Tonight, it was late, and believe it or not I actually do value my sleep (not as much as other things, but I do value it nonetheless), so I didn’t write anything original today. Instead, I went back about ten or fifteen pages back and did some light revision while reminding myself what’s going on so far.
It was actually quite good! Helped to renew some excitement for me in the story, which was nice. Good motivation for writing tomorrow. And, day after tomorrow, there is a writing party over at Jakeson’s and Gamila’s (who actually live on the same block as me, I found)! I am definitely looking forward to getting WAY ahead during that night!
Man, I suppose I’m either a wimp or just really busy with other things to only be doing 500 pages a day, and some days less than that! I hope I can learn to balance writing with my career (not to mention career and writing with family!). As it is, I can’t hardly balance anything. Not the important things, anyways. Temple, scriptures, friends, homework, tests, papers, readings, reading for recreation, vs. all the stupid things that can waste one’s time…shoot man! It’s a hard, difficult battle!
And I really hope that writing is more than just a “good thing” on that list. I really do. If it’s just a “good thing,” then it means that I should cut it out of my life, because there are already so many “good things” that I could be doing that I don’t have time to do them all! It would be a matter of cutting them to allow time for the “great things” and the “best things.”
But then again, I think it’s quite likely that writing fiction IS something more than a “good thing.” I’m reading this collection of quotes from Madeline L’Engle, the fantastic writer of children’s literature who wrote A Wrinkle In Time, the book that (believe it or not) hooked me onto Science Fiction and becoming a writer. In this book, L’Engle talks about writing as something holy and sacred, about serving the story, and about how art and creative writing is a profoundly important and spiritual thing. It’s quite interesting, because it’s very different from my current view of writing (which is basically “I want to write because it’s cool and there’s something compelling me to do it that I don’t understand”). Very thought provoking, actually. I really want to understand where she’s coming from and see it for myself. It could really change the way that I approach all of this, in a very positive way. I’ll have to blog about it once I’ve read the book.
And you know, this might be me going out on a limb, but if writing really is a way that I could profoundly shape the world for good (or the life of an individual, which really is the same thing ultimately) then it would make sense that Satan would want to put doubts into my mind about my writing and my stories and the possibility of getting published and all of those other problems. If it has the potential to be that good on a spiritual level, then it makes sense that there would be so much opposition. In which case the answer, of course, really is faith–stepping out into the unknown, trusting in something greater than yourself to show you the way and lend power to your writing that you yourself could not have put into it. I believe quite firmly that all of this is possible–I just need to make the leap. I’m still trying to control my own writing too much, and not focusing on the ultimate potential that lies beyond my limitations. If it is true that there is a place for spiritual significance in writing, then I need to make space for God and enter with Him in a partnership to do this.
I honestly don’t know. Until I sat down to write this, I didn’t know that I had these doubts–indeed, maybe they didn’t enter into me until I started to write this. And I honestly don’t know what I’m saying or where I’m going with all this spiritual stuff. It’s something I still need to think about. But it really does seem like it’s something worth pondering and contemplating. I feel that it has the power to profoundly and fundamentally change my approach to creative writing in general. For that reason alone, it is worth focusing a fair measure of my attention. I will definitely be doing this, because I have a lot of questions.
