The Write Stuff

Another Monday, this one a catch up day. I was glad to have some time in the morning before needing to get to work because I still had to write that paper for class, a comparison of prophet, wise man, and psalmist. With all the travel, the conversations, the church activities, the tiredness, I just hadn't found time to do it. So after carpool, I resisted the urge to go back to bed, and sat at the computer, praying. God, please let this thing go together smoothly. Give me the words, the thoughts, the flow to make it happen in a very short time.

Generally it takes about an hour per page to collect all the readings, compare them, think about stuff, write, rewrite, edit, then footnote. But I didn't have an hour a page for the five page paper. I had three hours. Three hours to ignore the stacks of laundry and dirty dishes, to forget about the huge black flies that had somehow made their way into the apartment while I was away (I had already killed a dozen, but there were still a few left buzzing about irritating me). I didn't want this to be less than my best effort, but the deadline was firm. Turn it in, no exceptions!

So I opened my eyes and began. Just get stuff down, worry about flow and comprehensive coverage later. And for goodness sake, don't even THINK about footnotes until after your reference shift tonight at 9. You can make it pretty then. So I wrote. And as I wrote, God opened my brain and poured thoughts in that I needed. There was sudden insight, unique ideas, remembrances of things said in lecture that I hadn't written down. Yes, God was definitely enabling me.

I had hoped to get to the bank before heading out to work, but that didn't happen. I wrote right up to the moment I had to leave for work, and I just managed to complete the assignment except for correcting the footnotes. I would read it over again at night after my workday ended, fix a few sequence problems, tighten up the verbiage, and get the footnotes settled. Wow! I should always write that way. Its so much easier than wracking my brain and trying to be clever. Perhaps its a good thing to experience a time crunch. It makes you discover better ways of doing things.