Writing is a process. Big surprise, living is a process. And trusting God is the mother of all processes.
That said, let me tell you what I figured out this week about all of the above.
A few weeks ago, a fellow Hope*writer, Shirley Weyrauch , author of Follow the Breadcrumbs, sent me a You Tube interview with author Molly Baskette entitled The Ethical Memoir. Although the video was centered on how to ethically use parts of other people’s story in your own, something she said as an aside jumped out and bit me. After submitting her memoir manuscript to her agent, her agent replied, “This is not a memoir. It’s a blog dump.”
A blog dump! Maybe that’s what my critique group had been politely trying to tell me about my own memoir in process when they said things like You tell a really good story in such vivid detail, but what is your memoir about?
It’s true, I’d taken parts of essays posted on my blog and pieced them together with additional material to craft what I thought was my final draft. But when I submitted some of my beginning chapters to fellow Hope*writer and editor, Mara Eller. She said something similar about how I bring my stories to life with vivid detail then ended with the overall feeling that my backstory chapters felt like, “random historical vignettes.” I use her exact words because they sound like the dictionary version of blog dump.
So, here’s the thing, like any human being, I’ve lived my life in daily chapters that looked like “random historical vignettes,” seemingly disconnected, perhaps meaningless. And it’s hard when you’re in the thick of your own life to see the thread that runs through it all. I was paralyzed with discouragement until Psalm 139:16 came to mind.
“You saw me growing, changing in my mother’s womb;
Psalm 139:16 (VOICE)
Every detail of my life was already written in Your book;
You established the length of my life
before I ever tasted the sweetness of it.”
Trusting this about God’s power and sovereignty, ensures my life is not random or without purpose and helped me focus on the crux of my narrative.
When I started this story, I didn’t understand how critical my adoption was to my self-concept even when I wasn’t aware of it. I’d always felt like an impostor, a fake, not one of the real_______ fill in the blank. I held back on the fringes, yet was always on the hunt for where I really belonged, personally, socially, professionally. And eventually, I was hungry enough for significance, to compromise what was most precious to me, my marriage, in order to be who I desperately wanted to become—chosen, clean, and wildly loved.
In the midst of my contemplation, a new subtitle came to mind: Looking for God in all the Wrong Places because wasn’t what I wished for already provided by God? Colossians 3:12 says we are chosen, holy, and beloved children of God. What was fake and counterfeit was not me, but the sources from which I tried to suck my worth and identity.
A new title also appeared: Love Child, because the heart of my narrative is how I discovered I was not the euphemism for an illegitimate bastard born from the momentary passion of man, but a precious child conceived by the amazing grace of God.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. Twice Adopted. Once by loving parents who saw me as a priceless gift. And again by God, my ultimate father. Now I can delete or dump all the other chapters of my life that don’t point to that overarching transformation.
“Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ.”
Philippians 3:8
Thank God for the honesty and skill of friends and colleagues. Thank God for the truth of his Word. Knowing what’s wrong with something is half the battle of making it right. It’s a process isn’t it? But if God is in it, I trust he’ll carry it onto completion.
BTW what do you think of my new titles? How have you titled your story, and how could the love of God change it?
Cover photo by Uday Mittal on Unsplash
Copyright Ann C. Averill 2023
Yes!!! You connected it together-it’s no longer a haphazardly patch worked quilt, but a masterpiece put together by a loving Creator .❤️
This is so beautiful! I’ve been thinking about my own story recently, and trying to figure out themes in my life that inform my message as a writer. I enjoyed reading this and how you had to take that step back to see the ten thousand foot view. It’s so hard sometimes because we live as ourselves and can’t always see the themes. And what beautiful themes yours are: twice adopted and so dearly loved. I think I like the “Looking for God in all the wrong places” title!
Thanks Kirstin. Yes, until we see the aerial view of our lives, it’s hard to see the sovereign hand of God. I believe every life has a specific theme illustrated over and over by specific scenes in our lives. The job of the memoirist is to select the events that zero in on that truth and portray it over and over again with visceral details that enable the reader to vicariously learn the lesson the author learned through trial and struggle. Sounds easy in theory, but it takes a lot of scribbling and crossing out to get at the heart of your own story.