A New Direction in my Writing Journey

So, I have a short, short story started that I was planning on putting on this website, but I got stuck.  I also have a novel begun and I’m feeling a bit stuck.  I’m at a place where I just don’t know what genre I should write; which one I would write best.

Therefore, I have stopped writing for a little while, aside from my blog posts.  But, our local library had a huge book sale last weekend and the beginning of this week, and my sons and I were standing in one of the rooms near boxes of books, when I asked my oldest son if he had seen any books on writing.  He said, “No.”  Then, “Wait, what’s this?”  He handed me this book:

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I purchased the book and took it home and began to read it.  I am reading about some of my favorite Christian authors and how they began their writing journeys; authors like:  Janette Oke, Terri Blackstock, Francine Rivers, Randy Alcorn, Bodie Thoene and many more.  I love reading of their experiences, both struggles and successes.  I was surprised to read how some of them began with the New York publishing houses and were writing things that they are not proud of now, but how God led them to change that.

The most important message I am learning through reading this book is that, as a Christian author, the most important thing to do is to take your desire for writing to the Lord.  I have learned that I need to make my writing a matter of prayer and seek God’s direction for it.  If I give it up to Him, He will show me what he wants me to write and He will help me write it.   I began praying and asking God to show me what kind of story He wants me to write and for whom, and I believe He has already shown me my mission.  Now I continue to pray and wait believing that He will lead me and open the doors for me, as He knows I have had a desire to write fiction for a very long time, but now I have decided it to give it to Him.  I want to write stories that will be pleasing to Him and that will bring Him glory and, hopefully, allow people to see how much they need Him in their lives.

I do not plan to write anything until I finish reading this book, and I will continue to pray.  I will also continue to attend my Writers’ Group meetings.  If you’ve been reading here for a while, you’re aware that I have joined a writer’s group that meets monthly.  They began their season last month and that’s the meeting I attended.  You can read more about it on one of my previous posts.  Anyway, tomorrow is the next meeting, and I am so excited about this meeting.  Our guest speaker will be an author speaking on creating characters.  I look forward to hearing her and learning from her.

As I continue to pray and learn, I believe God is preparing me for His work in the fiction world and I can’t wait to see what He’s going to do through me.

2 thoughts on “A New Direction in my Writing Journey

  1. Glynis Jolly, I think that if you are still trying to either write or learn more about writing, you’re not making excuses. I believe excuses give you permission to give up,whether temporarily or permanently. However, I have not given up. Though I have taken the break, I have done so to spend time in prayer about my writing and to focus on reading more of the type of stories I want to write to learn from them, and I continue to attend my Christian Writers’ Group. I have not given up on my writing, I just believe I need to spend some time learning to do some improving on some of my writing skills as, not only was I stuck, but, quite honestly, I was not really happy with what I was creating.

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  2. Like you, Kelly, a few weeks ago I started feeling stuck on the story I was writing. ‘What POV should I use?’, ‘Is this story going in the direction I want it to go in?’ and ‘How do I get into a routine to write that will work in this haphazard household?’ were and still are my three large concerns. I decided to take a break, hoping to clear the cobwebs out of my poor little brain. Now I’m beginning to wonder if I am using these worries as an excuse.

    How do you make the distinction between reasons and excuses?

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