Tag: guest post

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“Stats” or Bridge?

by Jan Johnson

 

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about my book giveaway drawing… you know, the drawing nobody entered?

Well, I wrote about it partly to tell you where the book ended up, and partly in the interests of full disclosure–I don’t want to give a false impression that I’m some wildly popular, successful blogger or anything. But later I re-read the post and thought it may have sounded a bit… whiny.

I hate whining.

I should write a post, I thought, to emphasize that I’m okay with my small start and am definitely not whining. But I got busy and didn’t write it… yet…

Then I went to the Faith and Culture Writers retreat and conference in Portland, as I described last week. Excellent speakers taught on a wide variety of topics relevant to us creatives. Looking back over my notes, I found one common thread that appeared, one way or other, in every single talk. Here’s the gist of it:

To really connect with your readers you must know your identity and write authentically from your passion. Do not chase market trends or compare yourself to anyone else.

No kidding, this idea popped up in every session, from “Embrace Your Inner Weird” to “Learning from Great Literature” to “Ten Things I Hate About Your Blog.” After hearing it twelve or fifteen times, phrased in a variety of ways, it made quite an impact on me. (I may have mentioned that during the conference I suffered from information overload. Otherwise it might have had that impact sooner.)

I don’t obsess about the number of subscribers my blog has. Besides the “comparison” thing, blog statistics are pretty much meaningless anyway. Many people click “subscribe” if they see one post they kind of like, or if they want to sell me something–and they never come back. One time someone followed my blog, leaving this comment on one of my especially heartfelt, carefully crafted posts:

“Follow back?”

Did she even read any of the post?

That lack of depth or engagement sends a message: “Jan, you are just a commodity this person wants to use.”

A four-digit number of followers would feel good, but only if those individuals benefit from what I have to say. I want to build a bridge between myself and my readers and, hopefully, between us and Christ. So why pump up my statistics with two thousand people who have spent no more than fifteen seconds–ever–with my blog? As near as I can figure, it’s better to connect with two dozen real live people who actually, you know, enjoy some of my posts.

Like Marlece, f’rinstance–mom of four boys in Washington state. She documents the joy and wackiness in her blog “Son Up ‘Til Son Down.” We connected online, and got to meet when I was in the area for the conference. After encouraging each other for a couple of years, I can’t tell you how satisfying it was to see her and deliver a real, live, warm, 3-D hug right there in Starbucks! She writes authentically and from her passion. As we talked I found I already knew her. She is just as wise and wonderful in person as I’d thought.

That’s how I want to write, too. So, if you’ve read this far, know that I truly love sharing my hectic, goofy and often-discombobulated life with you. You are the one I write for, and again I say…

…thanks for reading.
Seriously!
Jan

Connect with Jan:

Website

 

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Stirred and Settled

Riding in Hawaiiby Jan Johnson

 I’d been looking forward to it for months: the Faith & Culture Conference for writers and other creatives. We met last weekend at Warner Pacific College, on the edge of Mt. Tabor in Portland, Oregon.

Brent and I actually flew out to Portland a week early to visit our two sons, their wives and our grandson, all of whom have relocated to the Pacific Northwest in the last year. Good times!

The whole region is gorgeous, hills bursting with plant life including enormous Christmas trees and tons of flowers. The lakes and rivers were full of water, which almost seems weird to a Texan whose state has been in drought mode for, what, four or five years?

The city of Portland thrums with an exuberant, youthful vibe. Artfully dressed people in all their picturesque hipness were everywhere. (Sometimes a middle-aged small-town grandma needed to go look at a blank wall for a minute. I just couldn’t keep up, you know?)
But the pre-conference retreat, and the conference itself… whoa. Fabulous times of worship. We drank deep from a fountain of pure joy. Honest conversations, learning over and over that “I’m not the only one!” Making new friends, some of whose convictions, values or doctrinal beliefs differ from mine.

On the flight home to Dallas I spent some time considering the “Big Takeaway” — What had God said to me overall about my life as a writer and especially as a believer?

I’m glad you asked.

Most importantly, I heard the warning not to mistake my own tradition, paradigm or interpretation for biblically sound doctrine. My belief could be misinformed. My doctrinal position could actually be (gasp!) wrong. Or at least a matter of individual conscience.

