You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
As the sophisticated outsider at the outset of Nearly Canaan, Jaya’s already at odds with the small-town outlook of Prairie Depot.
For some, she’s a breath of fresh air. For others, she’s a threat. Is it enough to ignite combustion?
Her presence bursts into romance, certainly.
But in freeing her suitor from the inhibitions of his strict upbringing, does she create a monster?
~*~
What’s your take on inhibitions? Especially where you live?
I’m relieved to find these two novels have big differences.
Here are ten.
~*~
~*~
Any of these strike your fancy?
Or should that be a committee’s digital meeting?
As we were considering the possibility of extending an online workshop to our Quaker fellowship, to replace an in-person one we had cancelled, some of us sighed and admitted feeling Zoom’ed out.
That’s the phrase they used. Zoom’ed out. Bet it’s quickly popping up around you, too. The way Google went from a way of looking (as in googly eyes) to an online search engine (capitalized) to a verb reflecting generic online usage, as in “googling,” even when you do it on Bing or DuckDuckGo.
Zoom isn’t the only platform being used for virtual meetings. Go To Meeting is also popular, and Skype is still there for one-on-ones, among others. Feel free to mention alternatives.
So, now that we’ve recently added “coronavirus” and “Covid-19” as new words in our common vocabulary, we’re about to add one more.
Any of you feeling Zoom’ed out yet?
Considering that they were drafted 30 years apart, I thought these two novels would have nothing in common.
Boy, was I wrong.
Here are ten overlaps.
~*~
~*~
Any of this appeal to you?
The Covid-19 pandemic is an ongoing news story unlike any other we’ve seen.
Most news reports are about things that have happened – past tense – but this one is more a matter of watching things coming our way, threatening to happen in the near future.
Add in the two-week period between the time of infection and the appearance of symptoms, there’s even a sense of something ghostly in the air, a present tense that’s uncomfortably ethereal.
The closest similar coverage I can think of comes in sportswriting, as in anticipating an NFL game coming up, say, next Sunday. There, though, there are only two possible outcomes, it’s a limited time span, and a score will settle the matter.
The unhealthy emphasis on public opinion surveys regarding upcoming political elections might also fall into this future-tense focus, though we still see reports of candidate appearances and policy positions along with charges and countercharges.
With coronavirus, though, the scope spreads across many beats rather than something only on the sports desk or political reporter. It’s not just medical and health fields but also stock markets and economics, education, transportation, technology, even lifestyles as well as sports and politics as we go into lockdown and shelter-in-place. Americans aren’t used to being confined anywhere, especially with their mate.
Well, we are also seeing potential major changes in the way we do many things in the years ahead. How much will online meetings catch on, for instance? Or what will happen to local retailing? It’s all fascinating.
~*~
There’s one other ongoing story that might emerge along these lines. Climate change.
Let’s see if experience with one leads to an increased interest in the other.
Few Americans know much, if anything, about the Ozarks, where Jaya and Joshua resettle in my novel Nearly Canaan.
Here are some driving times to points from Fayetteville, Arkansas, to major cities.
~*~
~*~
Frankly, the Ozarks is more isolated than I’d thought. I’m surprised that its center is almost as far from New Orleans as it is from Chicago or that it’s halfway between St. Louis and Dallas. Looks like a long way to anywhere, actually.
How long does it take you to get to a major destination?
And one other place that never really counted.
~*~
Tell us something good or bad about someplace you’ve lived. Like maybe your favorite?
In my novel Nearly Canaan, their neighbor Todd is a geologist. You know, a rocks guy. The Ozarks is where he and his wife Lucy meet Joshua and Jaya.
The place is a mineral-rich geological wonder.
Here’s part of the attraction he’d have where they are in Arkansas.
~*~
~*~
What do you know about rocks?
The conversation turned to a current problem many face in finding the right job.
Employers seem to demand college degrees for even the most basic positions, and then expect years of experience as well for what’s lowly paid entry-level work.
How does anyone get that requisite experience in such a setup?
That’s had me thinking of bosses who see something in a candidate and hire them, regardless of the credentials, and then guide them in their development. I’ve certainly had some fine examples as well as some crucial (paid) internships.
It’s also had me reflecting on the great inventor Charles F. Kettering, who once said that if he faced a metallurgy problem and had a metallurgist and a biologist on his staff, he’d hand it to the biologist – because the biologist would be more likely to solve it.
Why? The biologist wouldn’t know all of the things that weren’t supposed to work, unlike the metallurgist.
Of course, this is not just about jobs. I’ve noticed that we need mentors in the many diverse skills of living and in the practice of our own niches within it.
These days, I’m also realizing I’m at an age where I might be expected to be fulfilling the mentoring role, not that I often feel that capable. What I am noticing, however, is the gap in the circles I travel, where individuals in their twenties and thirties are scarce. A wider look finds them scarce in general, and those I know openly admit their puzzlement about connecting in real life with their peers. Where are they, outside of the Internet?
I can name a long list of mentors in my journey to here. Some were teachers or bosses, others poets or Quakers or Mennonites, even fine arts painters or folks a generation younger than me.
Who’s filled a role of mentor in your life?
The novel that now stands as Nearly Canaan is a much, much different book than its original draft.
The landscape itself is no longer a primary character, for one thing – a Garden of Eden for an Adam and Eve. It still provides a vivid background, all the same.
Changing the protagonist into a slightly older, career-driven woman and the suitor a younger man also greatly shifted the dynamic.
The narrative was still an epic, rambling investigation that eventually spanned across three volumes – Promise, Peel (as in Apple), and St. Helens in the Mix – but the momentum and message got lost along the way.
I needed to look at it the way Michelangelo looked at a big rock. And then start chisling to release the angel.
A clearer understanding of Jaya’s work in nonprofits – and of Schuwa himself – helped me cut the text by half or more, driving it along a stronger plot line.
Unlike rock, fortunately, it’s not just a matter of cut-cut-cut with no additions possible.
So the renamed Joshua – or Schuwa, as she fondly calls him – becomes equally central to the story. In fact, in the two middle sections, he’s now the principal figure.
As I’ve asked, in liberating him from his strict upbringing, has Jaya created a monster?
That alone adds more balance to the tale, countered by the rising pressures in her own stellar career.
Even though what was left was still a big book, I felt an additional touch was needed.
That’s when I returned to an earlier desire for a novel based on Wendy, Pastor Bob’s wife back in Prairie Depot. The distilled essence of that now became a fitting coda for the opus.
By the way, I still think Wendy’s an angel – of the living, breathing sort. No wonder she and Jaya so quickly bonded.
Jnana's Red Barn 