Looking Back, Looking Forward by Liz Manning

We were talking about the influences of our childhood when my husband asked:

“What’s the one thing you would tell your nine year old self?”

I pictured the shy geeky girl, dominated by her more confident best friend, proudly amazed to be selected for the school choir. The girl who barely touched school dinners, relished climbing trees, and, an early feminist, argued over equal chores with her brother. The girl who adored the library and English homework because she could immerse herself in reading and writing.

I would tell her that her life was going to turn out to be so much more than she could imagine, even in those stories she wrote.

I’d not spoil the surprise with details – how she would prove more popular with boys than her best friend, beat her academic older brother to university, travel across three continents and work in an obscure African country. How she’d marry a man who would teach her to dream even bigger. How she’d experience some of her biggest dreams and her worst nightmares but find a way through both with her Saviour. And how she’d find the life’s value equally in the beauty of the smallness of her world.

Even seeing the adult me seeded in that nine year old, I could never predict how my story would turn out. Even now, I still can’t.

Or can I? As a Christian, I have the promise of my story’s end - the glory of an eternal home in our Father’s Mansion - even if the exact details are a bit fuzzy.

When you write, do you know the ending beforehand? JK Rowling famously advised the Harry Potter movie makers not to dismiss Snape from one instalment, even though it seemed an obvious edit, because she knew he would play a key part in the final novels yet to be published.

Sometimes we need a vision of the destination of the piece in order to work towards it, a very clear structure all mapped out.

But other times, with the vaguest of premises initially, we see where the writing takes us. Characters or pieces seem in charge of their own destiny. I studied woodwork for a time, found I loved wood turning. My best piece was a chalice that I can only describe as waiting in the block for me to release rather than something I designed or created. Writing can feel like that too.

Often it doesn’t go according to plan. Writing this post, I had a clear ladder of points. But somewhere in the middle I got caught on an anecdote and then muddled up and down the rungs until I didn’t know which direction I was facing. It’s taken a lot of referring back to the original plan, a break to see things more clearly, and heavy editing to get back on track.

Sound familiar? And not just about writing?

I might know my ultimate ending but just like that nine year old, I can’t predict what my chapters will include or how circuitous my path will be to get there.

I guess I have to trust the Great Writer, who is still working on this masterpiece, and who ‘can do immeasurably more than we can imagine’, to cope with all the twists and turns of this plot as we co-author our way to the great ending He has planned.

Ok, 5 years old rather than 9, but it's the nearest I've got access to!

 

Liz Manning fits writing around being an Occupational Therapist, BB captain, wife, and mum to two adult sons. Or perhaps it's the other way round. She blogs regularly at https://thestufflifeismadeofblog.wordpress.com/