The Editing Process

On Wednesday, I met with my writing coach to do an in-depth edit of a short story. I had my ten month old and three year old in tough and traveled over an hour to hit my destination, Lansing, MI. Once inside Decker Coffee, my baby was happy roaming around the coaches and entertaining himself. My three year old was the opposite, repeatedly asked if we could leave and edging towards the door. He was terrified of the the skeletons and big alien eyes of the heads painted in black and white and red art pieces littering the the walls. Every day since, he has told me he does not want to go back to Decker's.

In the midst of that, my coach and I managed to do a line by line review, where in some cases, each word in a sentence was examined. My piece included many words like, "it" and "that," where we talked about giving the reader more concrete descriptions. I noticed how the sentence structures were often repetitive. Then there were tenses to play with, hyphens to add and an endless list of ideas for making my work stronger.

I have also been reading a lot of short stories to try and understand what makes a good one (i.e. how do I write like others so that I can get published). I feel like I am staring over a huge valley, knowing Atlantis is hidden in the trees or clouds and that the only way to the promised land is by bushwhacking with a large machete and a good pair of boots.

I sit in a similar quandary about reaching God. I know it is not about building the Tower of Babel, but I watch my friends from church "working out their salvation" in how they live, serve and share themselves authentically and I feel like I am 10,000 miles from reaching their circle of faith.

I am guessing at the way forward being things like, running, a therapist, writing, me showing up in the dialogue of this entry, showing up to find the plants worth tilling the desert in my soul. I have been avoiding my desk since the Wednesday's sit down. Likewise I have been avoiding God, because I am afraid that I don't have what it takes to make it through the wilderness to some brilliant understanding on the other side. I know that there are only two choices though, sit here in fear, or put on my running shoes and attempt the impossible in writing one word to get me closer to experiencing God.