Fresh Start

I want to start writing again. I’ve been struggling with what to write.

A devotional? I recently had the opportunity to help with a book of devotions that will be published soon, and it triggered a desire in me to try to write more of those.

Something about the family? About Valentine’s Day? I live with such a fun group of people. Holidays are always interesting.

Look through our letters and memories about the kids, or pieces of my old writing, and put something together from there?

All Good ideas.

I decided just to write about my struggle with writing.

I wrote a lot as a teenager; I even had a few stories and poems published.

Then for over thirty years, I wrote very little. I was in school, worked, had a family. Good excuses? Maybe not, but thirty-some years went by anyway.

After my accident in 2012, I decided I had the perfect opportunity to start writing again.

I joined American Christian Fiction Writers, an on-line group with classes, critique groups, much more. What a blessing that has been. I feel like I’ve learned so much about writing better, and I hope to continue learning.

I wrote more short stories, some magazine articles, blog posts, five novellas and a children’s Christmas story.

All of a sudden last fall, I felt like I ran into a brick wall every time I tried to write. I had a hard time coming up with new ideas. I had an idea, and it fizzled.

Why did I think the stories I’d written were any good anyway? I lost the energy, the drive, to push myself to work at this whole writing business.

I told Murray I didn’t think I could write anymore. He was very sweet. He said he didn’t believe that. He said maybe I couldn’t right now, but that didn’t mean I never could again.

That gave me hope.

I’m still struggling. But I think about writing all the time. I think of myself as a writer.

When I read, I note the author’s skill and technique. Things that happen around me, conversations I hear, I imagine how I would put in a story.

If this desire, this skill, is a gift that God has given me, then I need to nourish it.

Lord, give me wisdom. Encourage me to work. Remind me to seek your will.