It’s been another long day at home. Once again, it is bedtime and I haven’t jotted a single word down in the book I am supposedly writing. Who has time to write a book anyway? What with all the diaper changes, and homeschooling, and super fussy teething babies, and meal planning, and house cleaning….the list goes on and on. I look at all the great author moms out there who have made it work for them: Karen Kingsbury, Shannon Hale, and Shannon Dittemore, just to name a few. I have read their stories about being a mom and an author at the same time and wonder how in the world that will ever be me. There’s just never a good time to write. That’s when I have to ask myself, what is writing to me?

          When I was younger, I used to picture myself in a beautiful office with bookshelves lining the walls, bay windows, and a great big oak desk right in the middle that housed all my writing essentials. My perfectly behaved children would tiptoe quietly around the house during my writing time, and my husband would bring me a fresh cup of coffee every so often so I wouldn’t have to get up.

          It’s time for me to change my definition of writing. I’ve read lots of great advice from lots of great authors. “Always write in the same place” and “Write every day, even if no one ever reads it” are a couple of great tips from some of the greats themselves. But the number one thing I have seen authors say time and time again is “Do what works for you.” I was thinking about this today, discouraged again that my I have made zero progress on my book in the last several weeks and decided to ask myself “What DOES work for me?”

For starters, that changes every day. Sometimes my five-month-old will take a two hour nap (a rarity), while most days she will only sleep for thirty minutes at a time, usually while nursing. That’s when I have to sit hunched over her and type (like I am doing right now, for example). Other days, I never sit down and sometimes I am not even home. So what works won’t always be the same and if I think about it, there is never a good time to write.

          So I am going to make time. Matthew 6:8 promises that God knows what I need, even before I ask Him. So why even bother asking if He already knows? For fellowship. For relationship. For communion with the One who called me to write in the first place.

I can’t do this on my own. If I truly want to write for Him then first I need to approach the throne each day and ask Him to speak through me and onto the page. I need to ask Him to pour His Spirit into every word and sentence and paragraph. Sometimes the words will come easy; most times I will have to work at them. The end result will be amazing if I trust His promise to give me what I need, and that remains true even if my writing is never published. No more excuses. It’s just me, my Savior, and my computer. I’m off to write!

 

Yours in Christ,