Writing can be amazingly fun. You can create new worlds, meet new characters, and spout off about whatever is important to you. You can also dive down your personal rabbit holes of research and then write about them. It’s a handy way to justify getting obsessed about a topic!

But writing can also make you cry. It can make you downright miserable. People can despise what you write, they can make fun of it, criticize it, and reject it. And as much as you tell yourself that it’s the writing and not you, it’s hard not to take it personally when you put so much of yourself in it.

And writing can be painful. Sometimes, what you need to write, or worse, what God asks you to write is hard. Absolutely no fun. And you wish it didn’t have to hit the page. There are moments when each word must be yanked out like an abscessed tooth. They don’t want to approach the page and you have to drag them onto it kicking and screaming.

Or it can feel like you’re pouring words into a void. You can write for days, even weeks sometimes, with little to no feedback. I get it that everyone’s busy and that a lot of people, a consistently growing number of people, don’t like to read. Still, it makes me wish for some massive and bizarre power outage that forced people to read as entertainment.

In addition, much of the writing process is work. Do I like editing? Someone else’s stuff, sure, but my own? No. That’s like killing off bits and pieces of a dear child. And while composing dialogue or writing action comes easy (it’s why I started writing drama before I wrote fiction), good writing includes description. To include the description, I have to work hard because that’s definitely not my forte. To me, paragraphs that set a scene sound clunky and I want to get back to the action. (Probably why, when I read Dickens, I skim over large swaths of text.)

On top of that, being a writer can make you feel weird compared to most people. Non-writers don’t (usually) talk to imaginary people or become obsessed over a plot twist. When I try to explain what might be driving me crazy at a particular moment, the non-writer judges that I’m already over that border between sanity and insanity.

Story ideas don’t, as far as I know, keep non-writers up at night. Trying to figure out the perfect word in an opening scene doesn’t give them migraines. And characters don’t argue with them.

Sometimes, that sounds like bliss. Sometimes, it looks like life is better on the other side. You know the whole grass is greener thing?

But then, a new idea hits me. And it’s like love. I can’t wait to write about it. The character is near and dear to me and I want to share his, hers, or its story with the world. It becomes an obsession. I dream the character’s tales and imagine new dangers and disasters to plunge that victim into. Yet, I want to see how my creation triumphs at the end.

In truth, no matter how much I go through phases where I wish I didn’t write, I know God wired me to do just that. Over the years, it has been proven on multiple occasions where I tried to avoid writing and prove it didn’t exist. It made me miserable. It’s similar to the words of Jeremiah 20:9 Then I said, “I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in His name.” But His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not. That’s not saying that everything I write is God-given, but the need to write definitely is.

And, in truth, I am grateful. As hard and frustrating as it can be sometimes, I know it’s how my Creator wired me. I love it when I reread one of my word babies and see God’s hand all over it. It’s crazy to see themes I didn’t intentionally put in, for instance. Or fall in love with my characters all over again.

So, no matter what, one way or another, I am a writer. And the next time I complain about it, remind me to take it up with the Potter.

And then thank Him… again and again.

I think I’m done, at least as direct intent, with memories and dreams for a while. This month will lean towards ideas of thankfulness and December will have an Advent focus.

That said, events at the end of last week, November 1st to be exact, absolutely required to be told.

Gary and I spent most of last week in Knoxville, Tennessee. We had a great time. Because of our hotel’s proximity to it, we were able to walk around the World’s Fair Park, go up in the Sun Sphere, pose in front of the giant Rubik’s cube, and in general reminisce about our trip to the World’s Fair in 1982. We had been only dating at the time, but were pretty serious about each other. (We became engaged at the end of 1982.)

In addition to getting some writing done, I saw everything on my must-see list and even got to spend time with Aunt Joan. Then, on Wednesday night, Gary and his cousin, Kim, joined us for dinner. (Forgot to take that picture!) All in all, a great trip with uneventful flights in both directions.

When Uber deposited us at home, however, things became a bit disconcerting.

We had assumed based on an earlier discussion, that our son would be at home, teleworking that day. But his car was gone. And Gary’s parents, my lovely in-laws, weren’t home either.

That presented a bit of a problem since our keys, my set and Gary’s set, were securely locked within the house.

Not quite willing to give up yet, I entered the code for our garage door. Maybe we could get inside that way. Since the code most definitely worked, we made it into the garage. Unfortunately, our family default of automatically turning the deadbolt was in operational order. The door between the garage and our home was securely fastened, keeping us on the outside.

