Spirit Driven Fiction

Karen Hancock, author of the Legend of the Guardian King series, posted about ‘Aggressive Trust‘ on 9/22/11. The post spoke about God’s perfect timing, first drafts, and what I call ‘the circle of the writing life’.

It really hit home.

The last several days I have been in agony and rage about what a struggle it has been to get any writing accomplished on my rewrite project. Because of the intensity of the struggle, I have allowed myself to become disheartened. Actually, I allowed myself to give up and convince myself that maybe I needed to go to a different project.

The thought of having yet another half-completed project waiting on the shelves for my attention did not appeal, but I didn’t know what other choice I had. If I continued to try to write through rage, the characters would have a war on their hands instead of the finding of true love.

Karen Hancock wrote how she began reading through some of her old journals to get herself into the mood for writing. She couldn’t believe that she had ever felt so negative toward a current writing project. As she read, she discovered that it was a common malady. She went on to write that God would reveal things about the story in his perfect timing. She only needed to wait. To let God “gather together the waters so that the dry land appears”.

“To trust Him to guide and to trust Him to come through.”

Bam. There it was, the request to trust God and give him the time to do what He was going to do. The reminder that hating our first draft is usual and customary. Once we get to the other side, it is a little easier. I needed to sit back and relax and LET GOD DO. Something. Anything. In essence, I tried too hard to make something happen. Because of that, nothing COULD happen.

I needed to let go and LET GOD.

So, I started praying about the characters, the story, the approach, the scenes… everything. I started going to God’s office again, as I once did, and invited Him to come along on this rewrite project. Wouldn’t you know it, yesterday on the way home I began brainstorming again. Last night I wrote out the general outline for the entire novel, and this morning I finished writing chapter one and feel a little more comfortable in my writing skin.

Thank you, Karen Hancock, for the reminder to just relax and enjoy being a writer.