I’m always inspired by the part in On Writing when Stephen King talks about how he got Carrie, his first novel, written. He was living in a double wide with his wife and his first child, working two fairly unsavory jobs to make ends meet.

While the rest of his family slept, he would sneak away to this tiny little room in the double wide, and he would put a board on his lap and put a typewriter on the board, and he would write. He wrote the entire novel that way. While his family slept. Locked in a closet. With a board on his lap. And a typewriter on the board.

Crazy amazing.

Just shows you what you can do when you commit to some material that needs to get birthed through your hands and you participate in the process of getting it birthed.

I’m working on a second book right now. And it’s all happening in much the same way the first one did, which is a tiny bit tragic because that whole process was . . . what’s the word . . . oh, yeah, hard.

The thing I’m learning is that the raw material comes to me, but then I have to do something with all that raw material. I have to shape it, engage with it, find the beauty in the chaos. And that process is not formulaic. There is no shortcut or solution. It is inefficient.

I just have to work with all this unwieldy ooze and see what might come of it. A very, very little bit of progress each day. I have to trust that the process of turning it over and over and participating and working hard will yield something. Even when I can’t completely see or measure the yield.

I’m not sure what you’re working on today. Perhaps you’re working on a writing project, realizing a dream, getting/staying sober, or surviving a divorce. Maybe you’re working on grief today because grief is like a job sometimes. Maybe you’re working on a new business venture, a big decision, a friendship, a summer garden, getting your baby to sleep through the night. Maybe you’ve just moved or maybe you’re barely moving.

Whatever it is, the raw material has arrived. It is here! God has put it all around you. And that, in and of itself, is a big deal. Not to be overlooked. But now you must go about the process; you must engage and participate. You must detect the Beauty . . . because, it’s there.

I have to put the following on repeat in my head: “he is making all things beautiful in its time yet no one knows what God has done from beginning to end” (Ecc 3:11). Sometimes life feels like a huge HUH?!?!, but we still show up and trust that something might just come of the showing up.

In your waiting or creating or risking or walking or breathing or crying or shushing or planting or tending, I just want to challenge you to keep participating authentically. Today. Even if you aren’t racing toward the finish line. Even if you can’t see the finish line from here.

Put the board on your lap. Put the typewriter on the board.

Show up to life. And do it because you want to tell a different story.