Thankfully, Friday was a lovely day. Sunny, low 80s, pleasant breeze. We put our suitcase and carry-ons in the garage and began to do things to keep ourselves busy. Gary swept the porch, watered the plants, and mowed the side yard. I emptied the recycle box into the full-sized bin at the back of the house and then began to rake leaves. None of what we were doing was urgent, but things that needed doing at some point and since we were there…

Thus, we kept busy until Gene and Gracie got home.

The whole experience made me think of Jesus’ account of the bridesmaids and the wedding feast in Matthew 25. All ten had the key to attending: a lit lamp. They only needed sufficient oil in their lamps to last until the bridegroom returned. The foolish ones knew this, but they underestimated the time that would elapse. Like Gary and I imagined people would be home when we returned, they thought they would only need a small amount of oil, a miniscule investment in time and circumstances to be included. But they needed to be “all-in”; in order to attend the feast, the foolish maids had to put their interest in being included over their comfort. Sleeping when their oil began to run low wasn’t wise.

And though we definitely don’t need our car keys when we fly out of town, the next time we travel I will put a house key in my wallet.

For while I am grateful that we eventually were let in, that it wasn’t bad weather, and that neither of us had an urgent need for the bathroom during our wait, locked out life could have been so much worse.

And like the wise bridesmaids, I don’t want to go there.

I couldn’t figure out what I was going to write this week’s blog post about. Initially, I thought about All Saints Day, which is Friday this week. Or Reformation Day (aka All Hallows’ Eve that we call Halloween) which is Thursday. But I’m currently working on a massive rewrite and expansion of A Very Grimm Christmas, which, based on the title does refer to and allude to a few fairy tales within the pages of this sci-fi romance. I’m also editing the book about Hortense, yet again, with plans to submit it by the end of the year. And that book’s tag line is, “What if every fairy tale ever told was influenced by just one person?”

Yes, I have fairy tales on the brain. Truthfully, though, I always have.  

First of all, I like the moral lessons they contain. While some only apply to the world of yesteryear, many of them hold timeless truths. Sometimes the lessons are obvious, other times you have to dig to find them. One thing I know for sure, if the people are too beautiful (fairies) or if you’re tempted to avoid work by their actions (leprechauns for instance), run in the other direction.

It never ceases to amaze me how many of the fairy tales, particularly those of European origin, are Bible lessons in miniature. Most Prince Charmings typify Christ. Most helpless princesses are human beings prior to salvation. We can do nothing to enact our own rescue. We have to wait for Jesus to swoop in and save the day. And He loves us for reasons we cannot fathom. The intensity of that love and the total inability of man to reciprocate it in kind prompted the magical element of the tales. To people of the Middle Ages, what they understood of the Mass they attended weekly was indeed magical. And since they couldn’t read or write, they invented tales they would remember, often with refrains to keep the story going, to both share the divine truths and to revel in their incredible glory.

But that still isn’t what I love the most.

If I can’t sleep, if I am stressed out, I often reread or replay the stories in my head. I always have a book (or two) of fairy tales on my Kindle. Even the tales I don’t know have common threads. The familiarity of the tales reassures me so much that I read an assortment of retellings as well. The fairy tale format always reminds me that God will use whatever He needs to in order to communicate His love to people. So savoring any one of these tales feels like a hug when I need it most.

But that still isn’t why I absolutely adore fairy tales, even though all of those things definitely play into it.

Fairy tales take me back to what was best about being a child. They remind me of possibilities and potential. They make dreams real and fantasies true. Fairy tales, as well as the portions of God’s word that they often imitate, say that your adventure, the one designed just for you, is around the next bend. Tomorrow is beautiful; today is filled with opportunity; I still have lots of growing up to do. These traditional stories help me remember that as long as we have breath, we have purpose. As long as we walk upon this earthly soil, we have the potential to tap into miracle that is today and try something new.

The following poem kind of ties it all together.

Dangle my Feet

Somewhere,

in the constant drive to be a child,

lurks the need

to sit on a too-big chair

or ledge

and let my calves and feet

dribble over the sides;

Moving in the remembered music

of grand ambitions,

magical plans

and tiny feet

click, clicking

against the legs.

Let’s all go read a tale… and dream of blessings around the corner.