Details

This picture is one of the very few detailed pictures that I have taken. I usually take pictures of a pretty bush, an old building. Having been inspired by others, I took a picture of a pretty, frosty leaf. It reminded me that God is in the details; it also told me to maybe have more of an eye for details too.

I don’t really do details when reading. Long descriptions of stuff make my eyes glaze over. I read every word, of course, skipping bits in a book is sacrilege in my view. But I can move my eyes faster along the lines, can’t I? My wild imagination is happy to fill in the blanks, even if that means the main character wears silk rather than velvet. It was luxurious material, that’s all that counts.

When I’m writing, I need to remind myself to add detail. Not all the time, but a splash of colour here and there. I can picture the scene perfectly, but it’s writing it down in such a way that others can see it too, without nodding off. When I write, I literally tell myself the story, quietly, but I can hear the words, the dialogue with all its intonations. 

One of my struggling moments as a student-teacher was trying to read out loud one of my favourite books. Turns out, it starts off with an entire page of description. One of those glazed-eye pages, apart from, reading it out loud to a class full of nine-year-olds, I couldn’t glaze over! Painful.

Of course, details can be important. Storylines, do they come under details? I realised getting details wrong makes them no longer a detail, have you noticed that? Or is it just me, trying to prove that I can do details if I really want to? I once read a book where the author got the character’s name wrong. Such a small detail, but I noticed it straight away. I even wondered if I should start a career in proofreading, clearly having a knack for spotting details! Flicking through Walled City, I spotted a space before the quotation marks. (Extra points for those of you who can tell the page number!).



I’m sure something makes us notice mistakes more, and isn’t that sad? Belonging to a Creator God, Who has counted the hairs on our head, who numbers the sparrows, when looking back on our day, do we see the blessings straight away? Do our blessings feel too detailed to notice?
What about the mistakes we made that day? I have to admit that the mistakes can easily be counted in glaring numbers, whereas counting my blessings is a matter of the broad brush: “Lots of blessings, my family and home, books, just...lots of blessings.”

So, here we are, January, start of the year and all that. Isn’t it a great excuse to be more detailed, to start counting our blessings with the same precision we reserve for spotting our mistakes?

My name is Maressa Mortimer, and I’m Dutch. I live in the beautiful Cotswolds, England, with my husband who is a pastor. We have four (adopted) children. I’m a homeschool mum, so my writing has to be done in the evening when peace and quiet descend on our house once more. I love exploring questions of faith using novels, as it helps me to see what faith looks like in daily life. My debut novel, Sapphire Beach, was published in December 2019. My latest novel, Walled City, launched on December 5^th, 2020, and I’m nearing the first draft of its sequel! Visit my website www.vicarioushome.com to read my blog or to buy signed copies from my shop!