Thoughts on Writing

Encouraging Young Writers

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As I have mentioned before, I love teaching writing to young people, especially those who are so interested in writing and eager to learn.

We had our homeschool co-op today and I am free during the 5th period.  One of my students came to sit with me and I was reading something that another student had written, but the young lady sitting with me asked if it was my story.  I told her it wasn’t and pulled out my story and handed it to her.

She’s been struggling with writing but she has a desire to learn how to write stories, and she wants me to assign specific homework!  So far this year, I’ve just told them to write a story and to keep it going as long as they can.  Most of the students are happy with that, but this young lady and a couple of other students want me to give them homework.  I promised I would come up with something for them for next week, but their stories are really good.  I hope they continue to work on them and finish them one day.

Back to this young lady, she read about four pages of my story and said, “Okay, I have an idea for my story now.  Don’t worry, I’m not stealing anything from you, but now that I read some of your story, I have an idea of how to write some of what I wasn’t sure about before.”  She took out her story and she wrote several paragraphs in the course of about a half hour, while I was working on a short piece that I plan to submit.  When I put my work away, she asked me a couple of questions about her story and I offered her some advice.  It was really nice to share this one-on-one time with her.

Here is a piece of advice I shared with my class:  If you begin writing a story and get stuck or decide you don’t like it, Don’t throw it away!  File it somewhere because you could get an idea that would help you finish the story, or you might want to use parts of that story (a character, setting, etc.) in another story.  You never know when something you wrote that you thought was worthless will become valuable.

Meet My Writing Friends

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My Hand 008

I thought that since I posted about our weekly evening writing group, you might like to take a look at what my friends are writing.  They each have a blog where they write, in addition to the other things they write when we meet weekly.

First, there is my “Random” friend, you can see the fruits of her talent at Random Stories Under a Blue Moon.

Next, there is the amazing poet in our group, and you can read some of her poetry at The Dance of Life.

Finally, there’s the politically minded, non-fiction light of truth of the group, and you can read her truths at The Truth Expedition.

I hope you enjoy visiting my friends.  I certainly enjoy my weekly evening with them.

The Value of a Writing Group

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I have three friends who like to write, just like me, but have trouble making time for writing, just like me.  Therefore, we have created our own “Inkling” type group.  If you don’t know what that is, are you familiar with C.S. Lewis of The Chronicles of Narnia fame and J.R.R. Tolkien of The Lord of the Rings fame?  Well, they met with a couple of other writers at Lewis’ rooms or in English pubs to discuss writing, share ideas or their own writing, and to do some writing and brainstorming.

My friends and I decided to embrace this idea.  For a few months now, we have been meeting at various places one evening a week, and we talk about writing and things we have learned about writing.  We brainstorm.  We share our writing with each other to get feedback, and we spend time writing — at least an hour and a half of just writing.  We all have come to look forward to our one evening a week and we hold it fast on our calendars because it enables us to do some writing and to encourage one another.  It has become very valuable to each of us.

We would love to find a wifi cafe or coffee shop in a location central to all of us that we could meet in each week, that doesn’t close so early.  However, we haven’t found anything great in a central location, and many of our local coffee shops close quite early.  Therefore, we currently meet at two of our houses, McDonald’s because they’re open all night so if we get on a roll, we don’t need to worry about the time, and one or two coffee shops.  It works, but we really would prefer one great central location.

I advise you to talk to other people and let them know you’re a writer.  Who knows?  You may find another writer or two that you have things in common with or maybe you already have a couple of friends who write, and maybe you can begin your own small writers’ group, and you’ll see how much it begins to mean to you.

Do any of you already do this?  I’d love to hear how it’s working for you and what kinds of places you meet.

How Do You Inspire Others

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How do you inspire others?  Have you ever thought about it?

I don’t think I have ever thought about inspiring others.  I think about helping others, encouraging others and persuading others.

Well, I recently found out that I do inspire others, especially writer friends.  Over the past couple of weeks, I have had a couple of writer friends tell me that the encouragement that I offer them and my enthusiasm for writing “inspires” them and they have been writing more or coming up with more writing ideas since speaking to me about writing.

Wow, that was quite a compliment.  Compliments usually make me uncomfortable, but that compliment made me feel good because I am always glad to help others, especially in a common interest.  I get excited to see their progress!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Now for an update on my writing journey.  I posted on June 23, 2015 about Lisa Lawmaster Hess speaking at our last Lancaster Christian Writers’ group meeting.  Well, in that meeting, she also mentioned that she is a “pantser”!  You have no idea what a relief and encouragement that was to me!

