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One of the joys and
frustrations I find in writing fiction is when I start out to write I’m
frequently unsure of what will come out on the page. That’s not entirely true
all of the time as I try to finish each day leaving some crumbs for the next.
An author whose name I now forget but I think quite a famous one wrote that was
part of his daily writing routine: “leave some crumbs for tomorrow.”
Perhaps that’s because I’m a
pantser, you plotters may have a far different experience but I expect there
will still be days when a character completely surprises you with what they do,
say or think.
But I know that for most of us
turning up each day (or whatever your routine is) is often the key battle of
the day. If the crumbs I left behind the night before are meager it makes that
struggle of putting the first words down on the page even harder.
However, the more I write, the
more I find joy in the process. Heck, if there’s no joy in it, then why do it?
Right? And much of that joy comes from both the anticipation of and then
excitement of discovering something special as the words flow (or bleed out as
it can often be) on the page. Like we’ve stumbled across hidden treasure.
Only today one of my villains
revealed to me something that caught me off guard. It was a delicious moment as
all of a sudden it unlocked a mystery that had stumped me for a while. Very
quickly I was able to visualize Book 3 that had me jumping with joy.
Aren’t those days extra special
when a gold nugget miraculously appears out of the many (or sometimes few)
words you’ve written that day?
The mystery of Jesus
“To
them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of
this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”(Colossians 1:27 NIV)
I read that verse the other day
and the aspect of Jesus mystery struck me. The more we dig, the more He reveals
of Himself. The treasure that He is and that we are united in Him.
And in revealing more of
Himself, Jesus reveals more of us.
Just like our stories unfold as
we sit down each day with our manuscripts, Jesus unfolds more of Himself each
day.
I reckon that’s pretty good
reason to turn up each day to my quiet space with Jesus and to my manuscript.
Ian Acheson is an author and strategy consultant based in Northern Sydney. Ian's first novel of speculative fiction, Angelguard, is now available in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. You can find more about Angelguard at Ian's website, on his author Facebook page and Twitter
