Getting Lost by Susan L.

  For the last couple of weeks, I've been working on my novel. I've been able to ration my time spent and am content with what is done each day. An answered prayer for sure. Even if it's only a couple hundred words, that's a couple hundred words more than the day before. If I miss a day, that's okay too although I don't want to. It's been most enjoyable getting lost in this unfolding imaginary world.
  This is only the first draft so I know there are many areas that need improvement. I know there are parts that could be fleshed out a bit more to make it more real. The dialog is sometimes stilted and juvenile but that's okay. Perfection takes time. That, too is an answered prayer. The story doesn't have to be fully polished right off the bat. The focus is about getting the plot line down, the bare bones of events and developing the characters. I haven't mapped out a plan for the book because goal setting tends to overwhelm me. The neat thing about working this way is I have no idea what is going to happen next. I simply travel alongside my characters and record the events as they unfold.  (I know, I set a goal to write a bit every day but that's just a teeny weeny one that is actually a prayer. It is the Lord who blesses me with the stamina and determination to accomplish what I would like to have happen.)
  Writing this novel is connecting me to the way God works in our own lives although His plans were laid out before the dawn of time. His book of names is way more complicated than my own little tale. His is a cast of billions with connections and events and plots and subplots that boggles the brain. Choices made generations ago that the Lord anticipated affect who and where we are today. There's a story in Acts about an influential Ethiopian who is converted to Christianity. Today, two thousand or so years later, that African country is mostly Christian because of his choice. Like I said, mind boggling.
  "So he (Philip) arose and went. And behold, an man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet." Act 8:27-28