For the Writers

A Little Pressure Can Help.

For the Writers and those who are hopeful of becoming so.

Years ago, stuck on the second floor of an apartment in South Carolina, not the best life, or even a halfway decent one. There was the “drummer dude” who lived below us. Ever banging away, destroying some old classic song from the ‘70s or '80s. He had no skill; he just thought he did. Long was the list of police visits because of the noise he created. As well as the drama-filled, door slamming one-night stands from questionable girl friends, he brought home.

Down the end of the hallway were the screamers and door slammers, a black “family” who always had someone who got tossed out or escorted out with handcuffs. Across the hall from us was the mystery room. About once a month, on the same day of the month, some guy (never the same guy) showed up in a white shirt, black tie and short hair cut. He cleaned the place, tossed out the old food into containers he took away, and replaced it along with the bedding. Sometimes, even the furniture got replaced in an apartment that was never used. The men looked like Government, so I assumed it was a safe house.

The apartment complex (it was huge, had a bigger standing population than the small town I left) was a part of a corporation, with complexes all over the south. It changed out its office staff every month. So you’d better solve whatever issues you have with them because next month it will be a whole new set of faces who knew nothing about the last month's issues.

The drummer dude would give long, ending lectures on flat earth while being stoned out of his mind. The Black Door Slammers looked like they wanted nothing more than to mount someone’s head on their car as an ornament. And the reality of a potential safe house next to ours, mixed with the unknown of who might come looking for them, made me keep my weapons close.

With all that, that is where I learned to spend a LOT of time learning to improve my writing. I even tried my hand at Poetry.

So writing started as an escape, a chance to step into another place, time, or world. I thought of the old days, farm work, farm life. Shooting snakes and practical jokes, fishing, rainstorms, and digging out from under snowfalls. It all seems so far away from this apartment exile.

I dreamed of maybe living in the mountains of Montana, or even fishing once more along the Colorado River in Moab, Utah. And in all this, I found that this longing started to affect and change my writing. I became a little more descriptive and thoughtful as I pondered what some of these old things felt like.

So a fire was building, I wanted to leave, and in some ways, maybe I should have cared a little more about how I left. I mean, I did not hate the South; I just hated being in an apartment in the South, and that attitude was starting to manifest all around me.

To my surprise, in the last few years, the Lord brought along friends I did not expect, so I wrote a Poem concerning them when I left.

Time has now passed like shadows before dawn. There are things I see now that I did not see then, and my writing… has grown a little deeper. There was a man from Tennessee, now dead, who in the last poem I called “old books.” I’m thinking it must have been an anointing on his life. In ten seconds of sitting down in his office, we could take up the deepest conversations on the simplest of things.

I’ve tried to honor that and always think deeper on spiritual subjects and pull them into the world around us. It takes effort sometimes to find connections between the spiritual and the physical so that deeper thinking can happen. But such work can turn into a habit and then flow more naturally in your daily life… and writing.

The reality is, sometimes writers need pressure, pressure to force things to come to the surface. Case in point, there was a gal back east who did not like the pressure the ministry was putting on her. So, in my opinion, she was forced to use writing as a creative outlet against the stress of running their social media campaigns. The end out flow was the publishing of several books, including an illustrated kids' book, a book on dating, and more.

However, once the pressure was removed, and her husband got a high-paying job, the book writing ended. The pressure was gone, and their family of four now has other things to fill their time.

Writers need things like a self-imposed schedule or the deadlines of publishers to keep things moving. I know I needed it; it forced me to write a lot of things, including poetry. Not saying it’s good poetry, but at least I did it.

So many things can and do get in the way of writing, and this requires the ability to say, “NO,” to many things. So you need to control what you have. Substack for me is a little bit of a pressure relief valve, and perhaps a bit of therapy from the corporate religious system. It has worked out far better than WordPress blogs, and the few paid subscribers that have joined on Substack are a source of encouragement that keeps things moving forward.

Don’t make your writing difficult. Don’t get pulled away by the crowd. Find that quiet corner and toss the key to the ground.

I generally have several writing projects going on, and when I run into a stop with one of them. I will switch gears and go work on something else. Letting yourself get “stuck” and unable to move forward on something kills the creativity, or so I have found. So walk away from it and push on something else for a while that will move.

And sometimes in the process of digging to find stuff for one project, the answers to the last one show up, so be flexible.

Do you believe that God is a part of your writing? If you do, then try to accept that there are times he may want you to walk away and work on another project. Because, and I personally found this to be true, what I need for one project may be found in another.

Since pressure can be good, I decided one day to challenge myself and attempt to write many different kinds of things (or at least attempt it) in a poetic form. So I asked the Lord for something prophetic that I could use.

Everything that grows needs pressure. I know many years ago, NASA built some fully enclosed habitats to study what day-to-day life would be like in space. The idea was that all food and energy came from within the habitat. The funny thing was that all the trees grew twisted. No matter what kind of tree, it was weak and twisted.

Study after study was run until they discovered that trees need wind; they need the wind pressure to force them to grow straight, for the wood to be strong.

Pressure helps all things to grow, too much and things break, the right amount, they grow stronger. Pressure affects birth, growth, creativity, and ministries. The lack of it sees weakness, lethargy, and unrighteousness grow in people's lives.

Case in point, I almost did not graduate from high school because of English classes and horrible spelling. But I kept pushing, trying, and at least now some of my stuff seems to have become better.

Don’t give up.

Short Morningstar Comment

#1. I have heard from two sources now that Moravian Falls church is now combined with “The Father’s House” for the use of the building. Currently, Rick is not taking his fingers off his half so it can thrive.

#2. It is also being reported that Rick is withholding legal payments. Rick, do you not know that according to scripture, a worse form of Poverty will come upon you and all those employed and in membership with you because of your actions? Or did you “forget” to add that little fact into your Overcoming Poverty booklet?

One More Thing.

One of the biggest rumors is that Charlie was killed by Mossad, the Israeli version of the CIA. If true, this means that religious Jewish fanatics killed both Charlie and Stephen.

Think about it.