a guild of wannabe-writers

The test of any resolution's in the lengths to which you'll go to keep it up.

Perseverance. Stamina. That sort of thing.

It's easy to start. The trick's in knowing how to see the whole thing through and reach the end.

The number of great ideas I have seems only to grow as every year goes by! Those great creative juices still keep flowing through my veins.

And so I have these bright ideas. And I think, yes, that would be good to do! And so another little project sees the light of day.

To join the countless others I've already had.

And that's where the problem lies. I can't keep them all on the go. I can't see them through to the end. Not all of them, at any rate.

Try spinning a number of plates - and you'll soon start to find there's a very finite limit to the number you can manage before the whole lot start to wobble and they all come crashing down. And then you've got some explaining to do to your Mum or your Dad or whoever!

In life at large, it's called a nervous breakdown. I guess it's all too easy to drift alarmingly to that point.

And in terms of how many 'plates' I can manage to keep on the go, I think I live on the edge! Most of the time. Not that I think I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown or anything!

No. It's simply that life's so short, and there's just so much I always want to do!

Anyway, those were my thoughts as I started the day today. How long I can keep my firm resolve to get down to creative writing?

I had a bit of feedback to my saying back last week that I would set aside some time to do some writing of this sort. A number of folk responded and said they echoed entirely the sentiment.

It was almost like a little guild of 'wannabe-a-writers' was somehow forming out in cyberspace!

Knowing that I'm not alone is actually a spur to pressing on.

And so I set aside some time again this morning to write. Good intentions and all that. I ended up reading more than writing as the time went on. Not so much to get me in the mood as what they call 'research'.

Background reading. The sort of thing I want to write requires a fair amount of research first of all. Which is a bit of a bind! But there aren't really short-cuts, so it's got to be done. And the more that I did, the more I was finding the writing was ready to flow!

And then the time ran out. As I say, life's too short by half.

But it felt like I'd kept the faith, so far as this writing's concerned. I'd managed to set some time aside and I'd used the time to the full. It felt good. And my mind and heart were well and truly pumping with some rich creative juices by the end.

It fairly set me up for the day, all right!

And it had got me thinking again about the huge creative project which the Lord himself has long since undertaken.

Go and make disciples of all nations, he declared. Massive. Changing the face of the world. And he rounds it off by making clear that he himself is right in there for the long haul.

Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Totally committed to this huge creative project to the end. No matter how long it may take.

He is himself 'the Word'. The 'writer' par excellence. Spreading the word throughout the world and changing the face of the world thereby as well.

It's kind of like he says, 'This is what I'm committed to doing. Do you want to join me in it? Because I'll be doing it myself, whether or not you choose yourself to join me.'

Like he forms another sort of 'guild of wannabe-writers'. People who want to share with him in this grand, creative project which will spread the word and change the world and see the lives of countless folk transformed.

It was striking, thus, to end the day in the home of the couple I see on a regular basis: and to be thinking with them about this very theme.

Not because it was on my mind, so much as because it was there in the book that we use as the basis of study.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's hardly heavy 'study' as such we do! It's more some serious chat which bounces along and bounces around and encompasses who knows what.

But the booklet we use, called 'Coming Alive!', gives a vague sort of framework for these times which we spend together. And tonight the theme was 'discipleship'.

I don't think they like the word. It smacks too much of a rather aggressive 'pushiness' which they don't really want to embrace. I can't blame them, since neither do I.

We got over that hurdle as we looked at these words of Jesus. About making disciples. And what that means. And what it doesn't mean!

I think by the end they were keen to be part of the project! Wannabe-writers whose writing is done by the way our lives are lived.