(Linda 翻译)

For nearly all my life I had a very busy lifestyle. I like to do many things at one time, and I’m quite (maybe too) fast. When I was a medical director, I had many doctors and staff visiting my office, so I tried to save time by placing a clock ticking visibly before any visitor, so that he/she could see time literally passing quickly! My secretary would call me at 30 minutes into the meeting, to let us know time was slipping, and to hurry up. And forget lunch, it was bananas and bagels on the run, usually nibbled during a noon meeting. My son remarked to me, later as an adult, that, as a teenager he had come to visit me in my hospital office, and was amused to see me dash in, say hello, grab a banana, and dash out, still eating, as I walked, or more likely, ran out.
我几乎一生都过着忙碌的生活。我经常喜欢一次做很多事情，而且动作很快。在我做科主任的时候，有很多医生和工作人员来我的办公室，我就在来访者面前放一个滴答作响的时钟来节省时间，这样他/她就能看到时间过得很快！而且我的秘书会在会面开始的30分钟后给我打电话，让我们知道时间不多了，要抓紧时间。因为太忙，我经常没有时间吃饭，我就拿起香蕉和百吉饼跑出去，在中午的会议上吃。我儿子在他成年后对我说，他十几岁的时候来我医院办公室看我，看到我冲进来，打个招呼，拿个香蕉冲出去，边跑边吃，觉得很搞笑。

I suspect that this rush, rush, rush style began when I had to learn how to move fast and compete to get on the bus when I was a child, in the crazy hectic lifestyle of hyper-cosmopolitan and bustling Hong Kong. I had to learn to run very fast, with great agility, to navigate among a huge crowd of people who were not lined up in any order. There were often sadistic drivers who deliberately stopped in different places, before or after the designated bus stop, just to confuse people, just so the drivers could laugh at the crowd panicking to rush to the right spot to get into the bus. However, I learned to guess where exactly the double decker bus driver would stop, by estimating the car’s deceleration, unless he was super-devious, and re-accelerated again! Most of the time, as the likely smallest person, I would be the fastest to run right up to the door, and hop quickly into the bus; otherwise I would miss the bus and be late for school or home. My hyper-competitive spirit and city wits were born and honed in this way.
我怀疑这种匆匆忙忙的生活方式是因为当我还是个孩子的时候，在繁华的大都市香港，我要学会快速、敏捷地奔跑和穿行在一大群没有排队的人群中间挤上公交车。而且经常有司机故意在车站前后不同的地方停车，为的就是看着那些惊慌失措、着急的人们冲过来上车. 而我学会了通过汽车的减速来估计双层巴士司机到底会停在哪里，除非他非常狡猾，减速后再次加速！大多数时候，我可能是最小的，我会跑得最快，直接跑到门口，然后迅速跳上车；否则我会错过公共汽车，导致上学或回家迟到。我的高度竞争精神和城市智慧就是这样诞生和磨练的。

Even when I was young, my rushed life extended to food: since I did not want to waste a minute, I gobbled down my food so quickly, that I would always be the first at the dinner table to finish my food, so I could get to my beloved books. Often, I had to reluctantly tag along with my parents to the many late evening dinners that my dad was invited to, as a physician and church deacon. But, I would definitely be carrying my story books, and reading as I ate. Then I would quickly finish eating and retreat to some corner to finish off my books, usually missing out on lots of other presumably delicious dishes still to come. I remember later on in life, when I was doing medical missions in China, my staff assistant would laugh at my crude meal habits, accusing me of never even tasting the food; I just swallowed it, she claimed; which was sort of true.
在我年轻的时候，我匆忙的生活也表现在了吃东西：因为我不想浪费任何时间，就狼吞虎咽地吃，所以我总是第一个吃完饭，这样就可以看我心爱的书了。因为我父亲是一名医生和教会执事，我常常不得不和父母一起受邀参加许多深夜晚餐。但是，我肯定会带着我的故事书，边吃边看。然后我会很快吃完，缩到某个角落去看我的书，因此经常会错过很多其他美味的菜肴。我记得后来在中国执行医疗任务时，我的助手会嘲笑我粗糙的饮食习惯，说我其实从来没有品尝过这些食物；只是吞下了这些食物；这话的确有几分正确 。

As people like to joke, I never took time to “smell the roses,” it seemed. However, I did manage to write many scientific articles, more than 400 during my academic career, reflecting my rush, rush, life in academia, but also sort of my feeling that these were the roses I was given to smell on the way. Writings as roses, because I’ve always had a childhood writing dream. I dreamed particularly of being a writer of children’s stories, since I read voluminously as a child, and just admired those wonderful writers who so charmingly introduced me to their special worlds.
人们喜欢开玩笑说我好像从来没有时间“闻玫瑰的香味”。但是在我的学术生涯中我写了很多科学文章，一共有400多篇。这不仅代表了我在学术界的忙碌，也让我感受到这些就如人生路中闻到的玫瑰。写作如玫瑰，我从小就有写作的梦想，特别梦想成为一名儿童故事作家，因为我小时候读的书很多，我很钦佩那些把我引入故事世界的优秀作家。

