I know the story is in there somewhere; I can feel it simmering along. But I can't get a handle on it. It sucks.
It comes to me that this is, after all, my umpteeth book about the McKennas. It stands to reason that maybe...just maybe...that's all it is. Maybe it's time to stop. Maybe I'm coming to the end of it.
Noooo.....!!!
Maybe I should backtrack, write about previous generations. That doesn't sound right, either. Maybe I should go forward, into the future, into an apocalyptic fog with entirely new generations. Possible, but not yet.
I'm not done with these McKenna characters. I have people who are not done reading about them. What happens to Jordan and Dakota? What happens with Brynnley after all she has been through? What about Thao and Hope? What about Keever and...well, you know what I mean.
I've been here before, I tell myself. Don't panic. There was a time, right as I was about to write WWII, when I flat-lined, so to speak. It was like slogging through mud to write it. Before that, long before, there was a time when I knew what I wanted to write and I just couldn't pull it out of me. It was a great story about Brynn wanting to go live at Old House with Boone and the other siblings all on their own. I couldn't write it to save me.
But then, I did.
There's a song that has the line: "Greater things are yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this city." I hung onto that when I was stumbling along with WWII. I just kept picking up the pen and writing something on the paper. And, eventually, it came.
I guess it's sort of like Life. Like raising kids and being in a marriage and working at a job. You get to a place and think: Is this it? Is this the end? Is this when I stop?
Or maybe: Can it PLEASE be the end??
And then, you get up in the morning and go on and that day...or maybe the next...something opens up and the sun pours in and you see your child smile like it's the first time you ever saw it, and you hold hands with your husband and never want to let go. And it's not the end.
It's maybe just the beginning.
So, every day at about the same time, I curl up with my computer and read over what I wrote the day before...even if it was just a paragraph. And I find a word I need to change here or there.
Or maybe I erase the whole thing and do it over.
And then, one day, I know that it will all come together. Suddenly. In an instant. It will be an instant that took a lot of hours to crawl to. But it will be an instant that will lead into another sentence, and a paragraph, and a page.
And then another 500 pages.
So, don't panic, Heidi. Let the simmering happen. Let God do whatever He is doing in you. And, if this is the last McKenna book, don't panic about that, either. He'll work it out.
Just write.