I have been studying writing very diligently for the past two years as I continued to write.  Most of what I learned was about the “Planners”.  I have always been a pantser — ever since I began a love of writing in the 5th grade.  However, I was afraid that since I heard so much about the “planners” and not much about the “pantsers”, that only the “planners” were successful.  So imagine my surprise when Lisa Lawmaster Hess, a published writer, confessed to being a “pantser”.

Woo Hoo!  My spirit leaped for joy!  I had been trying so hard to force myself to become a “planner”, and I was miserable and I was so unhappy with my writing.  Thanks to Lisa Lawmaster Hess I was free!  I could go back to being a “pantser” and worry about edits after my story is down!  Well, I started my work-in-progress over a-gain, for the fifth time, and this time I am going all the way back to my roots and writing with pen and paper.  And, guess what?!  It is making a tremendous difference!  I now LOVE writing again!  I get excited about the next time I get to sit down and write, and when I do, the story flows out of me, and it’s so much better than what I was producing when I was trying to write in a way that is completely opposite of my nature and talent.

Why all the way back to pen and paper? you ask.  Well, I find that when I type on the computer, I tend to go back over what I wrote every time I sit down to write and I am changing and tweaking constantly.  It becomes quite counter-productive.  I find that writing with pen and paper seems to have the opposite effect — I can simply start where I left off and still hit that groove that keeps my story moving and keeps me writing.  I am a happy writer again!

What about you?  Have you been trying to fit a particular mold?  Know that you can be free to be you and write in whatever way allows you to get your story out and write your best and do your best editing later.

Progress!

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I am sorry for missing so much the past couple of weeks.  Life around here has been crazy!  We finished our school year and now need to prepare for our annual homeschool evaluation.  This weekend three of the five of us will attend the annual CHAP Homeschool Convention.

In addition, my husband is recovering from hip replacement surgery and was not allowed to drive until today, but, no, he did not drive today.  Therefore I have been the ONLY transportation for all five of us!

We also celebrated our oldest son’s birthday this past Saturday and mine the Sunday before that, and the Friday right before my birthday, our oldest son and I visited the college he wants to attend because he was to be interviewed for their honors program, AND he was accepted into their honors program!  Therefore, next Saturday, I will again be spending the day with him at the college for him to sign up for classes and a few other things.

I have a couple of things I am excited to share with all of you, but first and foremost, I have received notification of acceptance for one of my devotionals!  Yes, that means a devotional that I wrote and submitted will be published in a devotional book in the near future!  This is the first publishing news I’ve had in a little over a year, and it was the third item to come to me as an affirmation from the Lord that I am, indeed, supposed to be writing.

You see, I have been struggling with whether or not I am really supposed to be a writer or if my timing is wrong because as hard as I try and as much as I desire to spend more time writing, it is still a huge struggle for me.  Most writers say, “It’s a job so make the time!”  I get that and I desire that, but, at the same time, which of my other jobs — Mom, Homeschool Teacher, Wife, Daughter and Friend do I neglect or push aside to make time to write?  You see, all of my jobs are important, and right now, until my husband is back on his feet and back at his job, as much as it frustrates me, my writing job will have to wait.

Now, I hope you will excuse me, as I am extremely tired, so I am headed to bed.  I will try to post at least one more time this week, and it may not be on my usual days, like today.  Bear with me, I hope to get back on track with my blog starting next week, but don’t hold your breath.

How about you?  Do you have too many jobs to know which ones should be priorities?

I believe my first three, listed above, are my first priorities, and those are the ones requiring most of my time right now.  I also believe that there is a season for everything, and I am resting in the peace of the affirmations that God has sent me to let me know that I am supposed to write, and I trust that He will help me make the time when the time is right according to His purposes for my life and the life of my family.

Is it Worth Attending a Writers’ Conference?

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YES!

I attended the annual Lancaster Christian Writers (LCW) Super Saturday one-day conference this past Saturday and it was fantastic!

Why should a writer attend a writers’ conference?  Well, we all know that writing is a solitary, sometimes lonely, job.  We need interaction, and what better interaction than to connect with other writers?  I made some new friends as well as connected with friends I already know.  It was exciting to talk to other writers about writing!

I also was able to have 15 minutes of one-on-one time with published author, Karen Whiting, and what a fantastic fifteen minutes that was!  I took approximately 2 1/2 pages of my current work in progress (WIP) with me (it was the third beginning I have written for this WIP).  I was able to ask Karen to read it and give me feedback, and she did!  She gave me wonderful feedback that was extremely encouraging to me because she had very little corrective comments, but she also had lots of great ideas for my story, AND she gave me a great title for my story.  (She had asked me what the title of the story is, and I said I didn’t have one yet, so she gave me a couple of ideas, one of which I loved and thought would be a great fit).

