When the Well Runs Dry- What Then?

My class with author Susan May Warren and literary agent Chip MacGregor was a godsend in a lot of ways. Only 5 1/2 hours from my home, a Christian author, well respected in today's CBA market was going to be teaching. Not only that, but I would get to meet one of the top agents in the industry, these are the people who you hold in awe and feel honored to meet.

But once introductions were made, it was past the star struck glamor and down to business. I took ten pages of notes, but my burning questions remained unanswered. What was I doing wrong? True, I don't have all the methods for great fiction down in my writing, I would never profess to have them down, but as Susie and Chip talked, I saw what they were talking about in my own writing, I at least had the start of almost every method.

But what was I doing wrong? There was something missing, my well was dry, where was I to turn?

I sat in the class antzy and worried that maybe there was something wrong with me. Why wasn't the lessons I had been trying to learn clicking? Was I in the right place, was this where God wanted me?

I went back to my hotel room that night, emotionally drained. The class was good, but if I already knew how to do this and was just putting a name to it, why was I struggling so much?

Great peace comes from sinking to your knees before the Master Author and pouring out your soul. I just sat there and begged God that if this is where I am supposed to be that He would give me a mind to understand.

We had a full day learning and I took more notes, my mind never far from my prayer and my longing to know why my writing wasn't clicking.

In the last half hour Susie and Chip asked us if there was something we wanted to ask before we left. So I told them, poured out my drama and waited for a reply. The words that fell from Chip's lips released a boulder the size of house from my shoulders. A boulder I didn't know I had been carrying.

Write something else.

So simple, so easy, so completely freeing.  Move on, write something I want to work on, because the dead horse I was beating wasn't going to jump to life.

And then the words from my lips, "I want to write a contemporay." This was what I had been longing to try. Susie jumped right on it and encouraged me to do it, move forward and maybe just maybe those things I had been struggling with for so long would fall into place.

I was released.

God knew what He was doing even when I doubted while sitting in that class. That release was worth every penny I spent, even if I hadn't walked away with more knowledge then when I arrived.

The struggles I was facing like Mount Everest, suddenly became mere mole hills. The lessons I was trying to learn suddenly didn't seem so hard to put into practice and I was finally freed from my self imposed prison to write what I wanted to write.

Now, I have a sentence without a story, but one I hope will blossom into one. Let me know what you think, I would love to know!

You can learn alot about a person. While sitting in a public stall, staring at their shoes.

Avoiding the one eyed glare of a positive pregnancy test.