Overcoming Writer’s Block

“On writing, my advice is the same to all. If you want to be a writer, write. Write and write and write. If you stop, start again. Save everything that you write. If you feel blocked, write through it until you feel your creative juices flowing again.”

-Anne Rice

 

Writer’s block; what is meant by “block”?  Barricade?  Wall?  Traffic Jam?  Writing is a process I thoroughly enjoy.  I find great pleasure in getting my thoughts down onto paper, organizing them and finding them absolutely normal and manageable.  Unfortunately, there isn’t always time to write.  Months or maybe even years go by and there just isn’t opportunity to go through that therapeutic process.  Then the thoughts begin to pile up, and pile up.  At that point, for me, it would best be called “writer’s constipation”!  I sit down to write and it isn’t that I’ve got nothing – it’s that I’ve got so much clogged up in there that it hurts to think.  I don’t know where to start and I feel very overwhelmed.

 

I could write about why I haven’t written in over a year, almost two.  How I spent an entire day over Christmas break cleaning up my blog; reorganizing it and giving it a brand new look in hopes of reinstating my favorite hobby in 2013.  I could write about the pains and triumphs in 2012, or the hopes for the year ahead.  I could tell the stories I’ve been conjuring for years.  I could play at poetry or essay a random topic.  I could share some insight on my recent Bible Studies or maybe share elements of my prayers.  It’s all in there waiting to come out.

 

If I had a weekend away, all holed up and alone, it would not be enough time to process it all.  And there it is, the problem for me.  I want to process it all, right now!  So in comes that feeling of being overwhelmed and tempted to walk away because there is just too much writing to be done!  But I am seeing Mrs. Rice is right.  As I write this little snippet of nothing, I am beginning to think clearly; to think rationally.  I cannot catch up on all my thoughts.  I cannot write them all down in a day.  It’s as if lack of practice has built a dam and my thoughts lie in a stagnate pool behind it.  Writing, just writing, writing nothing, writing about writing, is practice and practice is the antithesis of all that the dam, of all that the blockage, of all that writer’s block is all about.

 

I have put a chink in the dam today.  Words may only trickle onto the page for a while, but eventually the dam will burst and this stagnate pool will move ahead, the thoughts will flow onto paper, and I will be writing again!  (I hope!  There’s always the chance that the beaver is faster at patching than I am of widening the hole.)

Reflections 2010 and Projections 2011

Here I sit at the beginning of another new year.  This is the time for reflection and projection, new leaves, and resolutions.  Maybe its one of my obsessive behaviors, but I don’t need a time of year for this thinking.  I am constantly looking backwards, then forwards…backwards, then forwards.  It is likely that I suffer severely from emotional whiplash.

When I look backwards I see so many problems, so I whip my head toward the future and begin planning all of the solutions.  My reflections consist mainly of pains I’ve suffered, and my projections consist of answers and solutions.  The neck snaps when I get to the present and find that the plans and solutions aren’t playing out according to my calculations.  So I look back again, whip forward again, arrive in the present disappointed and start the cycle all over again.   I don’t want to suffer from this condition any longer.  They say the definition of insanity is attempting the same things over and over again, expecting different results.  I must then be coming out of insanity because; I no longer want the same result.  While I don’t think I can change the reflection and projection part of my behavior, maybe I can change the focus of my reflections and projections and in this find a more preferable result.

My reflections need to shift from the things I don’t like and want to change to the things I am thankful for and hope to see again.  We’ve had several rocky years over the last decade and 2010 fell right in line.  It was an emotional roller coaster of yet more change for my family.  I could look at all the frustrations of 2010, plot out yet another change, and try to fix things for 2011, that’s my usual habit.  However, I think this year I want to look back and rejoice.  There were many opportunities for things to have fallen far worse than they did, yet God sustained us.  It really isn’t an exaggeration to say that I know how successful people are sleeping in suburbia one night and are cramming into a two bedroom apartment in the projects just six months later.

