Putting passion on a timeline

I'm making good progress on the book. But I had a couple of realizations about why I'm not progressing as fast as I'd like. One reason is around resource constraints. I explore that idea more in this week's essay, below. The second reason was pointed out to me by my wife. Though in truth, it was a bit like the two of us looking up at Mt. Rushmore and her asking me, "Don't you see the faces carved in the rock?" That's how obvious my problem was once she pointed it out. The issue she observed is that I'm aiming for perfection before I ever let my beta readers see my draft. She's not wrong.

Writing, or any act of creation, involves putting yourself out for all to see. You open yourself to praise and criticism. If you're ready for the praise, then you'd better brace for the criticism. To minimize the opportunity for criticism and maximize the amount of praise, we do all we can to present the best possible version to the world. Did you brush your hair and put on a clean shirt before you left the house today? It's the same thing.

But there comes a point, where you look in the mirror and say, "eh, good enough," and head out the door. That's what I'm working on. I have no illusions of winning a Hugo award with this novel. However, to strain the metaphor to its breaking point, I also want to make sure my book doesn't walk out of the house with its fly open. If I plan to get a manuscript in the hands of my beta readers sometime soon, I need to be okay if it's wearing mismatched socks.

As I mentioned last time, my wife's second book (her first fiction novel) went live last week. Great reviews are already rolling in. You can order digital or hardback copies from Amazon. She chose to publish without DRM, so you can download the book and put it on the e-reader of your choice.

If you read and like the book, please take a few minutes to leave a review for her on Amazon. It really helps with visibility.

She has agreed to let me publish an excerpt from the book and I've included it at the end of the newsletter.

Work on any project, especially in the corporate world, and eventually you'll come across the axiom "You can have it Good, Fast, or Cheap. Pick any two." Sometimes they'll dress it up and say, "Quality is constrained by time, cost, and quality." Same idea, different clothes.

I first encountered the "Good, Fast, Cheap" idea at about age 9 when I saw it on a poster while visiting my dad's office. I didn't fully understand it back then. I just thought it was funny office humor. It wasn't until I was into my career that I really started to see the more fatalistic message that underlies its truth.

But that's not the only resource constraint triangle out there. In fact, just a couple of years later I was learning to make fire in the Boy Scouts and learned that you need heat, oxygen, and fuel to make fire. This was a different resource constraint, because it doesn't force you to pick two of the three; it tells you that you need all three to make fire happen. You can't get by with just two. After learning that, I spent a lot of time trying to reconcile that with the "pick any two" version. Surely, I thought, there has to be a version where you can have it good, fast, and cheap. But the best I could come up with is that if you have all three, then you have to reduce the scope of the project to the point where your triangle is too small to be useful.

Later, when I got into writing as a career and spent some time drafting marketing copy, I discovered that most advertising is telling you that you can have all three if you buy our product. After all, good, fast, and cheap is the promise of every McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's commercial. Sadly we all know the truth that they can't deliver on any of these promises anymore.

Not long after learning about the fire triangle, my dad started building a boat in our garage. It was a massive undertaking, and slow going. But he was working full-time and raising a family at the time. At one point he explained that boat building has its own resource triangle. To build a boat, you need time, money, and passion. And you need them all at the same time. Just like building a fire, if you only have two of the three, you're not going to make progress. If you have time and passion to work on the project, chances are you don't have the money to buy the supplies. If you have money and passion, chances are you don't have the time (probably because you're off making the money you need). And if you have time and money, it's easy to be distracted by other pulls on those resources, so your passion wanes.

I've discovered there is a similar resource triangle for creating art. You must have time, talent, and passion; and you must have them all at once.

Time is the easiest of these to get. Time is fungible. Time can be found in all sorts of nooks and crannies in your day. Or time can be found by simply pushing other things aside.

Talent is the next resource and you can get it a couple of different ways. Some people are born with talents that come naturally to them. Others spend the time to put in the work and develop some skills in a field. It's my opinion that the greats come from a combination of the two.

Passion is the final resource and I find it the most ephemeral. Passion, in terms of creation, is when you know what you want to say and have the desire to say it. But it's also the hardest to make happen. I've spent years training my muse that when I sit down to write, I expect her to show up and start whispering in my ear. If she doesn't show up, I write anyway and that seems to be enough bait to eventually draw her near. But even that doesn't always work. Sometimes the muse is fickle and just won't show up at all. That's when I have to walk away and try again some other day. And sometimes when she does show, what she has to say to you isn't what you intended to create. Then you're stuck fighting between what she wants to say and what you want to create.

Passion is the idea you want to express, talent is how you express it, and time is simply when you're able to do so.

Right now, I have all sorts of time. And if you'll permit me a little boasting, I have some amount of talent for writing and storytelling. It is passion that keeps me from moving faster. While I want to get this book finished, it's hard to find my passion sometimes. And when it shows up, it doesn't always want to work on the project.