In addition, there were some outstanding workshops to attend.  I attended two workshops that were presented by author,Dina Sleiman — one on using Myers-Briggs personality types for characters.  My favorite workshop was presented by author, Kelly Long.  She presented a workshop about including “absolute truth” in our fiction — stressing that “absolute truth” only comes from the Bible.  She included two really good activities that we had to participate in, and she shared some of her personal life story.  It was a powerful workshop.

I’m not sure if I mentioned on this blog before or not, but this is my second year as a member of LCW, and this year I also became a member of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), which is a nationwide organization.  They have lots of great resources and ways to connect with other writers online.  There were quite a few ACFW members at the conference and we sat together for lunch and took a group photo after lunch.  That was fun!

After lunch, I attended the second workshop by Dina Sleiman about writing blockbuster scenes.  She went over Making Every Scene Count, POV, setting your scenes, creating your scenes, and exiting your scenes well.

The final workshop I attended was presented by Karen Whiting, and it was on Marketing, and it was another great help to me, as she handed out index cards at the beginning of the workshop and told us to write the title of our book, our name, and what our book is about on the index card and hand them in.  Then as she spoke about the many ways to market, she went through the index cards and offered marketing suggestions to those individuals for their book.  So, not only did she help me by giving me some great ideas for writing my book, as well as the title I plan to use, but she gave me some great ideas for marketing the book, when the time comes.

I also want to mention that our opening Keynote speaker was Grace Fabian, and what an powerfully, inspirational opening she gave.  She has a remarkable testimony, and I bought her book so I can read her life story.  She has suffered great pain and loss but still has a strong faith in God.  What a blessing!

So not only was this conference wonderfully helpful for my writing, but it was a revival to my spiritual soul that had me praising the Lord!  I’m so thankful to know Him.

That’s the kind of great stuff you can get out of attending a Writers’ Conference, and it doesn’t have to be a long, expensive one to make it worth your while.  Sure, I would love to attend one of the big Writers’ Conferences that last a couple of days and cost over a hundred dollars to attend plus the cost of a hotel room, but at this time, I am unable to do that, and not just because of the financial cost.  I hope to be able to do that some time, but until then, I attend all of the inexpensive, one-day workshops I possibly can, and I get something out of each and every one of them, and I have made some new friends by doing so as well.  I highly recommend that you get to whatever writers’ conferences you can, as well.  I don’t think you’ll regret it.

One-Day Super Saturday Writers’ Conference

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A writers’ conference is a great place to learn more about writing techniques and marketing and publishing opportunities and possibilities.  It is also a great place to meet other writers and make connections and form bonds, which is a wonderful thing since writing is a lonely business.  You can make lifelong friends who can help and encourage you and you can do the same for them as you walk your writing journey.  I attended this event last year, and cannot wait to attend this Saturday.  If you are anywhere near Lancaster County, I invite you to come and see what this one-day conference has to offer, and if you like, I can meet you face-to-face if you let me know you are coming so we can connect.

LANCASTER CHRISTIAN WRITERS HOSTS ONE-DAY CONFERENCE ON APRIL 11, 2015, AT LANCASTER BIBLE COLLEGE

For a bargain of excellence and price, no writer, whether beginning or advanced, within driving radius will want to miss Lancaster Christian Writers’ Super Saturday 2015!! to be held April 11th, 2015, from 8:30am.-4:30pm at Lancaster Bible College, 901 Eden Road, Lancaster, PA 17601.

This one-day writers conference offers a full slate of workshops taught by top industry professionals in both fiction and non-fiction fields. An early registration price of $50 is due by Wednesday, April 8, and includes soup/sandwich buffet lunch (think Panini!) and LCW membership. Registrations after April 9 and walk-ins day of the conference are $60.

A fiction track will be taught by award-winning novelists Dina Sleiman and Kelly Long along with children’s author Brenda Hendricks. Non-fiction faculty include TV/radio speaker, marketing expert, award-winning author of 19 books Karen Whiting, professional memoir and ghostwriter Shawn Smucker, journalist/social media experts Lisa Bartelt and Alison McLennan.

Keynoting the opening session will be linguist, missionary, and author Grace Fabian. Workshops cover such topics as: 

Market Yourself Now! Learn Tools to Develop Press Kit, Bio, Website, and Other PR Products.

Writing Blockbuster Scenes: How To Keep Readers Flipping Pages and Asking For More.

 Transformed Manuscripts: Repackaging Your Ideas (Sold or Rejected) to Expand Marketability.

