Mark Spencer's Writing Life

I have no writing life lol, it hits me when I least expect it and usually in waves, so when it does hit I try and immerse myself into the flow as long as I can.

For a while last year I tried what a favorite author of mine recommends, which is to set aside a specific time per day and just write for say 30 minutes. You might get one sentence or you might get a whole chapter, and if you get on a roll and have more time keep going, but make it a habit and the progress will come. I did that for a bit and it definitely works if you can make it happen. Sadly I get side tracked by life far too easily and so progress on my other works has been passed by the slowest of tortoises. That should tell you something about this book, which is that I believe it was meant to be written now.

As a follow up to that I will tell you this, my inspiration for Mouse’s book was not my own, but shared through me by our Creator. A seed was planted when I visited a house with a small door along a baseboard at the bottom of a stairwell. I had no idea that it would grow into the story it did. When I began writing the story, it was in a traditional story mode, not in the rhymed verse as you see it now. That change came about about 30% into the original writing, and truthfully the storyline was rather secular by my intent, but God had other plans. As the writing unfolded, the book took shape as a reminder for all of us about the holiday we love all too often in a commercial way, and it came with several lessons centered around the miraculous night we call Christmas Eve. Ultimately it rooted itself in the very heart of the gospel, which is the gift of God to us all for His glory.

Oddly enough I was planning on taking up on a very dear to my heart novel that was inspired by the passing of my dad a year ago, but a few weeks back, again completely out of left field, God said here you go, write the sequel to Mouse and this is how the story will go, and I must say it has a really fun twist.

So, I’m not sure I will ever get to my other novels or not lol, but I am happy to write and to do so for my Lord as His instrument, one tiny thread in what must be the most amazing tapestry of His creation.