I'm Back

I can hardly believe it's been more than 4 months since I've blogged. It's not that I haven't had any thoughts. But this is the busy season in Florida. Four out of every five of our church attendees are snowbirds. They arrive in November and December and start returning north in March and April. So, here's what I've been doing: Writing.

In November and December I worked on writing a manual for a computer program my sister's company is developing. Of course, that involved me actually learning the program, helping to debug it and then figuring out a way to make it easy for others to understand. I made this project top priority, since my sister wanted the product on the market ASAP and asked for the manual to be done at the end of the year. I finished late New Year's Eve. As far as I know nothing has been done with the manual and they are making loads of changes to the program, which means somewhere down the line I'll need to start all over.

On to project two: my least favorite type of writing. More devotionals for Light from the Word for Wesleyan Publishing House. I so much dislike the discipline of writing with such a small word count, but it's a good mental exercise for me. I finished those in just a couple weeks in February.

The Big Project. I was asked back in November sometime to write one of the new Lectio Divina Bible studies coming out from WPH. They're doing four volumes this year and four next. Not knowing much about Lectio Divina, I spent considerable time in December and January just reading about this type of "divine reading" and doing it myself to get a feel for it. I read books about various saints and other inspirational books just to get myself into the frame of mind for this more contemplative, mystical and meditative type of study. This is not at all what I'm used to (I usually write Bible commentaries!). For a writer, this assignment was very restrictive... 25-40 words for this section, 30-50 for the next, 125-175 for another, 500-600 for the meditation, 50 words for prayer, etc. etc. I'm sure I made it a lot harder than it was supposed to be. But I guess that's how I always am when it comes to the Word of God. I want what I write to be faithful to the text and deeply meaningful to the person who reads it. (So unlike my blogging!) I'll be honest and tell you that I agonized over this writing assignment. I finally finished my good rough draft on March 4 and the final draft on March 8. No other assignment has ever felt so good upon completion. I feel such a great sense of accomplishment just for having conquered the discipline of the written word.

My mother-in-law commented the other day how I have always seemed to keep busy with writing. But, I have never really written anything with the intention of having it published (other than a couple devotionals I did as a result of a writer's workshop I once attended). My very first published article was one I wrote for the old Wesleyan Woman magazine. JoAnn Drury had asked me to send her an article for that, and I did. After that, she asked me to write a series of 12 lengthy devotionals for the Wesleyan Women International yearly handbook. Which I did. Then Jerry Pence and Marlin Mull called from HQ to ask if I'd write the 40 Days of Prayer and Fasting material that year (Building a Household of Faith). I did. Next thing I knew Darlene Teague was asking me to write Bible commentaries for the Teacher Helps magazine. And a love affair was born. That's my favorite type of writing by far. I just love researching Bible passages and trying to make them clear to teachers. Somewhere in all that I had my Through the Bible published, but that's the subject of another blog someday.

In some ways I hate writing. But as long as someone asks me to do it, I'll keep plugging away at it, inept as I feel most of the time. Now that my mind is free from the chain of the approaching deadline, I can fill you in on what I've been thinking in my spare time. Read on...