Where I’m Writing From eli.cranor@gmail.com December 11, 2022 Eli Cranor is an Arkansas novelist whose debut novel, Don’t Know Tough, is available wherever books are sold. Don’t Know Tough made @USATODAYBooks’s “Best of 2022” list and the @nytimes “Best Crime Fiction” for 2022 Cranor can be reached using the “Contact” page at elicranor.com and found on Twitter @elicranor

I’m writing from the back row of the First United Methodist Church.

When I was a kid, I used to tear the offering envelopes open and draw landscapes on the insides, snow-tipped mountains and clear blue streams. My dad, a former art teacher, still has a few of my scribbles in a shoebox somewhere.

Thirty years later and I’m doing basically the same thing, except now I have kids of my own.

They just went down front for the “Children’s Moment.” Purple cloth hangs from the pulpit, white doves dangle from a fifty-foot tree. The teacher points to the five candles positioned neatly inside the Advent wreath. One of the candles is lit. A small flame flickers as the teacher tells the children how each candle marks the weeks until December 25th.

The teacher urges the children to find joy in the waiting process. The parties at school. The hot cocoa. The extra time spent with family and friends.

The kids squirm at the teacher’s feet. I can’t tell if they’re listening, but I sure am.

When I was a kid, the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas lasted forever. Mom kept an Advent calendar in the kitchen. She and Dad never could agree on how to use it. Dad thought we should start at 24 and work our way down. That way, you always knew how many days were left until Christmas. Mom held strong, though, pointing out the fact that it was called an Advent “calendar,” not an Advent “countdown.”

As you can probably guess, the Cranors started at 1 and worked our way up to Christmas Eve. 24 days feels longer to a kid than an adult. Which makes sense, seeing as how 24 days is a much larger fraction of a 5-year-old’s life compared to a 35-year-old’s.

All this talk of time reminds me of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Here is how Donald “Captain” Williams once put it during lunch duty at Arkadelphia High School: “Time is like a roll of toilet paper: the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.”

But the waiting never stops, at least it hasn’t for me.

The life of a writer is filled with waiting. You are constantly waiting to hear back from agents, editors, readers. Waiting for the next book to come out. Waiting for confirmation that there will even be a next book.

When I first started writing, I drove myself crazy with waiting. I checked my email every ten minutes (who am I kidding, I still do) hoping for good news. I thought if I reached a certain level, the waiting would stop. I thought if I got good enough, people would start waiting on me.

Maybe I’m not there yet, or maybe the lady at the front of the church is right.

I know she is, and I’m thankful my kids are hearing this lesson early. I’ve wasted too much of my life thinking tomorrow will be better than today. Now is all we have. This moment. This breath. Each one unique, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The children are up now, rushing out of the sanctuary to the classroom where they’ll color in manger scenes. I slip the scribbled-upon envelope into my shirt pocket and drape an arm around my wife. Our pastor is at the pulpit already. Behind him, the candle burns, shorter now than it was before, tall as it will ever be.