My first guest blogger is Debbie Archer.
A
Good Whack Upside the Head
My
list of things I’m thankful for is heftier than my pitiful,
tattered, unabridged dictionary resting on my desk. And I’m
thankful for that, too. Yeah, yeah. I have one online. Big whoop. I
can’t run my finger down the crinkled pages of that one. Nor can I
close my eyes and randomly flip to a page and discover a new word
begging to be included in my next wip. But, I digress.
Heading
up my list of things/people that make my life a living dream: my
husband, family, chocolate, happily-ever-afters, and
blunders-that-turned-out-well. In short, the Jesus things. He sees to
it that my life is one big blessing even though He makes me wade
through a few mud holes to get to His arms.
Last
night, he smacked me upside the head with another big ol’ blessing.
One that’s always been there, but for which I’ve never given him
credit. Not a thumbs up. Not even a head nod! It never OCCURRED to me
to be thankful for this … until last night.
About
9:00 p.m. I sat in the den doing my “calm down from a long day”
routine. That includes sipping a cup of herbal tea, staring at the
twinkle lights on the mantle, and talking to my hero. I’ve found
that’s the perfect time for us to chat, because I have fewer
distractions, I’m too pooped to do housework, and I have a list of
things to ask his advice about. Uppermost on my mind last night was
NaNoWriMo.
Once
I decided to throw my heart, soul, and lack of common sense into this
exercise of writing 50,000 words in a month, a bad case of the
worries set in. I’ve tried it one other time and only lasted two
days. Two DAYS! I melted into a puddle of nerves, threw up my hands,
and quit. Now, here I was diving in again.
I
snuggled into my spot on the couch, sipped, and allowed self-doubt to
plop down right next to me. Then the sighing began. Had I made a big
mistake by committing to NaNo this year? I mean, I work full time. I
have a lot on my plate, and a lot of deadlines that have to be met.
The only time I have to write is exclusively at night. Plus, NOBODY
in my town is joining me.
In
other words, what He heard from me was WaaaaWaaaaWaaaa. And that’s
when He whacked me upside the head. As I sat in that quiet room, I
heard His words clear as day in my heart.
“I
gave you your writing. Be grateful. Others battle with the same
problems you do. Use the gift I gave you. Now.
And
since I can be a bit dense, he went on to explain a few things. Most
writers
work full time at another job. They all
have
responsibilities, and a LOT of people only
get to write at night.
Now,
I’ve always been thankful for my writing friends, but it NEVER
occurred to me to be grateful for the multitude of writers I will
never know. But I am now. We are all linked through this gift God
handed to us. We are connected.
We
live in a world where people don’t always “get” us as writers,
and that’s okay. God gets us. We get each other. And, in this
writer’s heart, I’m thankful for God’s clarification. I’m no
longer worried about NaNoWriMo. If I finish, great. If I don’t, at
least I’ll get myself into a writing pattern. More importantly I’ve
found comfort in knowing that no matter when I write, another writer
will be lacing words together. At the same time I’m mulling over a
word, another writer will turn to a weathered dictionary to find the
perfect word to touch a reader’s heart.
Wherever
we are in our writing – wherever we are in the world, we are
connected. And for this, I am grateful.
No comments:
Post a Comment