Buechner's search

"Whether we're rich or poor, male or female,...our stories are all stories of searching .  We search for a good self to be and for good work to do.  We search to become human in a world that tempts us always to be less than human or looks to us to be more.  We search to love and to be loved. And in a world where it is often hard to believe in much of anything, we search to believe in something holy and beautiful and life-transcending that will give meaning and purpose to the life we live."

F. Buechner, The Longing for Home, p.66

Just One More Day

Seventy percent of the individuals accosted by an aneurysm within their head will slip into a coma and then pass away that particular day, without realizing what has burst within them.  As I got ready for a full day of writing fiction on Tuesday, March 27th this spring, I felt an odd sensation within the frontal left of my head.  Even though it wasn't an intense pain, I felt it and told myself that it'd be wise to sit down for safety.  About an hour later, I found myself lying on the floor and unable to get up to walk at that moment.  I crawled across a small room and grabbed a phone.  Having called an ambulance, I waited, still aware but feeling odd and vulnerable.

By the end of that day, I'd been delivered to a highly credentialed and gifted neurosurgeon in Atlanta.  Fortunately, he turned attention toward surgery and advised my wife and family that I seemed to be within the thirty percent standing a better chance of getting through alive.  I made it through surgery and then spent two weeks in intensive care, recovering well.  The most important part of recovery involved my own awareness of my ability to write.  The pieces of characters began coming together within the context of the story I had begun in March.  The fictional characters began coming together, coming alive within the friendly home of my head, a head by then seemingly repaired.

It normally takes a year for full recovery after delicate brain surgery such as this.  I progressed at a faster pace than that, according to comments from the surgeon.  Then I sat and continued the creative work I had planned for March 27th...and for other days.  I can focus as sharply as ever on the drudgery involved in the art and craft of writing fiction, concentrating on keeping that fiction alive and well.  Each and every day when the writer is able to take on another blank page or set of blank pages, in any way, is a gift...appreciated more than ever.

Fighting the good fight as a novelist

I've always read and heard that the key to success as a soldier in combat is to accept the fact that you will not survive.  Once this basic fact is understood and accepted, then it's possible to move ahead each day meeting obligations as to assignments or missions to be accomplished.

Although the level of gravity is hardly the same, I do see parallels with the process of writing.  Once a writer accepts the fact that he will neither become famous nor rich based on his writing, then, and only then, he can move forward each day attacking the enemy (i.e. the blank page).  It helps, of course, also to accept the fact that the current draft of the current version will be in every instance absolutely worthless.  Once the writer has moved past all that...and persists day to day nonetheless...then and only then something of substance might be accomplished.

And so the fight continues day to day, draft to draft, version to version, toward something of value.

Past as present

Think of the past in color.  Consider sights and smells and sounds and touch as if they were all no less recent than yesterday.  The past was no less current  than your present is now; feelings and emotions no less keenly felt; challenges day to day no less real.  Think of the past in color, considered as if it were today.

J.P. Cunningham
2012

Hemingway on learning how to write

"It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way."
— Ernest Hemingway

Late callings

When vocation comes late,
is the calling less great?

When passion subsides,
distraction laid aside,

The mind concentrates
on what matters most
'fore it's too late.

J.P. Cunningham, 2012

The ambiguity of impressionism

"It's all right...for words and appearances to mean more than one thing--ambiguity is a fact of life."

Eudora Welty, On Writing

Eudora Welty on reading (and writing)

"...learning to write may be a part of learning to read.  For all I know, writing comes out of a superior devotion to reading....  Only the writing of fiction keeps fiction alive...a society that no longer writes novels is not very likely to read any novels at all."

Eudora Welty, On Writing

The Emerald Amulet

The Emerald Amulet

See this link taking you to the Knowledge Network: Thunderbird Bookshelf associated with the Thunderbird School of
Global Management

Conroy comment re: first step in writing

"This is a difficult concept to grasp. Hemingway didn't know he was Ernest Hemingway when he was a young man. Faulkner didn't know he was William Faulkner. But they had to take the first step. They had to call themselves writers. That is the first revolutionary act a writer has to make. It takes courage. But it's necessary"
— Pat Conroy (My Losing Season)

Steinbeck on hard times

"What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness."
— John Steinbeck (Travels With Charley: In Search of America)

Hemingway on Faulkner

"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use."
— Ernest Hemingway

Quotable quote- Faulkner

"Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself."
— William Faulkner

The Emerald Amulet avail. for sale at amazon now

J.P. Cunningham's novel, The Emerald Amulet, is now available in either trade paperback or Kindle version at amazon.com.  ISBN 9781466392786.  Publication date December 20th, 2011.


  Amid the mystery of Colombia’s dense forest, two boys find that life can be far more challenging than it seems. Eduardo is the son of a maid working on the estate of a wealthy Irish immigrant. The estate owner’s son and Eduardo often play together. One day, playing in the forest, they discover a cave where an old woman presents an emerald amulet and explains its mystical powers. After an unfortunate accident, Eduardo survives the other boy and learns that the protective powers of the amulet are both his birthright and his shield. Throughout his young life, Eduardo struggles to discover what he is meant to be and do. Supported by the owner of the estate, he attends a university and prepares for a life of success and wealth. Later he decides that his love of learning is more important than pursuit of money and power. More than once, he faces life-threatening situations where the protective power of the amulet saves his life. Along the way, he learns how difficult some decisions can be, especially when one person’s life must be weighed against another’s. The author J.P. Cunningham weaves a tale where magic and reality blend, leaving the reader to wonder where one world begins and the other ends. The Emerald Amulet is, above all, a love story…a story about the unswerving loyalty of one young man to those he loves most.

The Emerald Amulet by J.P. Cunningham published Dec. 20, 2011

The Emerald Amulet, a novel by J.P. Cunningham, was published December 20th, 2011.  It is available for sale at amazon.com in trade paperback and soon in Kindle version.


The Emerald Amulet, ISBN number 9781466392786, set in Colombia,  weaves a tale where magic and reality blend, leaving the reader to wonder where one world begins and the other ends.  It is, above all, a love story...a story about the unswerving loyalty of one young man to those he loves the most.