Many doctors might feel it to be a chore to write scientific articles, but actually to me as a scientist and physician, it was a joy. The dozen or so scientific books published under my name, all related to nutritional and health issues of children, so I could feel it was not that far from my childhood dream! I have participated in many more scientific books, probably over 40, as contributor of one or two chapters, all related to childhood diseases and nutrition, but I have finally given all those books away in our big move from Cincinnati to Seattle. Some people feel that is a pity, but, since they occupied a lot of shelf space (medical books are huge), I felt I “had to move on!” I have only saved a copy each of the books that were “my very own,” and they are partly on one book shelf proudly displayed in our new small condo home.
许多医生可能觉得写科学文章是一件麻烦的事情，但实际上对我这个科学家和医生来说，这是一种快乐。以我的名义出版的十几本科学书籍，都与儿童的营养和健康问题有关，所以我能感觉到这离我儿时的梦想不远了！作为撰写者，我参与了许多科学书籍的编写，可能超过40本，都与儿童疾病和营养有关。在我们从辛辛那提搬到西雅图的时候，我把这些书都发出去了。有些人觉得很遗憾，但是因为他们占据了书架的很多空间（医学书籍很大），我觉得我“必须要做出行动！”所以我把自己写的每一种书保留了一本，其中一部分放在同一个书架上，现在骄傲地展示在我们的新公寓里。

Contrary to those who feel intimidated by writing, my secret was that, in spite of a crazy schedule, I would lock myself in my office, and refuse to see anyone, emergencies excepted, for several hours each day, just like staying in a mini-prison (see my URS “Writing from Prison Story”), so that I could really write and write. I had a sign on the door, declaring “will reappear at 430pm” or whatever the time would be, when I would poke my head out the locked door. I know that some people can stare at the computer for days, and still not be able to write the first sentence. Fortunately, that wasn’t my problem at all, because I loved to write and write. Maybe it was just a variation of my love of a rush, rush, life? In fact, later on, when I discovered a good automatic dictation system that I could train, writing became even less of a problem, since I could just talk and talk into the microphone, and see the words just spill out onto the Word-Perfect page.
与那些被写作吓倒的人相反，我的秘密是，尽管日程安排得很疯狂，我还是会把自己锁在办公室里，除了紧急情况拒绝见任何人。每天都要呆上几个小时，就像呆在一个小监狱里一样（看我的《曾叔叔的故事—-在监狱里写的故事》），这样我才能真正地写作。我在门上贴了一个牌子，上面写着“下午4：30 (或其他时间)再出现”。我知道有些人可以盯着电脑看上好几天，还是写不出第一句话。幸好这根本不是我的问题，因为我喜欢写作。也许这只是我对匆忙生活热爱的一种体现。事实上，当我后面发现一个好的自动听写系统时，写作就更不再是一个问题了，因为我只需要对着麦克风说话，就可以看到单词跳到页面上。

Whether I was writing a scientific paper, or, later on, an Uncle Reggie Story, the approach wasn’t that different. Let’s take the example of the story. Whenever a new story idea came up, I learned to quickly jot down a very brief outline of the proposed article on paper, laptop, or smartphone, and file the idea immediately, so I would not forget. Then, when I was ready to write up the topic, I would start to dictate quickly, talk and talk, according to this framework, truly as if I’m telling the story to someone directly in front of me, at coffee time (literally during “coffee with Uncle Reggie,” hence my book title).
不管我是在写科学论文，还是曾叔叔的故事，方法都差不多。以写故事为例，每当有新想法出现时，我就会在纸上、笔记本电脑、智能手机上快速地写下一个非常简短的文章提纲，并立即归档，这样我就不会忘记。然后，当我准备好写这个话题时，我会开始快速听写，根据这个框架，说真的，就好像我在《咖啡时间》（也就是我的书名）直接向我面前的人讲述故事一样。

Thereafter I spend lots of time editing and editing, usually 20 or more times. I can edit practically anything as long as it is written up, any paper even if it is totally unpolished, and even if it looks at first to be terrible. It always gets better, after each edit and finally, amazingly it becomes readable. It sure beats a blank sheet of paper with nothing on it!! You cannot edit nothing! That is probably a major secret of my writing.
此后我花了很多时间编辑，通常是20次或更多次。我几乎可以编辑任何东西，只要它是写出来的。任何论文，即使它是完全未经打磨，即使它看起来第一次是糟糕的。每次编辑之后，它总是变得更好，最后，令人惊奇的是，它变得可读性更强。它真的比一张没有任何东西的白纸要好得多了！！因为白纸上你不能编辑任何内容！这可能是我写作的一个主要秘密。

