Hallelujah, I’m a little over 32,000 words into my next
novel manuscript. Somehow, when I get to this point, I can see a slight
flickering light at the end of a very long road. When I’m sitting at about
15,000 words, it feels like an insurmountable, impossible, overwhelming,
falling-from-the-sky-with-no-parachute endeavor.
Now, at 32,000 words, it still feels impossible, but my hope
level goes up a notch. I’ve written before how writing fiction feels like
walking on the water, as if I might fall right into the blank page, but somehow
as I pray my way through every word, I find the strength to face another white
chasm.
I already have a
highly edited manuscript entitled, The General’s Legacy, which has found favor
with a couple of publishing house editorial committees, but as yet, no one has
offered me a contract. Sigh. And here I am writing another spec script. This is
definitely a journey of faith.
I’d like to finish this new book this summer, but I’ll need
to be focused.
A couple of years ago, as I approached 400 posts, I recapped
the best of One Ringing Bell. Now, I’m approaching 600 posts, and five years of
blogging. So to free up a little time over the next few weeks, I’m going to
once more intermittently recap the best of One Ringing Bell.
It has been my privilege to find dear friends in my readers.
Some of you have been with me since the beginning. Thank you, thank you, thank
you.
I’ll look forward to hearing from you as we revisit some of
my most read posts.
As I did before, I’ll be offering updates on each piece, and
also as before, I’ll still be interjecting new material.
I’m rambling, but I wanted to leave you with a word that has
been rolling around in my head for a couple of days. A word that hit me as if I’d
never read it before, “. . . though he is not far from any one of us. For in
him we live and move and have our being” (Act’s 17:27-28).
It’s almost as if we’re swimming in this Presence, swimming in Him.
Even as I interject this picture from the swimming portion of a triathlon, in which a friend participated, I’m reminded that as I face my own kind of triathlon―coming up with thousands of more words on blank pages, I remember He is not far. I am living in Him. And so are you.
And that, my friend, is a very big Hallelujah.