Distracted Writing

 

This is a picture I have on my desk in my office. I painted while on a prayer retreat several years ago. This is a picture of me and God, a picture of a hug, from God. I need that hug today. I am discouraged and struggle to write paragraph, every thought, every sentence, every phrase. Every word is a struggle! It all is coming slowly. It is a slog and I just want them to all be done! (Funny thing, this post is a distraction from my dissertation words and these words are coming quickly)

Last week was difficult, but last week was great! Writing did not go as planned at first and getting every 100 words out was difficult and I struggled to get chapter 4 finished by Friday, which was my goal. There were days when I got hardly anything written and then suddenly they all came out. They flowed and it all seemed to work. And by Friday afternoon. So, when I closed up “shop” on Friday, I was finished with chapter 4, which means that I was one chapter and somewhere in the neighborhood of 7,000 words away from begin finished.

The weekend was a great respite. My sister brought my mother up for a visit. She is staying through next week for my youngest’s birthday. Sunday was strange. It was the first Sunday of my Sabbatical weeks for which I was not away. So I was at Church, but I was not doing anything. It was strange I did not really know what my role was when I was; Pastor Kaza, not in charge, Pastor Kaza not organizing things, Pastor Kaza not leading or speaking up front. I was Pastor Kaza in a pew, participating like a parishioner, but still Pastor Kaza. We had a visitor, so I introduced myself as “Pastor Kaza,” although I did not lead the service in anyway. I know what to do with myself when I am at another congregation, and am not “Pastor,” but I did not know who I was, or what my role was when I was not there to “do.” I guess it is a practice in just being. In seeing our worship and our congregation from a new perspective. This next week I am going to be more intentional and pay attention, see what I can see, learn what I can learn, about us, and about me.

This brings me to this week. It has been a tough writing week. My goal by the end of today was 4,000 words. At the moment I am writing this I have about 1,300. Nowhere close to my goal. I feel like for every 50 words I write I delete 25 and rewrite 25 more. I know part of my distraction is that I have received my first chapter back with the first set of edits and I want to go fix it. As I have written each chapter, I become more and more aware of things I need to fix or change in the previous chapters. So I know my advisor will have seen all that I am already aware of that needs to be remade, rewritten, added and subtracted, as well as having seen things that I have not. So I am writing and distracted and I know I will not finish this final chapter this week as planned. I will work on it in the weeks to come, but I can’t let that go too far, the first draft is due Nov 1. Less than a month and I need to turn in a full, complete first draft. I need these words to come, but they are not, so I keep plugging and hopefully I will get them all finished, sooner than later would be nice.

So I am leaning into this hug today, I need it.