I was just on Goodreads and found a discussion thread on "the best writing advice you can give." The discussion was interesting because on it, many writers attest to the fact that the common advice writers are given usually doesn't work. I agree with this. I've been writing for over 11 years, and I can tell you for a fact that much of what's out there is a dud. For example, here are a few tidbits I've been offered that I either ignored completely as impractical or that I tried and they just didn't work:
You must write every day to be a "real" writer. Oh, please. Do you go to your job every day? Absolutely not! You expect weekends and holidays, don't you? Well, the same applies to writing or really, anything else in life. We all need breaks, even from things we love from time to time. The truth is that sometimes the well runs dry, and the only way to replenish is is to allow the groundwater to refill by giving it a break. Forcing yourself to write every single day doesn't give your muse time to absorb the world around you and generate creativity from it. Simply put, forcing yourself to write every single day turns writing into work, which breeds contempt, which makes you hate it. While it's true that you need to practice to improve, don't do it to your own detriment. Write when you have something to write. When you don't write read, or study up on building the skills and knowledge you need to become a better writer. But don't just write for the sake of logging in your word count every day. Then, it just becomes a chore.
You must have an agent to get published. I'm living proof that you don't. In fact, I chose the epublishing route because I didn't like the idea of turning over the potential success (or failure) of my creativity to a third party that has no interest in it, save financial. There are some things you can't fix by throwing money at it, and this is one of them. You can pay an agent to beg to get you published, but that doesn't guarantee an offer, or that they'll keep you, and I can tell you for 100% sure that they'll NEVER care about your writing as much as you do. Do you trust the boss at your day job 100% to look after your best interest and to ensure your success throughout life? Or better yet, are you where you're at in life right now due to the work of your superiors, or your own work? I believe my point is made. You're better off getting behind your work and pushing. Because other people always have their own agendas, and they will look after their own interest first every time.
You need to retreat from life to write well. Have a special place, or take a weekend at an exotic location to take time out to devote 100% to writing. I tried this one time. I participated in National Novel Writing Month in 2010 - that's an online event where writers sign up to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. So I signed up, had all my ducks in a row, and informed everybody that other than work and basic necessities I was not available until this novel was done. Surely, they would understand and respect my creative endeavors, right?
Wrong. To say that all hell broke loose would be putting it kindly. Things spun out of control, everything in the world that my hand was supposed to be on went wrong, they were pissed off, it was my responsibility to make it right, and I needed to quit being selfish and get back to setting all right with the world. I emerged from that experience to literally find everybody I knew at war with one another because they determined that self control was for stupid people if I wasn't going to be around to "reign things in." And there was not 1 person in my life not guilty of this - not a single one. I did get the novel done and completed the challenge, but I also realized that, bad attitudes notwithstanding, I have a lifestyle way too active and busy for me to cordion it off to "just write." I've whittled out a lot, but the Lord has put many things to me that I simply can't (and in some cases, won't) cast away or even put on hold, like marriages, home, family, and a job. It's a nice fantasy, but it doesn't fit the reality God gave me. While I have a job, a home, church, friends, both families nearby - yes, writing will have to fit in where I can. And I am finding as I work on my current novel that it is much easier to just fit it in where I can instead of trying to shut out the world. In fact, I've found that keeping one eye open on life around me is actually feeding my muse and helping me by inspiring the plot.
On this advice, I tried it and it failed, but I also learned a lot. I see how this can work for others, and I encourage it if there's a way to do it without ripping a hole in the space-time continium like I did. But if there's no way around time paradoxes, alien invasions, and that little thing called Thanksgiving that tends to happen every November when NaNo is in progress, then you simply must do what you can and be patient with timeline of your progress. My solution was that I will never ever Ever EVER participate in National Novel Writing Month again while I'm employed full time. It just can't happen. For now, I need more than 30 days to draft a novel - I know and accept that now. But if you can safely withdraw from the world to write your masterpiece, by all means do it. It might well work for you.
