Unfinished Sentences by Emily Owen

Last week, I finally admitted defeat. I have been putting off the (to me) dreaded moment of getting a new mobile phone: having eventually just about got to grips with how my old (very old) one worked, I didn’t relish the prospect of starting again.
But pleas from my family, along with good natured - I’m sure it’s good natured - mocking about my ancient contraption, made me think that one day I would need to take the plunge.
Then my phone took it upon itself to periodically stop loading emails, and to just switch itself off with increasing frequency.
Even I realised that these were not hitherto-unknown-to-me special features.

I tentatively logged onto a website to have a look at other phones. Up popped a ‘how may I help you today?’ chat box. I replied, and so began a bizarre exchange.

The fact that the chat comprised of technical stuff that went over my head was not bizarre; that was entirely to be expected.

The fact that I quizzed the person I was chatting with on colour details was not bizarre. Not to me, anyway. I can’t vouch for whether this sort of thing is a usual part of their conversations:
Them: ‘Would you like Black, Silver, or Gold?’
Me, becoming the most animated I’d been in the whole conversation: ‘Now, when you say gold, what exactly do you mean? Do you mean, say, rose-gold? So slightly pink?’

The bizarre part was when I began to only see half of each line in the conversation.

I was having to try and fill in the gaps to make sentences, to try and give meaning.

Perhaps as writers we fill in the gaps to make sentences. Concepts and words floating around within us need to be pulled together, gaps filled to give meaning to ideas.
Stories or articles or devotionals may have a beginning and end, but how to fill in the gap and take the reader from one to the other?
(If you’re anything like me, filling those gaps is easier at some times than others.)

Or what about gaps, or unknowns, in our writing journeys? Where are we actually heading? Where should we be heading? What should we be writing? Why does no one seem interested?

What I’d like to do as I end this blog, is offer three simple steps to filling in the gaps in our writing journeys.
But I can’t.
Because I don’t know.
I’m not an expert (any experts out there, please chip in).

And so we learn to live with the unknown.

There’s an old song: ‘I know Who holds the future...’

God knows our gaps.
As writers frame words, moulding them to fit each other, so God shapes our days.

I recently received a letter from my niece:

Please note the ending:
Then

My nephew's teacher asked him what his daddy (an engineer) does at work?
"He designs things for the future."
"Oh, what sort of things?"
"I don't know, because it's not the future yet."

I know Who holds the future...