An Interview with Writing Mentor Pat Butler

Why do you write? Do you have a theme, message, or goal for your books?

• I feel called, compelled, and born to write. I can’t not write. It helps me understand what I’m thinking, feeling, experiencing. Whether poems, essays, devotions, or nonfiction, I write with insights and messages to strengthen, encourage, and comfort.
• I also write to influence readers to perceive God. To spark a thirst in others to seek God for the first or the umpteenth time. To encourage readers to catch God at work in ordinary life, in playful and revelatory ways.
• A core message is to reveal God as he is, not as we imagine him to be. In two poetry chapbooks, I focused on home, family, and the father’s role in a child’s life. A third explored the dynamics of home, place, and transition. With my current book, Collision, my message is God still heals, but not always as we expect. In spotlighting Jehovah-Rapha, the God who heals, I encourage readers to consult the Great Physician as they work with the medical community. With his uncanny skill in diagnosing spiritual roots of affliction, I hope readers find healing.

How long have you been writing?

Since childhood, with a diary, school essays, and poems.

Tell us about one of your greatest joy(s) in your writing career.

The greatest joy(s) of receiving an acceptance letter from Finishing Line Press for my first poetry manuscript submission; receiving the first hard copy was a childhood dream fulfilled. The ongoing joy of writing and publishing is the power of discovering God and oneself in the process. Then releasing the writing—a vulnerable time—and watching readers, peers, publishers, and gatekeepers react.

Tell us about one of your darkest moment(s) in your writing career.

When I decided to publish a nonfiction narrative and discovered the implications—financial, time, platform, and the unlikely prospect of finding an agent at my age. I felt like all was lost—I’d arrived too late to the game. Because it was an important book to God, me, my audience, and my colleagues, I felt I’d failed.

Rejection is a common experience for writers. How do you overcome rejection? How has rejection shaped you or your career?

I’ve always understood rejection as part of the landscape on the road to publishing. I viewed rejection as a good barometer of my writing, motivating me to improve. Some lessons learned:

1. Match submissions to a market’s needs. Be a sniper, searching for the right markets for your material before shooting off a submission. 
2. There are many reasons for a rejection. Don’t take it personally.
3. Rejection can be God’s way of redirecting your path He has for you.

In what ways has God led you to mentor other writers? Were you surprised when a certain skill or connection led to mentoring opportunities?

The birthing of three new areas of ministry, in the context of missions, converged over the past 20+ years. The timeline:  

• In the late 90’s: in France, I felt God’s increasing pressure to write for publication. I started with the culture shock poems.
• Simultaneously, I felt called by God to focus on reaching the artists in my city, including writers. I also began training in spiritual direction. I was as eager to create, write and hang with artists as to persuade Christian artists and writers to consecrate their gifts to God’s kingdom purposes.
• 2006: repatriated to the US and joined a writer’s group.
• 2008-14: when I began publishing my first poetry chapbooks, friends, strangers, and colleagues asked me for advice on writing. I enjoyed helping them take baby steps.
• 2006-2014: The mentoring role developed to the point of training creatives to minister overseas through their art; working with creatives in spiritual direction.
• In 2015: I took a sabbatical with the goal of writing a nonfiction book. When I returned, I switched roles to “Artist at Large,” with the intention of revising and publishing the nonfiction manuscript. I also had a heavy mentoring role, having trained artists in spiritual direction, based on principles I was now writing about.
• In 2019: completed a coach-mentoring course, receiving my certificate in 2020.
• In 2020, with the pandemic, moved mentoring online. Also participated in emerging online writing conferences, where I found a publisher for my second manuscript.
• June 2022: Collision, How I Found My Life by Accident, my first nonfiction book, released!
• December 2022, I retired from missions to devote myself full-time to pursue next steps in my writing career.
• January 2023: I “met” Norma Poore during the Cultivate Christian Creative Symposium, who invited me to interview for this post and here I am!

And all this surprised me and made perfect sense. I’ve observed at conferences and online how popular coach-mentoring was for writers and speakers and saw a potential lane open for me. God wastes nothing and calls us to consider others better than ourselves. One way I can implement that is to consider other writers’ projects and well-being more than my own through writing, mentoring, and spiritual direction.

Tell us about a facet of mentoring that particularly excites you.

When I see that light in the eyes of someone experiencing an insight or breakthrough. I sense God’s presence and witness transformation—pure gold to me. I’m motivated to listen well and ask the right questions to see the eyes light up with understanding!

What venues/methods have you found most effective for meeting and mentoring writers?

