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Writing in a way that creates an effective and safe exchange between what's on the pages of your book and the reader's heart, mind, and actions is important. It's what helps bring the change, outcome, or transformation they seek. It's what keeps them reading.
Leader, thinker, changemaker, and cultural influencer, you’ve questioned the feeling but you can't shake it. This next book you are to write must be big and transformational. You’ve come into new way of being, and it’s causing you to see everything differently. The pieces are still coming together and the idea is at the tip of your pen, but you are feeling a bit stuck on how to tease it out. Let the answers to these three questions lead you to your next big book idea.
Going from speaker to writer can be a big shift in expression, but there are ways you can capture your most compelling messages and transformative ideas and get your words on the page and in the book you’ve been called to write.
Living in these moments for you, sent and called one, is an energy leach the enemy counts on. When you find yourself going back to the memories and emotions of the moments you've already begun to heal from, take up the active work of Philippians 4:8.
Beyond mastering their craft, every writer needs a healthy and sustainable writing practice that includes periods of inspiration (query, research, observation), expression (writing, sharing), and restoration (reflection, celebration, rest).
You’ve done OK by yourself. Sure, your book isn’t done, but once you really set aside the time and make the commitment, you could get it done if you really wanted to. The isolation of the writing life does not get to you at all. Friends and family may not understand the sacrifice you need to make to write your book, but you’ve got yourself and God.
If you struggle with overcoming hindrances to your writing and have not been able to break through and write anyhow, let me offer that it is OK to push back against them. Do not lay back as if failure is your lot. It is not.
Your spiritual life as a writer is more than just about how often you read the Bible, pray, and go to church. It’s also about how your whole internal life provides you the right environment to create what God has called you to create and how you will share what you create with others. Helping to develop this right environment, The Pray Hear Write practice enhances your spiritual and writing life in three significant ways.
This is about actively participating with the Spirit of God to assume the right heart posture. How you think and believe as you engage with God is important. So here are the heart postures that help me approach God about my writing.
As I cycle through what is required or what I am committed to as a CEO, a creator who leads and coaches other creators, a mom, a daughter, a sister, and a friend, the messages my mind, spirit, and body communicate back to me are writing a new set of rules.
I brought in the new year reading Kim Perell’s Jump. It was a perfectly timed read. In chapter 4, “The Power of Decision-Making,” she writes about the powerful bit of advice her mom gave her when she was dealing with indecision: “Maybe means no.” Your gut. Your intuition. Your Holy Spirit. Trust it. Trust Him. You know when you are not feeling open to the options in front of you. You know a no when you feel it.
Discomfort is a catalyst for change, for taking a leap you wouldn't normally take, for breaking into something you wouldn't have chanced if your back wasn't against a wall.
Feeling soft brushes of distant sea breezes against my face and through my hair, I am thinking about all the work I have to do after a few back-to-back conferences and a business trip. On this dream-like, cloudy day in perpetually sunny Florida, I’m attempting to get back to the daily grind after succumbing to involuntary pressure to allow a few days to recoup from the last few weeks.
Writing coaches and professional editors and writers often give the necessary and hopefully paralysis-breaking advice to writers: “Sit down and write,” "Get those words on the page," "Just write.” And just writing is sometimes the scariest and toughest part, but then what? We’ve bled all over the page. The words are there. What’s next?
Revising (or self-editing) is the next step in the process after you’ve gotten the first draft of your manuscript written. It can involve several levels, which all begin with you.
For months, I watched my giant peace lily sensation push out leaf after leaf. I was amazed, of course, at her rich foliage, but I knew that these plants produce beautiful blooms. Yet, after so long and no hint of a bloom, I had resigned that mine, while healthy and growing, may not be in the ideal conditions to flower.
Two years ago, my Pentecost Sunday started with a cup of coffee and a James Baldwin essay on a stony terrace behind a lakeside apartment in Minnesota.
Did you know…? “…writers are around eight times as likely to suffer from mental illness than those who don’t pursue writing as a career, according to Kay Redfield Jamison, a psychology professor at Johns Hopkins who wrote Touched with Fire.”
November is National Book Writing Month. It is our chance to make good on our book writing goal for the year. So much has happened in 2020—from a pandemic and social distancing angst to protests, a national election, and virtual learning/work-from-home adjustments for many of our families. It’s been tough, but we are tougher. We are resilient.
While many first-time writers begin with wanting to tell their story, it’s not so much the story that is needed, but the connection to the story that informs a sense of awareness for one’s own needs, desires, and motivations are what connects them to others’ needs. This is what makes good writing…
