The Writing Process

I have wanted everything as a writer and a woman, but most of all a world changed utterly by my revelations.
-Dorothy Allison

Oh, the writing process.  The bad thing about deciding you’re a writer, is that you actually have to write.

My blog writing process seems to be quite different from any other writing process in my life. In fact, my writing processes vary as my writing projects vary.  I read, recently, a writer share that she couldn’t work on more than one writing project at a time. I get that.  It’s easier to focus on wherever the flow is currently headed. But that’s not always possible.  And each process or project is necessary in its own way.  I write for school, I write for work, I’m working on my novel (which still is sometimes hard to actually say.  I always feel like I’m in a movie scene of a dinner party and that’s a line I’m supposed to deliver,  embarrassedly) and I blog.
Blogging, by far, is the hardest. Because I can’t hide behind a character.  Because I can’t employ the formality required in an essay.  Because there’s not a deadline.  Because it’s just me here, talking to you and I don’t know you or even if there really is a you. Because a lot of times, hitting post feels like publishing my journal.

The flow is different, too.  If I stay away too long, it’s hard to return.  If I have an idea and I don’t start writing about it immediately, chances are, that idea is either going to be gone by the time I’m poised at keyboard or I will have talked myself out of it. Because it’s just pure me here and I try not to have an agenda.  I don’t want to preach or teach.  I have no stockpile of lessons to share.  I don’t consider myself an expert on any one thing.  I don’t want to convince anyone of anything.  I just like to write.  And sometimes, I get to believing that maybe, just maybe, God wants to use my words to touch others.  So I come here to ‘practice’ and to share.  And the hope is that maybe, whatever’s on my heart or mind that day, might also be on someone else’s.  And if I can share the grace or the hope I’ve found, or if I can just be another voice saying, it’s okay to be human.  It’s okay to not be an expert, to not be Molly Homemaker, to not be called to preaching or teaching, to say I’m just trying to make it through the day myself. 

Whatever.  I’m just sharing me.  With words.  Because that’s what I do. 
And a lot of the time, this writing is for me.  It’s honesty and healing.  Where I sort and seek and find.  And so in that, it is similar to my other writing.  The more I do it, the more I learn about myself and the more it comes- the ideas, the inspiration, the renewing.  And when I’m willing to be here, frustrated or scared to share something but I do it anyway, it’s amazing to realize that I’ve been met.  And no matter what happens after I hit post, the process within me has already occurred.


I am certain I will continue to have the same boldness to speak freely that I always have. I will let God use my life to bring more honor to Christ. Philippians1:20 ERV

Source: wordcandy.me via Nicole on Pinterest

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