About Editing

Storm clouds over IONS Center near Petaluma, CA

I took a break from editing to attend Jean Houston's Mystery School in Petaluma last weekend.  She announced after 28 years, this will the last year for Mystery School.  I am privileged to be able to attend.

It's been a week since I last spent time on the book.   I find my hardest editing task is to decide to remove pages from the material.  I have no problem removing a line or two of mundane conversation that doesn't serve the storyline.  Last week I felt I needed to remove five pages from the Chapter titled Stunned.  It was not an easy decision.

I thought the pages were well written and I would even say the message they conveyed was powerful.  Yet they did not really continue the storyline and needed to be cut.  It was not easy to do so. 

You must understand I received most of this book as a dialogue from God, and he participates in this editing process.  As I prepared to delete the pages, God clearly let me know that he liked the pages, but did allow I better understood the storyline--he would trust me to edit the chapter.

Yep, I felt guilty doing so.  In fact I could not just delete the material releasing it out to cyberspace.  I carefully edited the material, cut it to a new file and saved it.  Just in case I change my mind.  Or I might more accurately say in case God changes my mind.

Two chapters have been added since I listed the Table of Contents.  Chapter 16 We Finally Meet and Chapter 17 which remains untitled for the moment.  These chapters bring the page count to 213. 

I will soon start on the final received chapter of 90 pages.

The Journey continues . . .

Book Progress

I continue to spend a lot of time editing my original manuscript.  This second rewrite takes much more effort than the original.  Partially because the chapter I am working on was originally 90 pages.

In this chapter God and I discussed sexuality and spirituality.  As you can imagine this was a diverse discussion and has required careful editing.  I have removed pages because they distracted from the material at hand. (And because I am trying to shorten the length of the book.

In might interest you to know I don't really remember what I had received/written and I come to this material afresh.  What may be even more surprising is I really don't know how this book ends.  I have so enjoyed coming this editing process I have decided not to read ahead.

So I continue to make progress, and the chapter list continues to grow.  I share the Table of Contents, but remember the these are the working chapter titles.  The book currently is over 200 pages and I have another 90 page chapter to add.

Blessings and thank you for your continued interest as the journey continues.

Table of Contents

Author’s Note

Introduction

Chapter 1 How I Came to Talk to God

Chapter 2 The Blessing of Cancer

Chapter 3 Accepting Perfection

Chapter 4 Forget and Forgive

Chapter 5 I am Struggling

Chapter 6 Why Me?

Chapter 7 A Timeless Love

Chapter 8 Unrighteousness & The Spiritual Leader

Chapter 9 Acts of God

Chapter 10 Truth & Consequences

Chapter 11 Beyond Discomfort

Chapter 12 There’s No Such Thing as Right or Wrong

Chapter 13 Beginning The Affair

Chapter 14 Why I Stayed

Chapter 15 Stunned

I realize some of you have may not seen my robes and this picture is of the tapestry my caplet and accessories are made from.

Carving Out Chapters

When I first received/wrote my book, it contained only 7 chapters. The last two chapters were both over 90 pages. The most difficult part of editing has been carving these into smaller, more manageable chapters. Ten to fifteen pages seems to be about the ideal size.

I have reviewed the first six chapters I had previously edited and am satisfied with them.

Last week I was able to dramatically, yet judiciously, edit Chapter 7 A Timeless Love.   I had previously worked on this chapter, but I like this version better.

This last weekend, I was able to work with material I had not previously edited, and have carved out two more chapters.

God has been very active in this editing process including titling these two chapters.  Chapter 8:  Unrighteousness and the Spiritual Leader and Chapter 9: Wife, Girlfriend, and Guilt.  These are still working titles, but certainly catch one's attention.

I had several wonderful phone calls this weekend.  I heard from some of my old co-workers.  One of who asked if I was going to retire my car.  Pun intended.  Re-tire my car.  So to answer, I did not put new tires on, but did get the tire repaired. 

Hopefully I will get a tax return to fund new tires.  Meanwhile donations are graciously accepted.  Put your name, address and phone number on the back of a hundred dollar bill and send it to me, and you can be the proud sponsor of one the tires.  Such fun we're having.

The journey continues. . .  Blessings to all.

The Father Within

In my previous post I mentioned I just concluded a 46 page writing.  The last two days of that writing had been particularly poignant.  That portion of the writing is 22 pages long.  If anyone would like to read the entire narrative, leave a comment and I'll see what I can do.

Meanwhile I offer this excerpt from February 26, 2011:

So now back to my deep reflection.

I am an incredibly loving father.  I am the perfect loving father—for me.

In those moments as an emotionally wounded eight year old, I needed a particular kind of love.  I needed a father who understood me and loved me.  I needed to be surrounded in love and to be told everything would be okay.  I needed to be told how I experienced the world was real and I wasn’t out of my mind.

Through the miracle of meditation I was able to go back in time and be the loving father I needed.

(Long pause as I contemplate the above.)

What a blessing, what a miracle!

This may be a little confusing but I hope our readers can follow my line of thought.

My unborn children woke up a dominant seed of fatherhood in me.  It grew into a desire to experience fatherhood.  This led to discussions with you about fatherhood and my abilities to be a loving father.  You reassured me my loving heart would be enough.  I then indeed experienced fatherhood and though the miracle known as Little One knew the love of a young child very near the age I was when I was so emotionally wounded.

All of this happened to prepare me to be the perfect father to me.  

Through the miracle of meditation, I went back not once, but twice, to talk to myself, to console my wounded spirit, to restore my faith, and most of to unconditionally love myself.

This meditation, the resetting or rewriting of my past has real time consequences.

How so?

I am a very loving man.  I would go so far as to say my ability to be a loving father is directly due to having reset my past.

You are saying your ability to go back in time to the crucial moment to be the loving father you needed is directly due to having gone back in time to be the loving father you needed therefore resetting your past?

I am.

This indeed is a deep reflection.

I further believe being the loving man I am today is a direct result of having reset my past even though I was not conscious of having done so.