It is finished

I am sorry to be late with this post, if anybody is out there. But I just finished my revised draft of my first novel, the Joyful Mysteries of Rosemarie. I spent a couple of days rejoicing and then I got busy lining up beta-readers to help me with the humbling part of becoming a real novelist—getting constructive criticism in a peer review.

I’d already been warned in prayer that this year, in my spiritual walk with the Lord, we were going to be working on my humility, so I am aware that it’s going to hurt. And I also know that the pain involved is going to be good for me. I’ve been talking with Mother Mary about this and, as a model of humility (and all the virtues), she is helping me.

I like to collect quotes and lately I’ve been collecting quotes from established authors about writing. This one particularly rings true to my experience thus far. It’s just too bad I can’t remember who said it. It goes something like this—”Writing is like driving a car in the fog with only one headlight.” The trick, I have found, is being okay with that.

Don’t get me wrong. I like to be in the driver’s seat and know where I’m going. I have an outline for all four books in this series already done and I have a critical reveal scene already written for book three. I’m organized. So, like I know where I’m going, basically. But a lot of the details that make a novel good don’t come to me until I’m right on them unexpectedly. I’m still driving slowly because in the fog, I can’t see very far ahead. The light only shows a narrow path a little at a time. But isn’t that what the spiritual life is all about? Isn’t that where we learn to lean on God—to trust him when we can’t see what’s ahead? Yet when we get there we look back and wonder how everything fell into place so perfectly.

I was once driving home alone in the country at night in a blinding snow storm. The road was completely covered and, in the white-out conditions, I couldn’t see where the middle of the road was or where the ditches were on either side. I was deathly afraid and I kept praying all the angels and saints to keep me on the road while, all the while inching along with my face plastered against the windshield and white knuckling the steering wheel the whole time until I got to the highway lights. I have no rational explanation for how I didn’t end up dead except that God kept me on the road and got me home safely.

Living a sacramental life is living as though every thing in creation can lead you to God if you let it. I would say that includes writing. If I remember to pray for guidance and inspiration before writing, things just seem to fall into place even when I can’t see very far ahead.

Once I was writing a scene, and I said out loud to myself, “Why am I writing this scene? It’s not important to the plot. I should just stop (even though it’s almost complete).” But I kept on writing and when I got close to the end, suddenly a line of dialogue came unexpectedly into my head that tied the scene with a thread I started at the beginning of the novel but had never finished developing until I wrote this scene and got to that line. And it brought it around full circle and gave it meaning. As long as I keep remembering to pray, coincidences happen. When I stop praying, coincidences stop. (That last bit, if I recall correctly, is a quote from the Archbishop of Canterbury)

It’s like a dance where the lead changes—sometimes I’m leading and sometimes I am following and I don’t know how this works, but I feel that I am not alone. I don’t want to imply that the Holy Spirit is writing my book, but we are both living together in this body, after all. I just want my words to be in line with His Word. So I believe that as long as I am wanting to do His Will, then He is in the dance with me. And that makes me happy.