Manuscripts Milton and Melting

Either my wife’s prayer, a cup of Prince of Wales tea (don’t buy any) or the deadline of “before the holidays” forced me to complete the first draft of my second novel shortly after Monday’s letter post.

It felt nothing like the first time.

The first time, finals week loomed in the dorms. I keyed in the last word “come” and leaned back. I had finished.

Wait… I had finished?!  I slammed back hard against my chair, slamming it to the floor (a floor that doubled as the roof above my resident director’s apartment), busted open my door and ran screaming down the dark hall: “I DID IT! I FINISHED MY FIRST NOVEL!”

A visual artist some referred to as Old Man Spiel waddled out in a stride hunched by his rude awakening and yelled in his psuedo-smoker voice, “QUIE-UT HOURS!”

Nothing like that. This time I felt weight fall. No running. No high fives after Old Man Spiel retreated to his Old Man Cave, only the cold quiet of those rare December rains we receive in Joplin – the same kind that stopped by in May the day after the Tornado. Dave Matthews, of all things, strummed in the background. My cocker spaniel came in and cockered her head at me. “What’s wrong?” she seemed to ask.

“Nothing’s wrong, my girl. I finished.”

She returned to her perch on the love seat and watched out a rain-streaked window for mom to come home, much like the kids in The Cat in the Hat.

Soon after I finished Milton’s poetry. In volume three, I had already read about how he emancipated the printing press – a poignant topic in today’s political climate, the stuff of thunder and brimstone. In his poems, Milton meditates on life when his wife dies. He opens his eyes to visions after he goes blind. A good friend drowns and Milton learns how to conquer the sea. I reveled in the poems, in the insolent hope that while the world was freezing over, Milton was just warming up. While everything chilled to the marrow, Milton melted.

It rained in December.
I finished my first draft.

I sympathized with twenty-three year old Milton who pulled the emergency brake on his meter halfway through a poem on the Passion, who found the topic “above his years.” When he returned to it later, he found it too petty an opening. In the  the Passion he recognized the inexpressible.

Then came The Nativity poem and I wondered if it was truly a December night when Mary first introduced Jesus to Judah. Sure, there wasn’t room in the inn, but December? I looked up the climate of Bethlehem. If weather maintained over two thousand years, Bethlehem gets little snow. As a Mediterranean climate, they welcome hot summers and shun cold winters. Snow falls seldom, but it does rain. Twenty-eight inches per year, in fact. In the midst of Milton, finishing my crappy tea, glancing at my stack of 169 single-spaced pages, I remembered the rain. It’s December. Could it have rained on that cold December night when Jesus himself was just getting warmed up?

III

Say, Heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,
Now while the heaven, by the Sun’s team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

IV

See how from far upon the Eastern road
The star-led Wisards haste with odours sweet!
Oh! run; prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessèd feet;
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the Angel Quire,
From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.

The Hymn

I

It was the winter wild,
While the heaven-born child
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature, in awe to him,
Had doffed her gaudy trim

With her great Master so to sympathize:It was no season then for her
To wanton with the Sun, her lusty Paramour.

Words I learned:

  • frounce – a form of trichomoniasis affecting hawks, resulting in a sore with a cheesy secretion in the mouth or throat.
  • brinded – ?
  • madrigal – a part-song for several voices, esp. one of the Renaissance period, typically arranged in elaborate counterpoint and without instrumental accompaniment
  • inveigle – persuade someone to do something by means of flattery or deception
  • sate – satisfy a desire to the full
  • monody – a poem lamenting a person’s death
  • welter – move in turbulent fashion (or lie steeped in blood with no help or care)
  • meet – suitable; fit, proper

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Quick note from Lance about this post: when you choose to comment (or share this post with your friends) you help other readers just like you.

How?

Well, see, your comments & sharing whisper a few things to those who come after you:

The first is that this site is a safe place to speak up & stay curious. That it's civil. That discussion is encouraged. That there's no such thing as a stupid question (being a student of Socrates, I really and truly believe this). That talking to one another and growing together is more important than anything we could possibly publish. That the point is growing in virtue and growing together and growing wise. That discovery is invention, deference is originality, that we all can rise together. The only folks I'm going to take comments down from are obvious jerks who argue in bad faith, don't stay curious, or actively make personal attacks. And, frankly, I'd rather we talk here than on some social media farm — I will never show ads and the only thing I'm selling anywhere on the site or my mailing list is just the stuff I make.

You're also helping folks realize that anything you & they build together is far more important than anything you come to me to read. I take the things I write about seriously, but I don't take myself seriously: I play the fool, I hate cults of personality, and I also don't really like being the center of attention (believe it or not). I would much rather folks connect because of an introduction I've made or because they commented with one another back and forth and then build something beautiful together. My favorite contributions have been lifelong business and love partnerships from two people who have forgotten I introduced them. Some of my closest friends NOW I literally met on another blog's comment section fifteen years ago. I would love for that to happen here — let two of you meet and let me fade into the background.

Last, you help me revise. I'm wrong. Often. I'm not embarrassed to admit it or worried about being cancelled or publicly shamed. I make a fool out of myself (that's sort of the point). So as I get feedback, I can say, "I was wrong about that" and set a model for curious, consistent learning, and growing in wisdom. I'm blind to what I don't know and as grows the island of my knowledge so grows the shoreline of my ignorance. It's the recovery of innocence on the far end of experience: a child is in a permanent state of wonder. So are the wise: they aren't afraid of saying, "I don't know. That's new: please teach me." That's my goal, comments help. And I read all reviews: my skin's tough, but that's not license to be needlessly cruel. We teach one another our habits and there's a way to civilly demolish an idea without demolishing another person: just because I personally can take the world's meanest 1-star review doesn't mean we should teach one another how to be crueler on the internet.

For three magical reasons — your brave curiosity, your community, & my ignorance:

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