1. Meeting someone over a cup of coffee or tea in a quiet café that affords privacy. It’s neutral, hospitable, and lends itself to conversation, not a clinical encounter. Second best is over the kitchen table.
2. I usually come with prayer, prepared materials, and a set of questions, depending on whether it’s an intake interview or a follow up meeting.
3. Prepare spiritually by asking God to lead and release the spiritual gifts necessary for a breakthrough. To give me wisdom, discernment, and patience in listening and speaking.
4. I’ve worked out of a church office as well, which lends a seriousness and professionalism that helps in some situations.
5. Mentoring in action, especially for personalities that learn better by doing than talking. Especially in missions, a ride to the airport could be life changing.
6. Pray with someone so they can experience answers from the Spirit, not look to me as an “expert” or someone with whom they could form an unhealthy attachment.
7. Online. I converted 😊  I once thought it impossible to practice spiritual direction or mentoring online, until the pandemic forced the issue. I know its limits but it’s effective especially with mentoring on practical levels. Now I thank God for the technology that allows me to mentor artists all over the world, far more than I could do locally.
8. Using creative expression, which can so quickly unlock the inner movements of our souls. A form of art therapy.

Have you organized or led groups to support writers? (Retreats, ACFW chapters, etc.) How has that experience helped you to mentor writers?

Except for creating a writer’s group in France and occasionally filling in for the facilitator of my writer’s group, no. But for creatives in general, yes. Retreats, devotional times, trainings, workshops, prayer meetings, church meetings with staff and/or members, consulting work. The experiences increased my confidence, joy, and versatility in caring for and mentoring writers and artists.

Have you organized or directed a writers’ conference? Tell us about that experience, and/or share an anecdote that illustrates how you saw writers being mentored and encouraged through the event.

No, but I’ve attended so many, I saw this from the beginning: my first online writers’ conference with Redemption Press (She Writes for Him). I was quite surprised by the very ‘girlie’ approach, with lots of silliness that wasn’t exactly my style, but it was all very upbeat, positive, and encouraging. When the publisher shared her story deeply and vulnerably, I heard the holy “why” of her heart. I decided she was someone I could work with, who would understand my story, and called after the conference to discuss a manuscript. I ended up signing with Redemption Press for the publication of Collision.

If you speak at writers’ groups or conferences, what are some of your favorite topics to speak about?

• Healing: The Three-Legged Stool
• Called to Adventure: The Hero’s Journey with Christ
• The Art of Forgiveness
• Longing & Babette’s Feast
• Lament: When your cape is at the cleaners; finding a cape for the chaos; the hot mess hero.
• The Architecture of Faith: how we need structure to flourish. The Hero’s Journey and Rule of Life.

What advice do you have for writers as we interact with our peers? What can we do to be better supporters and mentors of our fellow writers?

1. Cultivate the relationships as well as your ideas.
2. Become better writers, in craft and professionalism.
3. Join a writer’s group and enter as a learner and a listener. Develop a thick skin.
4. Attend a writer’s conference or workshop to build relationships and learn.
5. “Let each consider others better than yourself.” Listening to others before speaking or promoting your projects.

Do you have a favorite resource or two that you recommend to beginning writers?

The Writer’s Journey, 2^nd Ed., by Christopher Vogler

Write His Answer: A Bible for Christian Writers, Marlene Bagnull

Do you have a favorite resource or two that you recommend to writers who are struggling with discouragement?

When God Calls a Writer, by Deanne Welsh

What are common mistakes you see aspiring writers make?

• Focusing on themselves in their fears, anxieties, and comparisons.
• Ignoring the industry or letting it intimidate them instead of letting God lead them.
• Divorcing their writing from the larger writing community and industry, forgetting to see people, forgetting God in the process.

What advice can you give aspiring writers that you wished you had gotten, or that you wished you would have heeded?

1. Invite God to be your writing partner, to reveal what project and goals to set, where to find the finances, and to enable your success as he defines it.
2. Set up a realistic writing practice and stick to it. Write, read, revise.
3. Learn the craft of writing by reading, studying other authors, attending/listening to author talks and podcasts, asking questions.
4. Join a writer’s group, learn the business of publishing as you learn the craft of writing.
5. Attend a writer’s conference as soon as you can.

Pat Butler, author, poet, and pioneer in missional arts, envisions a world in which every Christ follower finds and flourishes in the abundant life Jesus promised. Pat cultivates a global network of artists through writing, mentoring, and spiritual direction. She has traveled to twenty-five countries, lived in two, and holds dual citizenship. Currently residing in Florida, Pat walks with cranes, dodges hurricanes, and enjoys her own pillow. Follow Pat’s musings at www.mythicmonastery.org. Collision, How I Found My Life by Accident, is available at Redemption Press and Amazon.