I'll press on, even if I have to finish the book through sheer force of will.

John and Martin rode through the afternoon bustle of the city. Drovers, dairymaids, and icemen jostled with wagoneers as the morning’s trade in the Dairy Market drew to its close. Cattle and goats were being driven out again toward the countryside, manure men following in their wake to gather the leavings—fertilizer to amend the soil for spring planting. Each day it was the same rhythm: beasts in, waste out, profit made in between.

As they passed, the market was already shifting to its evening complexion. The lowing of livestock gave way to the cries of flower sellers and the sing-song calls of the pie-men. Fishmongers were arriving now, their boats having worked their long way through the canal locks from coast and river to the city’s heart. The mingled scents of fish, hot pastry, and dung hung in the mild air—a perfume of industry that John found, despite himself, faintly comforting. It was the scent of things continuing, rather than the hot smell of gunpowder and the stench of death.

They were headed for the King’s Hospital seated at the convergence of the Dairy Market, Guild Row, and Smallchapel Hill - the neighborhood which struggled its way towards middle class gentility. The hospital’s endowment from the crown to serve the populace was exercised daily from its situation so close to commerce. Accident, fire and disease were its sustenance and it never went hungry.

On arriving at the hospital, they were escorted by a woman of severe countenance, dressed in serviceable brown serge covered in a wide apron.  Her sturdy shoes clacked as she led them past wards and deep into the building. They went down some stairs. As they descended, John could feel the difference in the temperature as they moved to an underground level. It cooled, he could smell the moisture in the stonework, and the air took on a certain still heaviness that disrupted briefly as they moved from hall to room.

The room she opened the door to was crammed full books, papers, and implements of the anatomist’s art. To John’s discomfort, the skeleton of a man was mounted on a stand to the side of the door as he entered. It’s joints were articulated with wire which was dark and bright against the ivory white of the bones. The jaw was clamped in a tight grimace but could be loosened with a twist of a clockworks key at the hinge. The bright flange of the key gave the grinning skull a macabre mechanization, as if it could be set to bite and rend at someone. 

John moved to make room for Martin and their escort to enter, sliding his way towards some chairs set before a desk.  The chairs also contained books, but the woman sniffed and told them to just shift the contents to the floor.

“The Doctor,” she said and John could hear the emphasis she placed on the title. “Will be with your shortly. He knows you are here and had made room in his surgical schedule for your visit, but this morning a kiln blew in Guild Row and he has been removing crushed limbs since ten o'clock.” She retreated in a sweep of dignified skirts.

As the door closed behind her, John caught Martin’s eye and went to search the desk while Martin stood with his ear to the door. Quickly and methodically he scanned the contents of the desk, being careful to return each item and paper to their proper place. It was perhaps ten minutes before John heard footsteps pass in the corridor outside. 

Martin's hand moved fractionally toward the door handle, ready to intercept if needed. But the footsteps continued past. Another five minutes. John worked through papers systematically—anatomical drawings, lecture notes, bills from medical suppliers. Nothing. Then, wedged beneath a leather-bound volume of surgical procedures, he saw the corner of fine paper. He read it out loud to Martin in a low voice that would not penetrate the door.

“Dr. Rambath,

I write to impress on you the importance of the commission you are undertaking to Present your Medical Opinions for the cause of Death for the daughter of His Excellency Minister Augustine Beaufort of the Crymur Nation, Maire Beaufort.

The Political Delicacy of the situation at hand would be Best Served by consequent Delicacy of Findings. We appeal to the Best Interests of your Nation and that of our Ally for discretion in your Findings - to wit, only those things deemed Pertinent to the Resolution of the case should be released via Report.

As administrator of the Endowment His Gracious Majesty renews on King’s Hospital in the Spring Sessions, we are sure you have the Necessary Discernment for the course of action we request.

Regards,” 

John tilted the letter toward the lamplight, studying the signature. It was deliberately obscured—not quite illegible, but rendered in a cramped, sideways hand that made it impossible to distinguish individual letters with certainty.  The paper was a fine, heavy, cotton paper the likes of which he had received only once - when he had received the King’s Commission at Canary House and joined His Majesty’s army as an official extension of the king’s will in the officer corps.  He debated returning the letter to the heap, but then carefully folded it and put it in his breast pocket. There was risk taking it, but the disorder of the room weighed against the benefit of providing proof decided him. This was not intelligence work where one risked too much leaving traces. He would show Alfred to see if he could discern the signature.

Martin's eyes met his across the dim room. Neither man spoke for a moment.

"That's not a request, sir," Martin said finally, his country vowels flattened to near-gentility by the gravity of the words. "That's an order dressed in courtesy."

