Reading The Enclave

I really should write a blog post. Before another day passes. I don't know what's happened to me. Maybe I've just gotten out of the habit, or, more likely, it has to do with the problems of the evening, where we have to fix dinner, walk Quigley, fool with Quigley, stretch, clean up, shower before bed (because we have a swamp cooler and it's been terribly humid with dew points closing on the 7o's and I can't stand going to bed all sticky)...

Maybe I'm slipping into a fugue state (Fugue state: An altered state of consciousness in which a person may move about purposely and even speak but is not fully aware. A fugue state is usually a type of complex partial seizure...) during the day and that's why parts of my life just seem to wink out. (Actually I think it's just that I'm getting distracted yet again by whatever happens to be lying about on the flat surface of whatever room I happen to have gone into for whatever reason -- looking for a pen, need to check something on the computer, need to find something in a book, need to find the book, going to put something away -- and time just flies away with me.)

Anyway, I've finally started plowing through The Enclave. Oh, dear. It's very First Draft Wretched. The first twelve chapters are VERY SLOOOOOW. There are so many things wrong with it, that it can be overwhelming, would be overwhelming if I didn't just step back and put in completely in the Lord's hands. He's going to make it beautiful and meaningful in His time. I have no idea how He's going to do that, and in my view He has a huge problem... but it's HIS problem, not mine. All I have to do is read through it and make whatever notes occur to me.

I'm on ch 22. I have made 202 notes so far. Those are the numbered ones. I also have random notes jotted on the ms itself. The problem in those early chapters was keeping myself in the chair and reading. It was a worse slog than the slog I reported on a week or so ago when I was trying to read that other fantasy novel for endorsement.

But why would I expect otherwise? My assignment in the first draft was always to just write and let it be bad. Let it be boring, repetitive, stupid, inconsistent, without direction... Well. It is. But it's cool in one way to see all the stodginess in the beginning, because those are areas ripe for cutting. And cutting is good.

I also have to report on the ranula. Last Sunday, while eating dinner, it suddenly doubled in size. Here I'd been resting in the Lord to take care of it, trying to convince myself it was getting smaller, and suddenly it was very definitely NOT smaller. We went to the dog park and came home and it was if anything getting bigger. If I had to wait two weeks just to see that Ear, Nose and Throat guy, I'd surely have to wait two weeks to get a surgery scheduled if I called Monday. And in two weeks I'm going to a Bible conference.

So the Lord had another problem. Finally about 9 pm, when the ranula was hurting and now seemed to be extending up past my tongue almost to the top of my teeth, I couldn't stand it any more went to Him and asked him to make it smaller. "Could you please just make it smaller now? It's driving me nuts. If it comes back tomorrow, fine, but this is...not a fun time."

I went in to brush my teeth, looked at it, realized it looked a lot different than it had before, almost like a soap bubble now, and the skin on it seemed so thin, I figured I could break it with my fingernail. So I did.

Clear mucus came out. The whole thing deflated. Half an hour after the prayer was offered it was answered. And as the days have passed the whole thing has receded. I don't know if it's just not closed up again (recalling the issues of removing the roof by surgery and having it grow back) and that's why it seems to be gone, or if it's really gone, but whatever it is, I'm happy!

There have also been many spiritual discoveries and realizations going on, but so far I've been unable to articulate them for a blog. Soon though.

--