Open the gift...

Me in my writing room...

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THE LULU CHRONICLES

 Yesterday after one year and five months, I typed “THE END” on my latest writing project. It’s a historical novel set during WWII. It’s a good story. Of course, now the fun begins. Rewrites. Now I roll up my sleeves and make it pretty, as they say. I flesh it out, clean it up and rearrange the words just so.

What have I learned in the last seventeen month? Well, first I reaffirmed that writing is just plain hard work. It’s lonely work sometimes. Just me and my MacBook Pro. However, at times my writing room got a little crowded as all my characters talked at once trying to get my attention. Climbing back into a time I had not experienced was also hard work. But I must say, research to me is like a treasure hunt. There’s gold in them thar hills just waiting for those fool enough to grab the pick.

I also learned a little about myself. I’m the Queen of Procrastination. Before I could sit down to write in the mornings, I found myself doing everything I could not to get there. Like … making a cup of tea or two, throwing in a load of laundry, bathing the dog, clipping my toenails…anything to keep from climbing those stairs, sitting down in that chair and beginning. And this is how I act when I love doing something. Just think how I am when it’s a task I don’t like so much. Pitiful.

I also learned that I’m not lazy. I kind of feared that I was, I mean with all the toenail clipping and all. But I’m not. I just completed a four hundred-page novel. Before that I completed another novel. Before that, I spent three years researching and writing a biography. No, I guess I’m not lazy. I conquerored the blank page. Oh yes, the dragon was slain. Lazy people don’t that.

But the most important thing I learned is that for me, writing is a calling. While I hope like the dickens that this book gets published and read by the masses, if it doesn’t, I can still say that I remained true to what I was created to do. I used the gift given. I opened the package. I pray, I honored My Maker in doing so.

Can you say that? I’m not bragging here, I’m challenging. Can you say that? If not, today is a new day and your gift is sitting in the middle of the floor. Walk toward it…

Later,

deb