I’ve been having a bit of difficulty getting into my latest work-in-progress. Probably because it’s been nine months since I wrote the first three chapters, and rather than day-dreaming about this one during those months, I was hard at work on Jewel of Persia. But this story is semi-under deadline, so I have to get working on it. Usually pressure gets my creative juices flowing, so I’m cool with that.
Except . . . well, it wasn’t working that way. Every single page, every single chapter has felt like a struggle since I picked it up again, and I had no idea what I was going to do about it. I kept thinking, “If I could just get to this part over here, but how do I do that?”
Yesterday my hubby had to travel to Baltimore for the day, and my mom took the kids Christmas shopping in the morning. Knowing I was going to have a solid block of writing time, I got all set up at my desk, put my butt in the chair, and stopped. Pulled out my Bible, opened to Proverbs 16.
1 The preparations of the heart belong to man,
But the answer of the tongue is from the LORD.
2 All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes,
But the LORD weighs the spirits.
3 Commit your works to the LORD,
And your thoughts will be established. . . .
But the answer of the tongue is from the LORD.
2 All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes,
But the LORD weighs the spirits.
3 Commit your works to the LORD,
And your thoughts will be established. . . .
and of course the ever famous verse 9 . . .
9 A man’s heart plans his way,
But the LORD directs his steps.
But the LORD directs his steps.
Had I dedicated this book to God? I know I’d prayed for the writing of it, that the words come. But somehow that didn’t feel like enough yesterday. So yet again, I stopped. And I prayed that if I should write this book, that I write it the way the Lord wanted. That if this is to be the next step in my career, it be His step. That He would remove from me any motives not His own, and more specifically any ideas for the story that would not glorify Him.
Then I opened my eyes, and I wrote. I wrote 3,000 yesterday, which is by no means a record for me–but it’s been MONTHS since I’ve written that much in a day. And oh, it felt so good. Not just because it was an accomplishment, but because I finally felt as though I were writing the right book . . . for the right reasons. And yet, my story ideas haven’t really changed. The book didn’t suddenly take an unexpected turn.
But I think maybe I did. I think maybe I turned that corner and stopped thinking, “I have to write this book to show it to the editor,” and started thinking, “This story has potential and deserves to be told.”
I asked the Lord to show me and help me pull out some of His Truths through the telling of this story, and now I have this peace inside promising that I will. What will they be? Well, I don’t know yet. But I do know that I don’t ever want to write a book without them.
If this book ends up being the one that gets a contract with that major publisher it’s aimed at, then wonderful. But if it doesn’t . . . well I finally stopped thinking I’d be wasting my time on it if it doesn’t. Now I’m eager to see what God has to teach me, and just maybe others, through its telling.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.
I've been in a slump too. Your post has me wondering if I'm trying to do a little too much on my own…