Coloring Outside The Lines

My old English teachers still mess with me, especially when reinforced by somebody’s good intentions, a person who thinks writing is all about being proper and following the rules.

It’s a hard thing to struggle against. We are raised in a culture where rules are important, where you get rewarded for following them: good grades, good schools, good jobs. If you keep to the straight and narrow, you got your path laid out in front of you: career, marriage with 2.5 kids, vacations, retire to Arizona, a European cruise, reasonable health care. It’s a life with no adventure.

It’s a life with no faith. Nobody in a rule driven life can go to a place they are yet to be shown. That’s not being careful. You cannot be careful and move into the unknown at the same time. Faith is a risky business.

So is writing. Real writing is putting words on the page one at a time, not knowing where you will end up. It is a courageous act of discovery not suited to the faint of heart. You have to be willing to break a few rules, get your page a little messy, be unafraid not to clean it up too much you take all the gristle and bone out of it.

If you do it right, what you will write is a living thing, going where it wants to go. You might have a leash on it, but there aint no choker and the better it is the bigger dog you got hold of following its nose. You got to put your trust in something besides yourself and what you know about writing. You got to trust it knows where it wants to go.

It’s just like faith when you put your trust in something bigger than you are and trust where He’s leading you. It’s not about right and wrong. It’s about who you are and where you’re going. There are times when you need to ignore those old teachers and not be afraid to color outside the lines.