“Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act.” -Proverbs 3:27
As I’m sitting here, in this rocking chair, listening to the trees rushing as birds fly from one branch to another, I can feel the writers staring down at me from the wall I pasted them on. They’re wondering why it’s been so long since I’ve done any proper writing.
So am I.
I’ve been leafing through a few old pages of one of my memorandums. They have never been filled with things that one typically fills a notebook page with, no important dates, or recollections of what-just-happened, or top-secret secrets. I do have chats with myself.
Yourself and that little voice in your head.
Scribbling down ideas, with just a few choice words, to help me remember something that had popped into my head. I believe Madeleine L’engle would agree that keeping a journal is one of the best tools to writing.
Sharp pencil, sharp mind.
I don’t know why I fell in love with Madeleine L’engle’s writing. Particularly, though predictably, with her novel, A Wrinkle in Time. I read that book under the Key Tree once, traveling to different
planets until the sun set, leaving me in darkness and stars. I read it to Firefly, it was one of two books that Firefly approved of (the other being Wuthering Heights), which says something.
The reason she’s on my Wall of Writers is because I like her passion for what she does. I like her attitude. The way that she knew she would continue writing, despite fear, even if she never published another book again. She was not a small-minded person. And she kept a journal.
Here’s a piece from my journal a short-ish while ago:
It’s the beginning of the end, so I am D-R-A-G-G-I-N-G M-Y F-E-E-T because I’m terrified of destroying everything I’ve been striving towards. Just like that.
Absolutely frightened.
The more I learn about Madeleine L’engle, the more I can see that she, like me, grew as a writer while she grew as a person. That just seems to be the way it goes. If you don’t take the time to be a good person, then you aren’t going to be a good writer. She, like me (and Lewis Carroll, for that matter), was always ready to try again, the get better as a person, as a writer. We believe in the promise of tomorrow, in rising victorious when we fall.
Here’s another entry, a few months later:
That was an amazingly quick week--no school until Thursday (which is today), due to a faulty pipe. I’ve had a faulty pipe of my own, worrying about the ending of this book--is it too cliché, is it dragging, is it too much like the first draft, blah, blah, blah-
I have to remember to write for the love of writing, to glorify God, to combat the darkness and evil with a Writing Spirit. Then, I think, it will be okay.
Blog is lovely. I’ll share it with the world--someday.
In her Newbery Medal Acceptance Speech, Madeleine L'engle said: "Unless a writer works constantly to improve and refine the tools of his trade, they will be useless instruments if and when the moment of inspiration, of revelation, does come." This is why I have been doing what I consider my 'writing sabbatical.'
Oh dear, this sounds foreboding.
I have a small notebook- it could fit in my pocket, and I've been filling it up with a story that had been rolling around in my head, born from a few pieces of dreams, and I write. I write, I don't pause, I hardly even think. It's just me, the notebook, a pencil, and an enormous dictionary. I'm pulling everything out that I've ever wanted to try, and pushing myself in a way that will A.) brush off any writing cobwebs that may have appeared due to fear and hesitation, and B.) prove to myself, if nobody else, that I can finished something that I start, and, whether I'm the only one who thinks so or not, it is worthwhile.
Mainly due to a certain Wrinkle, I found myself dipping into the Verne-ish-Wells-ish world of a science-fantasy story. It's slightly terrifying (after all, what do I know?), but also liberating.
I would recommend trying something new to anyone who feels stuck. In writing, in life, in anything. And remember why you do what you do.
I'll let Madeleine have the last word for this post: "A book, too, can be a star, 'explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly,' a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.”
