Norway 6: Pacing Pulpit Rock to Publishing to Lorne Jones on Writing

Norway’s Pulpit Rock: The Climb

Three weeks was barely enough to appreciate all the immense beauty of Norway. Still in Stavanger, we woke early to duck into the rain for breakfast at a nearby bakery cafe. Around the corner from it, we caught a bus to Preikestolen. Also known as Pulpit Rock, a 1,982ft cliff about an hour from Stavanger.

(Note: all posts about our visit to Norway are here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here.)

The bus dropped us off at the base of a 2.5 mile rocky uphill trek that was worth every step. Standing on the massive, flat cliff overlooking Lysefjord (fjords are waterways and mountains created by glaciers) was a feeling I’ll never forget. Much of this video advertisement for Norway, including the rocky parts and the scenes with the Mission: Impossible-style actors, is all Pulpit Rock.…

Like the rest of our trip, that day was a mix of sunshine and rain. We were cool and then sweaty in equal measure. Hurray for dressing in layers!…

Life Updates: Books and Braces

Just as the climb to Pulpit Rock required a steady pace, so does the road to publishing. My novel writing is on hiatus as I research the ins and outs of marketing for self-publishers. You can learn about my books here. Fortunately, I’ve found some great resources, like novelist Lisa Oliver’s super helpful videos (I added one to this earlier post and another to this one) and more recently, novelist David Gaugran.

On a more personal journey, you might have noticed the new plastic braces on my teeth. I recently chipped my front tooth twice, so I’m getting my teeth aligned to ensure they won’t continue to mash against one another.

Guest Post: Lorne Jones

Today’s guest blog post is by Lorne Jones, a retired teacher of reading and writing who has published eight novels and is working on yet another. You can find his books on Kindle and his other work at his Medium site. When not writing, he gardens in the Okanagan, BC, with his wife and two dogs. He loves writing, but only “the writing and editing of writing,” not the marketing. He dislikes social media and detests AI, so it’s quite a compliment that he’s allowed me to publish his thoughts on writing here…

Lorne Jones on The True Meaning of Pace

Pace. Correct me if I’m wrong, but my experience teaching young readers is that too much focus on plot robs them of the ability to appreciate, and perhaps even follow, the nuance of character and theme. The subtleties of relationships, the breakdown of those relationships, and the analysis of what happened, why, and what can be learned and improved next time, is lost to the thrill-a-minute roller coaster of the almighty plot twist. I’m preaching to the choir, I know, but the rush to the cliff’s edge should include more for the discerning reader than just the adrenaline rush of nearly overshooting it and almost falling off. The anticipation of what one might see from that cliff, how one might react and grow because of it, can also be powerful. 

Bear with me in this analogy. I must have been about 13 years old when Wilt Chamberlain made the claim of having slept with over twenty thousand women. Even more unfortunate, I learned this while my dad and I were reading the paper together. Worse, he said, “The best sex I ever had was with a married woman.” Before my shock (and revulsion) could grow to even more epic (and traumatic) proportions, he clarified. “Your mother.” Then he added, in his subtle dad way, “Sleeping with twenty thousand women is not nearly as good as sleeping with the same woman twenty thousand times.”

I’m not sure how large of a sampling his research included, but I got his point. The brain, contrary to what some presidents have yet to learn, is the main, only, sex organ. Erotic reading, if I can bend that term, isn’t a mad rush to ever-larger, more earth-shattering, explosions. The seduction of reading is in the anticipation of those events. Dramatic delay. 

Hey, if your characters and plot require a sub-ten second 100 meter dash to a shoot out or car crash, go for it. All I’m saying is don’t forget your sophisticated readers, who will want to not only bask in but explore the afterglow of experience. 

Related to pace is showing versus telling. “Telling” seems to be the younger brother, the guy who got a bad rep because he ate something garlicky and didn’t brush after. FFS, if showing is appropriate, show. If telling gets you there faster, and alacrity is required, give the dude the keys, get out of the way, and let him burn some rubber. The distinction between the two is frequently, if not always, artificial. Both are useful tools. It’s just that one is a screwdriver and the other is a hammer. The problem arises when we insist on using one as the other. 

Happy constructing today. Kick ass. The world needs your voice.

What’s a journey—physical or creative—that has taught you something important about life’s pace?