Talk about timely–I opened my mailbox today to find a review copy of Acceptable Words: Prayers For Writers, by editors Gary D. Schmidt and Elizabeth Stickney. (I’m a member of LibraryThing, and they drew my name at random for this just-released book.)
What makes the book so well-timed is that I’m giving a workshop tomorrow for the Georgia Writers Association, and my topic is inspirational writing. (There’s still time to join us. The workshop is on Saturday, 9/8, from 10 a.m. to noon, in the KSU building at 3333 Busbee Parkway in Kennesaw, GA).
Part of the workshop will address the nuts and bolts of getting published: how to write a query letter; find a publisher who accepts unagented manuscripts; write a non-fiction book proposal; and so on. The other part will cover where to find inspiration.
I’ve got a handout for the class, listing places they might find inspiration to spark the creative fires. The last item on my list–but hardly the least important–was the single word, “pray.”
Prayer matters. It’s how we stay connected to our Source, who loves us, provides for us, and cares about our daily lives. Prayer also, I believe, helps us discover who we truly are, and that leads directly to writing the kind of things we should be writing.
Recently a GWA member asked me for an interview (I was glad to do it, and grateful for her interest). One of her questions was, “Do you write for the reader, or for yourself?” I answered that I try to keep the reader in mind. After all, I want to engage them with intriguing copy, so they’ll keep reading. But primarily I write for myself, trying to put down in ink the things that feel most true and right and good to me.
But I think now, after flipping through the book that just arrived, I should have added that I also write for God–that is, to be pleasing and acceptable in His sight. Isn’t that what the Psalmist desired, too, when he wrote, “May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart, be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.”
I haven’t had time yet to sit and read through all of Acceptable Prayers, but I’m inclined, from what I’ve seen so far, to share it with the group tomorrow. We do need inspiration, not just for our writing, but for living our daily lives, which are usually a lot harder than penning a few words on paper, if you think about.
Here’s to writing, and reading, and finding inspiration, and praying. I’m excited to see what tomorrow’s workshop holds!
Lynn
(and, of course, Miss Paws and Molly)
I’m extremely impressed with your writing skills as well as with the layout on your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you modify it yourself? Either way keep up the excellent quality writing, it’s rare to see a great blog like this one these days..
Thank you, CeLine–your kind words made my day!
And this is a paid theme by WordPress, set up for me by a local Web design company.
All best,
Lynn
The third stage is letting go. You just drop the subject entirely, go do something else, and let the unconscious mind deal with the problem. Incubation is needed to handle complexity – during this relaxing period, people unconsciously and consciously combine ideas with a freedom that denies linear and rational thought (Boden 1990). After a period of intense concentration, Albert Einstein would take a nap or find another way to detach from whatever he was working on. He found that during these mental breaks his unconscious mind would go on thinking about the challenge and surprise him with an insight when he least expected it. Isaac Asimov was quoted as saying that when he got stuck writing a book he would simply put the project aside and start writing a completely different book. When he returned to the original project he would find that his unconscious mind had figured things out and the ideas would just flow. Seymour Cray, the legendary designer of high-speed computers, used to divide his time between building the next generation super computer and digging an underground tunnel below his Chippewa Falls house. He would immerse himself in his work, and then he would walk away from it and let the ideas percolate. Thomas Edison, a man with over 1,000 patents to his credit, would go down to the dock and fish. Therefore, after a period of thinking hard about a problem, the next step is to either work on something entirely different, or to relax: practice deliberate frivolity, go to a museum, go to the movies, or go for a twenty minute walk. Many people have reported “Eureka” moments while taking time for incubation. (“Artist Under Bridge”, courtesy of Randy Son Of Robert ).
I like this idea a lot, and thanks for sharing it. I’ve actually come up with the ending to a couple of short stories while I was in the shower–those were “eureka” moments, I guess you’d say, when I wasn’t consciously working on the stories at all. The endings just popped into my mind, proof that our subconscious does stay busy on its own level!