Piggybacking on Beth’s post from last week, let’s explore the ramifications of those times when your best intentions get splattered across your day like a dropped jar of spaghetti sauce. What a mess.
First, you had planned to organize your emails, then write a new chapter, then make sure you posted something on social media—just to keep your name out there, you know—and finally, delve into historical research related to your main character’s search for copper ore in Nevada.
BUT.
Your elderly next door neighbor calls. In tears. She just received news that her older sister died.
So, you walk away from your email, sit on the sofa, and let her vent and cry. You tell her how sorry you are. You agree that this Christian lady is far better off now than she was yesterday. You pray together. Once you hang up the phone, you ask yourself, “How will I handle it if I outlive my sister?”
The divine appointment light bulb blinks on. Journal your feelings regarding that scenario.
Back to work. You clear out all extraneous materials from your inbox. On to that next chapter. You’re excited. You know exactly how you want it to go.
BUT.
Your mother’s long-term care insurance company calls to inform you they’re missing a necessary piece of paperwork. Would you track it down, please, so claim reimbursements can continue unheeded? You might as well do that while it’s fresh in your mind. Otherwise, it probably won’t get done. One hour later, you’ve found what is needed, filled out the necessary info, and emailed it to the correct recipient. Great! That divine appointment has taught you something new. Jot it down in a new file: "How to Handle the Health Care Maze.” Now you can write that chapter.
BUT.
An hour later while you’re really into it and your protagonist’s heart is breaking, the phone rings again. Caller ID says it’s a writer friend.
Answer it.
“Would you be able to meet with me today or tomorrow?” she asks. “I am completely stuck on this manuscript. I need to talk about it with someone else.”
Tomorrow is already over-scheduled, and none of it with writing tasks. But your friend has been through a lot during these two years of covid. “Sure,” you say. “Coffee shop in twenty minutes?”
By the time you get home, it’s close to the dinner hour. What more can you do on your writing timeline?
Acknowledge the divine appointment.
Take some notes. While you brainstormed with your friend, what did you discuss that might pertain to your own writing? File those ideas in the proper place.
Like Beth said last week, we
need to be intentional about our writing plan, but she knows life happens. So
when it does, live your moment, love your neighbor, and allow that interruption
to become a divine appointment.
Linda Sammaritan writes realistic fiction, mostly for kids ages ten to fourteen. She is currently working on a middle grade trilogy, World Without Sound, based on her own experiences growing up with a deaf sister.
Linda had always figured she’d teach middle-graders until school authorities presented her with a retirement wheelchair at the overripe age of eighty-five. However, God changed those plans when He gave her a growing passion for writing fiction. In May of 2016, she blew goodbye kisses to her students and dedicated her work hours to learning the craft.
A wife, mother of three, and grandmother to eight, Linda regales the youngest grandchildren with “Nona Stories,” tales of her childhood. Maybe one day those stories will be in picture books!
Where Linda can be found on the web:
www.facebook.com/lindasammaritan
www.twitter.com/LindaSammaritan
Linda!! Those are the EXACT kind of interruptions that scatter my writing intentions to the wind!! I wish I picked up where I left off that easily. My focus tends to drift after the first interruption and too often, that's the end of the good intentions. I love the reminder to look for the "divine" and to keep our writer's antenna tuned into anything and everything that we can put to good use.
ReplyDeleteBeth, I confess that it's not always that easy for me either, but I do try to apply the concept of "Live the moment" and be aware of the divine appointments through my day.
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