Dialogues with the Divine

I just can’t sit here and have the book write itself—

No?

Touché. You’re right. I need to sit with it. I need to sit and let it come. I know I do. Why does that frighten me so much? Is it the loss of control?

There is no way to control this process. You must surrender to it, unconditionally.

How do I begin? Where do I begin? What do I write? How do I marry what I have written before with what is yet to come? Do I keep the story in first person or go back to the third person of the first draft? How can I start without even a clue to these questions?

When you sit in the silence with pen poised, you will know what you need to know. Don’t wait for the knowing or the knowing will never come. Begin, and the knowing will follow. Then that knowing will lead you to the next knowing. Trust that.

I want to. I do trust it…but not fully. I’m afraid to surrender. Again. Still.

You will not fall. You will not fail. You will not hurt yourself, though you will feel pain. The pain will be nothing as to the pain you will feel if you do nothing, if you write nothing…if you give up and let fear rule you.

I know I can’t do that. Yet I feel paralyzed. I feel as though I can’t go on, move on, move forward. I feel as though I can’t write. Because I don’t want to write.

I pause, knowing that my last sentence was a lie.

I do want to write. I need to write. I know that. How can I say I don’t want to write? I must write.