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Personal Note: Big Step



Personal Note


       In the past week or two, things got difficult in a bad way. The power cord to my laptop died. No power, no battery recharge. When I'd looked for a replacement before, the place I went said we could order one for $50+ but that they might have one for less. They didn't. I went to a different place and they ordered one for about half that, but it took almost a week to come in. After I got the new cord, I discovered that my laptop could no longer find the flash drive on which I had been keeping everything. All my files from home, all the work I'd done since coming to Florida. For some reason, it didn't bother me quite as much as I thought it would. I managed to track down two of the files and figured that I could recreate most of the recent material. I took the flash drive to my technowizards... their technical description of the situation? It's toast.
      In the past week, things got difficult in a good way. I found an invitation to download some writer's helps from Jerry Jenkins. Within a few days, he announced that he is going to run a writer's workshop - a full year of being mentored by him. I considered. Some money had come in from somewhere else. It's not quite the amount needed, but it brought the price to something I thought reasonable. Of course, the novel that I have worked on the most.... was on the flash drive that is toast. I figured out quickly that there is no way I could recreate it. I contacted someone to see if it is still on my computer at home. Then a thought came: check the other flash drive - the old one. The one that I was sure was so old that the story in question would not be on it - but it is. It's now on my lap top computer as well. 
      All the excuses were gone. Today I signed up - taking another step of faith. Like all steps of faith, it requires submission to someone else. Somehow, the idea of submitting to God is one thing and the idea of submitting to someone else - and someone else's process, is another. The hydra, Ego, rears an ugly head. Like all steps of faith, the way isn't entirely clear. Do I pursue the fiction track? Or the nonfiction track? Or do I try to pursue both? At the moment, it looks like both until I get a clearer idea. Effectively, that's two years of work to be done in a year. And so I return to my prayer request with one added plea: wisdom, direction, attitude, persistence.  


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