Some Posts Have Moved to a New Blog!

I recently decided to separate the original blog posts I had here into two blogs: one for my creative writing (this blog, Fervent Ink) and one for my faith-focused ideas (new blog, Fervent Faith, which you can find here). While my creative writing is definitely inspired by my faith, and my reflective writing is enhanced by my creative writing experience, I feel like there's a distinct difference between the kind of writing I do when I'm considering my faith and what it means to live a Christian life and the kind of writing I do when I'm feeling inspired and allowing my creative juices to flow. Yes, they inform each other, but they're separate genres and therefore warrant separate blogs. I hope you'll enjoy either or both.

The Coming of NaNoWriMo

So the beginning of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is just a few short weeks away. Last year I actually succeeded in writing 50,000 words of a novel in the month of November. I'd like to try it again this year, but I have no good ideas. I thought I had the beginning of one, but I'm not convinced it's a worthwhile one. The problem is, I always think that my ideas have been done before. Every potentially compelling idea I have, I'm convinced someone's already written that story and written it better than I ever could. I have to move past that killjoy inner critic and just let an idea take flight. You never know what could come out of it. That's the beauty of NaNo... you don't have time to listen to that critic if you want to complete the challenge. You just have to start with an idea and let the story write itself. I just hope I can come up with the beginning of an idea that I want to spend time developing.

The Prompting

Every Sunday, as I sit in church, I'm inspired to write. I feel the prompting - I'm sure it's by the Holy Spirit - to immerse myself in words, both my own (to write) and others' (to read). I know this isn't a coincidence. I know that God has called me to put words on the page and to find him in the words of others. So I responded to the prompting today by pledging to not watch TV during the day this week and to do some reading and writing each day instead. I hope and pray God will give me the motivation and desire to follow through on this and I'm even more hopeful about what will come out of it.