Yesterday was a cave day.  It had been almost four weeks since I had done any writing, and I was looking forward to getting back into it again.  I don’t think I stuck my nose out of the door until after dark.

I began the day working on a chapter that was towards the end of the book.  It is a chapter where I take a step back from the individual implications of our connection to time and broaden the view to look at history.  There is a particular point in western history that stands out to me as pivotal in the way we relate to time as a culture.  But then I came across an illustration I had used that took me back to the personal level.  Well, then I got to thinking.  Maybe this illustration belonged in the first chapter, where I share my own story and how I ended up exploring this topic in the first place.  So, I abandoned world history (TEMPORARILY) and went back to the granular.

The title of Chapter One?  Disconnected.

All of the chapters have a first draft completed, but I knew there was a lot more work to be done on this one.  It couldn’t just be abstract concepts, taught in a detached manner, as if I was telling you how to hang a picture with an earthquake safe hook and cable.  I needed to tell you what I had lived and the frustration of knowing there was something missing, and having no way of knowing what it was or how to get it back.

I dug in.  With the help of a good friend who is also a writer, the chapter improved considerably throughout the day.  I did ok through most of the process, until I reached the last two sentences of the chapter.  Then I realized that my emotions were getting quite unruly.  I had not identified with my own journey quite on this level.  I have always just been driven, driven, driven to find the tools.  I needed to do some more processing myself.

And that’s the way this whole book has been.  I began writing on Christmas Day in 2013.  The lion’s share of my personal energy and time in 2014 was funneled into the writing process.  But it wasn’t just writing.  It was growing.  It was healing.  It was coming to know the God I was writing about in new and different ways.  I begin to understand even more that a creative work can be an expression of your life.  I am writing a book for you, but God is writing my story through it.

The year ahead of me fills me with anticipation for where this process will go.  Before the year is out, I hope to have a finished product!  Or, perhaps more accurately, a printed book in my hands and in yours.  This topic will only have just begun.

For the moment, though, I will pull myself back out of the world of the abstract and do something very concrete.

Build a schedule!