SEW Sunday: Getting There

The library called today, leaving me an automated message that the book for which I have been anxiously awaiting (Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins) is now available.  The library is also closed on Sunday.  Well played, library.  Well played.

That's okay, because I decided I wanted to reread The Hunger Games anyway, and I won't be done until tonight.  I love rereading a well-written book, which makes me wonder why I hate rereading my own books to edit them.  Does that mean they're not well-written, or does it just mean I hate work.

Hopefully, just the latter, but possibly both.

Anyway, I have nothing to report in editing or querying, except I do plan on getting some things together.  A few weeks ago I felt expectant, but that it wasn't time to move.  The wind was still.  Last night, the wind was anything but still as we had tornadoes and such in the area (my prayers are with those who didn't fare the storm as well as I did).  The weather is just a metaphor, but right I'm very encouraged right now that it's finally getting time to make a move in the publishing world.  For once, I don't have the "this will never work" attitude.  Maybe my attitude is finally shifting from the "this will never work" attitude to the "I'm actually dumb enough to think this will work" attitude.  While that doesn't sound much better, I'm often amazed at how many people in history were too dumb to know that they were attempting the impossible. So they tried anyway.  And they succeeded.

The writing is actually going really well.  I've had some new developments in my current WIP, though there are still several details I need to work out.  I'm kind of taking a step back and letting the characters do what they want to do, because I've learned (once again) that when I try to meddle too much, I stifle them. 

I'm writing this book as a serial novel which I am sharing with a few of my friends (I didn't want to share it with a large number this time--as I did with my second book...it just didn't seem right.  And if you're a good friend and I didn't choose you to read it, please don't be offended.  There were a lot of factors that went into the selection of readers).   There are a lot of issues with this, namely, that if I mess up, there's no way to backtrack.  I have to keep moving forward from where I messed up.  It's very experimental.  It's even a little dangerous because I'm putting my work out there in a very raw form.  But I felt it was time to actually do something with this project, and the best motivation was to have actual readers.  And they're very gracious, by the way.

Anyway, I am really starting to like this project (it's had a rocky start, and is still moving very slowly towards what I want it to become).  Unfortunately, another project is working itself into my mind and I'm wondering if I should be working on it, too.  I went out running this morning and couldn't clear my head of this story, the characters, what will happen to them.  I wish I could just be the sort of writer who focuses on one project at a time (it would make things so much easier).  My head just gets so busy with so many stories that I don't have room for all of them.  And then I need to find time to sell the ones I've already written.  And then I need time to prepare other stories I've written to be ready to try to sell.

But I can't complain too much.  I'm busy, but that's life.  The busyness isn't going to stop, so I'm back to where I started: trying to do all these writer things in the midst of the chaos of life.  When I stop having the mental image of a hamster on a wheel, hanging on for dear life as it spins out of control...I start to feel a lot better about things.

The question is, how do I get that image out of my head?

Still

I'm a wretched poet (my lyrical Dragon-Muse, Dravaena, has her work cut out for her). Usually, when I write poems, they're in the forms of song lyrics. I'm just not creative to make anything sound good unless it rhymes. Even then, it usually doesn't sound good. And even if it does...years could go by before I come up with some decent music (you know, using the 10 or so guitar chords I know) to put to the words.

But sometimes some lyrics find me, and I know that these lyrics are going to have to have music to them someday. This happened to me yesterday. I was writing a poem...but it wasn't quite right yet. I got really drowsy. I fell asleep. I had a vision.

An actual vision.

It's not the first time it's happened to me. It's been the first time it's happened in a long while. It wasn't even anything clear, but something happened.

It wasn't words. It wasn't even images. It was just a knowledge--a knowledge that something's about to happen. I don't even know what it is, but I have a few ideas. The thing is, it doesn't matter what's going to happen. Now's the time to wait for whatever it is, and there's beauty in waiting. There's beauty in the expectation and anticipation. If I didn't have to wait and get excited about Christmas, it wouldn't be as wonderful when it finally came. Right now, God is calling me to wait expectantly for what He has for me.

And since I've only got a handful of readers anyway, I figured I might as well share the lyrics that came to me yesterday. Because when I woke up from that dream-vision, I was able to finish it.



Still

The Wind is still.
The sky is white with cloud,
But the sun breaks through.
Gold streams down from heaven.
Kissing the earth with dreams
That have already come true.

...but I still have a few dreams left to dream...

And I lift up my head
And I look towards the sun
And sparrows soar like eagles
And You watch every one.

My heart beats inside my chest
Rattling these world-weary bones,
And I long for the Wind to stir in me--
I yearn for it to rage and blow.
Yet my eyes are too weak to see,
And my heart is too frail to know.
Still I lift up my head.
The Wind is still.

And even in the smallest stirrings
I can't feel Wind on my face.
It doesn't scatter through my hair.
But the trees dance so gently
With anticipation and with joy,
For they know You're there.

...and You're the One who's leading...

And I lift up my head
And I feel for that breeze
And though I'm not moving,
I am dancing with the trees.

My heart pounds inside my chest
Rattling these world-weary bones.
And I long for the Wind to stir in me--
I yearn for it to rage and blow.
Yet my eyes are too weak to see,
And my heart is too frail to know.
Still I lift up my head.

All creation is silent
In the calm before the storm.
All creation is expectant
To see what lies in store.
And I know You're going to move in me
Stronger than ever before
Though the Wind is still.

The Wind is still.

I lift up my head.
I lift up my eyes.
I wait for You.
The Wind is still.