You must attend a writer's conference to break into the industry. And I would have done that very thing if any were offered in my area, but alas, they aren't. While there's an active arts scene where I live, it's not focused on writing (it's more visual arts or music). I know this is ironic because I live in a college town and you'd think the opportunities would abound, but they don't because the schools in this area don't focus on the arts (it's more of a business focus here). Attending a conference would require traveling, which harkens back to the last item I discussed and the same limitations apply to this that apply to that. I've filled in the gap with online groups and educating myself through reading books, participation in social media, and the occasional online class to bring me up to speed on how to become a better writer.
Write what's popular right now and you're guaranteed success. Ok, was the person that offered this advice on crack? Seriously, what planet are they from? There's absolultely no way this can work and here's why: Trends are always changing, and publishers (along with everybody else in the entertainment industry) are looking for "the next big thing." Unfortunately, nobody knows what that is or when people will catch on to it, so it's an inexact science. It's like the thing I heard someone say about publishers always know a bestseller six months later. The whole entertainment industry is based on their best guess on what will sell, and publishers are in that boat with everybody else. So if you write what's popular right now, then you're already behind the curve. A better piece of advice is write what's in you and the audience will follow. Even if you don't hit the "big time" you can find a great niche market, and you'd be surprised at how successful you can be in that area. It's not New York Times best seller fame, but you can get recognized and respected as a reputable author and have a more moderate success as a writer, if you're willing to redefine your definition of "success."
This isn't to say that all of the advice I've been offered is bad - these are just examples of things that didn't work or that I simply couldn't try. In my next entry, I'll offer up some tips that have worked for me, and things I'm trying as I carve my own path through the jungle of being an independent author.
Have a safe Memorial Day all. Take care.
Bye!
Yep, that's the right word to describe my schedule these days. It seems there's always something going on. Over the past few weeks we've visited with family, visited with friends, did work on our committees at church, and cleaned house. Work is chaos with license renewals for our biggest program and the legislature making the final push to get things running before regulations time out this month and next month. This has been a brutal session because they're questioning everything with fees down to the jot and tittle and guess what? There are fees in one of my regulations.The June 7 close of the session will be a huge relief - for better or for worse. So that's meant a lot of meetings, on top of meetings I've already had.
Add to that the fact that I didn't feel 100% well with my sinuses 2 days this week but couldn't take off because I had meetings (big surprise), that our big "Share Our Stuff" spring event is tomorrow morning at the church, and I started writing my new book (Move), this week and - yea, insanity.
Incidentally, it's not really out of place for me to start writing a book when things are crazy. It seems the inspiration always hits when I don't have a minute to spare and it seems I have to sledgehammer time into my schedule to peck some research here and a chapter there. I can't explain it. Things will be calm and I'll have writer's block, but let my schedule fill up with dots on every day of my calendar in my iPhone, and the muse is firing off left and right. Maybe the high level of activity feeds inspiration, or gives me more to draw off of. I have to admit that I pounded out a chapter today durning my lunch hour with no problem. In fact, sometimes I find it easier to write scenes there that are in a work related setting. Maybe it's because I'm already in a work-mindset and I can draw inspiration from what I've been dealing with recently. Yes, it's easiest to write in the quiet with free time, but sometimes those short slices of free time feed my muse, I guess by allowing me to draw inspiration from recent experience.
Or maybe I'm just weird and have a busy lifestyle where I've adapted to being able to write anytime I can find a minute. I learned in college that there's no such thing as dead time. They taught me to be a master at handling my schedule and I learned I can squeeze things into every minute of every day. In fact, sometimes I have to plan to take time off. I guess I'm driven. It seems I always have some personal project going on top of everything else. No sooner do I finish the birdhouse village than I'm off and running on my next novel. This one should keep me occupied for a while - and there's no telling what's next.
That's all for today. Happy Friday to you. I hope you have a great weekend.
Bye!
Ok, this entry is a little over a week late but considering that I was in Florida last week, well, better late than never, right?