On the other hand, depending on the topic and context, my particular belief or conviction could be right. While it’s certainly healthy to question old traditions, it’s equally healthy to question specific ideas generated in a youthful, freestyle, “anti-tradition” paradigm.

After all, we wouldn’t want to throw out the nuggets of holy truth along with the gravel of tradition and personal preference. As Peter points out in 2 Peter 1:20-21, “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

Either way, pursuing doctrinal correctness is not enough. I must also make sure my heart, my attitude, are right. I must seek my brothers’ and sisters’ highest good, with humility and love and respect for their sincerity.

I learned tons of stuff about writing, too, but I won’t burden my longsuffering readers with those concepts. Besides, marvelous bits of wisdom kept coming at me… so fast that too many escaped before I could jot them down. So my notebook is a little disjointed.

I’ll sign off for now, with loving greetings from the heart of Texas, y’all.

Thanks for reading,
Jan

Connect with Jan:

Website

 

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When Cracks Show us the Glory of God

Ashley Hales

by Ashley Hales

Shivering in this northwesterly wind, I sit on the edge of dirt and pavement: this juxtaposition between organic and man-made. This concrete worn and utilitarian next to the unadorned simplicity – almost vulgarity – of the dirt. We are stuff just as these. Stones pulverized and fashioned into meaning. Organic material who hide behind makeup and jewelry and our bios. But we’re all just dust and ashes. All here to serve a God so much bigger and more incomprehensible than ourselves. A God who hung the stars in galaxies we haven’t yet discovered; a God who created atoms and molecules and things we can’t comprehend. For what? For the joy of it.

For delight. (That’s what Henry James taught me – the delight in language, in the glory of the small pieces forming intricate beings called sentences that curl and twist and in which we live and move and have our being).

That there is something about glory that fills and moves spaces; that it is self-assured in its perfection because it is perfection that comes from humility, from sacrifice.

For a Kingdom that breaks through these cracks in the sidewalk or speaks to me out of the dirt, is a Kingdom that is not about utility. It is a Kingdom that glories and dignifies the small, that notices the simple – that says a hair or a sparrow are currency in this Kingdom.

In college there was a singer-songwriter who sang a song based on Isaiah 55, “You who have no money, come buy and eat” and it made no sense to me then. This Kingdom where glory comes in brokenness, where glory breaks in through the stuff of dirt and sidewalks, where glory is a free meal.– where glory fills the ordinary with good things – this, this is where I want to live.

It is only here, in this Kingdom of concrete and dirt, where I am fully free. In this moment there is life, life more abundant and full and overflowing than my degrees or accomplishments. And it comes inching towards me as an offering while the thoughts about all those people who I am responsible for, for the pain and heartaches and miscommunications come racing in. But I’ve been given this moment.

It, too, is an offering of dirt and concrete. And it, too, is delight.

Connect with Ashley Hales:

Website | Twitter

 

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What it Looks Like to Find Home (yet again)

Ashley Hales

by Ashley Hales

We almost moved to Portland in 2009 to do an apprenticeship with a church. We fell in love. We wanted to be downtown people. We wanted to walk on lazy Saturday mornings with a cup of hand-crafted coffee and browse in Powell’s. We ached for urbanism, books, meaning, and craft beers. We longed for the coming together of pubs and stories; of the gospel and hipsters; of beauty and brokenness. And then it turned to ashes. We didn’t move. And we felt like death. Six years later, this last weekend, I returned to Portland and even in the span of three days and three nights, I am resurrected.

I am more fully alive, more fully myself, more a member of a tribe than I dreamt possible. There is a quiet back and forth between the prophetic fire I feel stretching for release inside of me and the long, slow soul-digging necessary to make a life of writing work. And it all is good work. Because now I believe I have a community of soul friends; where, hunched over drinks around a table, even though we come from different backgrounds and theological viewpoints, we are home. There, around the table, we are most fully ourselves, most fully alive. Because home was never about being right. Home is belonging. Home is where we hash out who we are and what we believe; but surrounding that process, is a womb of protection. Home is where we can be messy, scared, broken, angry. And a true home can hold us as we thrash about as we are birthed into ourselves.

