Rough Draft – Faith & Culture Writers Community

April 17, 2015April 27, 2015

Not the usual suspects

By Romal Tune

So where do I begin?

If I had to some up the 2015 Faith & Culture Writers Conference in one word it would be “refreshing.”

I’m on the road three weeks a month each year speaking or teaching at conferences or other venues.

But this conference felt different. It was more like a retreat. The positive energy, encouraging conversations, the inspiring workshops and the great speakers made me feel at peace.

More than that, it was a reminder that I am not alone and that my voice is valued.

Faith & Culture 2015 was refreshing and replenishing, which is important because life can be a bit challenging at times and we need places where people help us recharge. It’s good to know that there is a conference of authors and writers who are willing to share their journeys and stories in ways that are uplifting.

That’s a big deal.

Maybe like me, you have been in somewhat similar settings where there are these passive aggressive competitions between people trying to prove they are better, more important, or attempt to lure you into the comparison trap to make you feel like you’re just not good enough yet. I didn’t sense a hint of that at Faith & Culture, and that was refreshing.

I came across the event on Twitter; and after we followed one another, I checked out their website.

The first thing that struck me was that fact that the list of speakers did not have what I call “the usual suspects” of speakers.

A lot of conferences tend to keep the same speakers in rotation, and after a while that gets a little boring and predictable. I often hear people talking about how there needs to be more new voices included at conferences but I’ve not seen very many actually include new voices.

But, the Faith & Culture Writers Conference was different.

They purposefully inviting new voices to the conversation around faith, culture and the arts. And this was evidenced in the line up of speakers – there were a lot of new voices and very few, if any, “usual suspects.” After all, they even invited me to be a keynote speaker and co-facilitate a workshop without previously hearing me. The leadership took the recommendation of a mutual friend and decided to add another new voice.

I did two large group talks where I shared my story. The point of the both talks was to show that within our personal stories, as messy as they can be at times; God can turn a mess into a miracle. A miracle that if shared through our testimonies, can save and change the lives of others who are wondering if there is anyone who can relate to what they are going through, and can show them that life gets better. As a writer our personal narratives impact who we believe we can become in the world.

Revisiting the stories we have been telling ourselves impacts the stories we are able to share through our writing. We are free from pain, shame, and judgment; we are free to be bold, courageous and creative. In a sense, we go from blank to beautiful, the theme of the conference.

A final thought. The plenary sessions felt like church, or should I say what I wish church should feel like. The music was great; the speakers were empowering, practical and relevant. But more than that, there was no pretense, no judging, no shaming. There was just great fellowship, a desire to meet new people, cultivate new friendships and help each other pursue purpose and passion through writing. I couldn’t help but think to myself; wow this is kind of what I wish church felt like.

Thanks to all who attended the 2015 Faith & Culture Writers Conference. My heart felt gratitude to the leadership team for inviting me to be a part of the amazing experience.

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Romal Tune was one of the speakers at the 2015 Faith & Culture Writers Conference. He’s an ordained minister, an author, and a speaker. Find his writing and work at Romal Tune

January 7, 2015March 3, 2015

Dare to create in world of hushes

By Brooke Perry

We’ve all had it, that moment where we release the inner weapons of our mind and soul. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?

When we feel that blast of icy cold freedom, thoughts come easily like gifts and life seems like an adventure we can tackle one stroke of a paintbrush, pencil, key or chord at a time.

Not remembering a moment like that recently? They’re easy to forget. As children these moments are much easier to welcome in. We have an almost insane amount of resilience to the harshness of the world around us, even when it’s constantly in our face.

I remember daydreaming and being unrealistically hopeful as an eight year-old girl the very same day that my dad died in our home. I talked of my wedding as I sat on the couch after hearing the news that my dad had breathed his last. There was pain associated with the new reality of him not being at my wedding one day, but I could still see the dress.

Hope wasn’t completely sapped by tragedy.

My mind wasn’t completely numb to beauty.

There is something about a child’s mind that reflects the heart of God for us, and sadly, but not hopelessly, so many of us lose the permission we once distributed freely to ourselves to truly and fully…be.

We hold back, we doubt, we fear and when those ugly lies stand against our creative beautiful whole minds and hearts, it cheapens the wonderful and whimsical character that is in each of us.

Oh that we would dream in the face of death again. Oh that we would dare to create boldly and loudly in a world full of hushes.