 The Unfortunate Truth in Fiction: Addressing Hard Issues Without Pulling Down Your Story.

 A Story To Tell: Surefire Do’s and Don’ts to Write a Gripping True Life Story or Memoir.

 Myers-Briggs for Your Protagonist: Applying Personality Types to Create Characters with Distinctive Qualities, Motivations, and Voices.

 Let’s Ride the Seesaw: Recruiting Your Inner Child to Communicate with Young Readers.

 100% Guaranteed (Oh, Yeah?) Secret to Blogging Success Beyond Your Wildest Dreams!

A conference bookstore will offer a wide variety of writer resources and faculty titles. Conference attendees can get personal consultations with faculty on a first-come, first-serve basis. Lancaster Christian Writers welcomes writers of all churches and denominations, all levels and genres. Monthly meetings offer opportunities for manuscript critique, networking with other writers, workshops and guest authors.

Taking Care of Me and Learning that Writing Requires Patience

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This year I am trying to commit to doing things that I think are important for my own personal well-being.  Being a mother of two busy boys and one adult son who is preparing for college, and homeschooling makes life very busy.  Being a mother who has always put everyone’s needs before her own, it is difficult to consider my needs important enough to allow time to take care of me on a daily basis.

Last September, I had a wake up call that caused me to make, not only and effort, but a commitment to take care of me.  Last September, I had to wake my husband and have him take me to the emergency room because of severe pain in the middle of my chest that shot straight through to the center of my back and into my right shoulder.  I was frightened, worried that I might be having a heart attack.  After spending about eight hours in the E.R., I was relieved and thankful to find out it wasn’t my heart, but I was diagnosed with gall stones, and in order to avoid repeating this awful pain, I needed to change my eating habits.  (Also after a follow up appointment with a specialist, they made an appointment for me to see a surgeon to have my gall bladder removed.)  That never happened.  I found a naturopathic doctor instead, and what a blessing!  She has me on several whole food supplements and gave me a plan for eating healthy that would not aggravate my gall bladder, and it was the first healthy eating plan that I have found easy to follow and stick to, and I have been doing well since then.  So, pain motivated me to commit to taking care of myself physically, and now that the weather is getting warmer, my plan is to commit to walking my dog at least three times a week as well.

What about my other needs?  My need to feed my brain and my need to write.  My need to feed my brain is filled by having time to read, so I have committed to reading every night before bed.  This has been a blessing in three ways:  1) it feeds my brain with knowledge and entertainment; 2) it allows me to examine other writers’ works to see what is selling; 3) it relaxes me and helps me to sleep.  Finally, my need to write, and for me it is a need.  I find if I do not write, I get frustrated and short-tempered and feel like I could burst because I have story ideas and characters in my head that really need to get out.  I have been blessed by a supportive family in this endeavor, as well as the others listed above, in that they encourage me to write.  I have been a member of a local writers’ group for a little over a year now that meets monthly, and I rarely miss a meeting.  They also have a one-day writers’ conference in the Spring and I attended last year and am already registered for this year.  Any other one-day writers’ conferences or workshops that I find happening withing a reasonable driving distance, my family encourages me to attend, and I do.  I also committed to writing this blog, not quite a year ago, and this year I am doing my best to commit to posting three times a week, though I don’t always succeed.  I have recently committed to writing for two hours every evening and I have been blessed to be able to be faithful much more than not in this endeavor.  I am also committed to connecting with other writers/authors, both published and unpublished because it is an encouragement and inspiration to me to get to know them and to learn from them.

Finally, this morning, I made another commitment that I should have made a very long time ago, and that is I committed to starting each day, Monday through Saturday, in devotion with the Lord.  Sundays I won’t have time to do this as we will I will be busy helping everyone get ready to get out the door for Sunday school and church where I will meet with the Lord on His holy sabbath each week.  This is huge because this fills my most important need; my eternal need; my spiritual need.  The first devotion/Bible study book I have decided to go through in my morning times with the Lord is Write His Answer by Marlene Bagnull because not only will this provide nourishment for my spiritual need, but will help me and encourage me in my writing, something I believe God has given me to do.

This morning I learned that “Writing requires patience”:  patience in doing the writing, patience in editing the writing, patience in receiving feedback on the writing, patience in waiting to hear back from the magazine or publisher or whomever I submit my work to, and patience to keep trying when my writing is rejected over and over and over again, all the while trusting in the Lord.  The two verses that the Lord impressed upon me this morning are:

“In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.”  (Proverbs 16:9)

“Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ.”

(Philippians 1:6)

These verses tell me that I need to seek God’s plan for my writing and set specific and measurable goals and to give myself and my writing time to develop.

