In yesterday’s post, I forgot to mention this was the last week of Love Rules. Writing about the Ten Commandments, and how they are boundaries show us how to love has been on my heart for a long time. Writing about how each commandment is a Love Rule proved to be interesting and challenging. Lots of times it was way more challenging than interesting.
Even though I’ve been writing as long as I can remember, and I’ve been writing for pay for over more than a decade, there a few lessons I have to re-learn every time.
1. Pace yourself. Really, it takes me about two hours to sit down and write an entire Bible study. When I’ve been praying and pondering and reading about the study all week, I can write the thing pretty fast. But I sometimes forget how important all that marinating time is. When I haven’t been musing about the topic in the back of my head, the writing can be brutal. Hours of writing absolute garbage, worrying about the garbage, erasing it and replacing it with slightly rephrased garbage. And then really worrying I’ll never write anything that makes sense again.
Needless to say, this stresses me out. And makes me want to go work at the Gap and forget writing.
2. In the writing world (and the real world) people talk about the muse. Which almost feels like a real thing because, marinating all week or not, there are times when the words and ideas click so fast, my fingers can’t keep up with my brain.
Other times…most of the time? Not so much.
My brain is like, “Fingers! Write! Think of something!” Which never works.
This quote is from Stephen King, On Writing. The humor/truth about how important hard work is might not come across plucked from the funny/insightful book, but I’ll share it because I love it:
