The blank page stares at me, taunting me. It mocks my ability to write something new, something worth my time to write, and your time to read. I'd like to claim this is an isolated occurrence and normally words flow off the end of my pen as a river flows across the land. Sometimes they do but more often I jot a sentence here and another there. I pause to consider the words. I scratch out half or more of what is on the page and wonder if the taunting is accurate.
We read in Ecclesiastes 1: 9-10, "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new?" It was here before already, long ago, it was here before our time."
There is nothing new, so I can put my pen down in discouragement knowing the doubts and questions are correct. It would be easy enough to do. Except it isn't easy. I get restless when I am not creating in some way. I get grouchy and hard to live with.
There is nothing new, so I can put down the pressure. My thoughts have been thought, and my curiosities have been considered by others. However, these ones are mine and they have value to me if not to others. I have permission to consider, to process and to create from my place in time and space.
Because nothing is new under the sun, I can reuse my writing. I have heard others talk about re-purposing writing. I have read collections where authors put together a best of collection or a themed collection of their work. I did not consider this for myself until a comment I received about my A to Z blog posts. Now I am in the process of refining them based on what I have learned over the two years I wrote them. In this case, the blog commentators have helped by highlighting the words, phrases and sections that had impact. I am using the comments to hopefully strengthen each piece before I reuse it.
Because nothing is new under the sun, I can give myself permission to adjust my previous writing. Through revision I can re-imagine and rework a speech into an essay. Essays can become the seed of a story. I understand the theory behind this. In reality, I find it difficult to rethink writing from one format to another. The first format was chosen for a reason. There are times I have reworked a story from one format to another that is stronger.
Reuse, rethink, recycle. My favorite of the three is recycle. When I am revising my work, I often find sentences or paragraphs I do not want to get rid of. Yet I know they do not belong in the piece I am working on. If it doesn't fit, it needs to go. It goes into a snippets file. I have a snippets folder on my computer and I have a stack of scrap paper with phrase, fragments and ideas. None of these have found their home yet. Some of the fodder in folder of recycled snippets will never find a home. These files, both paper and digital, are one of the tools I turn to when I am stuck in my writing. As I read through the random words, new ideas begin to form.
Since everything has already been done, I have permission to play with the words, ideas, curiosities and experiences that God has given me. It all has value when it comes from Him and not from my independent toil. The pressure is gone and the taunting voices silenced by God, the source of my ideas and curiosities.
Lorilee Guenter lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She likes to experiment with plants, paint and words. Curiosity and creativity lead to many unexpected endeavors.