I found a little slice of home there in the drizzly northwestern rain. I found a home by myself, sandwiched between earth and concrete, feeling as much a part of one as the other. I found home in a Kingdom that is wide and deep and long and a breath of air. I found home in words that filled me, where I marveled at beauty and truth wrapped around one another like lovers. I found home in the eyes of my friends, when I could listen to their hurt, to their cries of lament from systemic oppression; or where I could weep at the violence done to them because they were sacrifices to a system. These are systems based on fear or control, where the image of God becomes something to squelch and squash, like my toddler squishes Play-Doh back into its plastic tin. I found home in the words of meandering faith journeys, where we hold holy space open for each other. I found home in my tears. Portland birthed me. Me. Not in my writerly garb, but just me.

I have some resolutions of sorts, some lessons to take away and tape up to my bathroom mirror, to remind myself what I will do:   I will dig gently. But I will dig. I will tell myself the truth of the middle day. That there is dusk and there is dawn and at these threshold moments we are the verge of beholding glory. I will see. I will pause, slow down and not rush to resolution. My first duty is to see. I will proclaim truth. I will point others to glory. And, I will show them home.

This was Ashley’s first time attending the Faith & Culture Writers Conference. She blogs at: Website

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It’s about changing lives by sharing our stories.

So I Married a Youth Pastor - Encouraging spiritual growth and authentic faith by entertaining questions and honoring transparency. By Liz von Ehrenkrook

“I love how much energy you have!”

I laughed, “This isn’t typical of me, I’m not usually excited about being social; but being with My People, I can’t really help myself.”

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend the Faith & Culture Writer’s Conference in Portland.

If you’re a writer, there is nothing more fulfilling than being in a room full of writers. These are the people who get you.

These are the people who know it’s a stretch to be talking for two days straight and don’t expect you to perform.

These are the people you can meet and sit in silence with and feel known.

I met online friends face-to-face, and made new friends who instantly felt like old friends. One friend spent the weekend in our guest bedroom and I gifted her a quiet retreat. She helped me discover how my husband’s and my decision to remain childfree gives us the opportunity to serve My People who have kiddos by offering a library-esque environment to escape to! 

My heart is full, and my brain is processing. I was encouraged and challenged and inspired; it was like willingly drinking from a firehose and I. am. drenched.

The same resounding message bled from every kind of writer; those who are just starting blogs and learning how to tweet to those who have multiple books published and could hire someone to tweet for them.

“Your voice is unique. Be yourself. Your story matters.”

It doesn’t matter where you’re at in your writing, we all fall victim to comparison and self-doubt. We are all insecure, questioning our words and worrying nobody will read them.

- Emily Freeman -

I entered the writing contest and didn’t win. The winners were announced in the morning of the second day and I spent the afternoon volleying between feelings of joyful anxiety – I couldn’t wait to just get home and write! – and wondering why I wasn’t chosen.

I met with an editor who said the words, “I’m interested. This is what I’m looking for. I want to read this book.” I texted my writing coach the news, I called my husband. My stomach flip-flopped and I wanted to write! I was so excited I forgot about the contest until a fellow blogger emerged from her agent/editor meetings with practically a book deal.

The why not me cycle began again. I recognized she had been working really hard and came to Portland with a full manuscript in hand while I am only just beginning because of all the scrapping and re-writing and wading in the kind of memories that cause you stop and take big, deep breaths. But she is My People and her story is weaved in my own, so I will advocate without hesitation for everyone I know to read her book when it’s released.

It’s such a frustrating place to live in, being so at home among other writers, feeling loved and known while also experiencing the worst pangs of jealousy because they’re further along in their book journeys. But I know I’m not living there alone; every single one of us talked about entertaining the same emotions. We all want it to happen for each other but we also really want it to happen for ourselves.

- Karen Zacharias - (Karen Zacharias Spear)

My People will be there for me when I get a book deal, but they’ll also wonder when it’ll be their turn. It’s the nature of being a writer who deeply desires their words to be read and remembered, because all of our words matter greatly.

It’s not about money or fame, it’s about changing lives by sharing our stories.

I will tell stories. I will be myself.
I will practice writing words I can’t take back.
– Emily Freeman

I’ll no doubt be recalling things I’ve learned this weekend in future posts. I’ve spent the majority of my time since the conference writing through a fog of sinus-infected medicine head.

And, you guys, the first completed chapter of my book sounds amazing! Of course, I’ll need to re-read it when I’m not in a drug-induced haze and get back to you on the reality of that statement.

