Random Thoughts on Writing

“The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort toward wholeness.”

Madeleine L’engle

I read that quote this morning over on the Wise and Shine blog, post by Wynne Leon. I thoroughly agree. I think the human being is programed to seek wholeness, as if we have this chip inside us that keeps drawing us along to wholeness as we go through our various trials and triumphs of day to day living.

It doesn’t matter that we don’t feel that way. It doesn’t matter that even the most whole of us have times of feeling lost and futile. Feelings are not facts. That’s where we get tripped up. Feelings are generally misleading all the way around. If I went on feelings, I would have trashed every book I ever wrote while I was halfway through writing it. I finished each book simply out of sheer determination, shreds of hope, and constant prayer. Thus, I saw thirty-eight to forty published works, depending on how I count it.

I do love quotes, to the point of obsession. One of my friends has said, “I don’t know what you see in quotes. I just don’t care that much for them.”

It occurs to me as I write this to ask her what quotes have ever done to her. And this same friend has read According to Carley Love and points out the great quotes by Carley Love, and suggests I use them for promotion. Thus the one posted above. I find Carley Love quite funny in an honest manner. When I think of that, I think much of my mother.

A reviewer of According to Carley Love wrote, “sometimes she (Carley Love) drove me crazy with her indecisiveness.” I laughed aloud. This is truth. Carley Love came through exactly as I saw her!

I am reminded of something the wonderful writer, Jack Bickham, said long ago and which struck me hard enough to remain in my mind.

“I can never make up my mind. That’s why I’m a writer.”

Jack M. Bickham

For years I had felt my indecisiveness was a flaw, something shameful and needing to be fixed. Certainly decisiveness is revered in our society. However, over the years I learned that my indecisiveness is part and parcel of my seeking mind, and my ability to see many sides of a thing. This ability is a great blessing to a novelist. And thus I find another piece of the whole of me.

Grace and peace,