I think we all know what Lent is - the 40 days prior to Holy Week and Easter that symbolize Christ's 40 days wandering in the desert and being tempted by Satan. The season is observed as a season of penance when we reflect on our sinfulness and mortality, and the sacrifice that Christ made to save us. As part of this, many people give up something during these 40 days. Food and beverage sacrifices are very popular - caffine, alcohol, chocolate, deserts - but anything that you like will do. I've given up reading, perfume and scented lotions, listening to CD's, and polishing my nails to name a few. However, I haven't given anything up for the past couple of years and in fact, I'm not giving anything up this year either. Why? Frankly, it's because the theme of sacrifice has been too regular in my life for a season observation to mean much to me right now.
Let me explain. Most people know that my life has changed drastically over the past couple of years. Sure there were some things that weren't by choice, but the truth is that most of it was based on decisions that Rick and I made: We chose to adopt 2 more birds and to get more involved at church, I chose to publish my writing and to become an independent author, and Rick chose to do website work on the side. These aren't decisions that we made lightly. We did pray about them and talk about them, and in the end we decided that the timing and season in our lives are right for these things. However, the fact remains that there are still only 24 hours in a day, and we can only do so much. That meant that, for us to have time to dedicate to these great new things in our lives, we had to make a decision to let some old things go. For example, I have made the decision to give up:
1. Cross stitching. This was tough because I enjoyed it, but the fact is that it's very time consuming - and so is drumming up publicity for my writing. Since I still have to work full time I had to make a decision: Would I rather see my writing grow or my ability in this craft grow? Being a writer has been a lifelong dream for me so of course, I chose to dedicate extra time to making my writing work. I don't regret it, but I do miss stitching and hope this is a seasonal sacrifice and I'll be able to bring this hobby back into my life someday.
2. Watching TV. I'm down to watching only 1 weekly show regularly (Supernatural). I'll try to catch some things here and there if I have a snippet of time, but it's rare. The truth is that I'm usually so busy with other things that I don't really miss this. Or maybe it's because I've conditioned myself to not pick up the remote so quickly over the past months.
3. Vegetable gardening. One of my favorite things in the summer was making tomato and cucumber salads from what I grew in my own back yard, but when I got contracts to publish Blurry and Anywhere But Here last yea, I know I simply didn't have time to plant and maintain a garden, no matter how small I tried to keep it. Plus, I tried it the first 3 summers we lived here and it was never very successful. Oh well, the local Farmer's Market was glad for my business last summer!
4. Participation in several websites including Authonomy, Writing.com, and Open Salon. As I joined places with a greater outreach like Goodreads, Facebook and Twitter, I found myself on these sites less and less - to the point that I made the decision a month ago to be true to myself and back off. My focus just drifted to other areas. While I still want to keep improving as a writer, I must focus on getting in contact with readers too. They are, after all, why I'm writing in the first place.
I won't lie - it was hard to do this. The cross stitching was particularly painful to give up because I really did enjoy it, and I didn't want to admit that perhaps it was something meant for a season and not for life. But the truth is that I only have time for a few things in life, and I made a conscious decision that other things came above it, like church and writing. There's so much to do in life and our time and energy are limited, so we have to set priorities for ourselves.
Every now and then, you have to ask yourself what you want to see bear fruit in your life and dedicate yourself to that. Right now, I want to see my faith, home/family, and writing bear fruit, so that's where I must focus for now. And I am, but it means letting some other things go for a time while these things are at the forefront of my life. Maybe some of these things will come back someday and maybe they won't. Who knows what the future holds.
Yes, it has been a "season of pruning" in my life. I've had to cut many things, and I do believe it will lead to growth in the areas I've determined are important for now. But frankly, I've given up a great deal. I've seen too much go up in flames on the sacrificial altar to have giving up more, like perfume or fried pickles, speak to me now. Sacrifice has been speaking to me in a whole different way of late, and I just don't think I'm spiritually in a place where I can really "get it" now.
That doesn't mean that I don't observe Lent. I believe it's an extremely important season, and in fact I've chosen to observe it in a different way the past couple of years. You might not know it, but giving up something isn't the only way to observe this season. You can also take up a new project to observe it, like joining a Bible study, taking up an exercise program, or starting a new project. Last year, my project was to finish up unfinished projects around my home. This year, it's to make progress on our effort to get our yard fixed up. So there are other ways to do it.
Yes, I believe that accepting something to improve my home and life is the way for me to go this year. Praise God that we have a choice, and many ways to observe this important season of penance.
