Writing

Well, I'm procrastinating a little ... well, a lot ... here. You see, it's National Novel Writing Month, and I have an hour before my maths workshop this afternoon, which I should really use to continue writing my novel, because I'm already a day behind, it's Week Two, and I'm going on a Christian Union weekend away this weekend, and I don't want to be completely antisocial and spend the whole time writing. So yes, I'm procrastinating, which usually gets me into some kind of sticky mess or another, but still I do it.

Anyway. Writing is good ... although I can't think of what to write next for my novel. I'm liking my characters (kind of), I'm learning from them (!) but I don't know what's going to happen next. I've got to get about five days more writing down before I can really start writing the next 'stage' of the plot I actually know about ... which is GREAT. What happens next?

Yesterday I was sitting in exactly the same place I am now (in the cafeteria on level 3 of JCMB, at the same table and same seat too, in fact) and overheard a conversation between a (probably English) guy and a German guy. They were talking about the English guy's use of the language, and (no I'm not a creepy stalker ... ) I heard the English guy say:
"If you want to correct your English, speak to a German."
This amused me, and now I think about it, it makes quite a lot of sense. Sometimes we become so used to something, doing something a certain way, speaking a certain way, living a certain way, that we don't notice where we go wrong.

If you're a Christian, have you ever been around non-Christian friends who know you fairly well, and you do something and they say:
"You can't do that, you're a Christian!"
It's a bit like the whole English-German thing. Sometimes we're so used to being Christians that we maybe don't examine our actions, our words, or our thoughts like we ought to; sometimes it takes someone on the outside to notice that, in fact, we're not perfect.

So here's a bit of a challenge. Try to keep perspective of what you do, think, say; just because you're a Christian doesn't mean you're just not going to sin or anything. We can think we're pretty good and actually be really horrible! I've done that before, and probably still do frequently. If you feel you need to, it can be good to find an older Christian to be accountable to as well - they should be pretty good at spotting those things we don't notice ourselves as well.

Ok, I'm going to go back to my novel now :)