23 - Looking For The End, Finding The Start

I'm writing a novel and have no idea how it's going to end. In fact, I don't know what's going to happen each day as I write. However, I feel I'm getting near the end and really need to know how it's going to end - then I'll be able to taper all the current activities and dramas into a grand finale. But I've got writer's block, something I've never had before. I just need to know how it's going to end and I can't think what that could be or what to write next.

So, in desperation, I asked God and the following words popped out of my pen onto the page … it's the introduction! They say that if you want to give God a good laugh, tell him your plans! Boy, what a sense of humour he has - I want the end and he gives me the beginning! So, at a loss for what to do next, I'll plonk it down here and, hopefully, the rest of the story will unfold as it should … as I think it should … which may not be as God thinks it should!

As a New Zealander I know when an earthquake is approaching. The two main islands of New Zealand - about the size of Britain, together - are long and narrow and lie along (and are formed by) the Pacific Fault Line. Being on a fault line, we get more earthquakes than most other countries. How, then, do we know of an approaching earthquake? Simply that nothing happens … well, less than the normal happens - cats and dogs disappear (if they can) and go quiet, birds disappear and there's no bird-song, cows and sheep stop eating and go quiet, chooks stop pecking and go quiet, the wind stops, rain stops and the weather becomes still and warm. In a way, the world stops and waits. Nothing happens before an earthquake. And then the earthquake happens.

It's like our lives. We set ourselves all sorts of goals, targets and plans and, when we achieve them - get the relationship, car, house, job, business, income, fame, holiday or whatever we want - it's a breakthrough. But what happens just before a breakthrough? Nothing. Something less than normal. Sometimes, when we think everything's going wrong or our world seems to have gone quiet, that's the time our earthquake, our breakthrough, is about to happen … like seeds pushing their way through the earth and we think nothing's happening, till we see them pop above the surface.

And where is the safest place to be in an earthquake? Forget the strong, brittle things like brick buildings - they crumble first. The best place to be is on a flexible, wire fence. Wherever the earthquake hits - and we won't know where till it hits - there will be deep-rooted posts on either side of the chasm to hold our wire. Like the flexible palm tree that survives the hurricane, while the strong hard-wood trees resist and break.

It's like our lives. When we hit an earthquake, just after the nothing happening, we need deep foundations and flexibility - not weight and resistance - to weather the storm, the earthquake or the breakthrough.

I'm not sure why I'm saying this. Perhaps it relates to this story. Perhaps not …