A Writer's Friend by Emily Owen

(ALT: Part of a computer keyboard with the 'delete' key circled)

“I don’t know where she is,” said a nurse to a surgeon.

They were talking about me. 

I was at the hospital for a check-up and the nurse had no record that I was there.

The surgeon pointed to me across the waiting room:

“She’s sitting over there. I know my patients. I can see her. That’s Emily.”

I knew I was there.

The nurse didn’t know I was there.

The surgeon knew I was there, because he knows me.

I think sometimes the writing life can feel a bit like a waiting room. 

We wait for contracts, we wait for sales, we wait for events, we wait for likes on a blog, we wait for feedback, we wait for inspiration….

We know where our writing is/what we’ve done, but it seems to get lost in a sea of other books and blogs and articles.

Or maybe we don’t know. We push on, not really knowing what or why or where.

I love the story of Hagar (Genesis 16). Running away, rejected, stuck in a desert...and in that tough place, she recognises God as, 'The One who sees me.'

Wherever we are, in life and in writing, God sees us.

And He knows where we are, because He knows us.

There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother

Proverbs 18:24 (NIV)

At the hospital, I noticed a sign on a wall:

Please use the bin provided

It struck me in its assumption. 

There would be rubbish.

In my experience with writing, there will be rubbish.

I’m currently working on a book for 8–11-year-olds and, since my niece falls into that age group, I asked her to read through the first draft. 

Her general comments were positive, and I was interested to know what hadn’t worked in the book.

“Did you get bored at any point?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I must admit, I hadn’t expected her quicker than lightning response. 

Perhaps I’d assumed she might need to think about the question for more than a millisecond. 

But it turned out I had indeed written something that boring.

“It was at X point,” she said. “I think you need to add a bit of description. The rest of the book, I could picture, but not that bit.”

What brilliant feedback!

I duly consigned that section of the book to the bin.

But why I am writing about rubbish in this blog?

To encourage us that, if we write something that doesn’t work, it’s not the end of the world.

I deleted ‘the field’ my niece couldn’t picture, and added long grass and other bits and bobs.

I venture to suggest that, thanks to my niece, that section of the book is better than it was.

I sometimes hesitate to delete but, if I hadn’t been able to delete, I wouldn’t have been able to improve.

The delete button is a writer’s friend.

Forget the former things;

do not dwell on the past.

See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness

and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43: 18-19 (NIVUK)