Looking For Direction

My PC has a little flashlight icon that swings back and forth on the screen while the computer is looking for something. Just like any of us might do when searching the darkness with a flashlight.

Right now, that little flashlight icon could also represent my writing.

Maintaining word count the last several weeks has, for the most part, been very easy.

Establishing momentum with any single project the last few weeks has been very difficult. It’s not at all unusual to spend two or three days on a story that’s ‘hot’, then have it suddenly fizzle.

I don’t mind that so much if something else ‘flares up’ and becomes hot when the previous one loses momentum, but that’s not always been the case.

And I’m not sure why. It’s certainly not for lack of projects to work on. Just a few currently on various burners are:

  • Perfect Opportunities in the final rewrite and tweak stage.
  • Parting Gifts is ready for the second draft. I know what I want to do. I just haven’t done it.
  • Fine Lines is still in limbo, waiting for the key that will unlock the door to that rewrite.
  • Five or six ideas are waiting for November 1 and the beginning of National Novel Writing Month. I still don’t know which one I’ll do.
  • Five or six other ideas are partially developed and I’ve been adding scenes to them as ideas occur.

Of course, I continue to document new ideas (I had another one on our recent trip to Michigan).

With all of those things  waiting for attention, what did I do yesterday? I spent at least an hour identifying four ideas that are closely enough related to make three of them obsolete the moment one of them is successfully completed. Getting one good story out of the four is within reach, but I was both amused and disheartened to find myself combining ideas that came into being as alternative plots for other stories. Talk about two steps forward and two steps backward! Or maybe three steps. Who knows!

So why the lack of focus and direction right now?

I can’t help but credit some of it to serious sleep deprivation. For the last two or three weeks, I’ve gone to bed tired, but lain awake for hours before finally dozing off. That sure doesn’t do much for creativity. I hoped to get over that while in Michigan and on a different routine, but no such luck. I finally asked for prayers during choir last night and subsequently slept soundly all night, praise the LORD.

I also wonder if the mixed signals of preparing ideas for National Novel Writing Month and holding back on writing fiction isn’t causing problems. I’ve watched horse races in which a horse wants to run early in the race and is held back by the jockey. By the time the jockey lets the horse go, the horse has given up on running. Am I that race horse right now? I’ll know the answer to that on November 1.

It may be something else entirely.

I’ve written enough already this month to have an average daily fiction word count of 874 for every day this month if I don’t write another word. I’m pondering the wisdom of finding a good book to read and completely ignoring writing until November 1. A trip to the library is appealing….

I can’t not write, though. It’s almost a biological imperative.

And that’s what makes this current lack of direction so frustrating. I feel the need to write; I have no idea what to write on!

Where’s that flashlight…?

Written by

I've been an avid looker-at of books since I was old enough to sit on Mom's lap and listen to the stories she read. Once I learned to read and discovered the school library, I read every horse story I could find. I must have read Walter Farley's Black Stallion series a dozen times during grade school. I still enjoy reading the adventures of the Black Stallion and Flame and all the rest. But Marguerite Henry, C. W. Anderson, Thomas Hinkle and anyone else who wrote a story about a horse was also on my to-read list. I couldn't get enough of them. Then I found Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and discovered another world; the world of mysteries! More recently Dick Francis has combined my love of horse stories with my love of mysteries with his series of books. Frank E. Peretti, Joel C. Rosenberg and other writers now fire my writing and story telling imagination. I am, as yet, unpublished. I write every day, maintain painting and writing blogs, painting journals, writing journals and a number of other writing endeavors. Along with other members of my church family, I've written devotions for Advent and Lenten devotional booklets. For a time, I wrote a monthly column for the Newton Kansan newspaper. I still enjoy a good horse story but I also enjoy a good mystery or cozy mystery, suspense and a little bit of action here and there, as well as literary works. I hope, Lord willing, to try my hand at each of those genres, but if you pressed me to tell you what my stories are about, I'm most likely to tell you they're usually a mix of political thriller and Old Testament prophecy. The Old Testament prophets had a lot to say to the people of their day. They have a lot to say to us, too. It's impossible to follow the news and read Old Testament prophecies and not make connections. Once a connection is made, a story is likely to take shape. The never ending wellspring of ideas is often delightful, frequently overwhelming and sometimes frightening. After all, I know what followed the prophecies of the Old Testament prophecies. Can we be far behind...?

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