You kind of have to be a little bit crazy to call writing your thing, I think.
– Emily Freeman

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Learn more about Liz von Ehrenkrook at her  website: Liz von Ehrenkrook

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Stop hiding from fear of failure

Marc SchelskeBy Marc Alan Schelske

Like you, I’ve got a project I’m supposed to be working on.  I’m supposed to be completing the written content for an online course I’m developing.

Most of the time I’m pretty focused on getting things done. Most of the time. But right now, I’m finding myself infinitely distracted. So many things to do. So many justifications. Social media to build connections for my writing. Another round of research. Reading just one more book full of insights on how I can be a better writer or blogger.

Lots of things to do, but honestly, it’s all just a distraction. I’m feeling enormous pressure and resistance around the one thing I really want to be doing right now. Why?

Because I’m a perfectionist.

I care a great deal about every detail. I want the things that I do to be excellent. Beautiful things inspire people. As an artist, it’s far more interesting for me to engage in crafting something elegant. The world is better when people care about excellence. But there’s something more here, something darker.

Perfectionism is a shield that hides fear of failure.

If something were truly perfect, it couldn’t fail, right? At least that’s our myth. I’ve known incredibly talented musicians who spent years tweaking their songs, rather than releasing them, and writers who will write and re-write and re-write, rather than let another human read their work. Failing to move forward is its own smothering failure.

Anne Lamott named this demon exactly when she wrote these words:

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life… I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.”

Stop hiding from failure.

Fear of failure is the real enemy, and perfectionism is its voice. This fear results in paralysis or, in my case, eternal distraction. If the book never comes out, then I’ll never be critiqued on my concept, or my theology, or my writing style, or my font choice, or the hat I’m wearing in my picture. That feels so much safer.

It is safer, but it’s not life.

Steve Jobs is famously credited as saying “Real artists ship.” They do the thing they say they do. They write, or sing, or dance not in their bedroom, but out in the world where it matters.

Maybe you shouldn’t be allowed to call yourself a thing–a writer for instance–until you’ve done it in a place and time where your failure would matter, where others could judge your performance, where you had to push through the fear of being rejected and do the thing you love anyway, out in public where everyone can see.

My heart says, “I will be a writer, if I can just write exceptionally well,” but I don’t think that’s true. The truth is that I am a writer when I push through the fear of rejection and failure and share my writing with you.  After all, we are all just rough drafts.

(Oh, hey! That’s the theme for this year’s conference: Rough Draft: From Blank to Beautiful! Letting go of perfectionism is a big part of that journey.)
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– Marc Alan Schelske is the Launch Coordinator and crazy-note-taking secretary for the 2015 Faith & Culture Writers Conference. He loved attending the 2014 event that he came back this year to help! He blogs about intentional spiritual living at Marc Alan Schelske

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When writing, find your Nancy

Jody CollinsBy Jody Collins

When I began blogging almost 3 years ago I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Maybe you’ve felt the same way?

I was welcomed by a few new online friends into the High Calling network and encouraged to pursue my passion.  In just three years, God has shown me a few things about the path I’ve chosen, this ‘writing for the world,’ and given me some perspective-makers to keep me focused: 

1. Find Your Nancy

As you’re tapping and typing away at your laptop or desktop computer, there IS no audience, it’s just you and Jesus and your words.  You send them out into the blogosphere and pray for a connection.  You hope they’ll land somewhere, maybe touch a chord and speak to somebody. At least that was my prayer.

Lo and behold, one day I got a comment on a blog post. (Yay! It’s Okay to do a Happy Dance when someone leaves a comment.) Someone actually read what I wrote and told me about it!

It was an encouraging precious word from a woman named Nancy.  And she showed up every week, to read whatever I’d written. In spite of my fears that my words were than less-than-profound, she’d remark on their depth or how encouraged she felt.  Every week since then she has read and commented on my posts.

Now I have a very small crowd of ‘regulars’—fellow writers/bloggers and readers who encourage me as well. But I always remember Nancy—to write just for her—as if she was the only one listening. It personalizes my writing, which makes it more relatable.  It also gives me hope.

2. Choose Your Words

Not everything is a blog post! Like the nurse logs in the Washington Coast rainforest, some things just serve as detritus for new growth.  You know all those sticky notes and backs of envelopes?  Those inspired scribbles from a Sunday morning sermon you wrote on the back of the bulletin?  The scraps of paper you found just in time to scratch a revelation on?  Yeah, you’re probably not going to write all that down…

Not everything gets into print—much of it is practice for the process, part of the pile—a paper detritus that is the growth medium for what you DO write. The Holy Spirit will quicken in you the words that need to see the light of day.  Some of it will serve as markers, sitting in your notebook or under a paperweight, reminding you of how far you’ve come. Just keep writing. Persist, and then choose the honest, compelling words to share.

