Heaven’s library

2,943 words today, even though today was the first day of Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers.  I’ve reached the major climax of the book–the moment I’ve been replaying over and over in my head.  Perhaps this novel is not as bad as I’d thought–perhaps I can pull this off.  The current incarnation is terrible, but I can see in my mind how good it can be in its second or third incarnation.  Inshallah, I’ll pull it off.

Today was the first day of BYU’s writing conference, and it was great!  The speaker in the last workshop I attended, Dandi Mackall, was exceptional.  I don’t have my notes with me and the BYU library closes in twenty minutes, so I’ll recap the best part of her presentation, the story she told in the last five minutes.

She said that once she had a dream where she died and went to heaven (thank goodness!).  When she got there, the angel who greeted her offered to show her around, and asked what she wanted to see first.  Her answer?  The library, of course!

In heaven’s library, she found shelves stretching as far as she could see, full of the very best books.  She picked out a few and recognized some of her favorites, the ones that had impacted and changed her life.

After a while, though, she started to get a little disappointed: all of the books in heaven’s library were books we already had down on Earth.  Why was that?  Didn’t heaven have anything new–anything we hadn’t already seen down below?

“But all these books were here first,” said the angel.

Still, she couldn’t accept that as an answer, so the angel took her down a long, winding, narrow corridor.  The deeper she went, the narrower and dustier it became, until she started to feel uneasily.  This part of the library was dark and dirty.  It was clear that hardly anybody every came down here

Finally, the angel led her to a door covered in cobwebs.  He brushed them aside and opened the door, leading her inside.  Here was a room many times larger than the first, with old, dusty bookshelves stretching higher than she could see.

She picked out a book and started reading through it.  It was one she’d never heard of, but it grabbed her.  She could tell that it was really good.  She picked up another one, and realized that it was just the kind of book that one of her friends would have loved to read.  She picked up another one, and realized that this one could have helped out another friend when she’d gone through a terrible life crisis.

All of this made her angry. “Why didn’t we have these books?” she asked the angel. “They are just as good as the ones in the other room.  Why didn’t they make it down?”

“These are all the books that remain unwritten,” said the angel. “Each one of these is a book that a writer, somewhere below, has in them but fails to write down.

“This one is by a writer who just won’t let anyone touch her writing and give her the criticism she needs to improve her craft.  This one is by a writer who doesn’t have the discipline to write consistently and finish what he starts.  This one is by a writer who doubts her story and doesn’t think she can ever get it to work.”

At this, she nodded and let the angel lead her back out to the main room.  As she left, she saw one final book near the door.  It had her name on it.

What a great, encouraging story.  I didn’t do nearly as good a job retelling it as Dandi did the first time, but it had a tremendous impact on me. I hope sharing it with you, it does something of the same. 

For some reason I don’t understand, fate, God, or genetics (or some malicious combination of the three) conspired to turn me into a writer.  I don’t write for fame or fortune; I write because I can’t not write.  Sometimes, I wonder if I’m making a mistake trying to turn this into a career, into something that will feed myself and my future family.  Looking at the millions of other floundering writers like myself, it’s easy to feel anxious.  After all, only a tiny fraction of us will ever get published, let alone make a professional career out of this.  Do I even have a fighting chance?

But then I hear a story like this one and I remember why it is that I write.  Not for fame, fortune, publication, personal gratification, or even just because I can’t not do it.  It’s because storytelling itself is important.  It helps us connect with the world around us, to see its beauty and wonder.  It helps us to appreciate ourselves and understand others.  It stimulates our imaginations and, by so doing, helps us to life our eyes from the ground and see the divine  potential that is all around us.  It helps us to grow through vicarious experience–it helps us to live and to love.  

Writing, at its best, is a sacred act, an important act, and if by grace we have been touched by inspiration and given a story to write, we should consider it noble and honorable to bring that story incarnate into the world, to touch the lives of others and lead them to what is good and true.