I write this on a scroll as something to be remembered. Exodus 17:14
Take a large scroll and write on it with an ordinary pen. Isaiah 8:1
Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets. Habakkuk 2:2
Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you. Jeremiah 30:2
For years people have passed on wisdom to later generations. Will you do the same?
Laurie and Betsy
The Writing Sisters
(photo taken at Library Way, NYC Public Library)
There’s a time for every purpose under heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1
“We have an offer on The Shepherd’s Song.”
The email from Greg Johnson came early one morning in November . Betsy read it first and almost sprained her ankle getting to the phone to call Laurie. Laurie was on a trip with her husband and was bolted awake by the news.
Breathlessly we called family and friends. After years of writing for children our first adult novel had been accepted for publication. As we shared the news a question came up:
How long did it take you?
That’s hard to answer. We have been around writing and publishing all our lives. We read manuscripts as children and have both written and published for 25 years. We have had years of life experiences that were important for the writing of the book. So how long did it take?
There’s a story told about Pablo Picasso.
A woman approached Picasso with a piece of paper and asked him to sketch something on it. He did and as he handed the paper back he said, “That will cost you $10,000.” The woman was appalled, “You took just five minutes to do the sketch. Isn’t $10,000 a lot for five minutes of work?” Picasso replied, “The sketch may have taken me five minutes, but the learning took me 30 years.”
All of us are preparing for the next thing that God has for us whether we realize it or not. We can often look back with new understanding and see how God has used our experiences, both good and bad, to train us. We are impatient, but when the time comes we can say, “Ohhhh, now I understand.”
Have you ever looked back and seen God working in your life to prepare you for what was coming? Did you ever doubt His timing?
Laurie and Betsy
WritingSisters.com
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Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
1 Corinthians 13:12
Hope you have some wonderful conversations today.
What books make that connection with the author for you?
Laurie and Betsy
The Writing Sisters
Watch! I’m about to carry out something new! And now it’s springing up— don’t you recognize it? I’m making a way in the wilderness and paths in the desert. Isaiah 43:19
Why are we so happy? We’re signing a book contract! After years of publishing children’s books we are publishing our first adult novel, The Shepherd’s Song. The publisher: Simon & Schuster’s Howard Books. Many thanks to our agent, Greg Johnson at WordServe Literary Group. We are excited! Time for the happy dance! Stay tuned …
If you would like to follow along the progress of the book and be part of our prayer support you can sign up here:
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Thanks to our online writing community for support and encouragement. We continue to share the journey!
Laurie and Betsy
Writing Sisters
Paul Cézanne, Portrait of Gustave Geffroy, 1895. Oil on canvas, 110 × 89 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The artist must raise everything to a higher level: he is like a pump; inside him is a great pipe reaching down into the bowels of things, the deepest layers. He sucks up what was pooled beneath the surface and brings it forth into the sunlight in giant sprays.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Am I taking things to a higher level? Am I writing about the muck of life and redeeming the circumstances or am I wallowing in it? Is there a goodness in my work that seeks the higher level? Is my work redemptive?
How do we balance the dark places of life, the grief, the unfairness, the storms? How do we find meaning from the circumstances that seem impossible? Can we as writers be vehicles for light? Can we bring understanding and healing to the dark places?
Bottom line, are we wrestling or wallowing?
After struggling with his horrible circumstances including the loss of his family, home and health, Job said that he had known about God but through his wrestling for meaning he knew God. As the world wears on us we can go two ways, down or up. To darkness or light.
As a writer I can dip into the darkness to bring light for myself and others. No wonder so many writers struggle with depression. We wrestle in the dark places like Jacob and sometimes come out with a limp. But in wallowing we don’t always come out.
Wrestling or wallowing. There’s a big difference. Wrestling involves God – wallowing we do alone.
Which are you doing today?
