Beating the Rain

By Chandra Lynn Smith

I’m sitting at my desk this morning pretty much feeling like the weather. Pennsylvania is known for its fickleness about changing seasons. We can go from winter to spring to summer to mud all in the same day. And yes, around here we truly do feel like we have a fifth season called mud.

This morning when I look out the window over my left shoulder, the clouds have broken and brilliant sunshine casts rays of light through the trees. Yet, as I look out the window in front of me the rain is pouring down. Raining while the sun is shining. I grew up in North Carolina and Georgia and my Mama had a phrase—that made no sense at all—she used when it rained with the sun shining. She would look outside and say, “Look, the devil’s beating his wife.” That statement is wrong and weird on so many levels, I know. But, it was what she said.

I’m about halfway through my current manuscript and I am way behind my schedule. I am blessed to have a patient editor. I was booking along and thinking the story was going until it wasn’t. It stopped altogether. I’d say I got quite stuck in the mud, the Pennsylvania, red, clay mud that prevents all forward movement.

During those days when writing didn’t happen I read some, I pondered a lot, and I listened. I listened to music, to God, to my characters, to my heart. I feared I was going to have to abandon this project and delay the third book in the series. But, in the still of a dreary, rainy day I “heard” one of my characters explain what was wrong with the plot.

I went back to the beginning and made needed changes. The story will be so much better and the faith elements deeper. I needed to get stuck in the mud in order to change my direction and move forward. You may wonder why the weather analogy. Unless and until you have experienced the seasons of Pennsylvania, especially the winter-spring-mud season, you just need to take my word for it. Writing is like experiencing every type of weather all at the same moment.

And, sometimes, when the brilliant sun shines on your story there may be the rain of doubt pouring into your heart. Don’t remain stuck. Don’t let the devil beat you until you give up. Focus on the Light. He brings your stories to you. Allow His Light to shine despite the rain. Because after the rain, the sun does makes the droplets glisten.

Here’s to God making our manuscripts glisten.

Chandra Lynn Smith is a professional dog trainer by trade and a writer by heart. Chandra, a 2015 American Christian Fiction Writers Genesis Contest winner, and the owner of Best Friend Dog Training lives on a small farm in South Central Pennsylvania. Their house is often filled with any combination of the glorious chaos of their two dogs, four sons and spouses, precious granddaughters, and seven grand-dogs. Her novels: Turtle Box Memories, To Follow a Dream, To Chase a Dream, and The Light Holding Her can be found on Amazon. Find Chandra on her website and Amazon page.