That's all today. Take care and happy Friday to you tomorrow.
Bye!
What do you do when you realize that something in your life doesn't fit as well as it used to? Do you try harder to keep it, work around it to make it fit, or let it go?
I've found myself in this situation lately. As I completed the edits on Anywhere But Here early this week, I realized that there were many things that need to be done before the book comes out in April to prepare for publicity and promotion opportunities. One thing I learned with Blurry is that it's not wise to wait until the book comes out to start publicity - you need to start building up an audience ahead of time. Promotion, of course, takes time and effort and is necessary if you want your writing to reach the readers you wrote it for. As I was considering what to check and where to direct my promotional efforts, I took a look at my life and realized that I was hanging on to some things that were no longer serving the purpose of improving or building up my writing the way they used to. I've realized for months that I'm no longer as active on Writing.com or on Open Salon as I had been a few years ago. After Blurry was published, I shifted my focus to publicity and promotion for my novels, novellas, and long stories and found I wasn't working on short stories or flash fiction the way I used to. This realization caused me to pause and take stock of where I am and whether what I'm holding on to is serving the purpose of getting me to where I want to be.
So over the past week, I've been asking myself what my true long-term goals are for my writing, and what I need to do to reach them. I realized that I am a novelist at heart, and that in order to succeed, I need to build up an audience of readers and increase my promotional skills. In looking at my online activity, I realized that although I had invested a lot in Writing.com, I wasn't getting a return. In fact, I've lost followers/readers at that site as I've been more focused on maintaining this site and my activity on other social media outlets where I get more feedback and have more connections, like Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads. It was a very hard decision to make because once upon a time, I loved Writing.com and got some great feedback there that I know made me the writer I am. But I realized that if I want to grow in my writing, then I need to prune what isn't producing fruit. Writing.com isn't producing anymore and I don't have time or energy to invest in something that's withering on the vine. So I made the difficult decision to suspend the blog at that website on Sunday and will not renew my upgraded account when it comes up for renewal later this year. It hurt terribly, but I need to focus my attention on places where I'm interacting with and reaching the most people.
With Open Salon, the decision was easier. I've never been very active on that site, and in fact suspected I made a mistake after a few short months of being there. I just couldn't seem to "fit in" and find the flow at that blogging site. So tonight I made my farewell entry and let that one go as well.
I think such realizations happen to all of us from time to time. We come to realize that something that used to be a part of our life is slipping away, and we have to make an active decision on whether to hold on to it, or let it go. Life is always changing, whether we realize it or not. Sometimes (like me in the past couple of years) you have major changes that rock your world and throw everything in a different balance, but things are still moving even when it seems like you're in a rut and nothing's happening. Slow motion can be very deceptive because it mirrors stagnation, but it's motion even if we don't perceive it. If the sun rises and sets, then things are moving. People and things slowly pass through our lives and we may not realize it until it hits us one day that something that used to be around all the time isn't such a big part of our lives any more.
I think I got hit with a combination of the fast and slow moving kind this time. I did go through two major life transitions a couple of years ago and as those were setting, I got my book contracts. These two blogs were there with me along the way, but I didn't realize until recently that their role in my day to day life had slipped as much as it had until I took stock and realized they weren't where I thought I'd left them.
Things do come and go in our lives, and sometimes it can be painful to face that something that meant a lot to you is slipping away. The natural tendency is to hold on to it, even if we know in our heart that it's season has passed in our life. It's especially hard to let go of something that was a benefit or comfort to us. And yet, pruning is the secret to growth. If we really want to continue to grow and be free to accept greater blessing and success, then we must be able to let go of what isn't serving our life anymore. Pruning hurts - no doubt about that - but it leads to better growth. Just as my roses will start growing after I prune them next month, so too will I grow from finding the courage to cut off this dead wood from my life. This summer, I hope to have more than just big, beautiful roses growing in my life.
Yes indeed, it's late winter and pruning season is coming to my part of the world, literally and figuratively. I have faith that it will lead to beautiful blooms in due season.
