I have always been drawn to story. Prose form, poem form, music form, reading, writing, watching, listening. All of it.
When I was six I wrote a series of poems for my mom. She saved them and I remember one hung on her wall for years. It went like this:
My Little Pony (I feel like I should state here that this was not based of that cartoon or toy, but off the ponies we had on our farm when I was little)
My little pony goes skip skip skip
My little pony goes hop hop hop
My little pony goes run run run
And I go Stop stop stop!
That’s some literary genius right there! lol. Ok, not really – but my mom kept it. KEPT IT. And hung it on her wall. To my little six-year-old and as I grew brain that meant something. Even now, it still means something. It means I was born with a story inside me.
Several in fact. And, like Indiana Jones, I go off on regular explorations to uncover them, pull them from the dusty obscurity of my brain and put them on paper… well… on computer word, honestly.
Why? I just love telling stories and giving life to characters who invade my brain. Maybe someday you’ll read them. Maybe you won’t.
See, just like Indiana Jones had ups and downs in his discoveries and adventures. We do to. All of us. Not just writers.
In writing there is this thing called the murky middle.
You get your beginning nailed solid. Your characters have motive, resolve, purpose. You nail your conclusion and finale with incredible finesse bringing everything to a satisfying close. Yet, somewhere in the middle the plot lines waiver, your characters wander around and stare at you, hands on hips, as you sit at the computer wondering what their next move is.
I am in the murky middle of my writing process. Not in the book I’m writing (well, I am currently de-murking that… but this is different) – but in the actual process.
I went on an adventure. I slayed my biggest fiercest dragon (wrote the hardest most heartfelt book for me ever) and I recovered a beautiful artifact. I pitched it and got an agent and it went on submission. It was amazing. I threw confetti. I danced with my friends. I was going to be published. I was going to have value as an author. ALL THE THINGS.
It went on submission and I waited.
and waited
and waited
and nothing happened.
NOTHING.
It died on submission – meaning it didn’t get picked up. It didn’t matter that the middle-grade market was saturated, or that there were a million other factors effecting things. At first I felt horrified. Terrible. a failure. How was I ever going to tell my friends and family and all the people who believed in me that it didn’t get picked up.
I sat with that for a while and I cried several tears. And I prayed, a lot. After all, I felt that God had been directing me through this whole process. I believe God answers our prayers and the answer I received was that it was a necessary step in the process. I received the answer to take a break from pitching and trying to publish and refocus on just loving to write again.
After Lizy died it was hard to love writing. Toenails & Teardrops, while it was a huge step in my healing process, was not a “fun” book to write. It was hard and painful and beautiful. For the first time in years though, I have loved writing again as I have focussed on just that the last several months.
But it is a new year and I am facing the murky middle of what do I do now? Is it time to start querying again? What do I query? Do I query the book that died on submission? Something else?
I know I’ll keep writing and creating stories. At least I know that much.
And just like my characters eventually figure out their murky middles, and their stories get polished. I’ll figure mine out too. For me that process looks like a lot of prayer, taking time to go to the temple and discovering where God wants me to focus. I feel like He and I are on this writing journey together. I’m excited to see where my murky middle takes me. Anything can happen!
I just have to keep pressing on.
So, if you are stuck in your own murky middle, with you palms up wondering “what next?”. Take comfort. You’re not alone. And I truly believe, God will help us navigate the murk and discover treasures beyond our imaginations. It might take a long time and lots of searching, waiting and tears, but it will happen and we will discover our next steps.
Fun and Flawed 
