Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

the writing life

Hope for Your Hard Season

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For three months straight this summer, every time I laced up my shoes and hit the trail, I felt like I was running through wet cement. When I finally managed to drag myself heaving and sweaty into my house four miles later, my husband always asked how my run went, and my answer was always the same: “Horrible. Again.”

I bought new running shoes. I tried drinking more water. I tried drinking less water. I tried stretching more. I tried stretching less. No matter what I did, the result was always the same: a demoralizing, abysmal run.

I wondered if perhaps my running days were over. Maybe I was simply getting too old. Maybe my body was wearing out. Maybe it was time for a gentler form of exercise.

Despite my frustration, I kept at it, mostly because I am both stubborn and lazy. I didn’t want to take up swimming or spinning or Zumba. I’ve been running since I was 16 years old. I like the rituals around running – the stretching, the cool-down, lying on my sunroom floor as the cool breeze from the ceiling fan wafts over me – as well as the structure and rhythm of beginning my day on the trail. I also like the endorphins, which I don’t get when I walk or bike.

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I’m heading down the home stretch of book-writing, one eye on my January deadline, the other on my word count. But I admit, I’ve been discouraged lately. While the early chapters seemed to unfurl straight from my fingertips, these later chapters have been a grind. I spend a lot of time staring out the sunroom window behind my desk, my hands in my lap (or my fingernails between my teeth), rather than on the keyboard. I delete more than I type.

There’s something wrong, I think to myself. It shouldn’t be this hard.

I find myself wondering if my writing days are coming to an end. Maybe I’m burned out, I think. Maybe it’s time for a different kind of creativity. Or maybe, a small voice deep inside wonders, maybe God doesn’t want me to write books anymore.

One day a few weeks ago, when Brad asked me how my morning run had gone, I realized it had been a tiny bit better. I might not have noticed if he hadn’t asked, but when I thought back to my four miles, I realized they hadn’t been quite as horrendous. For the first time in months, I hadn’t felt like I was about to keel over and die on the trail.

Since then, my morning jogs have continued to improve bit by bit. I got my wind back. My feet stopped hurting. My legs feel steadier. I am energized when I finish, rather than spent. I haven’t done anything differently. Over time I just simply began to feel better.

This morning as I ran through the November mist, I felt strong, carefree, and light on my feet. Everything felt right in the world during those four miles on the trail. Later, after I’d showered and was seated at my desk, steeling myself for another grueling day of writing/not writing, I remembered my summer of bad running – the days and weeks when what had once come easily felt like a burden and a punishment.

I also remembered that my season of hard running, frustrating and demoralizing as it was, eventually came to an end. The difficult season passed unexpectedly, slipping out the back door as quietly and mysteriously as it had arrived.

There is a lesson here about seasons, particularly those that arrive unexpectedly and are not altogether welcome. Sometimes we find ourselves in an uncomfortable, discouraging, frustrating season – a season in which the next right step is, literally or figuratively, to simply take another step, and then another and another.

I still don’t know why I struggled so much in my running this past summer. Likewise, I don’t know why writing is so hard right now. But if my season of hard running taught me anything, it’s that this too shall eventually pass.

In the meantime, I’ll keep putting down one word after another, my eyes fixed on the finish line, until this hard season slips quietly away like a November mist, until I begin to write like I run, strong and carefree again.

The Finish Line Isn’t Always the Most Important Part of the Race

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Last week I had to cut short an interview I was doing for my new job when I realized I was going to be late to pick up my kids from school. The man I was interviewing on the phone was kind and gracious, but still, it was an awkward moment, and I felt like an unprofessional amateur.

As I sped down South Street toward the middle school, my cell phone rang, and I knew from the ring tone it was Rowan calling from the sidewalk outside his school, wondering where I was as he watched all the cars pull up to and away from the curb.

By the time I got home from the school pick-up circuit, dialed the manager I’d interrupted 20 minutes before to continue the interview, finished the conversation and hung up, I sat back in my chair, sweaty, flustered, and limp with defeat.

Cleary this new-job-work-from-home-be-a-good-mother-and-write-books-too endeavor was not going to work. Clearly I stunk as a professional, stunk as a mother, and, having struggled to string together ten creative words all week, stunk as a writer too.

No one has ever accused me of being glass-half-full.

That was Friday. On Sunday morning I ran the Lincoln Half Marathon. It was a great race, and I felt good the whole way — my breathing was easy, my body felt strong, and I finished in a respectable-for-me time. After I crossed the finish line, I went home, posted a Facebook photo of me with a medal around my neck and my number pinned to the front of my shirt, and celebrated by eating a great many delicious and unhealthy foods.

Later that afternoon, though, I remembered something important about that race, something the Facebook photo didn’t necessarily reveal, which is this:

I didn’t cross the Sunday morning finish line without days, weeks, and months of training first.