I wonder where inspiration comes from. It's a funny thing. For example, I haven't written a single new thing since November, yet I've done a lot with promotion of my work and a great deal of blogging. It's odd. It seems I'll go through these odd spells then all of a sudden I'll get hammered with more ideas than I can possibly keep up with.
Here's another puzzle: I've been agonizing over what to do with our front yard for a year. When you build on your own lot they don't do a thing for your yard - I mean nothing. Rick and I even had to plant grass, which we did, but we did little else because we were getting the inside of the house settled. Well, we finished that about a year and turned out attention outside, but came up blank. Then all of a sudden the entire vision of how to fix the front yard up came to me in Sunday School this morning. Just like that. I actually did a rough diagram of it while we were waiting to take communion on the back of my bulletin in church.
A lot of people have ideas of where it comes from. The most common that I hear is Holy intervention - the Spirit speaks and our mind moves. Some say it's how our experiences affect us. Some say it's where we are in life, or what we're going through - the situations we face and how they shape us. Others say it's more organic and inspiration comes through exercising regularly or eating right. Some say working your mind by doing puzzles. There are so many theories.
I believe they all have merit, but I think it's a more mysterious combination of it all. I sure do wish I could pinpoint what causes those flashes of inspiration that artist live for, though. I suspect I'd be a rich woman if I could find, bottle and sell that secret.
Unfortunately I don't have the answer, so I just have to work through it like everybody else. And hope that today's flash of inspiration for fixing up the yard will be the first of a wave that will inspire me in other areas of life. All I know is that my mind did start moving today, and I hope it's on a train that keeps on rolling.
Take care and I hope you have a great start to the week.
Bye!
I've been reading a great deal lately where people say that writer's block is a myth. Our muse doesn't get blocked, they say. We're just making excuses to not writer.
To them I say that if this is true, then "burnout" is also a myth. Think about it - if you apply this logic to every other area of life, then it logically follows that you don't get burned out on work; you simply get lazy and don't want to work anymore.
Now how does that arguement sound? Extreme, right? Well, I'll go to the other extreme and say that if a writer hasn't experienced writer's block, then I wonder if they're really writers. Because frankly, there's a difference between crafting a piece that is truly researched and developed and pounding out whatever random crap runs through your brain. If you want your work to be published and well received by readers, then you must invest in it by putting the time, thought and effort into it to make it the best piece it can be. That doesn't happen overnight and frankly, it can be a daunting task.
I know I sound peevish, but I've been writing for nearly 11 years and it makes me angry for people to "assume" that I get writer's block occasionally because I'm lazy. First of all, you don't stick with something for this long if your lazy. Second, you won't survive in the writing world in you're lazy because you'll drown in the flood of others that are willing to work at it and put their best work forward to get a break.
Writer's block does exist, and it's not laziness. Rather, I return to my previous statement of comparing it to burnout. I believe it's a natural tendency for us to get stuck in ruts and to show us that we need to break out of the same old same old to refresh ourselves and feed our muse. It's a sign that we need to slow down, relax, and experience life in order to refresh our creativity. Tapping that same old well over and over again is only going to drain it dry. We need to replenish it in order to keep turning out fresh work. We need to look around and find new ideas instead of pounding the same old ones, over and over. We need to stretch, grow and learn. And yes, sometimes it means we do need to take a break and live a little. A writer without a life isn't much of a writer. You need to live your life and fully experience it in order to keep the creativity flowing.
So yes, writer's block is just as real as burnout. And if you don't believe me, I challenge you to cancel your vacations this year and don't take a day of leave for the next 365 days. Then tell me what's real.
That's all for today.
Bye!
Have you ever had one of those days when you're trying so hard to keep it together, but everything seems to keep chipping away at you? Today's been that day for me. Woke up early this morning to find Rick desperately ill. Long story short, we were at doctor's offices from 8:00 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. having tests run to find he has diverticulitis. They put him on medication, but he feels terrible and is very weak. If it's anything like that stomach infection I had 5 years ago, I completely understand. That was the most pain I'd ever been in, and it seemed to go on forever. It was really 2 months, but that's a long convalence. And believe me, to this day I thank God for every meal I eat pain free, without getting sick immediately after. My gratitude over the ability to eat without hurting will never end.