We started the year with one dying car and many hoops to jump through to taxi kids and get to our jobs on time.  We received a gift of what we thought was to be a replacement car, however, without explanation, our first car began to run fine.  I have to believe God healed it, there is no other explanation for why one day it was randomly downshifting and the next day it wasn’t.  (If you have a theory, please keep it to yourself, because I like mine just fine.)

Then shortly before Christmas, when things were already tight and we were trying to figure out how we were going to tell the kids that Christmas was not coming to our house this year, both cars dropped dead in the driveway.  For some people this would have meant no way to get to work and the eventual loss of their jobs.  For me it easily could have meant getting angry and calling credit card companies to check for balances big enough to cover the costs.   But, being at the end of that rope, there were no solutions this time.  We were steps away from the spiral, and I was clinging to nothing but hope in my Heavenly Father.  Not a single day of work was missed and we only had to borrow a car for a day or two.  God brought our first car back to life again and sent a mechanic and a benevolent friend to repair the other at no cost to us.

As far as the Christmas issue.  Someone approached James in church with a hefty fist of cash and said, “I believe God wants you to have this.”  That with a few grandparent checks provided an excellent Christmas morning for our family.

The miracles of 2010 don’t stop there.  Time and time again, I would sit down to plan the budget for the upcoming month, only to find our paychecks were only enough to pay the bills, utilities and rent.  The only thing I could carve-down, and more often than not cut-out completely, was grocery money.  Time and again our cupboards have been perilously bare; time and again gift cards have been randomly handed to us or friends have pulled into the driveway with hatches full of groceries for us.

I honestly don’t know how anyone survives without faith in a providential God and the love of a Church family.  2010 was our year of miracles.  And I pray it will be the year that changed what I see when I look backwards.

The change I need to make with regard to looking forward is a little more challenging.  While the backward-glance change is a matter of more intentional focus, the forward- glance change is a matter of faith and conviction.   When I look forward making plans and dreaming big, I tend to project in selfish ideals.  The things that get me out of bed and keep me moving are hopes for something better to come my way soon.  Very little time is spent remembering where my sustenance came from in the past and who truly guides my steps.  There is an independent control freak inside of me, constantly fighting to get her way.  Putting to death this sinful nature (Romans 8:13, Colossians 3:5) is so much harder than the simple choice to have a grateful heart.  You see, to be a responsible adult I must plan and prepare.  However, to hold those plans loosely and to joyfully allow God to have His way with my life is a delicate balance, one that I must master if I am to move from the insanity.

“The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes His steps.”  Prov. 16:9

Here is where the panic attack begins and I am overcome with tremendous fear.  It wouldn’t take much to topple my little world and I am so convinced that if I don’t hold it together then no one else will.  What arrogance, what sin!  And this is why refocusing the reflection is so much harder than changing the projection.

The heart of the issue is the place of my hope.  My hope is in my plan.  I’ve already said that this is what keeps me going forward.  Can I possibly realign my hope; put it in something bigger than my own plan?

“…rejoice in the hope of God’s glory.”  Rom. 5:2

This has got to be one of the hardest things I have ever tried to accomplish.  It means laying down every bit of selfishness, every bit of me; putting away my carefully laid plans for the exact opposite if I am asked to do so, desiring nothing for myself but God alone.  Even if it means I will never see the result of my hope.  How many martyrs have died not knowing what impact their testimonies have had?  Hoping in something I can’t see or touch, something outside of my realm of understanding requires a faith so much bigger than me.  It is what I want for 2011, and it is the hardest resolution I have ever aspired to.  So I have only one hope of accomplishing this.

“My hope is in the Lord, who gave Himself for me.  And paid the price of all my sin at Calvary.”  Norman Clayton

^“My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

⁷O hope in the LORD!
For with the LORD there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
⁸And he will redeem…”  Psalm 130: 6-8

By the grace of God and through His son Jesus Christ, I am able to move into a place of rejoicing in the past, giving thanks in my reflections.  With the strength found in Him I will hold my projections loosely and allow Him alone to be my hope.