"From someone with access to Crown stationery." John turned the letter over, looking for any other identifying marks. There were none—no seal impression in the wax, no embossed header. Deliberate anonymity from someone with the authority to command it. "They wanted the anatomist to bury inconvenient findings. The question is: what did he actually see?"

"And will he tell us, knowing this letter exists?"

John rounded the desk and sat in the chair again, the hard, high, wooden ladder back prompting him to resume the posture of a gentleman. Martin stepped to the side of the door opposite the skeleton and faded into the clutter, relaxing his frame into the unobtrusive stance that a good servant frequently held for hours. Their camouflages were well in place when Dr. Rambath entered a few minutes later.

As he entered, John stood, turned and bowed in greeting. Dr Rambath paused and then bowed in return as seldom used courtesy was exercised. He was middling height, his frame spare and he carried with him the aroma of lyme, carbolic and tobacco.  He was wiping his hands on a cloth, which he stuffed into a jacket pocket one damp corner peeking out.  His head was wigless, and the slightly mussed hair was dark with silver creeping out of the sideburns to just begin threading its way in the dark mass.

John spied the pin in Dr Rambath’s neckcloth and leveraged it in his opening statement. “Thank you for seeing us Dr Rambath. I understand your morning got unexpectedly busy due to a kiln explosion. Hopefully not as busy as the 6th dragoons at Calenda, did you see action there?”

Rambath paused and laid a hand on his neckcloth over the pin. “No, that was my brother. I served my four years with the field surgeons in the third, well back from the lines.  I assure you we were just as busy, just with a different kind of butchering.” He eased down into his chair behind the desk, and John resumed his seat on the ladderback chair.

Rambath folded his hands. “Sir, I am at your disposal.  Are you here on Army business? We don’t get much of that here. It is mostly confined to the hospital near the parade grounds and Canary House.”

John watched Rambath’s face as he produced Alfred’s letter and let him read it. Rambath’s face was carefully still as his eyes moved over the words. John let the words fall gently into the stillness. “I would very much like to know what you did not put in your report on Maire Beaufort.” Rambath’s lips tightened a fraction and turned down slightly at the corners, but he met John’s eyes directly and intoned firmly, “I have disclosed all pertinent information in my report sir. I know the Lord Mayor received a copy. I assume you have seen it.” Rambath returned Alfred’s letter, an almost imperceptible tremor in his hand, and John folded it away.

“I have indeed read it,” said John evenly, “and found it a masterwork of discretion. So discreet, in fact, that it conceals nearly everything of use.”

Rambath’s mouth twitched — not quite a smile. “Then you understand the spirit in which it was written.”

“I understand that it was written under instruction.” John’s voice stayed mild, but his gaze did not waver. “The Crown paper, the anonymous hand, the renewal of endowment — all very clear, Doctor. What I do not understand is why a woman of no known enemies and every social advantage should be found dead upon a public road, and her cause of death reduced to a line fit for a clerk’s ledger.”

Rambath leaned back in his chair. The faint odor of carbolic seemed to strengthen as he folded his arms. “You presume I know more than I am at liberty to say.”

“I presume,” said John quietly, “that you are an honest man who dislikes being told how to write his findings.”

For the first time, something human — perhaps weary amusement — flickered through the doctor’s eyes. “You will not flatter me into indiscretion, Captain.” He hesitated, then reached into a drawer and drew out a narrow ledger, its cover warped by moisture. “But I know who you are, and I remember who she was. Perhaps the man who captured the White Tower will capture the Angel’s slayer.”

He opened the ledger, turning it toward John. The smell of carbolic, ink and old coffee rose from the pages, some crackled slightly as they were smoothed down. The pages were dense with cramped writing, sketches in ink of bones and contusions, the geometry of injury rendered with obsessive precision. Rambath pointed to one drawing: a delicate wrist, cross-hatched with bruises.

“That mark was several days older than the rest,” he said. “A hand — a man’s, judging by the span — seized her there with force. The bruising to the upper arms followed, consistent with restraint. Then the throat — compression, but not sufficient to kill. It was interrupted. What killed her was a single blunt impact to the right temple. I judged it done with something small and heavy — not a fall, as the report so prettily phrased it.”

Martin shifted slightly from his post, his boots whispering against the flagstone. “Interrupted, you said, sir?” He leaned forward over John’s shoulder, and at a motion from John, produced a sketchbook and began to copy the drawing with a soft pencil.

Rambath glanced at him. “Yes. She fought, or someone stayed the attacker’s hand. There were scratches — shallow, defensive — on the throat. The blow came after.”

John studied the sketch, then the man. “And you omitted all this because…?”

“Because I was instructed that the how of her death was less important than the peace that must follow it,” Rambath replied, his tone bitterly dry. “You have been a soldier, Captain; you know that sometimes the truth is a casualty of politics.”