Ready for September? by Brenda J. Wood

 

The question for bloggers this month is: Are you ready for September? Are you ready to move ahead with your writing. I ponder the question and wonder if I'm even ready for it.

I have a book in limbo. it needs one or two small adjustments and it can go to the publisher. It has needed those one or two small adjustments for several weeks now and I dither over them. It's not a big job and yet I linger in Lala Land. No one else is going to do the small stuff if I want the book published. I have to send it to the publisher and yet I linger. Is that you? Is today's life kind of sticking you to the page of unfinished.

My neighbour, a hoarder, just moved and threw out tons of unfinished projects. There were probably 15 quilts all cut out, labelled, and ready to put together, yet nothing was sewn. There were probably 15 bags of yarn purchased with a fine thought of beautiful socks, sweaters, and hats for the family. All not done. Oh, she started all right. Things were cut out and the cuff of a sweater was done and on its needles, but nothing was finished.

So, what are we if we don't finish? What happens in our whole life if we never finish things. What if we decide to stop raising our children when they reach the awkward 12-year-old stage? What if we handed off that responsibility? Or what if we were making a casserole and decided to leave out the meat or the cheese or the vegetables? Unfinished is more than unfinished.

Unfinished can be a lifestyle that drains us into nothingness, and when our end comes, all the unfinished projects will be thrown out because nobody else knows how to finish them except us. I could linger over this article, but the point is that I really have a book to send to my publisher. I have a few small things to deal with and I've decided to do them now.

My question for you is: How is your September going? True, some people make January their New Year's Resolution time. But we have a chance to change halfway or three-quarters of the way through the year. So, I am publishing my book, called Words for the Spiritually Disenchanted. Will we be disenchanted when we get to the end of our time and think of all the projects that we never finished? That last piece of trim where we ran out of paint, the letter to Aunt Bessie that we never sent, or the dinner we ate a bite or two of and left to rot on the table.

My friend, how is your September going? Mine is about to pick up right this minute.

Top Image by Congerdesign from Pixabay

Author, speaker and Hopestreamradio.com contributor, Brenda J Wood has been an author and motivational speaker for more years than she cares to admit. She is known for her common sense wisdom, sense of humour and quirky comments. She calls herself the ‘ABC girl’ because she’s survived and written about the ‘ABC’s of abuse, bulimia, cancer, death, entertainment, food, gluttony and humour. Since she’s written books on each of these topics, she hopes the ‘E’ word of her next book stands for something like Energy or Entertainment, but definitely not Exams or Epsom salts!

A few of her favourite things include grandchildren, guest speaking, writing, sewing, a warm fire, a good book, and pounding the pavement on early morning walks. Brenda has authored many books but is very excited about the upcoming - My Affair with Cancer, a fundraiser for the Georgian Bay Cancer Centre in Penetanguishene. Her other books include:

The Food Lover’s Devotional, food for both body and soul Gentle Humour with Jesus, devotions for the light-hearted The Pregnant Pause of Grief, the first trimester of widowhood Meeting Myself, snippets from a binging and bulging mind. Heartfelt Devotionals, 366 devotions for common sense living.
God, Gluttony & You Brenda’s Children’s books include:

The Big Red Chair –a book for grieving children
Mother Peebles Problem Pebbles
The Plate Family Dishes Up

Brenda J Wood, author and motivational speaker
http://heartfeltdevotionals.com
http://www.twitter.com/size10hopefil
https://www.facebook.com/brendawoodspeaker

Guard the Vision in Your Heart by Sandi Somers

While living in Colombia, South America, my friend Bessie and I visited her former colleagues in Bogota. As we stepped into their high-rise apartment, it felt like a penthouse: elegant, classy, and affluent. Not something I expected from missionaries who normally lived in modest homes. After our hostess greeted us warmly, I noticed the dinner table was set with a linen cloth, silverware and bone China. During dinner, whenever our hostess wanted the maid’s service, she rang the tiny bell beside her plate. The maid, wearing a stereotypical black dress and white apron, appeared from behind the closed kitchen door. Though maids were common among missionaries, I was not used to such formality.

However, years later when I read my journal, I had only briefly mentioned these details: “Do they ever have culture and ‘class’!...a different society!”

But my journal included interesting details I had forgotten. Completely. Their son, John, an MBA student at Harvard University, was visiting his family for Christmas. Also visiting was his grandmother. My journal notes that John, “confided to his grandmother (but made sure I heard), that he liked ‘Southern belles, Jewish girls, and foreign girls’, which included me in the list.”

How could I have forgotten those people and those delicious details?

Shortly afterwards, I read an article that pointed to what I experienced: the Zeigarnik Effect, named after Bluma Zeigarnik, the Russian psychologist of a century ago. She studied how waitresses remembered complex orders but then forgot the details once the order was completed. This led to the principle: We forget completed tasks. We remember unfinished tasks because we need to mentally hang onto the details.

How can this concept relate to our month’s theme of guarding our hearts?

What has God put in your heart to write and you haven't finished? Are you discouraged? Can't think of how to write it? Do you keep putting it off?

I’ve put writing projects on hold for various reasons. Yet I keep mulling over ideas, jotting notes, writing thoughts in my journal.

These unfinished projects won’t let go.

I’m now consciously working on finishing a number of those undertakings, and I have some strategies if you are in the same situation.

~ ~ ~

Begin with prayer. Pray into the vision of what you know God has planted in you. Picture the book in your hands. Visualize that article published. Guard that vision in your heart.

Write a summary of what you want to say, and this will help focus your thoughts.

Reread your work after six months—or longer. Seeing it with fresh eyes will point out what you know is good, and perhaps how you can finish it.

Adapt Brenda Wood’s recommendations in last month’s blog post: write missing parts in your morning pages. Fill out scenes. Write a new transition. Reorganize your structure. Experiment with different introductions or applications. Then transcribe those drafts into the appropriate projects.

Take a morning or whole day for a self-guided retreat. Blocking this time gives you more headway than working little by little. You may need more time than just a day, but at least you'll have a good start at finishing.

If November is nearing, challenge yourself to complete what you started through participating in NaNoWriMo (for fiction) or Write Nonfiction in November.

You may need to let a project go. Accept that it just isn't workable. However, you can perform transplant surgery and add pieces to some other works in progress.

If you’re still “finishing challenged”, invite a coach, an editor, or a trusted confidant to share their perspectives. Taking a course might be a good way to go.

And finally, guard God’s words to you in your heart. He might say, “Be strong and finish the work”, or “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans” (Proverbs 16:3). Or He might encourage you with a new direction: “For I am about to do something new…. Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness (Isaiah 43:18-19 NLT).

As we listen to the Spirit’s promptings, trust God, and step out in faith, He’ll help us bring to completion what we’ve started.

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