Unusually for me, I have embraced Lent this year, and have felt led to have a break from a few things including Social Media – especially Facebook – and TV. (But not blogging – hooray!) Primarily it was intended to help me focus on time with God, as is usually the case, and it is definitely helping with that. But one thing I hadn’t expected was that it would help with my writing. On day one of Lent I mentioned to God that I’m struggling a bit with my current WIP, and He suggested that I used some of the time I have freed up to discipline myself to write a chapter a day for the next 40 days.
Yikes! That sounded like a serious writerly commitment. And yet when I came to it yesterday and today (I’m very aware it’s still very early days), I found I was able to focus better and push through the usual obstacles, feeling like I had God’s blessing and agreement over it. So that’s what I’m doing – and writing it here so now I’m accountable to my lovely writer friends who I know won’t let me off the hook.
The WIP I’m focusing on is a devotional book. If anyone is unfamiliar with the term, it means a collection of relatively short writings intended to help the reader grow closer to God. Often they take the form of daily readings spread over a set period of time. Sometimes they include written prayers or ideas for further study, but they always (the good ones anyway) base each chapter or reading on a verse or passage from the Bible.
So to my devotional. As with my previous books I have asked myself ‘who am I to be writing this when there are so many good writers and proper theologians out there who could do a better job?’ And ‘how am I supposed to tackle something so new’? Of course, when I ask myself such questions I never give myself a helpful answer. So then I asked God, who is far more helpful. And He reminded me about my ‘In The Secret Place’ blog where I have been writing for years, and suggested that I write it like a collection of blog posts all based around a similar theme. Well I know how to do that (as God knows full well). My blog-readers know that I am not a theologian not an expert in anything particularly, I just share the stuff that God and I chat about – and people seem to find it helpful. So here I am writing again.
And it occurred to me that it might be helpful (or at east entertaining when I look back in future) to try to capture my process – something I regret not doing with my previous books. I’m more of a pantser than a plotter, but I do find it helps to have a vague plan. So for this book I know my theme and the working title that will keep me focused. And the other day I wrote out a list of potential chapter headings with accompanying Bible verses. With those loose ideas in mind (I fully expect it will all flex and change as I progress), all that is left for me to do is write. This is where my inner pantser re-emerges. I can’t say I enjoy writing ‘by the seat of my pants’ without a proper outline for each chapter, but it’s all I seem to be able to do…
I take my subject and Bible reference and just start writing. I have enough experience with blogging that I don’t find it difficult to identify a start point, but then the chapter evolves like someone taking a walk with no idea of where they’re going to end up – kind of exploring for fun. I’d love to have more ordered thoughts so I could go from A to B to C in a straight line, but I don’t. I often don’t even know what the most important point is that I need to land on until I’ve rambled around it, writing far more words than I will end up with and taking several detours on the way that lead to dead-ends and make me retrace my step back to where the path was making sense. So I wander around in my writing until I find the destination, then review and figure out which parts of the journey were important and which were unnecessary and need editing out so as not to confuse my readers. It doesn’t seem very efficient to me, but then God reminds me that in real life I’m the kind of person who enjoys exploring somewhere new far more than repeating the best known, most well-used trails every time – it’s the adventure of not knowing what I’m going to discover, the challenges I might need to overcome, and the surprise blessings I might discover that all keep me exploring. And when you have God as your trail guide, everything feels both safer and more fun.
So as much as I love the idea of becoming a more proficient writer, able to neatly get from A-to-B-to-C without unnecessary detours that make for more work in the editing process, I have to acknowledge that the fun of the ramble seems to balance it out. I suspect I will remain a pantsing writer-who-wanders after all.
PS So that’s a chapter AND this blog post written today. And now I get to reward myself with a favourite pastime: creating photobooks out of the MANY photographs I have taken. I love the process of throwing all my favourite photos onto a page and then figuring out which ones actually go together and which ones might look good but don’t actually fit anywhere, so have to be edited out. Hmmm… I spy a theme…
Rachel Yarworth, Writer 