I am writing a novel.
Again. Is the 3rd time charm? I shout “Yes! Yes! Yes!” and throw my arms open wide…
and then I fold my hands to my heart with a quiet, “May it be so.”
You see, in a long ago life, I was a screenwriter trying to “make it” in Hollywood. My entire identity depended upon making it. (The very words “make it” are so funny to me now.) I left that world to follow a title I heard in a moment of deep surrender, a moment of “God, I have no idea how to do this anymore,” a moment of surrender that honestly felt like dying.
That title was “The Woman’s Comfort Book” which became my first, and most successful, book.
I’ve often said that title was my grail. And my trail.
Writing this makes me shake my head in wonderment. We are given the guidance we need so clearly! Something, someone, keeps showing us, in very practical ways, exactly what we need to learn to be whole and free. We keep not seeing, we keep making it far more complicated than it needs to be, but never the less, that someone, that something, keeps trying.
I needed to learn to care for myself. I needed to learn to make a home for myself. I needed to learn that “making it” is so not the point. I needed to learn that at 26 and now, at 49, it’s time for another turn around the spiral of my life lesson (s). (That something or someone is very persistent.)
This turn around the spiral is about a childhood desire.
Since I was little, I wanted to create stories that change the world.
I know, who wouldn’t want to do that!
Declaring this to you, however, makes my heart race. I’m scared, not because I don’t think I can do it, but because I don’t want writing fiction to get tied to “making it.”
All grails and all trails bring us home when we stay devoted to them. My grail-trail is bringing me back to a childhood dream and asking me to untangle making it from desiring it.
This is how the s.hero’s journey works. Our deepest desires are linked to our perennial life lessons. Our s.hero’s work is to keep showing up and working the intersection of the two.
I write for an hour every morning because I have a desire to create a novel that will serve.
I write for an hour every morning because I have a desire to be whole and to love myself just as I am.
In the crucible created by the two, I stand firm yet supple.
What intersection is working you? What guidance are you ready to listen to? Why not be witnessed in the comments? Might feel good!
P.S. I never thought my experiment of Savor & Serve would bring me here. I’m learning that savoring feeds your creative desire and then service can bloom from there. Who knew?