A Day Behind, But Never Too Late

Since the annual thanksgiving worship service on Tuesday I have been thinking a great deal about my personal thanksgivings.  Quite honestly it hasn’t come naturally for me to want to give thanks this year.  One decade ago I was hosting Thanksgiving in my beautiful 4 bedroom home.  Family came from out of state and we had enough bedrooms and bathrooms to comfortably house them all.  It was good.

Shortly after that we took a huge step of faith and sold the house.  We believed that God was calling us to “drop our nets” (leave our vocations) and go into full-time ministry.  It has not been an easy call to follow; sometimes the call hasn’t even been audible and we’re still floundering in our lame attempt at obedience.  The past eight years have been extremely hard.

We first heard the call through Matthew 28:18-20 – The Great Commission.

^“18 Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’”

It’s a common verse that God has often used to call people into missions.  But the Sunday he used it on us, it wasn’t the typical command portion of the verse, “Go and make disciples” that he used to work on our hearts.  It was the promise, “All authority has been given to me…I am with you always…”

And this same promise is what I am clinging to this holiday.  It is my greatest thanksgiving.  Regardless of how hard it is.  No matter how much I struggle in walking closely with him.  In spite of my sinful heart and my tendency to blame him, he promises that He is with me always.

I am thankful for Jesus’ love for me.  I am thankful that He has all authority and is with me always.  I am thankful that His proximity is not dependant on my attitude.

Jesus – thank you for your merciful, unfailing, patient love.

Daily Routines on My Day Off

It’s a quarter to twelve on my day off.  It is damp and cold outside.  Inside it is cozy-warm with a fire crackling in the wood stove.  It seems the prefect time to write.  I may be able to do so for several hours today.  If so, that would be wonderful.  I have a long list of things that I would like to write; journals for my blog, a devotional for Christmas, a few chapters in my novel.  It is a continual struggle for me to find the time.  I often think of, and envy, the career writers who can sit for hours at a time and do nothing but write.  There is a place in Surprised by Joy where C.S. Lewis describes his perfect day.  A routine he had while living in Bookham and studying for his University exams.  This is the daily routine I fantasize about.

“We now settled into a routine which has ever since served in my mind as an archetype, so that what I still mean when I speak of a “normal” day (and lament that normal days are so rare) is a day of the Bookham pattern. For if I could please myself I would always live as I lived there. I would choose always to breakfast at exactly eight and to be at my desk by nine, there to read or write till one. If a cup of good tea or coffee could be brought me about eleven, so much the better. …At one precisely lunch should be on the table; and by two at the latest I would be on the road. Not, except at rare intervals, with a friend. Walking and talking are two very great pleasures, but it is a mistake to combine them. Our own noise blots out the sounds and silences of the outdoor world; and talking leads almost inevitably to smoking, and then farewell to nature as far as one of our senses is concerned. The only friend to walk with is one…who so exactly shares your taste for each mood of the countryside that a glance, a halt, or at most a nudge, is enough to assure us that the pleasure is shared. The return from the walk, and the arrival of tea, should be exactly coincident, and not later than a quarter past four. Tea should be taken in solitude, as I took it at Bookham … For eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably. Of course not all books are suitable for mealtime reading. It would be a kind of blasphemy to read poetry at table. What one wants is a gossipy, formless book which can be opened anywhere…At five a man should be at work again, and at it till seven. Then, at the evening meal and after, comes the time for talk, or, failing that, for lighter reading; and unless you are making a night of it with your cronies (and at Bookham I had none) there is no reason why you should ever be in bed later than eleven.”

However, I am not so privileged to lead this life, and so I struggle endlessly with the tension between my hunger to write and my busy schedule.  Not knowing exactly where to find the Lewis quote I googled.  Through this I happened upon a blog dedicated to the daily routines of writers and artists.  Just below C.S. Lewis’s ideal routine was John Grisham’s routine.  Not his routine today, as a career novelist, but his routine when first getting started, when he was still a Mississippi lawyer.