So, can I ask you to join us? We’d love to allow you the space to release yourself back into this world; after all, you are a result of God doing just that through His creation of you, your wonderful and beautiful self. Let’s see what’s still inside of you, shall we? We’ll give you the permission you need to create until you can find it in yourself to do the same.

Brooke is the Mentor & Agent Coordinator for the Faith & Culture Writer’s Conference. She blogs at BrookeNicolePerry.com

December 21, 2014February 6, 2015

Overcoming Writers Block with the Rough Draft Mindset

By Kari Patterson

Hell hath no fury like a woman with writer’s block. Or so my husband says.

He has a right to say it, as he has endured my endless rants as I attempt to draft book chapters in the midst of life. Creativity is such a beast, yes? So untamable and infuriatingly elusive, yet intoxicating and life-giving once the muse mercifully makes her visit and you find words pouring out onto the page.

This process of writing, it can be absolute madness, especially when it “matters.” When the stakes are high, a contract is on the table, a deadline is looming, expectations soar and we find ourselves desperately hunting down that elusive creativity with such intensity we’re crazed. The more desperate we are for inspiration, the less likely we are to find it. The muse is shy.

There is, however, a gentle way to coax her out of hiding. It is a simple: the Rough Draft mindset.

This year’s Faith & Culture Writers Conference is Rough Draft: From Blank to Beautiful. I love this. It reminds me of the freedom-filled approach to writing and life that relaxes the pencil-grip and lets creativity come alive.

In her brilliant book, Writing on Both Sides of the Brain, Henriette Anne Klauser explains our trouble with writing stems from the fact that we are taught to write and edit simultaneously, rather than letting ourselves loose with words without worry for conventions, then going back later to edit and rework. She tells a fabulous story about a little boy who wants to write a story about a mouse and a motorcycle. The problem is, he doesn’t know how to spell motorcycle, so he writes a story about a mouse and a bike, but somehow when he’s done it wasn’t quite the same story he had in his heart.

Haven’t we all been there? We had something sacred inside that we so wanted to share, but we knew our limitations and feared failure, so we smash the story into something more manageable and lose the sacredness of it altogether. The boy was afraid of seeing his teacher’s red marks slashed across his paper, so he produced a lesser work, and wasn’t true to what was in his heart.

How much better would have been a rough draft about a mouse and a motorcycle!

Klauser also explained that the brilliant Russian pianist Franzk Liszt produced not only Tarantella, Don Juan Fantasy, and Liebestraum, but also more than 700 works, most of which were “uneven in quality, superficially composed or down-right dull.” The point? Even the greatest writers and composers spend the majority of their time writing less-than-stellar material. Can we allow ourselves to try something and do it imperfectly?

This is the Rough Draft mindset. It is the only way to go from blank to beautiful.

Here’s the thing: What’s true of writing is also true of life. An expectation comes such as, let’s say, Christmas. The most wonderful time of the year. The time when your kids’ dreams should all come true. Then company comes and the cameras are clicking and that blasted Facebook feed is just chock-full of everyone else’s perfect life and the pressure to “compose” the perfect holiday can choke the joy and inspiration straight out. We do well to remember, every day is only a rough draft.

The most sacred holiday moments are those when you just live. Not when you’re striving to craft the perfect moment. Not when everything’s orchestrated and choreographed. When my son and I were curled up on the couch last Friday night, just sitting in silence staring at the tree-lights, savoring the last few hours of him 7-years-old, I thought to myself, This is the highlight of my year.

The only way to discover the deep well of inspiration is to live. Not live looking for a tweet or a title or a clever catchy phrase, live looking for life. For beauty. And not only for the sake of writing it, but the sake of living it.

The ever-present danger we writers face is to skip straight to the telling without the living.

So this Christmas, let’s embrace the Rough Draft Mindset It is the way to overcome writer’s block and the way to overcome life block. Let’s relax our way into our imperfect holiday, because Christ is our perfection, once and for all. Let’s write and give and and live and love, scribbling beautiful fragments from the depths of our souls.

Merry Christmas.

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Kari is one of those people who has been to every single Faith & Culture Writers Conference since the first one in 2011. She loved it and got involved. She’s been our communication coordinator, an emcee, and now she’s on our advisory board. This year she’s co-leading a workshop at our pre-conference mini-retreat. Kari is a writer and speaker who loves seeing sacred in the mundane, and writes about it at karipatterson.com