Another Day, Another Funeral

So, this was a good week on the writing front. I set aside more time to get through some of the hard things to write and I feel like I made some progress. It is so hard to spend hours on one paragraph and then end up scrapping it because it doesn't end up working for where it is supposed to go. There have been many times in the past months that I feel like I am wasting time, spinning my wheels and not making any progress, but I feel like I have been given this story and though it would be far easier to give up and just make pottery, I know I am not supposed to. I know I couldn't be happy if I did.

I had a couple of random visitors this week who just dropped by while I was writing. I feel like the universe sent them to help me realize I need to write this book, that people need it. It was a humbling experience to see that the very thing we were talking about was the thing I had been writing about. I am convinced that we are all connected. We are all trying the best we can to make it through this life, bumping along the road, trying to make sense of it all. I am glad to be a writer and in the coming weeks, hope to make much more progress. Thanks for your encouraging words. They keep me going when I don't feel like it. They give me perspective. Thank you.

Slow, but steady.

I think I am beginning to understand why it took me eleven years to write my first book when the second and third took only 9 months each. It takes a huge amount of time to lay the foundation for a book, especially one that requires research. That, and overcoming new fears. I think I have written about this before on previous blogs, but after seeing how people have loved the Niederbipp Trilogy, I find myself feeling very careful and sensitive to realities that people have an expectation of me and my writing. I don't want to let anyone down. I don't think I will with this next one, but I recognize how careful I have to be. To be honest, I am not sure why anyone writes. I have spoken of this several times in the book clubs I speak to, but when I write, I am bearing part of my soul. These books are my babies, and none of us like to be told we have ugly babies. I worry about how things will be taken and understood and how it will reflect on how I am viewed as a writer. It is kind of like standing naked in the middle of a sports arena, and singing the national anthem. And so, with this in mind, I am moving forward, trying to keep the distractions at bay, and realizing it is rather unlikely that I will complete this book by May as I originally hoped, but it will be this year sometime, and I think you will like it.

I have also been thinking a lot about my work as a potter. It is my first love, working with clay, getting my hands dirty, making stuff that people like. It has been a wonderful life, but more and more, I am feeling a need to write more. I currently have six books that I have outlined, that I think about nearly every day and I find myself wondering how I will ever get them written if I spend all my days making pottery. For the longest time, I believed my calling in life was to be an artist and make the world a more beautiful place, but since writing the Niederbipp Trilogy and witnessing how the written word has the ability to make the world a more beautiful place by inspiring the minds of people to make it so, I find myself facing the reality that maybe there is more than one art form that I need to pursue. It's too bad that life is so short and that my mind is weak and my body tires and needs to rest. I look forward to a time when such silly things will not bog me down and have power over my body.