Quick Like a Bunny
When we moved to this hilltop we noticed that when we drove up High Mountain Drive, there was one house on a curve, actually one yard on a curve, where we could always count on seeing one or more rabbits running off, chased by our headlights. We came to calling the anonymous house the Bunny House. Given that it was one of the only homes up on this hill that has a real grass lawn (something I would be hard-pressed to recommend up here), its little wonder that the bunnies like to congregate at that house for their nightly dinner. I imagine the local coyote population needs to think seriously about hanging around places with real grass lawns…if only they knew.
I rarely see bunnies on my hilltop, but I know they come and visit. After eighteen months here full-time I can tell from the garden plants of a certain type (the type that I have determined have edible and delectable leaves…mostly deciduous versus coniferous or succulents) that something is eating them. It’s annoying so I have chosen to apply Neem Oil, which is more of a natural insecticide, but seems to logically make the plants less delectable (at least to me). Neem Oil seems a bit controversial even if it is natural and I’m now reading I would be better off using shavings of Irish Spring soap (who knew?) or maybe talcum or red pepper. The talcum scare and my fear of hot peppers may force me to go for the Irish Spring if the Neem stops working. My other alternative is to only buy plants that the process of elimination (bad pun) tells me won’t get eaten by bunnies. I guess I just hope its bunnies and not something more objectionable.
I know we have a ground squirrel or two on the property and from the holes in the back hillside I am pretty sure we have gofers or prairie dogs though I haven’t seen any. I don’t know why I prefer one rodent to another, but I do. I think most people do. Bunnies and squirrels, and maybe even gofers seem more cute than nasty. Mice and rats, not so much. I have seen a mouse or two over the past eighteen months, but I have honestly never seen a rat and no one has implied that we might have rats. It would bother me if I knew we did have rats. Mice seem like a fact of country life, as do bunnies, ground squirrels and gofers. Maybe if I was trying to keep a vegetable garden and measured success or failure based on my crop yield, I would be more offended by bunnies. As it is, I can manage a few rabbits eating a few of my plants. Nature may also be telling me that I should stick more to succulents and cacti on this hilltop.
The expression “quick like a bunny” is one of my favorites for reasons I can’t explain. My natural impatience probably makes doing things quick like a bunny very attractive. We all know that haste often makes waste and that the tortoise always seems to make a schmuck of the hare. But that never seems to deter me from wanting to get on with things.
In my writing, I have become a very quick writer. Maybe its doing a 1,300word blog story every day or maybe its all the rewrites that I have been forced to do in writing the ten or so books I have written now. In my expert witness work I am also always under significant time pressure since we tend to get retained very late in the process to control the number of hours available to produce the reports and rebuttals. Whatever is the root cause, I have become a very fast writer. I think that is especially the case when it comes to making changes to a story or book. This year I have had to rewrite both of my ghostwriting projects several times each. I am completely done with the business memoir and it is headed into publication. It seems destined to be a New York Times Bestseller, which I used to think was a matter of random lightning striking, but now understand it is much more tactical than that. I do not assume there will be no more edits needed, but we will see. The other one is a more of a piece of stylized non-fiction which is geared to a specific affinity audience who might well find it very interesting. In this case I have rewritten it several times based on changes the primary author has had second thoughts about. As you can imagine, thinking about who might read a book (like one’s family) makes someone a bit more inhibited than not when considering especially risqué content. I am not a pornographic writer, but I also am no prude and feel that if I am writing about drug dealers or soldiers (and maybe even businessmen) it would be unrealistic not to include a few four-letter words or a bit of sexual innuendo. I know how to write it with more or less spice, but the author has to be willing to face his world over it and that makes for more requested changes than you might expect.
I spoke to the author of the second book just yesterday and noted a few dozen of his suggested edits and changes. He wanted one whole character taken out to satisfy his less-prurient interests. I made all the changes to this 220-page book today. I find I can attack the task with focus and speed with no difficulty. I even managed in this rewrite to keep the offending character and merely transpose her….character….to one that was less sexual and more flirtatious. I wrote out the sexual encounters and did it while altering her interaction with the main protagonist in such a way that it all became more innocent. I also was able to add several new anecdotes by finding places where they could be inserted with existing characters by modifying the story ever so slightly. The thing that pleases me the most is that I was able to make what some would call a meaningful rewrite in one day. the last time I had to rewrite the business memoir, I made even more extensive modifications and a 37% reduction in length all accomplished in a week. And here’s the thing, I think I make the stories better with these revisions. I am less proud of the quality I feel I get than I am with the speed with which I am able to do it.
It means a lot to me for some reason that I am able to write quick like a bunny. I recently read an article about screenwriter Mike White, who penned School of Rock, Chuck & Buck and Orange County, all movies I greatly admire. It seems Netflix approached him last year during the depths of the Pandemic when there was a dearth of content and burgeoning demand. Mike White is a very funny and “with-it” writer who has a good finger on the pulse of modern life. The reason he says that Netflix came to him is because they feel he is a quick writer. That gave me great hope that there is value in the speed I have developed in my writing.
For what it’s worth, I don’t really know where I am trying to head with my writing, but I would certainly enjoy thinking that there is a demand for my writing and that people found value in my work and that the business people involved in the marketing thereof would find value in the speed with which I can produce the stories. I cannot be certain there isn’t a cost in quality to my quick like a bunny approach, but since bunnies gotta do what bunnies do, I suspect that is just the way it is going to be.