Not sure if it’s my mood or the day or the time of year or what, but I’m feeling quite reflective right now. The kind of reflective where I’d like to escape to a cabin, Henry David Thoreau style, with just my laptop and my Bible and see what happens.
I have this yearning inside me. This yearning to write fiction that matters. It’s like my heart aches to make some sort of eternal impact with my words.
You see, there’s this story stirring in my soul, only it has no shape or form. No plot or structure. It’s just lurking somewhere in the corners of my mind. Growing. Shrinking. Flickering on and off like a half screwed light bulb. Every now and then, I’ll hear a song, or see a person, or feel some emotion, or read some Bible verse, and it’s like a glimpse into this phantom story. Like a sneak peek into something both familiar and foreign. I can make out the blurry edges and my desire swells. I wish I could cast out a net and reign the story in. I wish it would come to me in all its shapely glory. I wish I could sit in front of my computer and let the words pour from my fingertips. But it remains distant. Like it’s not ready to be told quite yet. Or maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m not ready to tell it. I hope someday I will be.
Until then, I will continue to write the stories that do come.
Question to Ponder: Do you ever feel the urge to create something larger than yourself?
Yes, I do feel the urge to create. Do you think every writer does, to leave their mark on the world after they are dead and gone? I've often wondered about this.
i just yearn to write the stories that i do know are in my head, waiting to be typed out into a processor. i feel that each story i write out will get me that much closer to the life-changing fiction i want to share with others, that much closer to the one story that will make a difference.
jeannie
The Character Therapist
I love that description of the flickering story. It's kind of exciting when a new story starts to form in your brain without enough light for you to see where it's headed. Then you just have to wait to see where it will take you.
I'd love to be off by myself for a few days with just pen and paper.. (or laptop).. and coffee and a warm blanket and plenty to read.
Just need that. Need it badly.
Wouldn't it be nice to go to a cottage by the sea? Ahh…
Listen to that voice. When it's ready, it'll tell you exactly what to write.
Beautiful post, Katie. When I get to Heaven, I want God to stroke my head and say, "You've done good, faithful servant."
No matter what I do, I want it to glorify Him. Unfortunately I'm human and fall short of deserving His grace.
Even though romance is considered fluff, its sales dominate the fiction world. I want my characters to show how God's grace is a gift available to anyone who is willing to accept it. If I can reach one person, I will consider my writing a success.
The story of your heart is forming all the time. I can't wait to see it burst forth in technicolor!
Beautifully written and so poignant. I have this character who stirs in me, but without a story. I suppose she will reveal it when she's ready.
Thanks for sharing this.
Oh, boy do I! I've had a story brewing lately, and it's taking everything in me to just write down ideas for now. I MUST finish what I'm working on now, first!
Yes, every day, Katie. I pray someday that God will bless me and give me a hint of what this story is. For now, I'll continue to wrestle with what I have.
God bless you today!
YES! The Holy Spirit whispers the most incredible truths. Without His help, I could never hear them or imagine them.
The Moral Premise covers this same point, as does Writing the Breakout Novel.
GREAT post, as usual!!
Patti
http://www.pattilacy.com/blog
OH. YES. That's the "Made in God's image" thing going on.
Totally, unequivocally YES!!!
Good luck with that phantom story. When you're ready ~ it'll come!
All of the time. Writing a great story is very overwhelming and challenging. I wish you luck and many prayers your way.
Here's hoping you and your muse get together soon. Have I ever wanted to create something bigger than myself? Hmmmm, when I was little I would build lego towers taller than I was. That count?
Yes, oh yes, oh yes.
I feel like I might to get to do that with Hatshepsut. She was a strong woman who has been misunderstood by history and hardly anyone knows about her. I feel like getting my novel published would liberate her somehow.
And I would love to escape to the woods Thoreau style. But not right now- it's too cold!
Absolutely! I think that need to create is a divine virtue. I hope you get to tell that story someday. I have all confidence that you will!
Well if the way you crafted this post is any indication of what's to come, I think you're on to something. 🙂 Best to you, Katie.
And yep, I know what you mean. It's so deep and all-emcompassing; you know something has to come from it.
The answer is most definitely, yes! Sometimes all I want to do is lock myself away and put words worth writing down.
It's not always easy to find that moment.
Hope you find yours. 🙂
Definitely, yes! I'd like to think that all the stories I'm writing right now are just a build-up to the one that's going to be big.
Great post, Katie. Someday a switch will be flipped and it will all come together. I like how you said it remains distant, like it's not ready to be told yet…or you're not ready to tell it. I think there's a lot to that. Two of Joel's cousins recently got pregnant in their 40's (very unexpected for both). I was talking to one of them a couple weeks ago…she's kind of the Boho/Indy/Hippie type. Anyways, just said something similar that really made me think. She has a 15 year old daughter already, and pretty much hasn't been using birth control since then. So she was asking out loud 'why after all these years would I get pregnant again?' Then she answered her own question by saying 'I guess it just shows that life will happen when the soul is ready' (referring to her new baby daughter). Interesting thought.
