Mazzy Adams
I’m drafting this blog on what happens to be my birthday. If you’re old enough to remember the birth of the current millennium, you may also remember the controversy—no, not the one about the Y2K bug, but the debate as to whether January 1st 2000, or 2001, marked the millennium’s actual beginning. While context is needed to decide whether a millennium, or a century, or even a decade begins with a year ending in a zero or a one, let’s just say this birthday’s ability to mark a new decade for me is unequivocal.
Where did the years go? I saw a Facebook post the other day asking people to name something they’d had as a teenager that they didn’t have now. Quick as a flash, I thought, (but did not say) a size 10 figure. The clothes I wore then would not fit me now. Time and circumstances do influence the choices we make.
Likewise, back then I had no idea I’d become a creative writing student decades later, or an author, or an independent publisher; no idea I’d need to research, debate the merits of this option or that (or the other), weigh the benefits of one divergent path over another, appreciate (or baulk at) the wealth of information available to help writers make choices (or confuse them even more). Here's just a few of the choices I had to make:
• Focus on poetry and creative non-fiction or write a novel, or do it all?
• Adhere to strict genre expectations or write the story that wanted to be told?
• Use a standard narrative structure or tackle a converging narrative?
• Hire an editor or hire an editor? (Simples; no brainer; hire an editor.)
• Follow the traditional submissions route or …
Discover the path to publishing was no more a case of ‘one size fits all’ than my teenage wardrobe choices were compared to those I make now. Back then, I also ‘had’ …
Absolutely no idea where God would take me in the forthcoming decades. Now I have the benefit of hindsight, the blessing of experiencing his unfolding plan, and a greater measure of confidence that God’s plan is the perfect fit for each of his children—even if his plan leads us along the road less travelled, as it did for me.
Last night, God reminded me that one of my early tasks as a creative writing student was to write a free verse interpretation of The Road Not Taken, a rhymed and metered poem penned by Robert Frost decades before I was born. I’d forgotten all about that! I searched my old files to find what I had written (over a decade ago) and realised, yet again and to my joy, God not only knew the right direction for me to take, he’d organised signposts for me ahead of time:
All the Difference – Mazzy Adams
Two roads diverged,
Each beckoned and implored I tread their ground.
Regretting I must choose one path
Or tear myself in half, I stood
And vacillated …
Waited, wondered,
Strained to see beyond the bend
Of one that rested ‘neath the ferns,
The other, eiderdowned in moss, appealed
As equal to the first,
Yet it called louder from
Its lonely, cloistered comfort.
‘I need the wear,’ it said.
Perhaps it lied; each claimed emprise with equal flair,
Each offered opportunity …
Apologising to the first,
And promising I’d come again—
‘Your future is unknown!’ my conscience quipped,
‘You cannot guarantee you will return to try again!’
—I took the mossy path and ventured forth.
Future unknown, the present tense,
Yet in the past I made a choice:
Two roads diverged beneath the trees.
I chose
The road less travelled …
What’s the takeaway in all of this? Hopefully, reassurance that God can be trusted to show us the way we should go, and confidence that his plan for each individual is a perfect fit. Why settle for some generic ‘one size fits most’ way of living, when God’s plans for us are so, so good?
What signposts has God organised in advance for you?
Mazzy Adams ~ Author ~ Genre Rebel
Intrigue and Inspiration with an Upmarket Down Under Vibe.
A published author of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction with a passion for words, pictures, and the positive potential in people, Mazzy's debut thriller, Licence to Die (GRUnGE.001) has just been released.
Discover more at https://mazzyadams.com/
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