Do not be afraid: write that novel

Originally published 12/6/19

It’s so much easier to talk about doing things than actually do them. Take writing a novel, for example. I’d much rather talk about it than do it. I’ve been talking about it since 6th grade, when I penciled my first imaginary version of 6th grade at Jesse Boyd Elementary School. It was some 30 notebook pages, which have been carefully stored in box jammed in the bowels of our Tennessee house. Just a bookshelf away, though, is the revised and bound version, 67 hand-written pages in a store-bought journal. It looks at me when I’m in my office in Sewanee, reminding me how ridiculous my imagination and worldview was in 1980, and taunting me as a symbol of what I once thought I was capable of when I didn’t know how real the world was or how badly the dead lady bugs needed to be vacuumed up, or any number of other mundane, less important yet now leapfrogged to the top of the list of prioritized things to do list rather than write an actual novel, something I have been threatening to do since I wrote that unnamed novel as a dreamy sixth grader.

Right: My 6th-grade novel, spine broken with time, additional journals on the shelf behind it. I’ve been writing things down for years.

I think everyone likely has a book inside them, whether it’s about their life, the life they wish they had, a life they know someone else had, or a life they hope no one ever has. The difference between everyone and the novelist, is that the novelist selfishly removes herself from the world and enters another for a time, and records what’s happening in that world. Then, at the end of that time, shares with the rest of us what happened there.

And that’s the scary part. Sharing with everyone else what’s inside my imaginary head. I can’t even bring myself to read my 6th-grade self because I’m afraid of the embarrassment I’m going to feel over thinking those words were important enough to use No. 2 pencil lead on. Imagine what my adult words would read, after having been through 4 years of state school, an early marriage, childbirth, recovery, divorce, internet dating, a second marriage, stepchildren, and the list goes on.

I’ve made up a myriad of excuses as to why I can’t poop out this novel. Work, owning a business, marriage, seminary, moving, waiting to move, moving, getting situated, vacuuming ladybugs, making tea. I could have made a much longer list, just to avoid writing, but I’m trying to strengthen my self-discipline muscle, which is what I tell most people I’m doing when asked my current job: self-discipline development. I wouldn’t recommend using that when asked what you do, by the way; it’s definitely a conversation killer. People really don’t want to know that much about your inner psyche.

I’ve prayed for a long time to God for direction, for him to reveal to me what he has for me to do, and I fear he may have opened up a door that I must pass through. All of my excuses not to write that novel have dried up (the actual excuses like revenue-producing work and young children demanding to be fed regularly, though I do need to vacuum up these dead ladybugs).

I stared at the application to the Sewanee School of Letters today, a summer program for students to earn a masters degree in fine arts, the thesis for which is a novel, a book of poems, screenplay, or whatever the author’s creative writing medium. I discovered this program when we came to Sewanee for seminary, and have talked for four years about applying for it when life opens up the opportunity. This summer I sold our business of 16 years, and now have a small window in which I do not have to go to work every day, nor do I have children at home who need constant feeding, nor do I have elderly parents requiring regular care, and I have a husband who goes to work every day.

I’d say God opened up a pretty big window for me to do this thing.

Why then did my palms start sweating when I started the application? To actually do the thing I’ve been talking about doing for almost 40 years?

This is a good thing to contemplate now, in the season of Advent, which is the liturgical church’s season of waiting for Jesus to be born. Over they years I’ve learned it’s much more than a season with twinkly lights and crazed shopping to a hummable soundtrack. It should be a time when we sit still, and be quiet, and listen. I think of the shepherds just outside of Bethlehem, who were tending their flocks, waiting for them to finish eating on the hillside before moving to the next, to wait again. While sheep have some intelligence (they come when called, I understand), they’re not demanding toddlers or high maintenance husbands who require constant emotional, financial and nutritional support.

Left: We visited the Shepherd’s Fields, just east of Bethlehem in the village of Beit Sahour.

Here, Pastor Don Wilton told us “The Lord will speak to you in this place.”

In their waiting, the shepherds were contacted by an angel of the Lord who gave them pretty specific instructions.

“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Luke 2: 10-12

As I re-read that today, I focused on the angel’s greeting: Do not be afraid. In the preceding verse we are told An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. That would be a pretty scary thing, a direct message from God. Most of us don’t get that. We have to read between the lines (the business has been sold, you own a stone house near the university, your children are grown, some people actually enjoy reading your blog) to know what we’re supposed to do next. Yet these shepherds, who weren’t even waiting on instructions for a new task, got a direct order. And even though they were scared, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. Luke 2:15-18

They immediately went to see this baby, not even selling their sheep, or making sure someone was at least watching them, making sure they had enough grass to eat. I wonder how they overcame their fear, that initial terror they felt upon seeing the angel. The writer of this story doesn’t tell us what made them move toward Bethlehem, following the angel’s instructions; just that they took action, and that they agreed on it.

Just like at the pools of Bethesda, where movement of the water meant the Holy Spirit was present, which in turn indicated that healing would then occur, action and movement is what is needed now. Typing words on a page, the action that makes words appear, strings sentences together and tells a story. Maybe not the greatest story ever told, but maybe it’ll be worth reading.