Is Seventeen Enough?

I just signed a contract for my 17^th book.

Seventeen.

That’s not counting the four or five finished manuscripts on my computer that will probably never be published, or the eight or nine manuscripts that I started and never finished.

Seventeen.

It seems like kind of a magical number. Lucky, maybe. Like it should mean more than the sixteen that came before it. Instead, I find myself feeling a little bit melancholy, and wondering if my words have reached the people they were meant to reach. I wonder if my Father in heaven is pleased, or if I have meant to do all that He intended. I wonder if my words will last—if my stories will linger in the mind of some reader who picked up one of my books and wandered inside the pages. I wonder if I’ll cry as I write this book…this seventeen. I wonder if it will mean more, or less, or if the story will come easier simply because I’ve now had practice tweezing words from my brain and putting them onto the page.

I wonder if this one will be enough for me…this seventeen. Will the storyteller inside me finally be satisfied, or will I look with longing toward eighteen? I wonder…

TWEETABLE:

Is Seventeen Enough? By Elizabeth Ludwig (Click to Tweet)