Category: Writing

Personal Reflection, The Hidden Legacy, Writing

From Scratch

Carrie Sue Barnes

There’s a longing in my spirit to write. Let me be specific. I long to write consistently, fruitfully, confidently, and readily. Each of these descriptors that applied to my writing life now feels lost. When I think of how it used to be, how easily I could sit down with a pen and a notebook and write, it feels like a devastating defeat to be where I am now. It feels like I am nowhere.

How often what is felt is not the whole truth. Sometimes it is not the truth at all.

Now I find myself seemingly even more fixed in this low spot. The publisher of my novel is closing its doors. The wonderful couple who founded and ran the company are retiring and they are not seeking new ownership or leadership. Simply put, this means The Hidden Legacy will become an out-of-print book. I will use a significant portion of my savings to purchase copies so I can continue to promote and sell it myself. That will be the end of them though. The rights to the original manuscript will revert to me, giving me the opportunity to seek a new publisher or self-publish it.

When I received this news last week, the defeat felt solidified. No matter how full I am of the discouragement that has accumulated over the last five years though, the ache to write never leaves. I carry an enduring certainty that it is a key piece of the person God designed when He created me. The desire to create via the written word, and the joy that sparks into little flames on the rare occasions I do write; these have not left me. The entire situation would be easier by a longshot if I were free of that pull inside me.

It is painful, to be frank. But if the struggle is painful, how much worse it would be to wave the white flag. The resignation, the acceptance of defeat as a writer, is a darkness I refuse to step into. I live with it hovering in my presence and I am in a constant fight to keep my back to it.

With some darknesses, the only way through is through. That was the case with the griefs that took me into these dry years. That is the case with the restoration the Lord is working in me. The temptation is to wait out this darkness and dryness, counting on the ease and inspiration to eventually return. That is the temptation, yes, but it is the opposite of the Lord’s prompting each time I take it to prayer.

I will count on consistency. I will count on discipline and accountability. I will count on trust. I will count on God’s promises to fulfill the desires He has written on our hearts. I will count on Him bearing fruit where I no longer know how to bear it.

Why share this here? Why is this anything other than a personal journal entry? I suppose it’s because I’m tired of meeting every “Are you still writing?” inquiry with a shrug, a false half-smile, and “Yeah, it’s just going slowly.” Oh, the countless times I’ve had that exact exchange! Always with the temptation to instead say, “No, I’ve failed at that. It’s done.” Always with my mind packed full of discouraging words of disappointment in myself. I come away from that exchange every single time feeling like a liar; like I’ve misled the person and eventually they will discover the deception. That is why I’m putting these sentences here instead of in my journal. There is no deception here. No misleading. Only honesty and open admission of the realness of where I am as a writer.

Starting from scratch then, here I am. I refuse to put away the pen. May the Lord bring what He will from it.

Intentionality, Personal Reflection, Writing

Day One – Shake It Off

Carrie Sue Barnes

Today is day one. I’m rededicating myself to daily time spent on the work of writing. I am still trying to break through the writer’s block and bring back that fondly remembered flow when I set my mind to writing. Making it a non-negotiable piece of daily life has been the goal for a long while and the Lord has nudged me in recent weeks to recognize that I’m ready.

In the realm of the obvious, the one thing I know will help the matter is actually sitting down at my desk with my work. I know this just as certainly as I know procrastinating out of fear will not help the matter.

Today ought to be day three but yesterday the avoidance got the best of me. So, day one it is, again. The avoidance gave a strong effort at derailing me today too. In fact, I even played my saxophone for the first time months. Did I really want to play my saxophone? Not especially. There have been other days I wanted to play my saxophone, but today it was all about procrastination. I played for half an hour before I asked myself what the heck I was doing, and put the instrument away. I pulled out my notebook and queued up a Bach playlist exactly as I used to do. As it was long enough since I worked on the novel that I couldn’t jump back in without some rereading, I decided to type and revise the chapters written many months ago. It seemed like the best chance at productivity.

And it was! I typed and edited and rewrote sentences. I added dialogue and tightened up descriptions. A familiar satisfaction settled into my chest. I can still do this! It’s not gone! With each paragraph, my confidence solidified. It became easier to believe in a payoff to the months of patience while I waited for my mind and emotions to regain the capacity for creativity — something of which I have worked at convincing myself for a painfully long time. I am not defeated.

