Writing our Lives

Ever since I started writing this blog, I have questioned myself and my abilities. Some where in the recesses of my mind, which knew nothing about the writing process, I imagined those who put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard just sat down and whipped out a piece of wisdom, humor, or inspiration in half an hour or so. I really questioned my own abilities because I often labored four to five hours over one post.

Spending hours to write, read, put in, take out, rearrange, change wording, reread and rewrite caused me to think something was wrong with me! At least in my mind there was. Why couldn't I just sit down, write cohesive, logical, orderly thoughts correctly the first time? Well, surprise, surprise. My writing class is teaching me that writing isn't a sit down and spit it out event. Writing is a long, arduous process, especially if I want to write well. It may take days to write a page of reader-grabbing, thought provoking, or emotion stirring words.

For example, the last sentence of the above paragraph is a very weak sentence. Starting with "It may take days" really doesn't say anything. Instead I should rewrite it to say something like this, "Creating a page of reader-grabbing, thought provoking or emotion stirring words sometimes takes days of hard work."

Writing is hard, painstaking work. That is exciting to know, but I feel a frazzled brain in the making. At least I can shout out, Hurrah, I am not crazy after all!

Something else I learned from my class reading and also practiced in writing exercises, I had already learned by experience. You never know where your writing will take you in any given piece. This post is such an example. I started out with the idea of just writing about my "aha" learning moments on rewriting.  As so often happens, completely unrelated thoughts started playing around in my head. My instructor would say it is the subconscious working. I say it is Holy Spirit. Anyway...

I started thinking that my faith walk is not a sit down, get it right the first time event either. It is a process of walk, read, act, react, reread, make corrections, change priorities, and walk some more. Every day entails trusting what I did yesterday, making corrections for today, and looking forward to tomorrow's insights. Will I ever get it absolutely right? No, not in this life. But I know my faith and trust gets stronger every time I take it out and seriously look at it. Hopefully I listen to my Editor-in-Chief as he shows me where to edit. The more I remove unimportant, confusing, weak and watered down words and action from my faith walk, the more the outside "reader" will be drawn in.

At this point there is so much more that can be said, but I am going mute here and letting Holy Spirit speak.

Let's write our lives well,
Jan, Licorice and family (What a great mama kitty she is!)