She Speaks

Back in January I wrote about how God is showing me my passions. He brought writing, the Bible, and, more recently, teaching the Bible to the forefront of my mind. He has been showing me that these are the areas I am passionate about, and He is calling me to action.

Over the past couple of months, I've been researching the book publishing process. And as I've reviewed blog entries, I decided to move away from the book thing right now and toward submitting articles to magazines. I've been looking for publications that target Christian women and parents. Slowly, I am learning about the process of being a freelance writer. I've also attended a couple of American Christian Writers meetings at my church.

I've picked up a few pointers, here and there, but, really, I am just blindly trying to find my way through this process. Recently, I discovered there are workshops that teach you how to write, get published, etc. I've been considering attending one in May the American Christian Writers are putting on locally. But, today, my sister-in-law sent me an e-mail about a conference in Charlotte.

Per their website, the She Speaks conference seeks "to encourage and equip women as they communicate God's Word through writing, sharing their testimony, leading a Bible study and speaking from the podium." As I read about the different breakout sessions that will occur at this conference, I got excited. There are several that seem to be exactly what I need to hear - Magazine Writing 101: Honing Your Writing Skills, From Blog to Book Deal: How I Got Published without Being Famous, and Self Publishing: Your First Choice.

Then I clicked on the "Registration and Payment" button.

$575.

Not including travel expenses.

Seriously?

As a single income family with two young children to care for, $575 for a writing conference is definitely not in the budget. But God loves to provide funds in creative ways in His timing. In fact, my sister-in-law's email had a link to a scholarship contest for this conference! All I have to do is write a post like this one, explaining a little about the conference and why I would like to win a scholarship. I know it is a long shot, but the Lord can use a contest if he chooses. We'll see!

Would You Look At This...

I was going through old blog posts, and I found something very interesting. Two of you may know that Observations of the Ordinary is not my first blog. I used to keep a Live Journal in college. I can't remember why I stopped keeping it, but when I did, I made sure to save all my posts as Word documents. And tonight I was scanning through them, and I saw one from 2006 titled "I Want to Be a Writer". I thought I'd re-post it here, just for fun.

I want to be a writer. But that’s all I know so far. I don’t really know what I want to write – what genre – I just know that I want to write. All of the good writers say that if you want to be a writer, you need to write every day. I don’t know that I am that disciplined, but I do seem to have the desire/motivation to write a couple times a week. I figure I can force myself into writing the other days of the week. That doesn’t worry me because all the good writers say that’s what they have to do, too.

Aside from loving words and loving to learn and the many other healthy reasons I have for wanting to write, I want to be able to say, “I’m a writer,” to people when they ask what I do for a living. I guess, technically, I wouldn’t be able to say that I do it for a living until I get published (and some chump actually buys my book). But, nonetheless, when I’m at a business dinner with my husband, playing the supportive wife role as he and his cronies talk insurance, I want to have a response other than, “I work part time at a bookstore,” when they look to me and say, “And what do you do?”

I imagine it all going down like this.

“What do you do?” someone inquires. “I write – I’m a writer,” I answer, slightly ticked off because all writers are moody.
“Oh, really? That’s fascinating!” the person responds, because everyone is in awe of writers.

I think most people put people who write for an occupation on a pedestal because everyone wishes they could sit at home in their underwear and get paid handsomely (or even just moderately) to type out a few pages everyday. It all seems so glamorous. That and writers are always perceived as having a mysteriousness and a sense of importance about them that is usually unjustified. I know it will be in my case when I become a writer.

“I write – I’m a writer,” I’ll say.
“And what types of things do you write?” the pleasant stranger will probe.

That’s the question I can’t answer right now. Well, that’s not true. Right now I write reflections on life – God, Christianity, sports, stupid people, my family, getting older, poop – you know, the stuff of life. But one day I might write some fiction or a memoir or a kids’ book or music reviews for a magazine. I might even delve further into the realms of poetry and devotionals, which I’ve explored in the past. Basically, the sky is the limit on the types of things I might write. So, when Joe Schmo asks me, the occupational writer, “What types of things do you write?”, I fear that I will give him a deer-in-the-headlights look, and, in turn, the idea that I really don’t write at all, that when I say I am a writer what I’m really saying is I’m unemployed and just don’t feel like admitting it to Joe.

I guess I need to formulate the answer I’ll give when Joe's ask me what types of things I write.

I guess I’ll say, “I mostly write observations of and reflections on daily life.” When I whip out that serious yet vague response, I suppose Joe will make some dull joke about how I will never run out of material. And I’ll have to return the humorless-joke-ball Joe served right back into his court by responding with something about always having job security. Hopefully the interrogation will end there - hopefully.

If Joe continues to speak, the next question out of his mouth will most certainly be, “Where have you been published,” followed almost immediately by the cordial (but probably completely untrue), “I’d love to read some of your stuff sometime.”

I hear that most writers don’t get published for at least the first five years that they write “professionally”. I also hear that even if you do get published, it could be years before anyone actually discovers/buys/tells their friends to buy your book. If my math (and my hearsay) is right, I can count on spending the next 7-48 years having to tell Joe that I’m not published anywhere yet, but that he is welcome to come over to my house and rummage through my journals anytime. Joe will probably suddenly feel like he’s put his foot in his mouth and will immediately regret having asked me about being published. In order to save face, he’ll probably lie and say he just might have to take me up on that offer and then tell me to “hang in there” on the getting published thing. Then he’ll leave as quickly as he can so as to end this most awkward conversation.

Despite having to deal with Joe's (who, in real life, could be anyone from my family members to strangers I meet in the subway [I’ve always wanted to use that phrase, even though the nearest subway is at least a 7 hour drive from here, but, since I’m the writer, I’ll go ahead and use it]), I still really want to write. I just like to write. That’s it. I think it is fun most of the time, and I really like sitting around my house in my underwear.

So, if you take anything away from this little article, I hope it’s this: always call before coming over to my house.

Yup

Nothing like proclaiming you have a book idea to squelch all creativity.

The Idea

The blog posts have been few and far between lately. Partly because, for me, writing requires solitude. And my children require...the opposite of solitude. My oldest demands it (the opposite of solitude, that is), and my youngest needs it (you know, to survive and everything).

But what doesn't require solitude is researching. That just requires neglecting my children - tuning them out. Or multitasking - bouncing Allie on one knee while typing with one hand while poorly upholding my end of the conversation with Lexi.

Either way, I'm cautiously putting my feelers out with publishing companies, trying to learn what it takes and what my options are when it comes to the publishing process. I'm also reading lots of professional bloggers, like Heather Armstrong, Donald Miller, and Seth Godin, with the hopes of learning more about expanding my readership. These are all folks who blog professionally and write books that people actually buy, so they've got tips for how to get your material "out there".

The most important thing I'm doing, though, is nailing down my focus. It's been hard to pick an idea and run with it. It's been hard to figure out how to serve God with writing outside the traditional genres of devotionals and Bible studies. I am not against writing these types of books, but I'm not excited about it either. All that to say I struggled picking an idea that would both honor God and allow me to retain my "style", which I am loosely defining as honest humor. So, after praying and waiting, I've decided on an idea for a book: a collection of humorous essays about my children and the truths God has taught me through said children. Since I am at the very beginning of the process that is creating a book, I am leaving the door wide open for changing my idea. As I learn more about this process, and as God utilizes His right to give me different marching orders at any time, I could find myself going in a completely different direction. But, for now, this is my focus.

Passion

Today at church Ernie talked about passion. He described passions as God-given gifts that are unique to individuals. They are given to us from God so we can use them for God. Each person's passion(s) is their primary way of impacting the world for the cause of Christ.

Ernie asked us to think about what our passions are and whether or not we are using them to show the world Jesus. Two passions came to my mind: writing and digging into the Word of God.

I discovered my love of the Bible shortly after my conversion at age 16. I surrendered to God in the summer of 1999, and my Christmas present to myself that year was a Bible. I accepted that Jesus is the one and only God because I saw how others were impacted for the better by him, and, ultimately, because I experienced firsthand that he could be trusted. As C.S. Lewis puts it, "I gave in and admitted that God was God." And upon admitting that, I found myself wanting to know everything about him. So much so that I decided to major in Biblical Studies and Theology. I could not think of a better way to spend my time than learning more about God and how to communicate those truths to others.

I have always been a writer. I was reading when I was 4 years old, loved books growing up, and started writing my own short stories somewhere around 8 years old. I moved to writing song lyrics/poetry during my I-hate-everyone-and-everything stage in my early teens. My first year of college I wrote a series of devotionals out of a need to think through the Bible while studying at a school that would rather have me throw the Bible out the window. I've also written in blog format for several years, sharing stories about my family, observations of life in general, and testimonies of what God is doing in my life.

I've felt for a couple of years that God wants to use my two passions in a big way, I've just never been clear on the details. And I certainly have a lot of obstacles preventing me from fleshing that out right now. For one thing, time is not a luxury I have. Raising two small children affords me about 30 minutes/day of solitude. There is a lot competing to fill up that half hour. (In fact, I was just interrupted by my 6 month old.) I can choose to meet with God, exercise, write, rest, read, watch TV, or, God forbid, clean when I finally get time to myself. But I can't do ALL of those things everyday. That being the case, I struggle finding the time to develop my passions and to actively pursue using them for God. I don't know what the solution is, but I'm guessing it doesn't involve putting my passions on the back burner until my children are older.

Things I Wish I Had Time AND Motivation To Do

In no particular order:

-Write more
-Research how to make my blog profitable
-Implement what I discover
-Read more
-Take a cooking class
-Buy healthy food to make healthy meals that don't taste like crap
-Exercise
-Take the Christmas tree down (don't judge me)
-Have a conversation that doesn't include poop

These are not resolutions. Mostly because I don't anticipate completing any of these things until the girls are in school. Except maybe the Christmas tree one. We'll play that by ear.

The Dreaded First Post

My life revolves around three things: God, Elian, and Lexi. I'd like to say that rotation is always in that order, giving just the right amount of time and attention where it is due. But I'd be lying. And you'd know it.

Most of you can guess that my sweet little girl, who's almost 15 months old, receives most of my energy throughout the day. So most of what I write will be about her. The other two desires of my heart, God and Elian, may pop up occasionally, although I'm pretty sure my husband would prefer comments about him kept to a minimum.

I'm not sure how often I will find myself with both the time and the energy to write, but I'll do my best.

As for now, Lexi is throwing plastic balls at me, which is her way of telling me to come play. See you later!