Allie Pleiter and BLUEGRASS COURTSHIP
I am usually the spokesperson for what I term my “highly interruptible life.” I try to embrace the flexibility of my writer’s life as a gift, even if everyone else isn’t ready to see it as such. There are still the irritating folks who seem to believe I just jot down a few poignant chapters while the television commercials are on. Probably the same types of people who believe pastors only work on Sundays. There are blessings—I have no office politics, the shortest commute in history (bed to coffeemaker to desk), I set my own hours, and my office supplies consist of a laptop and a Venti Skim Mocha.
I am, as I like to say, the person you want to call when faced with that pesky emergency appendectomy (it has actually happened) because I can drop everything and take you to the emergency room for four hours without much fallout. Chapter six can get done just as easily in a hospital waiting room chair as it can at my desk (I began my writing career with small children underfoot and have developed black belt writing-amid-distraction skills). My kids are teens and don’t need constant supervision. I’m a roll-with-the-punches gal by nature. So most days I embrace this as a calling, a gift to be shared with those who need it.
Most days.
Every once in a while, NOW for example, the tsumani of distractions and interruptions threatens to loom beyond my coping. Twice now, I’ve had to pen books with family members facing substantial medical issues. To muster up creativity with white knuckles. Yes folks, this past month ranks right up there with Pleiter Worst Months, with that little needle on the Allie Stress-0-Meeter veering solidly into the danger zone. I’ll spare you the details, because it doesn’t matter what they are, only how much they are. I’ll bet your collection may be small but mighty, or large and annoying, or anywhere in between—but the basic truth is that we’re all swimming upstream to keep our writing fires stoked.
I’ll hand you my secret weapon: the “next right thing.” Most matters we face cannot be solved today, but 90% of the time we know the next right thing we should do on any given front. I cannot transform myself into a New York Times Bestseller, but I do know the next right thing on that path is for me to begin my next proposal. Or get to today’s needed word count. Or find the phone number for the oven repair man. Or maybe just get through today.
Or say a prayer that God will guide me to the next right thing, even if that “right thing” is to calm down enough to pray for guidance. One day I plan to get a watch with the following inscribed on the face: There is always time to do God’s will.
I need reminding. Hourly.
Drew Dawson, the hero in my current book Bluegrass Courtship, gets a wake up call about God’s will for his life. And it’s not at all what he planned, nor is it anywhere near the timetable he’d crafted. That’s the beauty of it, though—God’s plan and timetable are higher than our own. He sees farther, knows better, and plans more perfectly than we can ever hope to do. We serve the Lord of Time, the Alpha and the Omega. He can get me through this week, even if it’s worse than last week, because God isn’t the next right thing, he’s the Eternal Right Thing.
The celebrity host of TV’s Missionnovation, Drew Downing is comfortable with his fame. He’s become accustomed to the cheering, star-struck townfolk that usually welcome him as he renovates churches countrywide. Usually. Then he and his crew set up in tiny
From RTBookreviews Magazine:
“Four Stars–With some delightfully humorous moments, Pleiter delivers an appealing romance as well as a story filled with interesting characters”
