Living Into the Story Now
This year, 2021, has been a creatively dry year when it comes to writing. As you may have guessed, considering the fact that this is my second blog post since I published the first in January. I had decided that I was going to spend this year FINISHING THE BOOK. I set aside time. I worked on back story and plot. I hired a developmental editor/story coach.
It just…wasn’t working. By “it,” I mean, my brain. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t get into the story. I just couldn’t do it.
Most likely it’s just the massive, complex social trauma of COVID that practically everyone is experiencing on some level. Everyone thought 2021 would be so much better than 2020. But in 2020, life was drastically different yeah, but it was new. We had never done life quite like this before. And so I think there was a bit of romanticism in how we approached it last year. People seemed more caring and generous. There were balcony concerts for people stuck in their apartments. People got outside to walk or ride bikes (and there was a shortage of bikes available because of the increase in demand and the issues with shipping parts from overseas during lockdowns.) We slowed down a bit. (I know, not all of us—some among us, like single parents, teachers, and people already dealing with chronic health issues had extra work placed on them and a more difficult time getting things accomplished and just…living life…because of the complications caused by COVID.)
But let me tell you. 2021 has been a doozy of a year. I think because at this point, it’s begun to really sink in that this is something we have to deal with. It’s not going to just POOF! disappear. This is going to change our lives as we know them and alter the future we might have imagined.
And goodness, I don’t think many of us factored “global pandemic” into our future plans. (Unless we’re fans of dystopian novels involving population-decimating viruses or zombie apocalypses.)
We like to imagine the future and what it will be like. It doesn’t even have to be the distant future. Near future is good enough to give us some hope, right? I mean, at the beginning of this year, I had dreams of publishing a novel—like actually publishing my first novel!—by this time. And uh. Well that sure didn’t happen.
I was in the pick-up line at my daughter’s school this afternoon, just waiting. And God spoke to my spirit. I was listening to the playlist I had created years ago for the first book in my ancient fantasy series. A particular song came on, and I knew that I had another song by that artist at the very end of the playlist for the fourth book in the series. (I have all four books drafted, but none of them complete. Because I like to know where the story is going and how it ends before I put my words out there for people to tear apart.) I was thinking about the ending—the ending of the whole series, the whole kit and caboodle—and God just said, “Stop trying to figure out the end before you start.”
I may have audibly gasped.
This is literally the same thing God has been gently nudging into my heart for probably years now, but about my actual life. I have told people before, even when I have GPS running in my car, I like to look at the directions overview so I know visuals of where I’m going and have a basic idea of the steps to get there, because even though that robotic GPS voice is going to tell me where and when I need to turn left and how many miles it is to my next exit, I still have a deep need to know it all before I even start driving.
It’s been exactly the same for my life. I have such a hard time waiting for God to reveal the next step of my journey to me, that I spend so much time and energy trying to figure it out instead of living into the step I’m already on and the space I’m already in. I want to make sure God knows that I want a Master’s degree and a shiny PhD to hang on my wall that mean I’m “qualified.” I want to make sure that, somewhere out there, there is a graduate program that has exactly what I want to study. Even though I haven’t fully figured out what exactly that is yet.
But this time, when God spoke to me, it was about my writing. The thing that I’ve had such a difficult time with all year—to the point that, not too long ago, I broke down ugly-crying while on a video call with a dear friend and told her, while gasping for breath between words, “I don’t even think I’m a writer anymore!”
In that moment this afternoon, as the sun glared into my eyes and God whispered to my soul, I realized that I’ve had it backwards for so long. In my writing and in my life.
I keep wanting to know the ending before I can let myself start living into the beginning and middle.
I realized that my main character, Odessa, doesn’t know how big a story she’s a part of. She doesn’t always feel the gravity of her decisions. She just keeps doing the next right thing. (And sometimes, the next wrong thing. Ahem.) But nonetheless, she keeps moving forward. She doesn’t try to figure out how her actions on a Thursday afternoon might impact the course of politics for years to come in her country. Especially not as she’s journeying through a mountain range to escape people who are trying to kill her. She spends each day surviving, and then living, and then thriving, growing, maturing. Learning more about herself and the world around her. And eventually, all the little things she has done and the ways she has changed add up to build to the climactic ending and resolution.
And I keep trying to write the climactic ending of my own story before I give myself the chance to live it.
And God keeps whispering to my soul, “Live into the story now. Live the story that is right in front of you, all around you. You will see and know the outcome eventually. But that is not for today. Today is for living. For doing the next right thing.”
How will you start living into your story now? What is your next right thing?