When he first started writing, Grisham says, he had “these little rituals that were silly and brutal but very important.”

“The alarm clock would go off at 5, and I’d jump in the shower. My office was 5 minutes away. And I had to be at my desk, at my office, with the first cup of coffee, a legal pad and write the first word at 5:30, five days a week.”

His goal: to write a page every day. Sometimes that would take 10 minutes, sometimes an hour; ofttimes he would write for two hours before he had to turn to his job as a lawyer, which he never especially enjoyed. In the Mississippi Legislature, there were “enormous amounts of wasted time” that would give him the opportunity to write.  “So I was very disciplined about it,” he says, then quickly concedes he doesn’t have such discipline now: “I don’t have to.”

I am a person that likes silly and brutal rituals.  I have always been an early riser.  Even on days off I can’t sleep past 7:00 AM.  Mr. Grisham inspires me.  However, not being a mother or wife I doubt Mr. Grisham feels that magnetic pull of false guilt.  That prick in the consciousness that tells a mother she ought to be assisting the children with breakfast, packing lunches, and gathering school books while she’s getting ready for her 40-a-week job.  Not to mention he only needs 5 minutes to shower and dress, a woman needs an hour.  I doubt he felt that if he wasn’t the one to watch the clock and to feed the dogs then all would fall to pieces.

So, there it is, my constant frustration – the battle against the clock to find time for my passion and past-time.  How thankful I am to have it today!

So, I will post this little blog, work on my novel, and possibly form the outline for the Christmas devotional I’ve had rattling around in my head for at least the past 4 Christmases.  Maybe I’ll get it out this year.  Maybe I’ll also consider writing up and implementing a new morning routine.  Mr. Grisham, I’ll try your silly and brutal rituals and maybe one day I too will say, “I don’t have such disciplines now: I don’t have to.”  And, dare I imagine that one day my routine will look like the ideal Lewis day I’ve spent years dreaming of?

If Today Could Be Everyday

Happy Labor Day!

Today is perfect!  The weather, the agenda, the company…

I am currently sitting on my deck, laptop poised for writing while my hubby, beside me, strums his guitar.  The dog is napping in the sun.  The kids are inside chillin’ after a half a day of family fun.  We lazied around, grilled Brats, played Spades…  I don’t think it gets much better than this!

I cannot express how badly I needed this “down-time.”  Or how badly I wish that this day was everyday.  I know it isn’t possible to be this laid back, but maybe a little less intense than it usually is.  Because of the ongoing stresses, I find myself wondering if our way of doing life is the right way.  Is the craziness, the busyness, the chaos, really the way God wants us to do things?  Did I hear him right when He was calling me to go back to work full-time so that James could be freed up to do more ministry?  Did He really say, work full-time and home school?  Really?  Is this how we are supposed to be doing life?  Sometimes it all seems so overwhelming.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were some sort of Litmus test for knowing 100% that you are exactly where God wants you?  I don’t know how to tell if there are better ways to “do life”.  There are no aerograms, no neon signs, no post-it notes.    He hasn’t sent me an email, a text message, and He hasn’t facebooked me.  Sometimes I feel like we are in a mad labyrinth, circling back around to those places where we’ve already been.  I really want to be doing what God wants us to be doing, but how do I know if I’m doing it?

I don’t believe in prosperity doctrines.  I don’t believe that the way to knowing whether or not you are in His will is by how much you are being physically blessed and how comfortable your daily routine is.   But I honestly don’t know how to gauge the rightness of our life choices (the morally neutral ones).

The conclusion I have come to is that I am asking the wrong question.  Instead of asking, “God, are we doing this right?  Is this where you want us to be?”  What I should be asking is, “Lord, are you my everything?  Do I live as if my circumstances don’t matter, and you alone do?”  Because if I am walking with Him, delighting in Him, and living for His glory.  His Spirit will lead me in the way I should go.