How about you?  Are you taking care of yourself?  Have you learned to seek God’s plan for your writing and have you learned to be patient — to give yourself and your writing time to develop?

Discipline and Determination

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Okay, so I have shared, in the past, that I struggle with finding/making time to write.  Well, on Saturday, February 21, 2015, I attended my Writers’ Group meeting.  I was to give the devotion that day, and I shared a devotion entitled “First Things First” from the book Write His Answer:  A Bible Study for Christian Writers by Marlene Bagnull that focused on Matthew 6:33  “Give Him first place in your life and live as he wants you to.”  I also mentioned, before sharing the devotion that it is often a struggle for me to find/make time to write.  The devotion ends with this Bible verse:  “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.  They shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”  (Isaiah 40:31), followed by this poem:

Pressures

Father, I have so much to do

and not enough hours in the day to do it,

I know that’s only partly true.

I do have enough time

to do the things you want me to do.

But, Lord, how do I sort out what they are,

when everything screams for my attention?

I’m exhausted from rushing —

uptight and irritable.

Please forgive me and help me.

Help me to learn from your Son.

People were constantly pressing in on him.

He could have been consumed–burned out.

But Jesus took time to be alone with you.

He made you his top priority.

I must learn to do the same,

especially when I’m feeling pressured.

Help me to be still and know

that you are God.

Even as you created and hold together the universe,

you can bring order to my life if  I will let you.

Thank you, Lord.

I always make time to spend time in prayer with the Lord each day, but, I will confess, I haven’t made much time to read His word each day.  That is something I want to begin to make time for and I plan to.  My plan was to begin doing so this week, but so many unexpected things have happened this week, it got pushed by the wayside, again.  I need to learn to make it happen even if unexpected things happen.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

What does this have to do with writing?  Well, just like making time to read God’s word requires discipline and determination, so does making time to write.

Our guest speaker, at that February 21, 2015 meeting, mentioned during his speaking, that it is good for writers to have busy lives because it gives us a full life which gives us lots of ideas and information to use in our writing.  However, he also mentioned that he writes for two hours a day, sometimes longer on weekends, even in his busy life.

All of this resonated with me and made me think, and I thought, “If he can do it, I can do it.”  So I determined to set aside two hours a day to write.  I talked to my family about it, and they were encouraging.  So, Sunday, March 1, (no, I didn’t begin doing this right after the meeting), I finally found my determination.  We came home from church earlier than we normally do because it was snowing, and everyone wanted to do their own relaxing activities, so I decided to write.

I grabbed my laptop and went to the dining room table, and that’s when determination kicked in.  You see, I’m horribly guilty of procrastinating at beginning to write because I get onto social media first thinking I’ll write after spending some time on social media.  However, the social media time goes to long and the writing never begins.  So that Sunday, I determined NOT to look at social media, but to IMMEDIATELY begin writing.  I spent three hours, that day, writing.  That was last Sunday.

Today is Thursday, and I have managed to set aside 7 to 9 p.m. every evening to write, and though I haven’t written for the full two hours every night, I have written 1,000 words each night, with the exception of one, on which I wrote 800 words.  Now I look forward everyday to my writing time, and I believe, now that I have made it part of my routine, I will be able to stick with it.

How about you?  How do you make time for writing?

Shot to the Heart

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Well, I suppose I can consider myself an official writer now, as two days ago, I received my first rejection email.  Oh, it was written kindly and politely, but that didn’t take the sting of rejection away.  After reading it, and this was a submission that I had expected to hear something about quite some time ago, I thought, I felt better not knowing than getting that “I’m sorry but we cannot use your story at this time”.

But the sting has gone, and I go on.  I will continue to write and submit and hope.  I cannot do anything else, because I have characters and stories inside of me fighting to get out.

Yesterday, I read this on another blog:

• Agatha Christie went through FIVE years of continual rejection before landing a publishing deal; her book sales are now over $2 billion.

• Louis L’Amour garnered 200 rejections before a publisher decided to take a chance on him; his book sales are now over $330 million.

• Janet Evanovich wrote for TEN years before getting published; she now makes millions every year.

– See more at: http://jodyhedlund.blogspot.com/#sthash.NH9H1wFy.dpuf

After reading this information, I had two thoughts:  1) Wow!  That’s perseverance.  I hope I have that kind of strength, determination and fortitude, and 2) I hope it doesn’t take me that long because I have started at an age where I’m not sure I would have much time to produce a lot of great stories if I had to wait that long.

How about you?  Have you received rejection letters/emails?  How long have you been plugging away at your writing waiting for your big break?