Writing Is Like Housework by Jan Powell

Writing Is Like Housework

by Jan Powell

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Romans 10:14, NIV).

Writing, like housework, needs daily attention. For both, successful management requires balance. Clutter can crush creativity by distraction. In the same way, slavish determination for perfection in our surroundings saps our energy.

Writing may tempt us to ignore dishes deserted far from the kitchen, where soapy water can “make all things new,” or at least clean. Dust deep enough on flat surfaces to inscribe messages irritates us. New items stream into the house and settle onto available surfaces. Neatly stacked piles rise as mountains of looming clutter.

A yearning for order may direct our keen eyes away from our manuscripts to the leaves tracked across our floors. Housework can overwhelm our day and consume the time we might have devoted to those empty pages. “But the house is clean, the yard mowed,” we protest.

Some artists defend messy homes, unmotivated to infuse order, which might threaten creativity. Yet, they may pen a few words, then feast on entertainment others produce. Artistic thoughts fly through their heads, flicker and move on. The net to catch, tame, and shape them fails because of widening holes in the nets.

Many creatives enjoy tidy surroundings, but whirling ideas can stop us mid-cleaning. For others, accumulated mental and physical debris suffocates the imagination that might have bloomed.

We must balance our time and attention, devoting ourselves to stewardship of all the responsibilities God has given to us. Just as cleaning depends on us, so does our writing. Each day the tablet or screen waits for our attention. Some days we need more effort to compose, other days more time to review, rearrange, and redo. Continuously vigilant, we furnish our tided rooms with words, paragraphs, and chapters to entertain and edify others. We write to create hospitable dwelling spaces for our reader’s hearts.

Romans, paraphrased, could read: But how can they read, if we do not write, and how can we write without discipline, and how will others benefit if we neglect telling God’s truth as he calls us to? How will readers weep their designated tears or laugh with appointed joy throughout changed lives if we don’t proclaim with diligence?

So, with balance, we set our attention on the tasks set before us.

Father of order and creativity, teach us to walk a balanced life. Amen.

Jan Powell, a graduate of the University of South Florida, helps writers through Writing with You, offering editing, rewriting, and coaching for fiction and non-fiction. Published in The Wordsmith Journal and Splickety, she has written for Inkspirations since the beginning. Her in-depth editing includes poetry, devotionals, memoirs, fantasy, murder mysteries, thrillers, romantic suspense, and flash fiction. She has hosted Tampa Word Weavers for almost two decades and has served in its leadership.