This is why I have been studying His glory.  I want to change the questions.  Stop striving for right choices.  Stop trying to find some silver bullet that would put us on the path to blessing and favor, and start living for His glory, to have everything in and about me, point to Him alone.

(My compiled studies and notes – a work in progress – are posted under the Devotions tab of this blog)

Its Been A While

Has it really been 3 weeks since I last wrote anything?!  I have been trying to write, really.  One of my birthday gifts from James was a new laptop battery so that I could sit out at the picnic table, where I take my lunch break, and write.  I have to admit I was way too into my other birthday gift (the e-reader) to stop and write.  I’ve read 4 novels in the six-weeks I’ve had my e-reader, my favorite being my most recent, The Hunger Games.  Great read – highly recommend it.  Time permitting, I’ll review it for those who are interested.

In addition to having my nose in a “book” I have been busy with family life and the adjustment back to being a family of four.  Dad visited on the first week everyone was home.  That was fun!  We went to Grand Caverns in Grottoes, VA.  God’s creation always amazes me!

It is so good to have the kids back.  They both had a wonderful summer on their mission trips.  Tomorrow we start back to school with a few classes and the full-blown home school schedule/routine will begin next week.

There is my list of excuses for three weeks of not blogging.  However, I have been thinking of things to write about.  I am going to take an e-reading sabbatical to get these thoughts out and written.  You’ll find them posted in a series, over the next few weeks under the Devotions tab of this blog.  God has had me processing though some stuff that I would like to share with anyone interested.  I pray it will reach the hearts of those who need to hear it and be ministered to.

Tax Free Weekend

It was the weekend for school supply shopping.  As I fought the crowds and purchased my tax-free goodies, I was wowed by how extraordinary my 11-years of Back-to-School experiences as a mother have been.

Twelve years ago, my children were approaching school age and all I saw was six hours a day in which to regain sanity!  What would I do with that time?  Would I get a job, hang-out at coffee shops with other housewives, read books and watch TV to my heart’s content?  The house would be immaculate and I would always look unfazed!  I had child #1 in school for one year and thought, “I can do better than this – I am going to home school.”

Those elementary years nearly did me in!  They were so labor intensive!  “Mommy, what is a noun?”  “Mommy, what is 2+2?”  And the crafts…oh the crafts that elementary students have to do!  Crafts for Art, crafts for Science,  color for Math, draw a picture for Story Time.  After a three years of that experience I found myself jumping for joy when another opportunity presented itself.

We were going to Japan and they had a school for the missionary kids!  They would get a good, Christian education while I played the role of a good missionary wife.  But then…they needed a teacher for the elementary students.  To this day, I don’t know why I agreed, except that they needed me.  I went from two elementary students in two grades, to 10 elementary students in three grades.  I grew to like it, and some days even enjoy it.  It was the best of both worlds.  A job, interaction with an adult world, and hours that afforded me plenty of mommy time and control of their education.  But, I was always praying for another opportunity to present itself.

When we returned to the states, we had no idea what we would do next or where we would go.  So, until we figured that out, I resumed my role as home school mom.  This time it was for 2 middle schoolers.  Hello insecurity!  We were now broaching subjects that were just way over my head.  It lasted one year, then child #2 was in public school and child #1 was in a lot of home school co-op classes.  Wow, was I thankful to discover home school co-ops!  Before we knew it our lives were in transition again, this time change was coming in the middle of a school year and home school was just the logical option.

For the past three years we have done a combination of parent taught classes and co-op taught classes.  But I am still confused and unsure.  Everyday I wrestle with questions like, “Are we doing what’s best?”  “Are they getting everything they need?”  “Is it bad that I work full-time too?”  All sorts of crazy insecurities plague me.

But, I am growing in letting them go.  As I mature in this area of motherhood and our parenting choices, I realize there is no formula.  There are no guarantees regardless of what books you read, rules you follow, or format you choose.  Every family will do it differently and every child will turn out differently.  Just like fingerprints.