I got back from the doctor to find a letter from the lady that's been doing my hair since I was 16 saying she's retiring at the end of March. I suspected this was coming, but I didn't feel it would be right to leave someone that's done my hair for half my life over a gut feeling that she was going to be gone one day. So I decided that I'd deal with it when the time came. Well, it's here. I was thinking about growing my hair out a little anyway, and I think this is a sign that it's time to do it. We have a Cost Cutters nearby that I can go to once I'm ready to say it's long enough and start maintaining it again.
So my nerves were frayed when I went out a little while ago to get Rick's medication and the food the doctor recommended for him over the weekend. The pharmacy was very nice and understanding, but the grocery store was another issue. A woman accosted me to take a free newspaper the minute I walked in the door. I mean, she latched on and wouldn't shut up! I finally told her I had no need for a paper and walked off. It was really hard to tell her it's only good for bird poop around my house and I'd be glad to demonstrate by shoving that paper she kept waving in my face someplace to demonstrate how newspapers are used in my home. But I remembered that you really need to be nice, and times when you're frayed are especially important. Annoying as she was, it wouldn't have been right to take my hell of a day out on her. But gosh, she sure made herself a prime target!
Ironically, I had hoped to potentially dig for some short story ideas today but that's not gonna happen. I did a few promotional things, though. For example, I need to verify this blog with Technorati, and to do that I need to put a validation code in this post. So here it is for them: MRV3RHK2K9GC . Here's hoping this works and helps!
Well, I finished another blog series. I've been thinking about what to do next here. I don't want to do another series; not now anyway. I think I'd like to keep it free and kind of random for now. That's ok. Flexibility is good, and I think readers want to be surprised by what they'll find every now and then.
That's all for today. Here's hoping things improve. Take care and I'll see you later.
Bye!
Happy New Year everybody! I want to thank each and every one of you for supporting my writing, and for following me online. I hope that you have a joyful, successful and very happy 2012 and that you make your dreams come true.
Thanks to 2011 for being a great year full of progress. Here's to continuing a successful journey in 2012!
I entered a counted cross stitch in the State Fair in October 2009. It was my largest stitching project and, I thought, a masterpiece of creativity. Unfortunately, the judges didn't agree. I didn't win a ribbon.
I was heartbroken. This piece took nearly three and a half years to complete, and I felt it was my best work. But under the scrutnizing eye of others, it didn't measure up.
Family and friends consoled me and urged me to keep at it. Don't give up, they said, because eventually you'll win. As I considered the situation, though, I started to realize some things. That project had been very time consuming and difficult for me to complete; to the point that it became frustrating in the end. In fact, part of the reason why it took me so long to finish the project was because I put it on hiatus for a period of 7 months while I wrote Blurry. I realized that looking over that period of time, the hobby that brought me the most contentment wasn't the cross stitch, but writing the novel. It made me ask myself what I really wanted to see bear fruit in my life, and the answer, without a hitch, was my writing. So the next time a friend encouraged me to start a new stitching project, I finally admitted a truth that I should have faced sooner. "You know," I said, "I realize now that stitching is an arena for others. Writing is mine, and I need to return to it."
That wasn't well received. A lot of people assumed I was quitting and saw it as a bad sign and completely out of character for me. What they didn't know was that an idea for another novel was developing. Soon after, I began work on Anywhere But Here, a novel about a young woman battling depression in the face of major life transitions. I made it my mission after that failed contest to grow and develop as a writer, and it paid off. Blurry was published by Wings ePress in August 2011; Anywhere But Here will be published by Whiskey Creek Press in April 2012, and I recently completed Splinter, a sci-fi apocolyptic novel that I successfully completed a rough draft of during 2010 National Novel Writing Month.
I could have given you a monologue about mining your talents and finding your passions, but I felt that relating this experience would be a better demonstration of the process of using your interests and experiences to find authenticity and purpose. All of us have a number of talents, skills and abilities with potential for development, but our time and energy are limited. There simply isn't enough time in a day, week, month, year, season or lifetime to do it all. You have to set priorities by making active decisions on what you want to see bear fruit in your life and investing in those purposes. Prayer, of course, is the best way to do this, because it helps us to look within and be absolutely honest with God and ourselves about what's best for life.
