A “Thousand Daily Plots” by Sandi Somers

 

The evening sun, edging toward the horizon, nearly blinded me as I drove westward out of Calgary. The surrounding sky and clouds glowed golden. I glanced in the rearview mirror and caught sight of an apartment tower, its windows shimmering with the golden reflection.

The lovely sight reminded me that there are so many golden moments in a day we could write about. Or memorable in other ways when God reveals Himself. The grey days of rain after a drought, with blades of green grass poking through the yellowed parched lawn. The red heart emoji accompanying encouraging words from a loving friend. Or the ebony blackness of night punctuated by laser flashes of lightning.

But how can we write the whole context of the incident and shape it into a story right then and there? It seems too great a task while absorbed with life or a major writing project. We might conclude that it’s easier to let those moments slide into oblivion or become vague, distant memories.

But we can capture the impressions, perhaps in a short vignette or a paragraph. Just take a few moments while writing morning pages, or record into your cell phone, or reflect in your journal or computer document at the end of the day.

Here’s an example I wrote several weeks ago on an ebony night punctuated by those laser flashes of lightning:

I woke up last night to see flashes of lightning, brightening even my closed eyes, but I didn't hear thunder. I peeked out the windows, but with houses surrounding me, I couldn’t see where the distant storm was. It reminded me of visiting my grandma as a child. One summer evening, driving home on the country roads from visiting her friend just as dusk was falling, we watched a storm in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The silent glow of lightning illuminated the cloud, yet no thunder followed. Sheet lightning, Grandma called it. I felt secure with her. Secure that the storm was far away and would hopefully stay there. Because earlier that summer, lightning had struck our farmhouse and left me terrified of thunderstorms and lightning strikes.

These daily scenarios can arise spontaneously and capture the immediacy of the memory, with sensory images, details, and emotions that can later grow into stories or poems or become plot points of a larger work. Whatever we choose to do with our drafts, these nuggets provide great practice for encapsulating significant God-given moments that enhance our creativity.

Like the psalmist, we can declare, “Beautiful words stir my heart. I will recite a lovely poem…for my tongue is like the pen of a skillful poet” (Psalm 45:1 NLT).

“Thousand daily plots”, from Ann V. Klotz, https://brevity.wordpress.com/2024/07/22/so-many-stories-in-a-day/

Image by Pixabay