sphere that is my profession, but also because there is a kind of capaciousness to writing on Paul’s letters that allows a book to freely also engage our time and reality.
But… and herein lies the rub, I just haven’t been sitting down daily to produce such a book, even though I have notes and outlines archived on Scrivener and scribbled on some ragged pages of large white paper in my office.
There is a lot more immediate satisfaction (gratification) in writing blog posts like this one, which readers will read and respond to.
The grind of writing a well-researched book is, well, a grind.
Which then leaves me thinking one of the greatest barriers to writing a book right now may be my engagement with social media, the ways in which my brain has been trained to seek and desire the immediate daily feedback loop that blogs and columns and e-mails offers whereas books simply don’t.
Finally, I wonder, is a book worth it? Books are massive investments of human time and energy. A good book is a miracle. But does anyone really need another book, or a book specifically from me. I mean, a LOT of white middle-aged cishet men have published and are still publishing books. I’m reminded of that line from Scripture, “There is no end to the making of many books, and much study is exhausting to the body” (Ecclesiastes 12).
But that all could just be an excuse, me over here waving at my unwillingness to get disciplined and write the next book.
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For those interested, Mediating Faith: Faith Formation In A Trans-Media Era is still in print, and I hope still worth reading.
I also find myself spinning because, honestly, it feels like so much of the work is impossible. Like, I’m living in a state tacking hard in the opposite direction from the many things I value. I resonate with the line from Isaiah, and feel like “a voice crying in the wilderness.”
Lately I’ve also been thinking I should try my hand at sci-fi short stories.
I also find myself spinning because, honestly, it feels like so much of the work is impossible. Like, I’m living in a state tacking hard in the opposite direction from the many things I value. I resonate with the line from Isaiah, and feel like “a voice crying in the wilderness.”
I'm reading Homo Deus right now--it as written pre-COVID and pre Ukraine, so parts of it of it seem naive, simply because two of his predictions are "there will never be another epidemic" and there will never be a case of a country invading its neighbor.
Ergo:
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Lately I’ve also been thinking I should try my hand at sci-fi short stories.
After reading this email, it makes me wonder how you achieve all that you do and in such an energetic way and capable as well. You are a dynamo to be reckoned with and still considering a writing a book with your schedule. Good luck with that and maybe when your children are in college you would have a bit more spare time?