Washington's Lady - Mez
Congratulations, Ladies, and thanks to all who entered! They are both great books, so if you get a chance to pick them up, I encourage you to do so.
I tr
ied an experiment this week. I joined some other ladies in a contest called Book in a Week in which we set a daily writing goal of so many words and then a weekly one. The idea is to turn off all internal editors, ignore all writing rules, halt all research, don't look at a thesaurus and allow your right brain to dive into the story unfettered. In other words, write and don't stop. If there's a spot where you need to look up something or find a better word, mark it and move on. So, I put on the headphones and began. And I found something amazing. I wrote more words than I ever have in a day. Already this week, I've written over 13,000 words. On a good week when I had to stop and look up things, I would average 7000 words. Now, of course, I have to go back over all these words and tidy things up, but I felt so free and actually found myself enjoying the story and the characters immensely.
ied an experiment this week. I joined some other ladies in a contest called Book in a Week in which we set a daily writing goal of so many words and then a weekly one. The idea is to turn off all internal editors, ignore all writing rules, halt all research, don't look at a thesaurus and allow your right brain to dive into the story unfettered. In other words, write and don't stop. If there's a spot where you need to look up something or find a better word, mark it and move on. So, I put on the headphones and began. And I found something amazing. I wrote more words than I ever have in a day. Already this week, I've written over 13,000 words. On a good week when I had to stop and look up things, I would average 7000 words. Now, of course, I have to go back over all these words and tidy things up, but I felt so free and actually found myself enjoying the story and the characters immensely. It reminded me of the difference between the law of God in the old Mosaic system and the 
freedom of God's Spirit under the new covenant. There's nothing wrong with the law. It's good and righteous and powerful. There's nothing wrong with writing rules and research, etc. Just as the law defines holiness and shows us where we lack, writing rules define good writing and show us what we need to do to achieve good writing. But the law alone produces death because we can never live up to it. Just like a novel that is written perfectly but contains no story will bore us to death! Living by the Spirit of God produces joy and peace and freedom without concern for the law because we know the Spirit will lead us to follow the law. And allowing my right brain to create a story without considering writing rules produces joy and freedom and probably a far better story than if I had been burdened with the fear of breaking the law.
freedom of God's Spirit under the new covenant. There's nothing wrong with the law. It's good and righteous and powerful. There's nothing wrong with writing rules and research, etc. Just as the law defines holiness and shows us where we lack, writing rules define good writing and show us what we need to do to achieve good writing. But the law alone produces death because we can never live up to it. Just like a novel that is written perfectly but contains no story will bore us to death! Living by the Spirit of God produces joy and peace and freedom without concern for the law because we know the Spirit will lead us to follow the law. And allowing my right brain to create a story without considering writing rules produces joy and freedom and probably a far better story than if I had been burdened with the fear of breaking the law. Anyway, I thought the analogy was kind of interesting, and I'm thinking I will be spending much more time in the Spirit side of my brain!
And perhaps we all should spend more time hanging out with The Holy Spirit and less time worrying about sin and the law.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
That is a wonderful analogy, I like it!
ReplyDeleteResearch makes writing so much harder. Even if you think you know something, when you know other people are gonna read it, you have to double check to make sure your initial thoughts were correct.
Sounds like a great group! Your analogy was perfect.
ReplyDeleteHi MaryLu,
ReplyDeleteI just gave you an award. Please stop by and pick it up!
Kristi
http://booksandneedlepoint.blogspot.com
I think I will be taking this advice on letting go of the rules and try writing freely, maybe then I can produce more than just a page :)
ReplyDelete