Our results-right-now culture has us programmed to expect instantaneous aptitude, but the reality is, doing a hard thing like starting a new job, becoming a new parent, walking through loss, or navigating a new season of life is a process that entails persistent work, growing pains, trial and error, and both small and large successes and failures along the way.

Case in point: My final training run for the half marathon was one of the worst training runs I’ve had in more than 30 years of running. It was so miserable, in fact, that afterward, as I lay on the sunroom floor in a heaving heap, I announced out loud to myself and the dog that I was done with half marathons forever. Two weeks later, I had one of my best races ever.

Last week was hard as I struggled to balance the new demands of work, parenting, home, and the creative life. I was hard on myself for failing to do it all perfectly, and I assumed that because I hadn’t succeeded right out of the gate, I wasn’t going to succeed at all.  Luckily, a 13-mile race, the culmination of four months of training, reminded me that’s simply not true.

If, like me, you’ve been hard on yourself as you struggle through something big, hard or new,  I want to gently remind you that big things, hard things, and new things don’t magically become small, easy, and routine overnight.

The Sunday morning finish line is wonderfully gratifying and a lot of fun, but the days, weeks, and months of  two-steps-forward-one-step-back are what get us there. It’s the “pressing on” part, as Paul reminds us, that ultimately brings us to the prize.

Turns out, those hard beginnings and demoralizing middles might actually be the most important part of the race.

Be the You God Created

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It’s good to be back, and thanks so much to all of you who emailed and left warm wishes for healing in the comment box. I couldn’t respond (one-handed typing is for the birds!), but know that I appreciated every word! The cast is off, my arm is out of the sling, and the elbow is coming along. I’m done with vigorous pruning forever and ever amen. Thanks for sticking with me, friends! To get us back in the swing of things, here’s a column I wrote last week for my local newspaper. And yeah, it mentions Italy in the first sentence…{hangs head}.

 

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I toured a vineyard in Italy this summer. There, under the Tuscan sun, amid row after row of grapevines unfurling toward the horizon, I expected to learn about the art, science, and craft of winemaking. What I didn’t anticipate was that the experience would offer me valuable insights into my own vocation and who I am as a person uniquely created by God.

A few years after the vineyard had been established, owner Olimpia Roberti hired a world-famous consultant, who suggested how to improve the flavor of her red wines. But when she tasted the supposed new and improved vintage, Olimpia couldn’t tell the difference between her wine and that of the other producers in the area.

“They all tasted the same,” she told our tour group, as we stood facing dozens of oak barrels in the fermentation room.  “Nothing distinguished our wine from the all the others.”

The consultant’s goal was for Olimpia’s vineyard to produce wines that would appeal to the mass market. It makes sense, especially from a business perspective: the wider the appeal, the more bottles sold, the more successful the vineyard.

But Olimpia refused to sacrifice the personality of her wine. She fired the world-renowned consultant and reverted, with a few new tweaks, to her original formula.

“I wanted to keep our wines’ personality,” she explained. “I decided I was willing to sell fewer bottles in order to maintain the unique character of my wine.”

Olimpia

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Too often, I compare myself with other writers, particularly those who have more readers and sell more books than I do. Sometimes when I measure another writer’s accomplishments and success against mine, I’m tempted to alter my own writing style and voice to be more like theirs, in the hope that I might attract more readers. I wonder if perhaps I were funnier like him, or more encouraging like her, or more controversial or more contemplative, I might appeal to a broader audience.

In short, I’m tempted to sacrifice what makes my writing my own in order to attract more readers and sell more books.

I know I’m not alone in this struggle. Think about the mild-mannered salesman who adopts an aggressive negotiation style in the hopes of landing bigger contracts.

Or the church that revamps its worship service to try to attract a larger membership.

Or the contemplative teenager who pretends she’s gregarious and extroverted to appeal to a particularly popular group of peers.

We sell out. We sacrifice what makes us special; we abandon our true, authentic selves, the uniquely beautiful people God created us to be. We try to become like others, especially those we consider more successful than we are, in order to broaden our influence and appeal.

But in doing so, we don’t honor who God created us to be.

After our tour of the vineyard, I sat at a long table in the tasting room and lifted a glass of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano to my lips. As I sipped the smooth, subtle wine, I thought about what Olimpia had said and how relevant her words were to my own career and calling and even to who I am as a person.

The fact is, Olimpia Roberti may not become the most successful vintner Italy has ever seen. Her vineyard might not sell the most bottles or earn the highest sales. But her wine, with its own uniquely beautiful taste, will be hers, and it will attract the people who appreciate and enjoy it.

How to Know When It’s Time to Refill the Well

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I spent last weekend away from my computer. I didn’t respond to the emails stacking up in my in-box. I didn’t check Facebook and like, like, like post after post. I didn’t blog or tweet or scroll.

Instead, I laid down a drop cloth on the back lawn and spray painted a bedside table white. And then I spray painted an old-fashioned metal milk jug and a crock that I’ve thought about donating to the Goodwill. I decided to keep it; I like it white.

