Author Does the Unthinkable

Jun 12, 2019 by Jeanette Hanscome

The dream is always the same: I’ve gone back to college but haven’t been to class in weeks. Possibly months. I can’t even remember where the class is located. All I know is, if I don’t start showing up, I will fail. But if I do show up, I’ll have to explain where I’ve been all this time. What if there’s a test today. I’m pretty sure there is. Will I even be allowed to take it?

I reassure myself that I’m just having that crazy “I’m back in school and haven’t been to class all semester” dream again.

No, this time, it’s real.  

Is it too late to drop the class?

Yes, it is. The drop period ended last week while I was wandering aimlessly around campus carrying my Trapper Keeper from 8^th grade. Have I gone to any classes this semester? I know I’ve walked the halls a lot and run into kids from high school.

I approach the classroom door (at least I think it’s the door to my class; it has been so long), my stomach in knots. What kind of excuse will I give? The teacher is going to be so mad at me. If he remembers my name.

This is how I felt on Thursday when, for the third week in a row, I accepted that writing a blog post was not going to happen. I had several partial ones, but none completed. I’d responded to, “What you just said would make a great blog post” with, “You’re right, it would. I think I know what I’m going to write about now,” only to stop after jotting down the idea on a sticky note. I’d been inundated with work and family stuff and school ending for good little students who’d attended class. A friend had invited me to join her on an exciting new project and we were trying to find time to get started during summer. I also had a book proposal to write. When would I do that?

Then a thought came to mind: take a summer break from blogging.

Writers don’t take summer break. Some of us might take a week off, but we’ve learned not to admit that publicly for fear of receiving, “Well, how nice for you” in a Reply All on a discussion loop. Despite what you’ve seen in movies, our financial stability depends on us being chained to our desks at all hours of the day or night. If we take Sundays off, we are sure to include the Bible verse that supports it and “Unless I’m on a tight deadline.” Blogging doesn’t earn income, but if we let our readers down, they will abandon us for an author who blogs more consistently. That’s how the glamorous life of a writer works.

So you can image my horror, when this thought kept plaguing me: Take a summer break from your blog. How about if you start with the rest of June. At least see what happens if you try.

Followed by:

What if I asked you to fast from blogging? Would you do it? I kind of hinted at it before Lent, but you ordered that C.S. Lewis devotional instead.

Was that God or just me avoiding going back to class and having to explain where I’d been for three weeks?

But what if He did ask me to fast from blogging? Was that even a thing?

I thought about my friends who’d taken sabbaticals and trips to solitary places to reflect. Most of them planned ahead for those breaks, but others didn’t. They woke up one day and knew that something needed to go so other things wouldn’t fall off their plates—like, for example, their sanity or their children. Some feared disappointing their readers, or losing subscribers, but they didn’t lose me. When they came back, I thought, Yay! I’ve missed her! I wonder what cool things she has to share now. Some of them used the time to write future blog posts, or other things. Or they did the unthinkable—they enjoyed the extra time away from the screen having real conversations.

I decided to obey the voice saying take a summer break from blogging.

I have no idea why I feel this nudge, or if it will even last all summer. Maybe I just need to be willing to do it and see what God does with that willingness. For now, I’ll see you for sure in mid-August after Nate goes back to school.    

Have a great summer!