Unknown
I’ve done it.
I completed another round of cover-to-cover editing. I’m hoping this pass marks the final round, but at this point I expect everything, anything, and nothing. If nothing else, this journey of a hopeful author is teaching me that it’s all a mystery.
And that’s okay.
Ultimately, the process cannot be predicted. It’s unknown.
And unknown is not inherently bad.
If you’ve checked out my previous entrees, you know I’m an Enneagram Type 6. Part of what makes me me is that I’m constantly considering every (usually worst) possible scenario. I’ve gotten pretty good at it, too. When it comes to making bets, if you catch me displaying confidence about a prediction, you may want to bet with me. I don’t gamble, I observe and discern.
But this writing process… I’ve been thrown for one loop after another.
It started with a dream, which became a moment in the middle of the story, but I needed a backstory to get there.
I didn’t know where to begin.
So I did what all writers do: I wrote what I knew.
I began with a parable of my experience. Then I had no idea how to connect the beginning to the dream, but as I wrote —a new character here, a new scene there— the writing itself guided me.
One step after another, I was led beyond my dream, into the unraveling and then exposing of myself in written threads.
And do you want to know what’s really weird? I completed this story 3 years ago, but even as I’ve pushed through this round of edits, it still speaks to me. It still applies to present situations that I had no way of knowing I would be facing. My today is completely different than my yesterday, yet as I review yesterday’s writings, they speak into today.
I had no idea this story —my story— would continue living itself out, here and now, 3 years later.
This story was to be a way for me to share a bit of my life’s observations with you, but again and again,
It speaks to me.
And I had no idea. But I’m grateful.
I think that’s a piece to understanding our purpose: Part of God’s intention for each of us is, in pursuing that little piece of passion that is unique to each of us, as we develop the desires of our hearts, we begin to unravel the complexity of life in our own way, and in doing so, we begin glimpse at and get a grasp on our own thread and start to understand a bit more about our place in the intricacy of it all.
So onto the next unknown… I’m going to have my 10-year old daughter read it.
No, Zo’s Quest is not intended for young readers, but she’s a decent kid, mature in the best ways and still a kid at heart. She’s been itching to read it for years now, and I finally feel right about it. She’s the kind of kid who I know will shoot straight with me.
That’s my next step.