3. Build Relationships.

I am no professional marketing person to speak to what ‘platform’ is.  I am a believer and a writer and simply offer my words back to God to use as He sees fit.  Looking past all the social media skills and conferences and platform building, I think the core truth is this:  Building your blog (or your writing audience) is all about relationships.  

I am not concerned with numbers or stats, really.  For me, it’s all about connecting. But how can you extend your reach? Widen your audience? By reading other peoples’ words, commenting when you can and having them click back and find you.  That’s how others will find what you have to say.  There are other voices that share your passion and vice versa.  Maybe it’s Patheos, maybe it’s The High Calling, maybe it’s an online magazine—like Ruminate or Relief Journal or of course, where you are at now, the Faith & Culture Writers Connection!

There becomes an overlapping of the circles that you find yourself touching, an ever-expanding Venn diagram of comments and topics and people.  I personally am interested in keeping my reach small so I can go deep, rather than being wide and therefore shallow.  You’ll find what feels right for you. But wide or deep, it’s all just relationship connections.

As you write keep these three things in mind.  Find your Nancy and write for her. Choose your words and persist. Build relationships. Do this consistently and you will see your writing and creativity move forward and impact people you never thought possible.
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Jody is the Volunteer Coordinator and Administrative Assistant for the Faith & Culture Writers Conference.  She blogs at threewaylight.blogspot.com.

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Three Essentials for Writing Words that Matter

Emily FreemanBy Emily Freeman

I recently watched a four and a half minute video where author and pastor John Ortberg remembers his friend, Dallas Willard. One quick segment shows a clip from a conversation John and Dallas had only a few months before Dallas passed away.
John: “How do we help people – if somebody wants to think about, “How is my spiritual life going or how is my soul doing?” – how do we help people ask and answer that question?”

Dallas: “Well, very slowly. One at a time, we listen to them . . . I think the next thing is a question and not a statement: What’s bothering you? Start there.”

They talk some more and then John makes a joke.
John: “What’s bothering you? could be an interesting liturgical question – to start the church service asking, What’s bothering you? And the people could respond back, And also you.”

I laughed out loud when he said it and so did the audience. Then, as the clip ends, Dallas can be heard saying, “That would be absolutely revolutionary.”

I had to pause the video at that moment, three minutes and fifty-five seconds in, Dallas’ deep voice and thoughtful statement hanging there in the air over my desk. That would be absolutely revolutionary. I knew I agreed with Dallas but it took me a few minutes to figure out why.

I don’t remember being expressly taught not to be bothered, but somewhere along the way I learned it anyway. To ask myself or someone else what is bothersome seems like a self-focused, self-indulgent invitation to rant or complain. But what if we were willing to look deeper in? Instead of manufacturing peace by shooing away my frustration or smoothing out my ruffled feathers, I am learning the importance of getting quiet enough to honestly consider what bothers me – not just on the surface, but deep within my soul. Sometimes what I learn is ugly or uncomfortable. But there are other times I discover right next to my frustration lives a drop of passion I didn’t realize was there and a spark of hope I didn’t realize I needed.

What does this have to do with writing words that matter? When it comes to uncovering my authentic voice as a writer, the first thing I have to know is what is bothering me. Once I’m able to honestly access my frustrations, I can begin to uncover the passion and hope that live close-by. This is how all four of my books were born.

Being frustrated doesn’t make me qualified or ready. But it does wake something up within me, something that compels me to move and want to get ready. The frustration rolls into a compulsion towards change, passion to communicate and to move into the chaos of the questions even if I don’t have all the answers. But being frustrated about an issue and compelled to do something about it won’t sustain the message for the long-term. For me, what really keeps me moving is the hope of something better. It’s important for these three things to work together – frustration, passion, and hope. Otherwise, my voice will be something I don’t intend.
Passion and hope without frustration feels inauthentic.
If I’m not bothered deeply enough, no one else will be either. Frustration is the spark that fuels the passion and the hope. Without it, my writing won’t have enough life to meet a strong enough felt need or to tell a compelling story.
Frustration and hope without passion leads to detachment.
If I’m frustrated and have hope for change but I’m not passionate about the issue, I won’t be able to engage it with enough heart to make a difference. Love is tucked deeply inside passion, and we don’t want your loveless art.
Frustration and passion without hope leads to cynicism.
In my experience, when I am frustrated and passionate without hope, I’m vulnerable to cynicism. If I don’t have hope for change, despair creeps in and my writing feels too dark and filled with angst. Without hope, I write afraid.

