Thursday 21 October 2010

The Preparations Continue - for Life's Journey.

Well the last few days I have managed to finish preparing the Romance Writers workshop for the Word Writers Fair. Or at least this "perfectionist" certainly hopes she has finished preparing!
I've also been spending far too many hours agonising over suggestions for the back blurb for Justice at Baragula to send off to Ark House Press with other hopefully helpful ideas for the cover art of this Book Three of this series.
A few minutes ago I also finished the notes for my talk to readers at the Toowoomba Library on November 13th. Reviewing how I've reached this stage in my writing career is actually very humbling.

First of all there is that battered looking Exercise book which became my first diary. I never dreamt then that expressing my hopes, dreams and feelings in it was only the forerunner of twenty years later and that little green folder. On the very first of that folder I wrote, "DESIRE & AIMS OF WRITING A CHRISTIAN NOVEL." Then there are pages and pages about the theme, the characters, even a brief summary of each chapter. How different that eventually published book was but the Writing Journey God is still taking me on stills leaves me with a sense of awe and immense thankfulness. 
Writing now with a computer and years more experience is so different from that first attempt, that first novel which eventually became my first book, "Search For Tomorrow." Damged Dreams was my first submission to Mills & Boon but Priority Care was my first contract in those medical romance novels and a revised Damaged Dreams became my second Inspirational novel with Barbour publishers in their Heartsong Presents Book club

Now my new novel next year, Justice at Baragula, will be my 19th title. This never ceases to amaze me, humble me, and I love sharing with folk the journey God has taken me over all these years of writing.

My darling husband and I come from different backgrounds. He also looks back, so let us mediatate for awhile as he shares a few thoughts with us on Life's Journey...

The Hawkins Family motto.
I bought the Hawkins heraldic shield for my Mum and Dad. After their passing, I claimed it. The words are ‘Toujours Pret’ - which, I’m led to believe mean ‘always ready.’ People who know me would either smile or cringe in applying that to me.

My nature seems to be ‘she’ll be right mate’ and ‘we will see which way the ball bounces before we decide what to do.’ Over the years I’m sure it has given ulcers to many and caused concerns in planning circles - especially in my younger days.

I’m thankful to God for many things, not the least for taking an unready, rather careless young man and giving him a major make-over. If He hadn’t, I would never have been ready to stand in His company and be accepted.

Life’s journey is a mystery waiting to be solved. Often we can misread the clues, go up detours only to be disappointed, hurt and hurting others, confused. We suffer apathy or misplaced enthusiasm which can play on our mind over time. However what I have come to realize as my journey is now a long way down the track, God has journeyed with me. I often didn’t recognize His presence or appreciate His interventions, but He was making me live up to my family motto.

I still have some way to go, perhaps a few false starts, but I do have a desire to be always ready. For what you may ask? The expected and the unexpected! To be available for family and friends, to use my resources rather than hoard, to share my faith when and where possible are among the list. To recognize my Lord may blow the whistle for full-time on my life, and to be ready to give an account of how I played the game according to His rules. It is my hope that the family motto will be worn more faithfully and fully by my children and grand-children.

Do you have a family motto? How does God fulfill or transform it in your life.

4 comments:

  1. Mary, I am amazed and humbled that God took the dream I've had since a little girl, and the words I put down on paper and made a way for them to be published and read by people I will never meet (at least on earth). I know that there are many wonderful writers out there waiting to be published. Why did God use me? I'll never know.

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  2. I know exactly how you feel about this, Jules! But we are so blessed and can only praise Him and pray we are found faithful to being His servants in all of this.

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  3. Thanks for sharing some of your journey Mary. That old exercise book/ journal looks like it holds many whispers to God. How thrilling to see His hand at work in your writing - and I look forward to the next 19!!!

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  4. You are so right, Dorothy. As I read my old diaries I sometimes wish I had written more about my everyday activities but my spiritual journey with God, my ups and downs, my times of slackness, of obedience are recorded and by far more important. It reminds me that even when I was faithless, HE was always faithful and loving - even though sometimes He had to smack me to get my attention! And I am so thankful our God is an unchanging God full of mercy and love.

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