Sheila's Dribs 'n Drabs

The best-selling Christian author knows God called her to write. He confirmed the call when her books became best-sellers. The up-and-coming Christian author trusts God called her to write. He confirms the call with each increasing success. The faith-filled Christian author believes God called her to write. She knows that if she acts on that gift of faith she'll receive even more than she's dreamed. And me? I think God called me to write, because He made me this way. He gives me words that I love to put on the page. But does He give me dreams, or are they mistakes?

I used to read my Bible and listen to God while feeding the baby. I asked, "Why do you give me so much when I haven't got the time to pass anything on?" "Perhaps My words are a gift just for you." The kids grew older. I read my Bible and wrote down the words I received. "Why do you give me so many words when nobody's going to read them?" "Perhaps they're a gift for one reader, and that's enough." Then the kids grew up. I found a publisher. "Why do you give me  books when they won't sell?" And God won't tell. But perhaps that just means I should have listened closer to Him before.

Did God flood my basement to stop me wasting time writing? Did Satan flood it to stop me writing the things God called me to write? Or are flooded basements just life in a broken world?

My first had no words, only sounds with my mother and brother interpreting them. My tale in full flow they’d explain, “Yes, she says no.” My next, ever-flowing, kept oceans of sixth-graders silent while my tales were told. Said the teacher, “Please write them,” but yes, I still answered no. When the principal offered a huge microphone to the mouth of small story-born me I said no to her too, then picked up a pencil. My next was in bright-colored ink, each new set of text in a shade all its own from my fat and glorious many-pointed victorious pen. I told my tales at bedtimes to brothers but if they annoyed me during the day I’d threaten withholding of fiction. Cruel is the sister. I told my tales to school friends and learned you can’t just make it so without research but you can make friends laugh and cry. Pregnant with dreams, sitting in the corner of the bus staring out through the window, pregnant with tomorrow, I wanna be a novelist, paperback wri...

In the library with a hammer? I always thought books more appropriate but language slaughtered lies bleeding. Who dunnit? Bricks’n mortared store becomes a computer.

When words won’t flow, let them drip. When the torrent’s too fierce, stop and sip. When the picture’s broke, let your prose paint something different.

“Please can I finish this chapter first”— The reader’s longing, reader’s curse— Please let me finish before you ask Completion of some other task. “Please can I finish this chapter first”— The writer’s longing, writer’s curse— Forever after dreams recur; Please let me finish my story first Before it ends.

Blank Empty Lost Alone Blank Descending Lost As one Blank Two Blanks Three Blanks More The words Fly out The door Blank The words Cry out For More Than one Blank Two Blanks Three Blanks More The sun is Coming out from Where behind a Cloud it stared at Blanks.

Three witches, a headless horseman, and a ghost went into a bar. “I’ll have a scotch,” said the horseman. “Make it a double,” said a witch. The other two intoned “Ah, toil and trouble.” The ghost said spirits weren’t quite his thing. Come closing time three author’s shades went home.

In the halls of the wise and wonderful she felt pretty insignificant. She contributed only one zero to the family tax return, not a whole string of them. She wrote children’s stories illustrated with crayon and pencil, no elaborate parlance there with paintings for palace walls. She even dreamed small, seeking just one iota of recognition, for writing, housework, laboring with kids. Those last ones seeming impossible she was really concentrating on the first. In corridors of the writing conference she still felt insignificant, till she realized the speaker was just like her and she learned to believe in dreams.

He’s typing words on a page, and letters fly with glorious rage, keyboard to screen--his muse surely hitting the high notes, as fingers perform a percussion of clattering dreams. And coffee’s bitter brew steeps sensuously, its scented veil trailing across his eyes. When he looks at the screen the notes of the muse fall flat. Did he mean to write that? Family life intervenes on his story’s stage, with kids demanding, “Daddy, play with me.” The page is gray, the keyboard stone, and finger-ends are wearied skin and bone. Save chapter; start another? No. Author and muse together groan.