Getting Out Of A Writing Rut

I was actually in a writing rut for a while. Bad time to be in one, since I’m on the last draft of a book I’ve been working on for some time. But something brought me out of that rut. Well a few things, really.

The first was the desire just to get it finished: to hold in my hands a hardcover book with a nice ribbon bookmark and a gorgeous cover and realized that all that work meant something.

The second was the thought that maybe someday I would be signing books and that someone would come up to me, place my own book in front of me and tell me how much they loved it, that it was their favorite. I would love to see someone fanboy / fangirl over my book just as much as I do.

The third is really just an extension of the second. I made the things that I’ve struggled with in life a key facet of my writing: depression, rejection, bitterness and loneliness. But though the characters I wrote struggle with many of these same things, I also made a light at the end of the tunnel, a happy ending, if you will. I would love to see someone come up to me to tell me how encouraging that book was for their own personal trials and struggle. I would love to hear that the book gave them the courage to press on even when they didn’t want to.

And finally, I would love to see some people come to faith in Christ through it. Although this is a fictional book in a fictional world, faith and trust make themselves key aspects of the novel. Faith is the very frame, the cornerstone for the entire book. I am not ashamed of this in the least. Now, I suppose you can read the book and see it as just a very nice story about sacrifice and faith and trust. But I would also add that it’s probably not going to be as intricate and interesting a story if you are not seeing it through this light. So hearing someone tell me that it changed their life would be fantastic.

Perhaps I have my expectations too high, seeing as it’s my very first book published. Only about a third of writers get their first books published, maybe less. But I’m obnoxiously hopeful! So I guess we’ll just have to see how big this project of mine gets.

Easter Morning

**NOTE BEFORE READING: This is an extremely Christ-centered poem. If you have a great distaste for religious content in your poetry, do not read it. Thank you.**

To know God in His holiness

Could take on mortal’s toil,

And shroud Himself in lowliness

To trod on earthen soil,

To be tempted by the one

By whom He was most hated,

With the plan, as God the Son,

To save what He’d created,

To be hungry and tired and sad

As all at some point are,

So His understanding of man

Was not just from afar,

And know His final breath would be

Completing His great plan,

While hanging nailed upon a tree

As His blood fell on the sand…

I know all this, and ponder still,

Yet this tale I don’t dread.

There still is ink left on the quill,

And Jesus is not dead.

For this was just a passing phase,

His guard stone rolled away

And Jesus walked from His grave

As nature sang in praise

Nails, they were but stepping-stones,

And pain but a sensation

As He prepared heavenly homes

For all who’d choose salvation

There is no greater love

Than His which makes us free.

His love has now brought life

To sinners like you and me.