The Reluctant Dreamer

Greetings,

     For the last few blogs I have shared with you my trip to the Mayo Clinic as well as my plans to get back into the game of life.  As I said before it is always exciting to start a new chapter in life.  Along with a new treatment plan concentrating on my pain I have also completed the rough draft of a manuscript that I have been working on for some time now.  My son, Jacob, has been contributing his talent as a writer and we now have a working draft.  This latest project has been a labor of love as it has helped me work out some of the thoughts and feelings that have plagued me since my first brain surgery.  It is a work of fiction but has many elements of truth concerning my life.
     I love to write but, I must admit, I am far from being considered an "author".  Ever since my last surgery I have had trouble with my vision.  It is very hard for me to track sentences across the page of a book.  I love to read and so that has been a real challenge.  Most of my sermons are memorized or outlined in size 85 font! So, it should be painfully obvious, that I talk better than I write and I am not sure if there is much difference between the two! After my surgeries I lost a number of mental capacities; I lost some memories, I lost much of the ability to tell directions. (Maybe that was gone before the surgeries!) And I lost all ability to construct a sentence that would pass any exam one might take as a freshmen in high school.  My verbs have lost action, my adjectives have lost the ability to describe, and I am pretty sure that my participles have been left dangling!

     But, throughout all of this, I still enjoy writing.  That is why I am so excited to push forward with this manuscript.  I don't know if it will ever be published.  That would be great but not necessary for me to feel a sense of accomplishment.  The title of the book is "The Reluctant Dreamer".  It is still in it's very early stages but we have moved onto editing and we are making a goal of having it ready to shop out to publishers by January of 2012.  When people go through a particularly rough patch in their lives it is good to have a small victory came their way.  That is what this book is for me.  Will anyone besides my family ever read it?  I don't know?  Will this story ever find the shelves of Barnes and Noble or the Internet pages of Amazon.com?  Probably not but that doesn't diminish my sense of accomplishment.  Everyone needs to win one every now and then and, with all humility, I think I deserve a win.
  
    So, over the next few months I am going to be sharing my progress with you.  I know it is against any rule that a true author would have in even mentioning their manuscript ideas.  The way that I look at it is that if there is another person who needs to have this story published more than me I wish them the best.  Don't get me wrong I am not giving away the plot or any spoilers..I am not stupid!  But, I want to give you little bits of a story that shows the struggle of a young man who seeks to be obedient to God.  So, here is just a tidbit from "The Reluctant Dreamer":

"The car that Ben was driving slid wildly around the corner. The speed of the turn created enough centripetal force that he was thrown into the driver’s side door. The door handle dug into his ribs temporarily knocking the wind out of him. Ben’s eyes began to blur as a new wave of pain ripped through his battered body.



His every thought was of Chloe as he willed his mind back from the abyss of unconsciousness. Looking down the darkened road he could see the bridge and he could hear the train. He slammed the accelerator to the floor and the engine responded with a surge of power. “Come on! Come on!” Ben shouted. Again, he pushed the gas pedal with all his might but it was already pegged to the floor of the car. Whatever the car’s top speed was Ben had reached it and deep down inside he knew that it wasn’t going to be enough.


“Faster!” he begged. “Faster!” Ben had seen the bridge collapsing in his vision and he had watched in horror as the train had derailed and slammed into the Senator’s car killing the woman he loved. He tried to put the gruesome picture out of his mind but he couldn’t. “I’m not going to make it!”


Until next time!


Derek