Why Do I Wait?

Why Do I Wait?

Beautifully cool day in the shade for July, I finally picked up the camp chair to take outside. In the shade, I could almost wear a long sleeve shirt. I wait all day to write. I feel too many options on my plate and I can't focus.

I have talked to David about my publishing career. We sat at the corner to the high school. The Hermitage Arts Festival is this weekend, I remarked. I should have set up a booth to sell my books since I can't make it to the West PA Book Festival in a few weeks. To hide my disappointment, I go into detachment mode. I don't have the drive to be at these festivals, lately.

I got a flyer this week on my door. The neighborhood garage sale is back, August twelfth. I know I work, the same reason I can't participate in a few weeks for West PA. I thought, I could just set up a table in my yard with my books. I double check my calendar, yes, I work.

I think how this would frustrate me before. I think before Summer Triangle debuted, four years ago, I anticipated recognition, maybe even a little fame. I thought, at least a steady income. I told David this morning and other times, a person with a dream needs to have that drive, that naivety. Nothing would be attempted from the surety of life, if belief in our success didn't drive us.

I do find it interesting that besides the launch of Main Street, a Gables and Gingerbread Story, at the West Middlesex (my hometown) sesquicentennial, my most profitable venture happened when I was ready to pack up my table. I sat in the Corinthian, across from one of the bars, for the Art's Alive in the Dead of Winter. The patrons strolled around with wine glasses in their hands. I'm peddling Christian fiction. They are looking for art, in paintings or jewelry. “What am I doing here?” I questioned. As thoughts plop in a head, I heard, “I'd be here. And I am through you. Whoever buys your books, needs to read them.” I knew this was from Jesus. I was a little over a month past my abdominal surgery and feeling weak. My niece helped me set up; because of a bad snow storm, David didn't come home that weekend. I had doubts about doing this particular show. Yet, those words, basically saying, it's not about me, turned my attitude around. And it was my second highest show.

I know what I need. I should sit in the chair and write. So, I put it off, instead. I am tired at times. The new job exhausted me. I'm more comfortable, now, in it. I don't resent what I do.

I had written one scene for Walking with Eternity back when I was first on my own, in February. The next day, I was asked to make a home health visit. The woman, I never met before or since, was the character with the house, I had just written about. My job inspires me.

As I wrote in my last post, then, I need to determine what drives my writing. Why do I wait to sit and write? Why do I find a million other reasons to not write? Was I writing for money, only, before?

I can't leave my writing dreams because I didn't have instant notoriety with a fantastic prosperity or even moderate income. I still feel the desire to write, even if nothing seems to happen.

Still, things are happening. I look back and realize, it has only been four years. Comments are coming in, as people connect me or my husband to the local paper I edit and sometimes write an article. I need to do a little more for publicity. I keep treading, but I cannot wait to write anymore. The latest edition of The Way It Was, with Westinghouse stories prods me to continue another novel, I started in 2011. Country, a Gables and Gingerbread Story, stalled because I need historic research and a plot, more than I had when I penned the first words. Some ideas came to me, as I rested more in my new job. I can see so much more of it and sitting down to write is what is lacking to launch it off the ground.

As I settle into the second thing, career wise, I know I am to do, the writing follows. Rest, relax and rejoice, I will tell myself, in a day's work. Another of those thoughts from last fall, after a praise service, that formed in my brain, “I will have abundance for both nursing and writing.” I'm hanging on to that promise, too.

I'm reading Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest, devotional. Today, the thought, “You have no business to find out where God is leading, the only thing God will explain to you is Himself." Like the night at the Corinthian, God explained, He is with people. I need to give of myself with no worry about the gain or the leading. So, no more waiting with the writing.