Frustration wakes me up. What frustrates you? Passion gets me moving. What compels you? Hope keeps me going. What do you most hope for? I’m thankful for Dallas Willard’s revolutionary question: What’s bothering you? As writers, may we be brave enough to answer it, passionate enough to engage it, and hopeful enough to influence change.

 

Emily FreemanEmily is the author of A Million Little Ways, Grace for the Good Girls, and Graceful. She shares her words and photographs on her own website at www.ChattingAtTheSky.com. We are honored to welcome Emily as one of our featured speakers at the 2015 Faith & Culture Writers Conference.

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Allowing peace to be an overflow offering this Christmas season

Ashley LarkinBy Ashley Larkin

I’m guessing you’ve heard the song “We Need a Little Christmas Now.” For me, its commands to fill stockings, bake fruitcake and deck the halls embody the bossy pressure I feel to make everything happen during the Christmas season.

Not only do many of us experience stress in the attending and tending, gifting and hosting, baking and making, but we also know the pressure to make the holiday meaningful, magical and memorable for ourselves and for others.

And by this point in the season, we might very well feel too exhausted to enjoy or even care about the day itself.

Brennan Manning asked, “What rules our lives as we prepare for Christmas? What has power over us?”

If I’m honest, more often than I would like to admit, it is compulsion to do more and fear that I will disappoint. Yep, I’m worried I will fail Christmas.

The world yells its accusations and demands, but on this Christmas Eve I am straining to hear the whisper of what I believe might be the most forgotten gift of Jesus’ birth: PEACE.

If you stop for a moment, you might hear peace in the whistle of the wind through bare branches. Or see it in the stillness of your children snuggled up under their winter covers. Or glimpse it as you look upon the glittering lights of the Christmas tree when, for a moment, all is calm and bright.

Yes, peace is a gift to you right in the middle of this day, whatever it might hold for you – in the midst of things that do not seem right and are not right at all. Peace comes as a gift to hold in both settled spaces and fleeting moments.                             Peace is an assurance in the midst of the storm.

_____

When Love came down in human flesh into a stable reeking of animals, into a long-waiting and hopeless world, the common shepherds were the first to know. The newborn King, they were told by the angel, would be in the feeding trough.

Then a huge number of angels filled the sky, praising God for the gift of Jesus, known in the book of Isaiah as the Prince of Peace. The multitude proclaimed “PEACE to all those touched by God’s favor.”

Songs of peace on earth, goodwill toward men flooded the heavens.

On this day before Christmas, how do you need to know peace’s flood? Where do you need peace to be born, like the newborn one in the manger?

Today, I will choose to find peace in giving thanks when stresses press. I will pray for God to carry the burdens of those suffering under grief, oppression, injustice, war, sickness and fear. I will light another candle. Read Christmas stories with my daughters. Gather around the table with those I love. Sing of hearts preparing him room, and hopes and fears of all years being met in him.

I will slow to feel the peaceful rush of breath moving into and out of my lungs. I will allow Christ’s peace to settle down deep.

And then, when some of the activity of the season has died down, I’ll snuggle up with my pen and journal, and then my laptop (though it’s a bit less snuggly), reflecting and musing and creating, allowing peace to be an overflow offering.

Isaiah 54:10 tells us that the Lord’s promise of peace will never be removed from us. This Christmas, might you know the truth of that gift: peace on earth, goodwill toward you.

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Ashley Larkin is a dear friend of Faith & Culture Writers. A member of the Advisory Board, Ashley will co-lead a workshop on blogging at the 2015 Mini-Retreat-Breathing Space Pre-Conference, April 10. She has served as the Agents and Editors Coordinator,  scribe, and mentor at past conferences. She can be found sharing her heart at her Draw Near blog: AshleyMLarkin.com

 

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Overcoming Writers Block with the Rough Draft Mindset

Kari_Patterson_500By 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