Writing, and Birthing a Book

One year ago today I posted this photo on social media with these words: “I’ve been at this pretty much all day and haven’t made it past the second page. Whose idea was it for me to write another book anyway?”

I was buried in revisions of The Presence of Absence: A Story About Busyness, Brokenness, and Being Beloved (which I called something else at the time), trying to find the shape of a story in sand I had shovelled into a sandbox over time. It was fifteen months after I first dared to write in my journal the stirring I felt to write a new book. Fifteen months since I began walking a tightrope between inspiration and inability.

I keep coming back to the idea of writing a spiritual memoir and yet I feel so unqualified even to entertain such an idea. Who am I to think I have known enough of the love of God to write even a paragraph, let alone a book? And yet, I have. After all these years, I feel as if I have been given a touch of the Divine that surpasses the natural and veers sharply in the direction of the supernatural. I know that love. I experienced that love. I feel that love.

I wanted to put this project aside so many times. Even now, when I’m weary, I wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to toss the whole thing in a drawer and just live out my remaining days. And yeah, it would. But there’s this story, and a truth I laboured to tell, and love that keeps drawing me forward.

And so I write. Words that might never go anywhere but that I feel compelled to put out anyway. 

I can’t wait to share this story with you. I’m a little bit terrified but I’ve wrestled fear before. (I write some about that in the book.) When I came across this photo of the mess on my writing desk one year ago today, thought about the work I buried myself in the past couple of years, and the fact that I’m birthing a book this year, it just struck me on so many levels—the intention, the effort, the things I set aside in order to write. And the story. Most of all, the story.

Next month, I’ll reveal the cover and more. Meanwhile, I’ve added a hint to the “Books” page of this blog. 🙂