Confessions of a Pancake City Waitress
That’s a working title. o.O
We took a four-hour detour on the way back from Arkansas this week to swing through my first college town in northeast Missouri, and eat at the first place I ever waited tables. It was almost everything I wanted it to be.
Marianne once – perhaps jokingly and in passing – suggested I “could write a book” about Pancake City. I thought about it. I started. I wrote the first draft of a three page introduction and got cold feet.
So many people think they can write a book, and they really can’t. Or shouldn’t. More than that, I don’t really see how it – at least immediately – it would glorify God. I can reason that it might be wildly successful and I’d have more money to give into missions. I can reason that it might be wildly successful and establish a voice for Holy Spirit through me. But God can bless us in ways that do glorify Him, Holy Spirit doesn’t need a secular piece of non-fiction to speak, and I can reason all kinds of things.
I’m going to talk to the Lord about it for a while before I make any next steps, or put any more time into it, or get myself excited with illusions of grandeur. In the meantime, I thought I’d post the three pages for your review. They start like this:
I had been a resident of Kirksville, Missouri for two weeks. I wasn’t even a legal adult.
My boyfriend and I moved from the northwest Chicago suburbs to one-half of the lower level of a rapidly depreciating house opposite a small, crowded trailer park. Or parking lot. It’s landlord was our landlord: a delightfully tacky, middle-aged homosexual man who, shortly after we abandoned Kirksville nine months later, was arrested for some scary sort of negligence whereby an elderly man died in what had been our first, charming home-away-from-home. But I’m ahead of myself already.
You can the rest here.
And let me know what you think in the comments. Honestly. There are parts to these three pages that even I don’t really like, but I wasn’t going to jump into revising it and all of that just yet. Let ‘er rip.
The Esther Project 
I LOVE it – and I wasn’t joking or in passing. I meant it and I think it’s great. You are an excellent writer and you have great stories from Pancake City. Two thoughts – the “Confessions of…” title seems to have been used a lot recently. But that could be a good thing ’cause people are used to seeing it. Second, the “legal adult” line is really good and cute but the 3rd time seems like you’re trying too hard to be cute and good. :) I really like the “if you stopped” repetition. And the opening line is really good. That’s the most important part of a book. Make sure the opening to the last chapter is catchy too ’cause people always flip to the last chapter to see if they want to buy the book. I don’t ’cause I think it ruins it but most people do that. Go Lexi Go! Regardless of what it turns into, if you enjoy it, write it. It may be a bestseller or it may just be for your friends to laugh with you about but I say start it and see what happens.
Thanks Mari. I’ll re-look at some of those things you mentioned, and keep a close eye on the beginning of the last chapter … if I ever get to it. ;)
I really appreciate your thought about what God’s best is for you. There are many who could learn a great lesson from you as you pause and reflect and seek out the destiny the Lord laid out for you before the beginning of time and “for such a time as this!”