Fears and delays

 

This is the first thing written on my new laptop, although I loved my old laptop and everything was where I liked it. There were hints and threats for a long time though, new batteries, replacement chargers, a non-working dvd player…

I did like the look of my kids’ laptops, thin and light, and even I could pick one up with one hand, unlike my old laptop that needed two hands at all times, making for a killer rucksack when taking it anywhere.

When it took my old laptop more than twenty minutes to load, I caved in. It had been the dreaded setting up, moving files and restarting a new thing that had delayed it all. For a while, I had struggled to do any writing, for my laptop was so slow, that by the time it had started to work and load my programmes, my small writing window had closed again.

In order to use my laptop on the go, I had to carry the heavy rucksack and have a working space near a socket, as my laptop needed to be plugged in at all times. So often, I left my laptop at home, hoping to write that evening. Or early the next morning, or maybe…

Now that excuse has gone, so don’t ask why this blog is late again! I blame a day travelling on that one, and last night we were home later than I thought, and there we go, another month has slipped away. And in a few days it’s November, with NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month for those of you who haven’t tried it yet!) I have great hopes of writing most, if not all of my Viking Time Travel novel, and of course, this laptop will make staying in touch and answering emails properly easier as well.

And maybe, I shouldn’t have feared the setting up, which actually only took a few minutes, or the moving of files, which was a case of simply plugging in my usb sticks in this thin, fast machine. I could have saved myself a lot of grumbling and delay if I had known, and maybe, when it comes to writing, I should do the same thing. Not look at the fears of getting the character out of sorts, or missing the perfect plot line. Not delay my writing, because my mind can’t agree on the perfect next scene to write.

Fears can be paralysing, and delay us from being blessed and encouraged in so many ways. In Dutch there is a saying that We suffer the most from the suffering we fear, which will never come, and I think this is true. What Ifs can hold us back, and we can see time slipping away over some fear that might never be realised. So, looking at my new laptop, with the backlit buttons, made for hands twice my size I think, I encourage you all to face one of those fears and through prayer and faith, start forwards today. It might be in a small way, but who knows where that first shuffle forwards can lead to!

Maressa Mortimer is Dutch but lives in the beautiful Cotswolds, England with her husband and four (adopted) children. Maressa is a homeschool mum as well as a pastor’s wife, so her writing has to be done in the evening when peace and quiet descend on the house once more. She loves writing Christian fiction, as it’s a great way to explore faith in daily life. Because of her interest in writing, Maressa is part of Creativity Matters: Find Your Passion For Writing, an anthology encouraging people to write.

Her debut novel, Sapphire Beach, was published in December 2019, and her first self published novel, Walled City, came out in December 2020, followed by Viking Ferry, a novella. Beyond the Hills is the second book in the Elabi Chronicles, and was released in 2021, followed by stand-alone novel Burrowed, released in 2022. The third book in the Elabi Chronicles, Downstream, has just been released. All of Maressa’s books are available from her website, www.vicarioushome.com, Amazon or local bookshops.