Another point I hope you take from this is that finding authenticity and purpose is a journey. I didn't wake up one day and say "I'm putting stitching on a back burner while I focus on writing more material and learning how to get published and promoted." It was trying and failing, assessing myself and learning from mistakes, making realizations and trying again. It's a process of trial and error, and you will certainly make mistakes. Don't look on it as wasted time, though. The missteps and mistakes can be mined for wisdom that leads to success in future endeavors. I knew that hard work was the key to progress, but this experience also taught me the importance of focus. I saw the true meaning of "a jack of all trades is a master at none" and realized that I needed to pick what meant the most and zoom in on that as my primary goal.
Above and beyond all else, I hope you see the importance of being true to yourself. Others can mean the best and still be wrong. You are the only one that has to live with yourself and your life 100% of the time. The path will only be revealed to you, and there are many steps in that path that won't make a bit of sense to others. That's ok. The ones that are meant to share the journey will learn to accept you for what you were created to be. The others will fall away. Simple as that.
As a final note, I'd like to mention that I haven't completely given up cross stitching, but I'm limiting my projects to very small scale items. That's more practical for my current lifestyle. Maybe one day I'll tackle another large project, but for now my focus is on becoming a better writer. And to me, that's what really matters.
Next time: Standing Alone - Staying Strong Under Attack.
I recently heard a sermon on BBN about how the Book of Nehemiah shows 4 ways the devil trys to stop people from doing God's will. They are derision, discouragement, destruction and division. I think this is pretty accurate. After all, God doesn't attack us. He usually changes our circumstances and/or prompts a change of mind and heart within us if the intervention is Holy and an effort to put us on a right path. I believe my story from yesterday's entry showed this at work. There were no attacks in that situation; simply changing circumstances which eventually lead me to a change of heart. Certainly I could have continued to pursue an advanced degree in a different program, but the experience shifted my desires to other areas. In fact, I felt strongly prompted to pursue writing after this incident and I had an experience last year that showed all 4 of these steps at work to divert me from what I felt prompted to do.
In April 2010 I had an idea for an apocolyptic sci-fi thriller novel. I had just completed the manuscript for Anywhere But Here, and frankly I was surprised to have an idea for another novel so soon after completing one. I'm usually exhausted and novel ideas come, at best, every 2-3 years. I was excited to already have another potential project, so I immediately dug in and began writing the first chapter of this new piece. Frankly, it was the only excitement I had in the area of writing. I hadn't had anything published in over three years, and a contract that I was offered a year earlier fell through when the publisher filed for bankruptcy (see discouragement and destruction at work). This lack of success had caused enthusiasm to wane over my writing, and people that had been so excited when I published Battleground Earth in 2004 had now dismissed my writing as nothing more than a "nice little hobby" (see derision at work). Through this dry period I did pray about whether it was a sign to stop writing and move on, but the ideas kept coming and I continued to feel compelled and prompted to continue writing, even if the stories never made it any further than my hard drive.
My progress didn't make it past the first chapter, though, because I got tendinitis in my right wrist. It took about 8 weeks to heal. During that time I had to keep my typing to a minimum. I prayed and felt that I should use the time to research and further develop this novel. In fact, I decided to use the entire summer for this task and to enter this novel idea in the 2010 National Novel Writing Month challenge for 2010. That gave me 5 months to research, brainstorm, outline, and prepare to write the rough draft of the novel, and it would finally give me a chance to enter this writing challenge that I'd had my eye on and thought about entering for many years.
I tentatively call the tendinitis a destruction attack on me. I say "tentatively" because I am aware that the tendinitis was caused by typing at work all day and then coming home and typing at night to write Anywhere But Here, so the injury was a result of actions that I knowingly and willingly took.It was just the timing of the injury and the fact that my left wrist wasn't hurt at all that made me suspicious.
