Why I Am Not Writing

As a writer I constantly read the advice that a writer should be a voracious reader, well I’ve got that down pat. The problem is I am spending all my time reading and not writing. Now how can I possibly become a good writer if I am not writing?

I go to my weekly writers guild meetings, read lots of books on the craft of writing and read novels by my favorite authors, boy aren’t I good. NOT.

Unless I sit myself in my chair and put fingers to keyboard or mechanical pencil (my favorite non-computer writing tool) to paper I am not a writer. DUH.

So, if I say I am a writer then I must write.

I sat myself down today with a couple of writing prompts and wrote away. What I wrote was entertaining for me and showed me that my mind can still go to those strange places that writer’s minds go. I enjoyed myself too.

I am happiest when I am writing because that is what God has called me to do. So I asked myself, before I took off with those writer’s prompts, why I was hesitating to write. I also asked God if I should attend the Writer’s Workshop that will be held at Glen Eyrie beginning June 6th. The atmosphere of this workshop is small and intimate with writing time included. I have hesitated because I didn’t want to hear from the presenters that I should find something else to do with my time, you know, “step away from the computer do not put your hands to the keyboard.”

The answer I received from God was not very comforting but truth telling. I love that He loves me so much that He is straight with me.

I doubt that you have this issue but for me it is PRIDE. See, if I go to the conference I will receive criticism in front of all these great authors. I want everyone to love me and everything about me including my writing. I want to hang onto my dignity.

As I clutched my chest and pulled the dagger out of my heart I saw that if I choose to go to the conference as one who knows nothing, but is willing to have a teachable heart, I can learn to become the writer that God wants me to become. Simple change of mind and the answer to whether I should go is simple, of course I should. God has gifted me for this and I must receive and use the gift.

James 1:17 in the Message Bible says: Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. THE GIFTS ARE RIVERS OF LIGHT CASCADING DOWN FROM THE FATHER OF LIGHT.

Rivers of light cascading down, those are the kinds of words that I want to put on paper or computer screen.

So, I will stop reading a novel every two days and throw myself into my passion for writing and leave the results to God. Smile.

Colorado Christian Writers Conference

Sunday afternoon I arrived home from one of the most inspiring times of my life. I spent four days in the beautiful Rocky Mountains of Estes Park at the Colorado Christian Writers Conference.

During those four days I became immersed, along with hundreds of other writers, into the presence of God. Each general session, and many of the workshops, opened with prayer. At the General Sessions we shook off everything as we entered the Throne Room of God during Praise and Worship.

Marlene Bagnull is excellent at what she does, I would recommend this conference to beginning, as well as advanced, writers. The theme was Write His Answer, but I felt a sub theme going on, Encourage One Another. From the workshop leaders, to fellow writers at the tables at meal time, I found nothing but encouragement. I occasionally had the opportunity to be the encourager, one of the giftings God has given me.

I departed the conference tired, but so full, ready to take what I had learned and put it into practice to become an excellent writer, writing for His Glory. I should have been prepared but I wasn’t, for the enemy attack. The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. (John 10:10)

The last day of the conference was topped off with a hayride and cook-out, what a great way to decompress. Following the hayride my throat began to hurt. Sunday morning I awoke and did not feel well at all. I dreaded the three hour drive back to Colorado Springs but with pain relievers in my system and Kristen Heitzmann’s story Secrets playing in my CD player, I made it home. It is now Wednesday and I am still feeling sick, ugh. I haven’t felt like doing any writing, or reading any of the wonderful materials I received at the conference.

One of the women who is in my writing guild, Words For the Journey, also went to the conference and we roomed together. She left the conference on Saturday afternoon and during one of the stops on her drive home she left her wallet on the top of her car. At a stop to get a cup of coffee she realized she did not have her wallet. (The police found her wallet and it is being returned to her. PTL) She told me at our Words for the Journey meeting yesterday, "when I left the conference I was feeling so relaxed" and when she found her wallet missing all her peace went out the window. A light bulb went on in my mind. I recognized the strategy of the enemy. How many other women and men who attended that conference had the enemy come against them?

The thief was trying to steal what was planted in us. I recalled the scripture in Mark 4, the parable of the sower. (Mark 4:15) And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts. KJV

Satan had come immediately, even before we got home, to take away the teachings sown in our hearts. But the thief has been found out and he will have to repay seven fold. (Proverbs 6:31)

I don’t know about you but when I wake up and realize that the thief has stolen from me I get fighting mad. He will repay. My heart is good soil for the seeds of the teachings sown into me at the conference and they will produce, thirty, sixty or one hundred fold. (Mark 4:20) I am going for the hundred fold. How about you?