I’m finally learning that I won’t ever find security in my methodologies.  Over the years I often felt I wasn’t making a free choice in our children’s education.  I felt as if circumstances were dictating them.  Moving so often, into such non-traditional environments, often forced our decisions.  Thinking that circumstance was my master lead me to believe I was doing something I really wasn’t capable of.  Fear and insecurity reigned in my home school mothering conscience.  But, I have grown and I know better!  My sovereign and loving Heavenly Father orchestrated all our moves, homes, circumstances, and surroundings.  It is ultimately He who raises my children.  I am blessed to be a tool in His plan for their lives.  And I am so blessed to hear trained co-op teachers say, “He/She is such a smart, respectful, excellent student.”

I had a blast shopping this weekend and I am looking forward to another great year schooling my kids, this way, this year… Because, no one knows how we’ll be doing it next year!

Sunday is Blog Day

It looks like Sunday is Blog day.  At least for now.  I have 2 Sundays of “normal” for this summer left.  The third Sunday from today, August 15, I will be sitting here too anxious to blog – I think – because the kids will be on their way home.  That is going to be the longest Sunday of my life!

Highlight of my week – a letter from Jeneva!!!  I am not playing favorites – I talk to Josiah about once a day by phone.

Today I blogged on the Reviews page.  I just finished a great book today – I had to say something about it!  I also pasted links to my poems on my old blog.  You can check those out by clicking on the Poems page.

OK that’s all for today!

The Sum is 40

On the week leading up to my 40th birthday, I spent a lot of time looking backward…and getting depressed.  I did not want my birthday to arrive.  Not because I fear getting older, but because I felt like something was missing.  It just seemed to me that the sum of my life choices did not add up to 40-years-old.

Somewhere along the line, I figured I knew the equation for life.  Whether conjured in my own imaginings or instilled by my culture, I came to believe that life is as predictable as math, 1 man + 1 woman will equal 2 happy people and 2 happy people + 2 will equal four members of a happy family and 1 happy family + 1 solid income will equal a cute 2-story home with a garden, a picket-fence and a happily ever after.

As a young girl that was all I wanted; a quiet, uneventful life.  I wanted to be June Cleaver!  As I approached my 40th birthday, I was acutely aware of the fact that I was NOT June Cleaver, never was, and it was too late to ever be.  It would take volumes to explain why I never was.  (Actually, the title of this blog should give a hint.  And as I write my sojourning volumes you’re sure to learn more.)  But, I was most depressed by the fact that the season for becoming June is past.  Turning 40 meant I would have to put that dream to death.  The kids are 13 and 15 and I work a full-time job.  I will probably have to for a few more years and by the time that ends they will be headed to college.  This was my depressing reality and all I wanted to do was stop time, go back a few years and change some of the choices we’d made.  The last thing I wanted to do was go forward!

Because time only moves in that one direction, I had no choice but to move with it.  Then, as the current of time washed my birthday into the past it pulled my depression with it.  On a weekend with my girlfriends I had time to look back, not at what wasn’t there but what was and I realized that the sum of my existence does not equal 40 – it equals much, much more than that.  I have experiences that few dare to consider, foreign travels to exotic mission fields, adventures – not vacations, and cross-cultural living; I have seen the world.  I am married to my best friend and lover, a wonderful man of God.  My kids are smart, mature beyond their years, and lovable.  I have two very dear life-time friends and several others.  No, I don’t own a home, or even a properly running car right now.  We’ve moved more times then we’ve shared years.  I’ve never been a soccer, band, or dance mom and most of the time my kids are wearing hand-me-downs.  And like most there have been many hard times, tough choices, and bad experiences.

But this I know, I would not trade a single one of my 40 years.  To trade even a single day would mean to change the equation, and I am quite happy with the sum of my first 40 years!

Work In Progress

This Blog is under construction.  To date the About page is complete.  Please come back as Joyce is working regularly to get all pages up and running.