The publishing industry can be a challenge for someone with artistic sensibilities. The psyche can be worn down by disappointment, bad reviews, poor sales, and rejection by agents and editors.
To be resilient in the face of such disillusion is a quality to be desired.
Contemplate this quote from Søren Kierkegaard (Danish philosopher and theologian, 1813-1855) in his book Either/Or:
“If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never.”
What Kierkegaard wrote resonates with me at the deepest levels. Every day when working on a new project or reviewing a new proposal or helping an author through a new challenge, I strive to use “the eye which … sees the possible.”
Is this project commercially viable? Does this author have the indescribable magic? Is this a message that can change lives? Each question is immersed in the “possible.” That moment of decision weighs the possible against the unlikely. Once the decision is made, we hope it was the right one at that moment.
When the “possible” becomes a reality and ineffable literature takes shape, anything can happen. It is a beautiful thing.
The care you take today to craft just the right sentence, to spin the right story, to research, to plot and plan and compose, and to dream. It is in that beautiful mess that the elixir of possibility is formed.
“My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel―it is, before all, to make you see.”
― Joseph Conrad from Lord Jim
It’s the possible that drives me
to face another day.
The Lord may heal, and then I’ll be
more than just OK.
Maybe one day I will wake
with tumours faded, gone,
as sheepish God says, “My mistake!
This one is on Me, son.”
But God is not, has never been
prone to Oops! or error,
and here is where I must come clean,
amidst the creeping terror,
that I hope the Lord will find a reason
to give me a healing season.
Praying for your healing, Andrew!
Thanks, Kelsey!
This made me cry, Andrew. This broken world, our broken bodies … whew! Not easy. I’m so thankful this is not all there is.
((hugs)) and prayers!
To quote Gandalf, Pam, not all tears are an evil.
And sometimes possibility comes dressed in hard and cruel armour. Yesterday I fell, badly, and the metastasis in my left leg was further damaged. The keg won’t really bear my weight.
But there are yet duties in my life, and coping with this will birth new possibilities, a new way ahead.
Hope, like the Saviour, rises again, for truly they are one and the same.
And now I’m sobbing. But yep … hope and Jesus are always rising. <3
Thank you for such a helpful and potentially transformative thought.
I love this beautiful post, Steve. Thank you, it really hits home.
“… the passionate sense of the potential.”
Thanks for that thought, Steve! It comes as I am working diligently to take my current WIP up another level or two so that its message (why a loving God allows suffering) would reach significantly more readers.
I don’t know if I have the “magic,” but I know God has called me to write, so I continue to persevere–forty years after his initial call. And I can dream BIG, because “With man this is impossible, but all things are possible with God” (Matt. 19:26).
Dreams do come true. The possible is only possible if you believe and pursue what you once thought was impossible. I agree with Janet, “all things are possible with God.”
Thinking of the possibilities is what keeps me going. Keeps me dreaming. Keeps me writing. Keeps me submitting. Keeps me waiting.
The biggest possibility for me is to stand before my Father and have Him hold up a certain book and say, “Well done.” It’s what I want more than anything. Second to that is to have people/families read the story He gave me. I don’t even feel like I wrote it. And I’m blessed whenever I read through it. I want others to be blessed by it, too!
Although I am not an “accomplished” author as of yet, the passion alone for writing and creating is something that should always be paramount to a writer. I can dream, as I’m sure most new writers do, about achieving success monetarily. I have struggled with those notions myself and feel selfish in doing so. In my humble opinion, a writer should never lose the zeal to create. The possibilities in that are infinite!