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This morning, I’ve got Theme on the brain.
I have the lovely Bonnie Grove to blame thank for that. She wrote a themed blog post about themes today on Novel Matters.
She likened theme to a string truths. Like a necklace.
Theme of my current novel in progress: You don’t know mercy until you receive it.
Theme of my current short story collection in progress: Without community, we wander aimlessly.
Theme of my current week: What the hee haw is going on?
No. That’s not a good theme. Sounds a little too bitter.
How about…
Life throws curve balls. DUCK!
(quack, quack).
No. That is the exhaustion speaking.
Oh. I’ve got it…
When things are not as planned, you must work to see the good in all the unexpected things.
Right now, in my life, I’m squinting, trying so hard to focus on the good.
My boys were to start preschool this year. My daughter, kindergarten. I was to have all kinds of time to write a second novel, a collection of short stories, promote “Paint Chips”.
That all looked real good to me last spring.
But the preschool shut down. My daughter is still on the waiting list at a charter school. I am homeschooling. All three of them. Two of them are more eager to learn than my speed to print more worksheets (they love worksheets!!!). The other fights against me. He just wants to color.
And I have, once again, over-committed to outside things.
Coming off a summer of struggling to write, I long to write…but have little to no time to do so.
On and off, I’ve had the feeling of walls crashing around me.
And that makes me feel selfish. Like I’m stuck in my own big old pity party. And nobody brought cake. 😦
So, here I am, trying to look at the good.
More time with my kids. Getting to share in their learning.
Those are the best good things. And those are the two that I can see right now.
What about you? What’s your theme right now? A lot of us are experiencing changes. How are you doing with them?
susiefinkbeiner.com 
I love the sentence that “you don’t know mercy until you receive it.” Amen, sister. I should be the most merciful person alive.
The theme in my life has been beauty for ashes. God has made my life new and transformed my spirit. Thanks be to God.
And now it’s patience with my dear children who are at home as wIell.
How can we find time to write? Let’s make a plan together! Hey! Let’s make a contract (I just read an article about writing a contract with a friend to hold you accountable for your own writing!)
I could write a novel just answering this, but everybody needs me.
I love you.
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*well
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Well, I have a deadline to meet. Maybe having you to hold me accountable would be nice. And I could hold you accountable, too. Private message me your phone number…how do I not have it? 🙂
Thank you, wonderful Friend. And I am so glad to have seen the ways that God has transformed you. 🙂 I love you, too!
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My theme seems to be, “maintain the status quo, financially speaking”; which is to say, keep the job I hate because it’s not a good time to change jobs right now. Not with my first kid in college and the house and cars falling apart and the uncertainty of it all. I hate that theme. I want to quit it all and do the things I love – write, hang out with kids, work on cars, act, make movies, do all the things I promised myself I’d do before I got old.
Oops! I’m old. Too late for all those promises. But not too late yet, right? Can I still achieve some of my dreams?
I focus on the dreams that have come true: the love of a most excellent wife, the joy of my (sometimes infuriating) children, the fulfillment of working with the young children at church.
And let God handle the rest. He knows if I will ever have something useful to say to the world, if my writing ever comes to anything. He knows if my music will ever grace anyone’s ears but his own. He knows all these things, and I will trust that all things will come in His time, not mine.
I’m so grateful to Him that you have been a part of one dream, for I was never so blessed as to work with you and the children at church. And I am grateful to Him that you are also a part of another dream, even if it is never fully realized; to sit with you and the others in the Writers Group and talk story and theme and meaning and even (!) grammar, to share one another’s literary offspring, to help one another in the journey towards the goal of authorship.
Meanwhile, I slog through the workday as though in a dream, waking up when it is time to leave the office and living my life in-between, hoping one day to wake up from the nightmare and enjoy life once again.
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Guess my theme is “I’m running behind on everything because I didn’t read this until tonight!’ 🙂
I also think I’m sharing your current theme. So much unexpected, and really unwelcome, has come in the past few months. I seek to find the good, but sometimes just fail. I love you! We’ll make it through all this, and I’ll hold you up when you’re weak, and you me, and someday we’ll be able to see it all.
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Oh, sweet Kathi. We need to get working on the theme of us getting coffee. I miss you SO MUCH!
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