While those dried in the May breeze, I wiped the pollen off the patio table, swept the cement free of oak tree seedlings, refilled the oriole and finch feeders, and cut the biggest bouquet of white peonies ever known to humankind. I arranged the blooms in my mother-in-law’s vase and placed it on the dining room sideboard in front of the window. Within an hour, the whole first floor of my house was filled with the scent of peony.

I played Sorry! with Rowan on the back patio while the chickadees and nut hatches flitted in the birch tree overhead. I rode my bike with Noah to Shopko to check out a dehumidifier on sale, and then took the long way home, wending through the neighborhoods, admiring the way the cottonwood leaves swished and sizzled in the wind.

In short, I did a whole lot of nothing. I puttered in my yard, which is among my favorite things to do. I rested my brain and moved my body and let my mind wander. I reminded myself that there’s more to life, a whole lot more, than social media shares and clicking “publish.”

I published my first blog post on July 27, 2009, nearly seven years ago. Since then I’ve written here regularly, two to three times a week (when I first started I wrote five days a week – egad!). I’ve also written three books, the third of which I just finished editing, and 84 columns for the Lincoln Journal Star. Now that I’ve largely finished Katharina and Martin, I’ve been asked, more than once, “So what’s next? Do you have another book in mind?”

My honest answer is, I don’t know.

“I feel like I’ve written everything I have to say,” I heard myself say to my mom recently. I’ve been wrestling with writer’s block and creative ennui. I don’t know what’s next. I don’t know what book I might want to write. I don’t even know what blog post I want to write.

Amid all the questions with no answers, one thing is clear: It’s time for a break. My boys are out of school and on break, and we’re traveling more than usual this summer. Instead of making myself crazy, I’ve decided to let some of the writing go.

The good news is, I have a group of delightful, talented writers to introduce you to in June. These are people whose work I love and respect, and I am excited for you to get to know them, too, if you don’t already.

I’ll also continue my Spiritual Habits series on Tuesdays throughout the month of June.

But other than that, it’s time to refill the well – to clip fragrant bouquets from the garden; to pedal aimlessly in the shade of cottonwood trees; to walk barefoot across sun-warmed cement; to paint furniture and read mystery novels and slice strawberries and water the basil.

It’s time to remind myself that I do indeed have a life worth writing about. But in order to do that, I have to live it first.

P.S. One place I will still likely be during my sort-of writing/social media hiatus is Instagram. Are you on Instagram? I’d love to connect with you over there. 

Let’s Grow Something Beautiful…Together

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When I was young I was always the kid who wanted to compare test scores with my peers. You know, the annoying one who asks, “So…what’d you get on the math test?” I was competitive, and I wanted to make sure my grades were at least on par. If I came up short, I often got mad. And jealous.

Truthfully, I haven’t changed all that much, except now I’m a big kid, and my competitiveness shows up not in weekly arithmetic and spelling quizzes but in my career as a writer. My question isn’t, “What’d you get on the grammar test?” but “How many books did you sell this year?” Or “How many Facebook followers do you have?” Or “Who is endorsing your book?”

I don’t always verbalize these questions out loud, but more often than not, I’m thinking them in my head. And if I suspect I am coming up short in comparison, I often react the same way I did as a kid. I get mad. And jealous.

This, of course, is not only infantile, shallow behavior, it’s also short-sighted. When I focus on my accomplishments, or lack thereof, compared to someone else’s, I lose sight of the big picture. I supplant God’s vision of his kingdom here on earth with my own self-interested goals and desires.

God has a clear vision for what his kingdom on earth should and will look like, and he has a job for each one of us to help bring this vision to fruition. In God’s plan, the specifics of who is doing what don’t matter nearly as much as the fact that we are working collaboratively toward one common goal.

Paul put it this way to the Corinthians:

“It’s not important who does the planting and who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow. The one who plants and the one who waters work together for the same purpose.” (1 Corinthians 3:7-8).

In other words, in my little world as a writer, what’s important isn’t how many books I sell compared to her, or how many Facebook followers I have compared to him, but that I am working together with my peers for the same purpose: to help God grow his kingdom on earth.

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I know how easy it is to get caught up in the comparison game. I know how quickly we can tumble into the pit of insecurity, resentment, and envy. But I also know that training our gaze on our own successes and failures compared to those of our peers does nothing to help further God’s kingdom.

Maybe your job is to plant or to water. Maybe it’s to till the soil, spread fertilizer, pull weeds, or harvest the bounty. Considered in and of itself, your contribution may seem small and unimportant, but remember this: God is using your work to grow his kingdom here on earth.

Only God can take the life within the seed and bring it forth into blooms and fruit, but your small piece – your planting or watering, your tilling or fertilizing – is an important and necessary part of that process.

Let’s not lose sight of our greater purpose. Together, my hand in yours, our hands in God’s, we are helping him grow something beautiful.