50,000 words

When I began writing the novel, twelve weeks ago, I had no idea how far I'd get. Frankly, I expected to run out of steam pretty soon. But I also had some wild fantasies of what I might achieve. The wildest of these was to reach 50,000 words. And now I'm here. Wow. It does feel great. But the story isn't finished yet. And so, I'll go on.

Blessing

Blessing for a Friend, on the Arrival of Illness

Now is the time of dark invitation
beyond a frontier that you did not expect;
abruptly, your old life seems distant.

You barely noticed how each day opened
a path through fields never questioned,
yet expected deep down to hold treasure.
Now your time on earth becomes full of threat;
before your eyes your future shrinks.

You lived absorbed in the day to day,
so continuous with everything around you,
that you could forget you were separate;

now this dark companion has come between you,
distances have opened in your eyes,
you feel that against your will
a stranger has married your heart.

Nothing before has made you
feel so isolated and lost.

When the reverberations of shock subside in you,
may grace come to restore you to balance.
May it shape a new space in your heart
to embrace this illness as a teacher
who has come to open your life to new worlds.

May you find in yourself
a courageous hospitality
towards what is difficult,
painful and unknown.

May you use this illness
as a lantern to illuminate
the new qualities that will emerge in you.

May the fragile harvesting of this slow light
help you to release whatever has become false in you.
May you trust this light to clear a path
through all the fog of old unease and anxiety
until you feel arising within you a tranquility
profound enough to call the storm to stillness.

May you find the wisdom to listen to your illness:
ask it why it came? why it chose your friendship?
where it wants to take you? what it wants you to know?

what quality of space it wants to create in you?
what you need to learn to become more fully yourself
that your presence may shine in the world.

May you keep faith with your body,
learning to see it as a holy sanctuary
which can bring this night-wound gradually
towards the healing and freedom of dawn.

May you be granted the courage and vision
to work through passivity and self-pity,
to see the beauty you can harvest
from the riches of this dark invitation.

May you learn to receive it graciously,
and promise to learn swiftly
that it may leave you newborn,
willing to dedicate your time to birth.


John O'Donohue

from Benedictus (2007)

42,000 words

Another milestone passed on the journey to the completion of the first draft. And I've also seen how its going to end. For a long time I wasnt really able to imagine this. The story was unfolding with twists and turns. I couldnt be sure of exactly where it was going. But now I see the ending, or at least I think I can. I also know some of the steps that the story will take to get there. But as has happened all along, new scenes and developments arise in an organic way. The process of putting your ideas into the characters heads and mouths leads them into things that you didnt really envisage. And this is exactly one of the features that makes writing such an enjoyable activity - as well as being compulsive, frustrating, unsettling, etc.

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