by James Webb
I’ve just written a blog post.
But not this blog post.
I was reflecting on something that had happened to me years ago, and I thought the experience would make a good post. It was an interesting situation, personal and significant, with a strong applicable lesson at the end. In short, it was perfect blog material. Read more
For years I had been labouring under the illusion that I should write short stories, because they were less work than writing novels. I can tell you now that it doesn’t matter how long your story is, a short attention span is a bad thing regardless. Something changed for me last summer, when motivation aligned with idea and I spent the last months of 2018 hammering away at my keyboard, trying to churn out at least one thousand words a day for my magnum opus, the book that they would plant at my grave instead of a headstone. By the end of November I had finished my first draft, just over 120,000 words that were all arranged in an order that told a story. Then I did what any writer worth his or her salt will tell you to do – I walked away from it for a while. Read more
Remember being at school, when popularity was such a big part of life? That was the top of the food chain back then – being popular; being one of the ‘cool kids’. Then we left school and marched off into adult life, but it seems that the playground followed us. Read more
Sometimes a song or a story or a poem will generate a powerful emotional response in me by putting into words something that is buried deep within, something I haven’t really given shape to myself yet. This is what art does. Why just the other day I was listening to someone explain how he had been left shaken by listening to a short story that somehow managed to encapsulate his own experience of childhood. Read more
I’m making a conscious effort in 2019 to develop my skill at writing poetry. I’m trying to learn and understand the rules, with marginal success, though you may notice an increase in the amount of poetry that appears on the blog as I experiment. You are nothing more than guinea pigs to me. Read more
For many years I’ve been haunted by the spectre of underachievement. I’ve been convinced that I should have got more done by now; made more of a difference; that I’ve fallen well short of my potential. I’ve spent large chunks of my life frustrated with myself. It’s a form of perfectionism that has, at times, both motivated me and made me miserable. Read more
So God says “Go!” and you say, “No, I’ve worn
These shoes before. I know the way this ends.
With me abused, misused, confused and bruised,
I wonder why you don’t have any friends?” Read more
I have an overactive imagination. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it isn’t. It’s helpful for my writing, for one thing, but on the other hand, it’s very easy for me to miss what God is doing right in front of my face because I’ve drifted off into one daydream or another. Read more
So how was your 2018?
A while ago I suggested that there was only one question worth asking myself in any end-of-year reflection. It’s not so much about what happened, but rather how I responded. Did I grow in 2018?
As for those things that did happen, the last quarter of the year was hugely significant. We’ve been back from Australia for four years now, and most of that time has been spent waiting for God to make clear what kind of things I should be doing next. Every now and then I would try to take matters into my own hands, and bring order out of chaos. It didn’t work. God pushed back. But since the summer, the wheels have been turning.
Since the end of August, I have started (and finished) the first draft of a novel – something I have avoided for years, because writing a book that was just one story seemed so intimidating. Since the end of August, we’ve moved into a new home that is much more suitable for our oversized family. Since the end of August, I have been offered a position as an ‘Associate Bible Teacher’ in our church, and as of January will be working part-time in this role. In other words, the days since the end of August have been constructive, focused and have given some shape to the coming months of 2019. I like shape. It agrees with me.
Seeing things fall into place has been satisfying, like placing the final piece of a particularly awkward jigsaw puzzle, but that’s not the most important thing is it?
Have I grown in 2018?
I think so, yes. I’ve had my faith stretched in some good ways, and I’ve seen God work. 2018 has not left me unchanged. And that is, as always, the most important thing.
I’m currently working on a project where one of the main characters has to make her way through an underground cavern where there was no light. She was supposed to feel her way through the darkness, towards the exit. It marks something of a transition for the character, like all clumsy overused metaphors in stories do. But a strange thing happened while I was writing the scene. I threw in a line that just felt right and it totally changed things. You see, it turned out that she wasn’t alone in the cavern. She was supposed to be alone, but the story wasn’t happy with that. It turned out that, in the blackness, she wasn’t alone, and that made things much more interesting. Read more