This sums me up Katie. I have a story that's burning to be written. It just isn't time yet. But soon.
Right now, I'm concentrating on the agent hunt. I love this post though. It's interesting to see how many writers have this burning desire to write something, but it just isn't time yet. 🙂
Hi Katie,
Love your post! I can so relate. I love how God plants the tiny seed of a story into our hearts and then tends and grows it over time. In some ways that’s what keeps me going. Sometimes I think we haven’t experienced all we need to experience in order to tell that story … yet. God wants to give us glimpses, wants to start preparing us, but the time is not quite right. I suppose it gives us something to look forward to. 🙂
Hi Katie –
A friend of mine is a talented singer. She often talks about that perfect note. I don't know if she's captured it yet or not.
As a writer, there's a desire to express the things in my heart. I understand them. I can see them. I can almost taste them. Yet, if I try to put them on paper, they lay there like Adam before God breathed the breath of life into him.
My prayer is that the Holy Spirit will breath life into my writing that it will touch others and make a difference in their lives.
Blessings,
Susan 🙂
Yes! And I know that feeling you just described so well. As a panster, it's the feeling that follows as I write the first few chapters of a novel, until I have somewhat of an idea what's happening. :0)
yes! all the time 🙂
Oh, yes, I know exactly what you mean. I'm feeling a bit of that now with this YA stirring in my head. It's like two different stories that I know somehow should come together to entertain and teach at the same time, but the missing links evade me. I'm opting (actually, really feeling the need) for revisions instead now. In God's good timing. Right!
Something larger than yourself? yes. In fact, the one I am writing now is tending to want to be that way and I put it aside for awhile as I don't think I can do it. I don't think my skills are there. But then I brought it back out and took a deep breath. I know it won't be what I want it to be but I plan to give it a shot and take what comes.
Katie, you have said so captured my feelings in a way I could never put into words. I, too, want my life and my words to count for eternity. To create what I believe my Creator has created me to create. The flickers. The phantoms. The whispers. The cupping of the mind to softly catch a butterfly thought before it flits away. I so relate!
Oh gosh yes. My prayer is that God agrees lol! First step for me is to get an agent though. For you I would imagine just take a nice run with your ipod and the rest will come to you. Do you need to run future story idea's past Rachelle? I'm not sure how that works once you've got an agent, but I'd love to know! New blog post? 😉
On a daily basis (answer to your question). That's probably why I love with such intensity. I know how much our time here counts.
I love the way you described that floating idea and your wanting to cast a net to bring it in. I get it, Katie. I get it.
Meanwhile, I'll soak up the stories you have on paper.
~ Wendy
I had that desire with my first book, but then it turned into a plotting disaster. LOL. Now I'm finding that writing a book for sheer entertainment has been more up my alley. But maybe God will put another "big" story idea on my heart…we'll see.
Beautifully put, Katie. I just can't imagine the process of writing contemporary ficiton. My ideas for historical fiction don't arise from within me. They come from the lives and experiences of people who have come before and I feel like I'm just retelling those stories.
Oh what wonderful sentiment! I agree with everyone else, I think the desire to create something that has eternal impact is great in most writers, me included. It's like that distant far off that we always try to achieve.
Oh, I know that feeling. Most definitely. It is a phantom-like presence that glides in and out of life's moments. It is a burning deep within. It's like we writers share a common bond, don't we? LOVE IT!
Oh yes! It sums up my passion to write. I believe God created me with this purpose in mind. It's what keeps me awake at night and rising in the wee hours of the morning.
I love your passion Katie, it the kind that only originates in hearing the voice of God!
Oh YES!!!! Totally. That is how I feel about writing in a nutshell. And that flickering and lurking of stories, I soooooo understand that feeling. That is how my chapters are born. They talk whisper to me until they are ready to be written. I call it organic writing. Others might call it random. But when I follow my inner urges like that, the writing is always better. That is not to say that I don't sit down on days when I don't feel that way and write anyway, because I do. But when I feel that feeling, like a story reading to be born, I write and write and write. 12 000 words is the most I have written in one day because there were words desperate to live on the page in front of me.
All the best this year Katie. I pray the year is soooo wonderful that you don't know what to do with yourself. May God bless you beyond all that you could dare ask, hope or dream of. 🙂
Yep. I was thinking about posting about that feeling.
When I was younger, I had it and tried to express it through music and drawing, but I didn't have the talent and it could frustrating. Writing feels like I found my place to do that larger than me thing. It's wonderful and painful. 🙂
I'm hoping your dream is prophetic too. LOL!