Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous.

// Before you read this, please know that I've avoided writing this post for several days, because it falls under the category of "admitting I'm wrong" in my mind. I certainly don't enjoy admitting I'm failing at something I was previously so excited about. With that said...

Well, in stark contrast to what I'd assumed I'd been doing with my first weeks of summer, I haven't written very much at all. I've been bored to crocodile tears, and finding a job to occupy my time (and give me an activity to, in comparison, make writing seem like an escape) has become impossible. No one wants to hire a college student for two months, when she's just going to leave the state in August. (Oh, I can't imagine why not...)

So, although I'm still constantly dreaming up little clips for my summer novel, and progress could be made by simply writing those down. So I may need to just begin there.

I think this is just a hurdle I'm going to have to get over with old-fashioned perseverance. I'm starting to think, also, that my on pause sort of relationship with the Lord isn't helping my waning interest in my stories.

I want you to say whatever is on your mind because you know we have a 7-second delay.

Tonight's 81st Academy Awards made me see the film industry differently. Maybe it's the combination of my theatre class, the close attention I paid during the four hour show, or my new endeavors in writing, but I was able to distinguish the art in filmmaking like I've never really done before. I know it's always been there and I'm kind of an idiot for only just now noticing, but since the last few months of my life have been terribly involved in a certain genre of art, I can see why a night like Oscars is so important in the filmmakers' lives.

Something about tonight's show made me want to be a part of that industry. Maybe someday I'll be the one, accepting my screenwriter's award, clamoring onto my soapbox and, at some point, thanking the Academy, and my mom, and God.

Also, one day it'd be fun to meet Hugh Jackman and thank him for being so incredibly adorable all night long. That had to be exhausting.

He neglected to write down his idea, preferring to finish his toast instead.

Silly me. I kind of thought after Wednesday's revelation I'd be able to go into a writing fury with my new-found direction. Instead, life went on with the usual writer's block, worrying about American history homework and my math exam and my sister's visit next weekend.

I had imagined an outpouring of dialogue and narrative, but instead, I've just been tediously (and slowly) outlining character backgrounds, working up to a new summary draft.

I won't get too spiritual on you, but I do kind of wonder what I'm doing wrong.

This is my prayer in the desert, when all that's within me runs dry.

I don't really know how to explain what happened last night, but I'll try.

If you like to write, you probably understand what I mean when I say that some things inspire me to write in a sort of uncontrollable way. Certain songs, or movies, or games, or conversations with my friends... It's really a pretty fun way to live, with your imagination running rampant and free. But last night, our campus praise band played this song at Campus Church, and, not for the first time, a story began to take shape in my mind.

I don't know if it's the lyrics or the way the song sounds, or just the way God can move through things like music, but I realized last night why I was having such awful writer's block the past few days.

The story I'd had in my head wasn't making much sense. My characters didn't seem realistic, the plot was hitting a brick wall, and I had no motivation to try to work it out. I wasn't ready to give up, though, and now I see why God wasn't letting me give in. He had something different in mind, and I'm totally cool letting Him take the reins.

I don't know if that made sense. Hopefully, I got my point across.

Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?

Some days, when I'm writing and I get that nagging desperation to just get it out of my head and onto paper (or, less romantically, Microsoft Word), it's really a good thing after all. Because when the time comes that I just want a story to help me escape and the perfect book has yet to present itself, I can always write my own. I'm very thankful for this talent with which God has blessed me.

A day like today is going to need all the distractions I can get in my free time, and I think the happy stress of trying to find just the right word or whatever is going to do the trick quite nicely.

The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure.

I'm quite confident that my Twitter account holds everything I'll ever need to recount my life in a memoir or autobiography. The updates I send and the conversations I hold through text message with people I have never really met are some of the most honest -- albeit, occasionally trivial on the surface -- notes on a life lived.

I just finished reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith and I have a better understanding of reality. I can't really explain what I mean or how I feel about that book. But if ever I write a memoir, I hope those who read it take away a better understanding of those around them, and the differences in the way others live, and what that means for the world as a whole.

"'Dear God,' she prayed, 'let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere -- let me be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.'" (p. 421 of my edition)

I hear you, Francie. I hear you.

2 Days Until NaNoWriMo - a magnificent obsession

Give me one pure and holy passion;
Give me one magnificent obsession;
Give me one glorious ambition for my life:
To know and follow hard after You.

To know and follow hard after You;
To grow as your disciple in Your truth.
This world is empty, pale, and poor
Compared to knowing You, my Lord.
Lead me on and I will run after You;
Lead me on and I will run after You.

We sang this song in church last night and it hit me hard. I haven't mentioned it yet, but I think my call to write (not just participate in NaNoWriMo) is straight from God. Every day, it becomes more clear.

I need to stop trying to work every little theme and character in my NaNovel and realize that I can spend my whole life writing books as long as God keeps giving me that joy. There's no end in sight, really. December won't be the end, nor will be college. A calling is a calling. There's no escape from this, even if I was looking for it. And I'm glad.