by Sandy Kirby Quandt @SandyKQuandt

Ultima Thule may not be your first thought for a blog post on becoming the writer God created you to be, pebble by pebble and marble by marble, but it sure was one of the first things I thought of when I heard about the 21-mile-long planetary object that lies about 1 billion miles beyond Pluto.

Scientist believe this bowling pin or snowman shaped object was created not as a complete object at its beginning, but one piece at a time, as different pebbles and marbles joined together to create the mass it is today. 

See the connection to our writing and us as writers? 

Ultima Thule did not just arrive on the scene in its present state. Bits and pieces came together over the years to create it. In the same way, we as writers along with our writing endeavors, do not arrive polished and perfect prime-time-ready the instant we call ourself a writer, or put pen to paper, fingers to keyboards, or speak into speech to text software. We and our writing are a process full of bits and pieces, pebbles and marbles. 

We can count among the pebbles and marbles that join together to make us who we are as writers all the successes and less thans. Our successes nor our less thans by themselves define us as writers. It all joins together, pebbles and marbles, to show a more complete picture of who we are as writers.

All those writing craft books, webinars, workshops, drafts and revisions? Pebbles and marbles. 

Appointments with writing professionals, contest submissions, queries? Pebbles and marbles.

Submissions, acceptances, sorry-not-for-us? Pebbles and marbles.

Each of those experiences add to our Ultima Thule, if you will. On their own, they may not amount to much, but taken together, piece by piece, pebble by pebble, marble by marble, they create a formidable object.

As far as we know, Ultima Thule hasn’t finished growing. The next pictures seen of the planetary object may show it grew because it continued to add more pebbles and marbles.

No matter where we are on our writing journey, we aren’t finished growing, either. We continue to learn, study, and work hard at the craft. We write those first, second, third, fourth, and fifth drafts. We continue to edit, polish, and submit. We wait. And we wait. And we wait some more. 

We push through the hard and difficult disappointments and discouragements. It may take us a while, but we do it. In the meantime, we keep adding more pebbles and marbles. 

Why? 

Because like that bowling pin shaped 21-mile-long planetary object that is about 1 billion miles beyond Pluto, we aren’t ready to stop growing. We might be one day, but this is not that day. Until God tells us to put down our pens, take our hands off the keyboard, or stop speaking into the software, we press on toward the goal he called us to. 

Never forget, my friends. Whether our work is read by many or it is just between us and our Creator, whether our work wins accolades or is panned, we keep adding those pebbles and marbles. Because, as Aragorn said in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.

I wish you well.

Sandy Kirby Quandt is a former elementary school educator and full-time writer with a passion for God, history, and travel; passions that often weave their way into her stories and articles. She has written numerous articles, devotions, and stories for adult and children publications. Her devotions appear in two Worthy Publishing compilation books; So God Made a Dog, and Let the Earth Rejoice. She has won several awards for writing including the 85th and 86th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition in the Young Adult category, First Place in the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference Children’s Literature 2016 Foundation Awards, First Place in the 2017 Foundation Awards in the Young Adult, Middle Grade, and Flash Fiction categories. Looking for words of encouragement or gluten-free recipes? Then check out Sandy’s blog, Woven and Spun. When The Way Is Steep