I proceeded with my plan and come November 1, 2010 I was ready to start on the novel. I was fully healed and had plenty of notes ready to go. I made great progress for the first few days. I was going through a major life transition at the time from major changes in my personal and professional life, but I felt that I was on a right path. In fact, writing Splinter for NaNo felt like a claim of independence; like a way of saying this is my life and I'm taking it and putting it together my way. It was a personal victory for me.
Unfortunately, the devil had his last punch to pack, and he gave me a wallop right when I didn't need it. It was at that time that other people in my life decided that they had a whole lot of problems with all of these changes, and it was time to do something about it. Tempers exploded and I saw sides of people that I had known for years that had never come out. They weren't angry at me, but since the change was centered around me then I was viewed as the linchpin of it all, and they saw me as the one to "make things right." They were mad at circumstances, mad at situations, and yes, mad at one another. I tried to soothe them, but tempers raged on. I even pointed out, as gently as I could, that they were reacting violently to things that usually didn't bother them, or were minor irritations. Occasionally they would stop, look stunned, say "you're right, that's wierd," then proceed to keep screaming about everything wrong with the world. Most of the time, they said I was crazy and needed to do something about things NOW. (See division at work.)
Once again, I prayed about the situation and this time, I had what can only be called a divine inspiration: Don't worry about anything else; just finish that rough draft as quickly as possible. Ignore everything else until it's done and deal with people once you get this story, which has been percolating in your head for months, out of the brain and onto the hard drive. Until then, reality can wait.
That's exactly what I did. I quit socializing, cleared my calendar, only did the bare essentials, and pounded away at that manuscript in every free minute I could squeeze out of my days. I amazed myself by finishing a 51,000 word first draft of Splinter by November 15.
A funny thing happened when I cautiously re-emerged back to reality. World War 3 hadn't broken out, and nobody had killed anybody else. In fact, all those tempers quieted. Most of them slunk away in silence, but a few did express shock and dismay at their behavior. They couldn't believe they had reacted so violently to things that were nothing more than minor irriations and didn't understand. I knew exactly what it was. Satan lit them with some hell fire to stop me, but when I wasn't there to burn then it was useless so he took it from them. I could have easily stayed angry at them and cast blame and judgement, but I realized it as an attack of division and didn't want to allow it to succeed on any level. It was hard, but I made an active decision to forgive and let it go.
I'd like to say that the devil just went away after that, but the truth is that I faced similar attacks every single time I worked on Splinter. Every rewrite, every edit, every proofread it happened. People saying they couldn't believe I was still at it when I clearly wasn't going to get published again. Illness, computer problems and yes, those tempers did flare back up every single time. But you know what? I prayed for protection, I persevered, and with the Lord's grace and help, I finished the manuscript last month. It's in the submittal process now and I pray that protection and help continue to bring it to publication.
Another thing did happen in the wake of all of this. I was offered e-book contracts for Blurry and Anywhere But Here, finally ending a 4 year publication dry spell. I also got several flash fiction pieces and a couple of short stories posted online, and that success gave me the confidence to self publish two more pieces: Quarantine, a suspense novellette, and Resonance, a horror long story. Thanks be to God that the opportunities offered by e-publishing took me from “a nice little hobby” to being an Independent Author!
The point of this story is to show that you will come up against opposition when you try to do God's will by finding your authentic self, but the rewards of perseverence are great. Prayer is absolutely essential - in fact, it's key. I think you see in my tale that prayer is how I channeled the Lord's power into my life. Through it, He provided me with wisdom, healing and protection. I can tell you for a fact that if He will do it for me, He will do it for everybody. God is no respector of persons. If you love and trust Him, He will provide, protect and comfort you.
I know it's discouraging to find you'll have to fight the devil to be who you were made to be, but the fact is that you're going to fight him no matter what you do. Satan will taunt you whether you do what he wants or not, so you might as well claim Christ's victory and piss off the devil every chance you get. Because face it: With Satan you can't win, but with Christ you can't lose. That is the most universal truth there is.
Thanks for sticking with me through 2 life tales. I hope that my experiences have given you insight for your own life and perhaps inspiration for dealing with situations that you face. Take care and keep fighting the good fight.
Next time: Personality Quirks - What's Sin, What's There For a Reason.
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