Back to Work

I just came back from one of my favorite writers conferences, Writing for the Soul, held by the Christian Writers Guild (www.christianwritersguild.com).

On the last day of the conference, most attendees are flying high with new skills acquired, friendships made or renewed, and positive responses from agents and editors. We leave with new story ideas or new insights into how to revise our current projects to make them better.

We exchange hugs and business cards as we say goodbye and head for home. Excitement buzzes amid dreams of contracts and book signings and, dare we dream so high, Christy awards and the New York Times bestseller list.

And then Monday morning arrives. It can be like stepping on the wrong end of a rake. All that enthusiasm meets the reality of our worlds. Kids and spouses need our attention. We’ve been missed and we’ve missed them. And there’s nothing like little Jake can’t find his homework five minutes before the bus arrives to drive visions of show-don’t-tell and tension on every page right out the window.

Many of us have day jobs where our bosses and coworkers think we’ve had a mini-vacation, not realizing how hard we work at a conference to learn, to be on time for classes, to keep appointments with agents and editors, to be at our best when we pitch, to keepgoing on little sleep.

I don’t have a magic formula for making this transition from the world of the conference to our world at home.

For me, and I know for many of us, we are called to write. Pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, words from heart and mind to printed page. These are all visual manifestations of God’s plan for us to communicate Him to the world through the wide variety of tools and outlets He’s created.

Now is the time we take the emotional and spiritual high of the conference and convert it to energy to fuel our work, to look at our projects in the new light of better skills and renewed dreams, and to make our writing time vibrant. To make the time part of worship of Him, part of our thanksgiving for the inspiration and talent He’s given us, and, most important, to use it to glorify and honor Him through the words we write.