This “system” of effective writing arose likely from my noticing that most people respond to real questions quite naturally, and often surprisingly well. For example, I had to appear quite often on TV to deal with health care questions regarding newborn sick babies, since I oversaw the neonatal intensive care units in Cincinnati, or to answer questions about nutrition research that I was involved in. At first, I felt this could be intimidating, but soon I realized it wasn’t much of a problem, since the questions were basically daily questions I handled routinely anyway.
这种有效写作的“系统”很可能是因为我注意到大多数人对真实问题的反应非常自然，而且经常出人意料的好。例如我在辛辛那提监管新生儿重症监护室时，经常出现在电视上，处理有关新生儿生病的保健问题，或者回答我参与的营养研究问题。一开始，我觉得很紧张，但很快意识到这并不是什么大问题，因为这些问题基本上都是我日常处理的问题。

And similarly, for others “put on the spot” suddenly to answer questions: if people are directly asked questions in areas of their expertise, they often easily answer the questions, smoothly and precisely. But if you ask them to sit down and write on “a topic,” even a subject they should be familiar with, but without specific questions, they just seem to freeze. They can’t even put down one sentence, sometimes. For me, during a nice coffee or sandwich with a younger person, while casually chatting, some question commonly arises that triggers a vivid reminder of past events, from my quite large reservoir of stories, and various experiences in my decades of travel, work and ministry. And from these prompts, the stories will later be “written up.” It’s all very “natural” and “organic,” and I would love my written stories to be just like I am telling you the story spontaneously, right in front of you, face to face.
这和其他人“当场”回答问题相似：如果人们突然被问到他们专业领域的问题，他们通常很容易流畅而准确地回答。但如果让他们坐下来写“一个话题”，即使是他们熟悉的一个话题，但没有具体的问题，他们就不知道如何下笔了，有时候甚至连一句话都写不出来。而对我来说，在和一个年轻人喝着咖啡、吃着三明治，随意聊着天的时候，一些问题就会引起我对往事的生动回忆，这些回忆是关于过往的故事以及我几十年的旅行、工作和事奉的各种经历。从这些提示下，故事接着就会被“写出来”，这是非常“自然”和“天然的”过程。我希望我写的故事就像我在你面前，面对面

When I think of my writing hero CS Lewis, I am actually totally befuddled and humbled to know that he barely traveled: I have traveled on record more than 3 million sky miles, visited more than 150 cities of the world, and have learned 20 phrases of 20 languages, in order to navigate in these cities, including fluency in 5 of them. And so, at first blush, it might seem that these experiences could be helpful to others.
当我想到我的写作英雄CS Lewis时，我真的感到非常困惑和谦卑，因为我知道他几乎没有旅行。而我的航班记录达到了300多万英里，访问了世界上150多个城市，同时为了在这些城市中活动，学习了20种语言的20个短语，包括流利地使用其中的5种语言。而这些经历表面上看来可能对其他人确实有帮助。

But on further thought, it is quite possible that these are just a negative reflection of my rush, rush, rush previous life, where I basically had little time to even contemplate the complexities of life, let alone write them up in any meaningful way. You could even accuse me of “galloping horse, fleeting flowers, zou ma kan hua,” the traditional Chinese expression for people who just rush through life at high speed while supposedly seeing only blurry flowers. I feel so blessed right now, however that, better late than never, I do not now have to rush, rush, rush, but actually have some time to read, think, and write in a more focused way, trying to collect my thoughts from many decades, and crystallize them into some coherent principles, themes, and stories. My original childhood dream lingers…..
但在进一步的思考中，很有可能这些只是我匆匆忙忙前半生的负面反映，在那里我基本上没有时间去思考生活的复杂性，更不用说用任何有意义的方式来写它们了。你甚至可以说我是“走马看花”。我现在觉得很好，晚总比没有好，现在的我不必着急，有时间去阅读、思考，可以集中精力去写。我试着把过去几十年的想法提炼出来，并将它们变成主题统一的故事，让我童年的梦想得以延续.

Literary types claim that my category of writing is “creative nonfiction,” where I am weaving a real story out of my life experiences, synthesized in a potentially meaningful way. It is fun to think of stories, after I write them, as traveling to who knows where, landing finally in some far-off place that I can only dream of, maybe even in a foreign language. Imagine it as a story that comes bobbing up to the seashore inside the legendary sealed bottle: I had the common romantic notion, as many kids might have, of writing a message, and throwing it into the sea. One day I really did that, into the South China sea, so who knows, that bottle might still be floating around in the huge, huge, oceans of the world. It would be my greatest joy if I should receive a feedback from that kind of dream! Send me a note if you do retrieve it, please.
按照文学类型我的写作算是“创造性的非小说类型”，以一种有意义的方式将我的生活经验编织出的真实故事。在我写了故事之后，想想故事是很有趣的，就像是去了谁知道的地方，最终降落在了一个我只能梦想的遥远地方，甚至是要讲另外一种语言的地方……..再想象一下，这个故事来自于传说中漂浮到水面的密封瓶：我有一个许多孩子可能有的浪漫的想法，写一封信，然后把它扔进海里。有一天我真的这样做了，进入了中国南海，那个瓶子可能还在世界上巨大的海洋里漂浮。如果我能从这样的梦中得到反馈，那将是我最大的快乐！如果你找到了，请告诉我。