Sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop, working on my book while my husband and daughter played a computer game on their laptops, opposite each other at the other end of the table, I got up to pull the pizzas out of the oven. I returned to find my son, sitting in my seat, intensely focused on the screen, reading the text in front of him.
My heart soared, "Do you like it? I can read it to you for bedtime stories if you want!" Glancing up at me in confusion, "It's my talk for tomorrow." Realizing he wasn't reading my story, but rather was reviewing the talk he'd written that he'd be giving over the pulpit during Sunday survives at church tomorrow, I laughed...only a little disappointed that I didn't, in fact, have a captive audience enthralled by my latest masterpiece.
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We are all vessels, conduits of inspiration...all with our own souls that hear and feel and connect in different ways. To some, a voice in the recesses of the mind, to others - a feeling in the bones, a tingle in the spine. Last night, it was a dream.
I had an almost out of body experience today... Shopping in the grocery store, I had a scene pop into my mind that I vaguely remembered thinking about before, but couldn't place if I had actually written it or just thought about it...and if I had written it, I couldn't place where it would be saved, or even why I'd written it. Realizing it would be perfect as a scene in a prequel I'd considered writing for the Dominoes Series, I pulled up the bookmarked manuscript for "Calling All Dominoes." Expecting to find a blank document with just a title page, I found several written chapters, one of which included the scene I wanted to include in it. In a flash of recollection, scene after scene came flooding back to me, and I remembered hours and hours of laughing and crying and laughing some more as I wrote (and read the scenes to my daughter over the phone) for the couple of days that the book had written itself during my manic year last year. It's crazy to think I completely forgot writing half a book until it came crashing back to remind me. It just goes to show that when there is Divine Intervention at play in the inspiration of any element of creative outpouring, it is not our own talents or abilities, but that of a Higher Power at work. We are but the vessels. We are but the hands. And fortunately, the shadows of our inspiration want to be heard, and don't allow us to forget about them...for too long. One day these pictures won't just be sitting on my computer as inspirational bookmarks holding a dream together...they'll be on the table of my designer as she creates the covers for the Dominoes Series as I prepare to go to print.
While writing this weekend, a small, unpresumptuous line made it's way onto the pages of my book, tucked seamlessly amidst the words of an obscure paragraph. But today, as I was reviewing what I'd written, she very clearly stood out from between the lines and declared her place in the world. It was fun to watch as line after line, soon became paragraph and page, until finally, an entire chapter had procured itself. Pleased to be manifest in the full stature of her inspiration and potential, she was now content - having been heard and headed.
That moment when a change of scenery makes you realize your title is all wrong and needs to go back to what it originally was. Maybe it's the too big, empty bed, or the one too many free Shirley Temples from the bar downstairs...but I can't remember why I ever changed it in the first place. But now that it's back to what it was always meant to be, I can commence writing again.
I've done more writing in the last 24 hours than I've done in the last 24 months. There is nothing like snuggling deep down in cozy hotel blankets and writing all night, dining on catered breakfast that you don't have to make or clean up after, and exploring a fancy hotel to find all the best secret writing nooks. I've heard stories about people who live on perpetual cruises the rest of their lives once they retire. I'm seriously considering permanently renting out a hotel room to sneak away to and write. I'm already too highly addicted to this life to give it up quite yet.
"If you could be anywhere in the world, doing anything your heart desires, what would that be?"
Right here, doing exactly this. Tonight I cross the threshold into a new decade in my life's journey, and am so blessed to be exactly where I would wish to be...metaphorically as well as literally. I can truly say I am happy. Grounded in who I am and where I am in my path of existence. To celebrate the turning of a page and beginning of a new chapter, I have the luxury of closing the book on the craziness of life for just a moment to escape into my writing...in hopes that by the close of this new decade, I will be placing my series onto my shelf and preparing for yet another adventure. |
AuthorRachel Siemers Archives
January 2023
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