Two hours and one and a half chapters into the happy task, Microsoft Word closed itself down in the middle of supposedly saving my progress. I might as well have heard a maniacal laugh coming from the computer as I stared at the screen in disbelief. With great haste, I reopened the draft. Word launched like it didn’t have a clue what disaster it had just wrought; not a restored file in sight.

Gone. All of it.

I stared a little longer, hovering between the options of tears, anger, or laughter. I chose laughter. Sad, shaking-my-head laughter. Thankfully, I had a spark of clarity that no matter what, I had to redo my work. Being angry or crying over that discouraging reality would not make it less real, and might even make me less likely to get back at it again. It had taken so much to get to this point of writing with any sort of flow or steadiness for more than a few minutes. I couldn’t concede the progress I’d accomplished in those two hours.

I would not concede it.

Instead, I walked away from my desk. I poured a glass of wine, switched over to my favorite confidence inducing playlist, and danced around my kitchen. In between each song, I felt all the feels of disappointment, then shook it off a little more with the next tune. When the shaking off was adequate, I cooked dinner and read a few chapters of a book.

Today was a victory; a bittersweet victory. I’ll take it and celebrate. I’ll also shake it off and move on to day two, which I suspect will feel laughably similar to day one.

Personal Reflection, Writing

Write This Down

Carrie Sue Barnes

I’ve spent over a year consciously choosing gentleness and patience with myself. I’ve poured myself into healing. For a while, it felt like wound care, and still occasionally does. Mostly it feels like rebuilding now. I feel like a puzzle, and I happen to love puzzles. But I feel like a puzzle with entire sections missing. I have the picture. I know what goes there. I know what’s missing. The pieces are scattered and hidden and broken. The analogy breaks down a bit here, because although the pieces can be found, putting them back in looks much more like growing them back rather than a simple click into place. Plus, the pieces will never grow back the same and I must accept that.

These were musings in a conversation with myself. I have many such conversations through the hours, and today the dialogue in my head focused on the multiple years of writer’s block. I sit here thinking once again about this healing process, wondering when the Writing piece will grow back, and inevitably wondering if it can.

What if that piece doesn’t grow back? What if the rest of it takes too much of me and I can’t put that piece back in?

At an obnoxious volume, these questions cut in on my other thoughts. It was immediately followed by a calm voice.

“Write this down.”

So, I am. I came here with both determination and tears. I opened a blank post and started typing because the only way for the writing not to be gone is if I am writing. It took eight minutes just to write the first two sentences, and I’m still displeased with them. There is no flow or rhythm as I type these words. It is nothing like how I know writing to feel. But I’m writing, so I’ll take it.

Because, what if it’s gone? The possibility is relatively new to my mind. Only in recent months have I started to doubt, and think in terms of “if” instead of “when.” I ache to write a story. Knowing why I have writer’s block does not save me from the frustrated sadness of it. I miss the thrill of turning a snippet of an idea into a short tale. I miss meeting new characters and creating adventures for them. I miss the joy. I miss the way my whole self is engaged and enlivened as a story flows onto my paper. Writing now, if any words come at all, feels awkward and unfamiliar.

It’s that calm, quite voice that keeps me going. It’s the only one that can tune out the loud discouragement.

“Write it down.”

The Lord doesn’t give up on me. Never. Maybe I can’t grow back the Writing piece. He can grow it back, though. He can grow it anew.

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.

Ephesians 3:20, RSV
Personal Reflection, Writing

New Notebook

Carrie Sue Barnes

I’m choosing a new writing notebook today. I am trying to think of the best way to describe this thrill. Picking this notebook stirs up anticipation much like a fresh adventure. I’ve felt it while packing for a trip to somewhere completely new. I’ve tasted it in the early morning preparation before running a race, and when launching my kayak into a new lake. It is laced with excitement, joy, and a nervous sense of responsibility to make the most of the experience.

This isn’t for writing my current novel WIP. It is the notebook for ideas and snippets that are born in any given moment of the day. It is hauled with me most everywhere and is missed when it’s left at home.

My faithful writing companion.

The last one held numerous unformed ideas, flash fiction stories, blog posts, and seeds and scenes of short stories. Meaningful moments were captured there. Characters were born there. The last pages hold the first draft of a letter that would change my life in a way I’d longed to see for years. There are still undeveloped ideas in it that I will try to turn into whole scenes or stories. It has served me wonderfully well.

