That's Good Money

It’s 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 13, 2018, and I’m taking a break from a letter I’m writing to a friend of mine who has spent the last two years of his life behind bars. I make it a priority to write him letters every month, either sending a copy of my latest blog or a Bible study on whatever subject I’m researching at that time. We don’t speak too often, but when we do, I ask him about his life on the inside and listen to him as he paints a verbal picture of a place I find hard to imagine. Sometimes, he’ll use a particular word or phrase I don’t understand or have never heard before. It’s a prison lingo that can leave me scratching my head, like the time he introduced me to the phrase, “That’s Good Money.”

“Good Money” is a saying that stems from the prison yard where the men work out. My friend does hundreds of pushups during his workouts. At last count, he was up to 200. When he gets tired and wants to quit, another person will spot him by wrapping a towel underneath his chest and holding him steady so he can squeeze out every last rep. He said the person who is spotting him will often encourage him to keep going, saying things like, “That’s good money.” It means despite the help, the reps still count.

Sometimes, we just need a good spot to help us push through the pain until our muscles are strong enough to reach the goals we have set for ourselves. I think the same principle applies to writing a book, especially during those really trying times when all you want to do is quit. That’s why I decided to hire a writing coach at the end of October because I needed help pushing through the pain. At that time, I was burned out from writing and still struggling to decide which edits to implement into my rewrite.

I was upset with myself, upset with some of the decisions I had made, upset with the direction this book was heading. Even worse, I started questioning everything I once knew to be true. I was reevaluating my life plans and coming to grips with the possibility of failure when I remembered that my summer writing instructor, Blake Kimzey, was also a private writing coach. I knew I needed help navigating the rewrite process, and I was hoping a meeting with Blake would help set me on the proper course.

Blake knew the gist of my story since we had workshopped part of it during his class. I told him where I was in the process and explained that I was hesitant to make major changes to the story because doing so would require a large investment of my time that I simply wasn’t ready to make. I also told him I was thinking of changing the title of the book from the “Maven the Raven and the Tree of Life” to “Maven the Raven and the Search for the Last Imperial.”

I explained to him that the Imperials were real birds—woodpeckers—that were now extinct. At two feet in length, they were once the largest woodpeckers in existence until over-hunting and deforestation decimated their population. The last confirmed sighting came in 1956 in Mexico’s Sierra Madre Mountains. I loved their look and story so much that I decided to include them as characters in my book.

Blake seemed to really like the ring of “Maven the Raven and the Search for the Last Imperial.” More so, he understood the predicament I was facing and agreed to read my manuscript. That same night, I remember scrolling through my Facebook feed and seeing a peculiar image that grabbed my attention.

It was a new piece of art from a guy who I had met earlier in the year at the Main Street Arts Festival in Fort Worth named Dolan Geiman. Dolan’s artwork is so unique that my brother and I purchased a paper-collage portrait he had designed using vintage papers, such as old sheets of music and magazine clippings, he had collected while walking through abandoned buildings all across the U.S.

I still follow Dolan on Facebook and couldn’t help but notice his latest piece was a 3D wall sculpture of a cactus and two woodpeckers. I clicked on the link, started browsing his website and spotted a picture of Saint Francis of Assisi that I distinctly remember seeing at the festival back in March. It was the third piece in a new series Dolan was working on that focused on “iconic saints and spiritual figures.”

It was a mere work-in-progress then, but six months later the finished portrait popped with so much detail, color and imagery that I struggled to take my eyes off it. Even more amazing to me was what St. Francis was holding in his hand: a red-crested woodpecker. I sent Dolan a message and asked him for the inspiration behind the piece and why he decided to use, of all birds, a woodpecker.

A few days later, he sent this response: “Hi Joshua, thanks again for the interest in the St. Francis. St. Francis, with whom I share the same birthday and same love of nature, was said to have had a special, even supernatural ability to communicate with animals. He was a compassionate man who was quiet and woodsy, possibly even an early naturalist of sorts. It is my belief that if we had more St. Francis figures throughout the world animals such as the Ivory-Billed woodpecker (depicted here) might have been spared their premature extinctions.”

I almost fell out of my chair when I read his answer because I was very familiar with the ivory-billed woodpecker. Nicknamed the “Lord God” bird because of its magnificence, I had almost selected it to represent the woodpecker characters in my book before deciding on its closest relative, the Imperial. The timing was more than coincidence for me, so I contacted my illustrator and asked him to start working on a new character design of the last Imperial I referenced earlier, a character named “Wahoo.”

A month later, I received an email from Blake saying he had finished my manuscript. We scheduled a time to meet, and I remember him asking me if I was discouraged by the feedback I had received from the other editors. I told him I was and reiterated some of what they had said. He shook his head in opposition and told me I should be anything but discouraged because, in his opinion, I had a great story.

All of the heaviness and uncertainty I was struggling to lift for the previous six months suddenly disappeared as I listened to Blake’s encouraging feedback. He simply suggested I keep a linear timeline by flip-flopping the first two sections, and he also wanted me to add a final section to bring everything to a proper close. More so, he was convinced that I leave the title as the “Tree of Life” and use the “Search for the Last Imperial” for a later book in the series.

He said that the hardest part of the process was behind me and that I was close to the end. It was simply up to me to put aside the time needed to finish the story. His advice couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. It was just the “spot” I needed to keep me pushing forward toward my end goal. And if I need more support in the future, I’ll simply look up at the wall to the St. Francis print I purchased and ask the patron saint of animals for some inspiration! “That’s good money!”

Follow me on Instagram at @Joshua_Maven or @HonchotheVan, on Twitter @MaventheRaven or Facebook at Facebook/TheLastImperial.