It’s an important notebook, you see. I cannot wait to discover what will fill it.

Personal Reflection, Writing

Present Tense

Carrie Sue Barnes

I used to write in places like this one.

The cafe I’m sitting in is the sort of place I used to write in regularly. That’s what I thought about as I walked through the chiming door into the buzz of conversations and the invigorating odor of coffee.

I used to….

The past tense of the thought unsettled me. How else to change it then but by writing in this place? I promised myself that before I left this table at a picture window overlooking the downtown shops, I would write something. I’d write for the sake of transforming my statement to the present tense.

So, here I am, writing something in this small-town coffeehouse with delicious pastries, soothing teas, and busy tables. Just as I should be.

I’m currently living in a meet-the-needs-of-this-day mindset. It neither allows for procrastination of things to be done today, nor for anxiousness about days ahead. That’s not to say I’m free from procrastination or anxiety (wouldn’t that be a dream), but I’m trying. I’m aiming. Some days I land near the target and some days I lose track of it entirely. My brain and my emotions are in recovery mode currently and I find I only have the capacity – emotionally, mentally, physically – for what is truly needed for the present day. Rarely more. In low moments, even that much is questionable, but only in the low moments.

I’m discovering the words and actions that help me silence the anxious, speculative thoughts. There is no ignoring the tension I carry in my muscles from the moment I wake until I eventually fall asleep in the middle of the night. My heels are dug deep in self-awareness, constantly in tune with the ways my body and mind need to be supported. It is both transforming and exhausting. I am counting on the habits I develop now, in this less than ideal place, to help me thrive beyond this leg of the journey.

My personal journal was all I could pick up for a while, but I’m breaking back into the novel WIP and blogging in recent weeks. The energy that writing gives, plus the unshakeable desire to write much, much more, propels me forward while other pieces of life right now are pulling me down. Undoubtedly, writing will continue to be one of my most encouraging companions as I transition from crisis mode to adjustment and acceptance to thriving on a new path.

Living in the present, carpe diem, and all that jazz have taken on new meaning lately. They are less about taking bold chances and more about expecting both God and myself to see to the needs of this day. “Give us this day our daily bread.” How often I’ve prayed that one line in sporadic moments through the last few months. For strength, clarity, wisdom, grace, peace… just for today. Tomorrow is still out of my reach, and that’s probably for the best. Today has trouble enough of its own, to paraphrase Jesus.

So far the track record for that little prayer being answered is as steady as can be. He makes a way and, one day at a time, I try to walk it. Maybe that’s as much as I ought to expect of myself in any stage of life, not only the one I’m navigating at present.

My tea is gone and I’m going home. I’ll be back though because…

I write in places like this one.

Books, Personal Reflection, Writing

Best Walk Ever

Carrie Sue Barnes

The weather yesterday, high 30s and sunshine, had me longing for a run. I settled for a superb, solitary walk on the mostly clear rec trail. I kept at a steady clip around a four mile loop I used to run on a lunch break sometimes.

Once the pavement was under my shoes, the ache to run passed and my mind’s gears got to grinding. It used to happen like that on a really good run and I was giddy over the experience yesterday. My, oh my, it’d been a long time since my imagination slipped into writing mode that easily.

Idea after idea took shape for the novel I’m currently writing. Each one flowed from the one before it. All of it made me grin as I walked through my town and filled my lungs up with fresh air.

Three times before reaching home, I ran through each of the notes and scenes I was writing without a pen. I repeated them to myself in the order they’d come to me, and at the end of each round, more new material came. It was a feast.

When I arrived home, I rushed through explaining to my husband why I had to get to my notebook and pen. I had to write all of it down before any of it disappeared, as unrecorded ideas are apt to do.

I don’t know how long I spent writing. I don’t know why everything worked yesterday when it so often does not.

I know I have eleven pages of new, solid character and plot development and scenes for my novel. I know it was a walk to rival any of my favorite runs.

I’m grateful, and I can’t wait to eventually share this book with you someday.

Personal Reflection, Writing

Breaking Through

Carrie Sue Barnes

I wrote for hours yesterday.

Those words bring tears to my eyes. It’s been almost two years since I could say that, since the words flowed like they did yesterday.

Today I woke up with much contentment in my heart. It’s hard not being able to be what you are and feel like you don’t know how to return to that person. Yesterday was enlivening.