Tag: writing success

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Devotions for Writers

How Do You Define Success?

devotions

Have you ever noticed how elusive success can be? I can receive a check in the mail for a devotional and feel elated one minute, then in the next moment, be on pins and needles about the status of another article.

Take a look at some guys in the Biblical narrative:

  • Elisha’s family might have been more than peeved at him, when he destroyed his plow.
  • Saul switched sides in the middle of the battle against Christians.
  • Samson became a prisoner of war.

All three of these men might be seen as failures, depending on the way you view their circumstances.

  • Elisha broke down his tools for success.
  • Saul broke the rules of engagement.
  • Samson’s spirit broke when he became a slave.

But, God. (Two words that make all the difference in a life.)

But, God changed the outcome of their stories and called them victorious.

Read more about these heroes of the faith:

  • Elisha. 1 Kings 19:19-21
  • Paul. Acts 8:3; 25:1-29
  • Samson. Judges 16:23-30
  • Also note: Hebrews 11
The mountaintop of success

What does success mean to you?

  • To climb the corporate ladder? (Is there ever a top rung?)
  • Publish six books? Or, ten? (When will it be enough?)
  • Submit hundreds of articles? (What is the magic number?)

If success means one thing in your job, and something different in another work environment, could it also be upside down in God’s economy? What if the Lord has a different perspective on success and failure?

Exercise:

1. Look up the definition of success in the dictionary.

2. What does success mean to you?

3. Look up the following verses and jot down a summary of each.

  • Numbers 8:11
  • Ecclesiastes 5:19
  • Jeremiah 48:10a
  • John 6:27-29
  • John 9:4
  • 1 Corinthians 3:12-13
  • 2 Timothy 3:16-17
  • Hebrews 6:10
  • 1 Samuel 15:22
  • Joshua 1:7
  • 2 Kings 18:7
  • 2 Chronicles 20:20
  • 1 Chronicles 4:10
  • Isaiah 54
  • Isaiah 26:15
  • 2 Corinthians 9:8-15
  • 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12

4. What do you think success means to God?

5. If you could do one thing today to take the next step in your writing, what would it be?

6. What do you need to overcome, in order for that to happen?

7. Will you?

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Colossians 3:23-24
Sally Ferguson

Over 140 of Sally Ferguson’s devotionals have been published in Pathways to God (Warner Press). She’s also written for Light From The Word, Chautauqua Mirror, Just Between Us, Adult Span Curriculum, Thriving Family, Upgrade with Dawn and ezinearticles.com. Prose Contest Winner at 2017 Greater Philly Christian Writers Conference.

Sally loves organizing retreats and seeing relationships blossom in time away from the daily routine. Her ebook, How to Plan a Women’s Retreat is available on Amazon.

Sally Ferguson lives in the beautiful countryside of Jamestown, NY with her husband and her dad.

Visit Sally’s blog at www.sallyferguson.net

Categories
Writer Encouragement

Secrets of Successful Authors

The writer’s life is full of challenge and discouragement, rejection and struggle. The famous authors we admire surely never went through this much, we may think to ourselves. But what if they did? Then maybe there’s hope for us. Let’s consider what a few well-known authors endured before becoming famous. What are their work habits, and how did they keep going? How old were they when they started? It might surprise you.

Work Habits of the Famous

For a time, Maya Angelou’s work pattern was to rent a hotel room and go every morning to write from about 6:30 am to 12:30 or 1:00pm. Stephen Pressfield has a daily ritual which includes donning lucky shoes and invoking the Muse. He sits in the same spot every day and writes until he starts making typos, and that’s it, about four hours. To him, the number of pages or the quality doesn’t matter at that point, he has beaten Resistance. Stephen King aims for 2,000 words a day, about ten pages, which can take him anywhere from a few hours of the morning or until suppertime, depending on how it goes. But then there’s Victor Hugo, who insisted his valet hide his clothes, so he couldn’t get dressed until he had completed his first draft. If only I had a valet….

From Rejection to Fame

After all the hours dedicated to writing them, some of the world’s most successful books were rejected dozens of times before finally being published. For example, The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, was rejected sixty times before becoming wildly successful and being made into a blockbuster movie. Stephen King’s Carrie was rejected thirty times until he threw it into the garbage. His wife retrieved it, and it became the first of fifty worldwide best sellers. Beatrix Potter was rejected so many times that she decided to self-publish. Rejection, no matter how excruciating, might not mean your book is trash. Instead, it might indicate you haven’t found the right publisher yet, and that publisher just might be you.

It’s Never Too Late

Okay, you may think, but most famous writers got started young, and I’m not young. It’s too late for me. Let’s see about that. (And if you are young, Jan Karon has advice for you below.) Many famous writers began later in life. Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes, got started at age sixty-six, and Laura Ingalls Wilder at age 64, with her ever-popular Little House on the Prairie series.

Jan Karon didn’t start the Mitford series until after she quit her job at an advertising agency at age fifty. She gave this advice to would-be writers in an interview with CBN:

If God has given you a dream, you’d better get cracking because He wants you to use it. That’s why He gives them to us in the first place…. We can’t say, “I’m too fat,” or “I’m too thin,” or “My husband wouldn’t like it,” or “My kids wouldn’t like it,” or “I’m too old,” or “I’m too young,” or “I’m too tired.” Just get moving!

CBN interview by Belinda Elliot

Thank you so much, Jan Karon, I think I will!

In 1996, Susan E. Brooks moved to Mozambique, Africa, with her family where she taught art and English at an international high school and started journaling about her adventures. Twenty-six of the stories of struggles and victories in Mozambique are now published on her blog in a series entitled “Mozambican Odyssey.” She has since lived in Portugal, Ghana, and Cyprus, as well as in her home state of Kentucky, USA.

Meanwhile, nine grandchildren have come along, and she is inspired to write and illustrate a children’s book for each of them. Susan has self-published four children’s books so far.

Categories
The Intentional Writer

The Importance of Taking Breaks

The intentional writer

Writing is hard work. It may not look like writers expend much energy, but we are. Writing saps our mental, emotional, and spiritual energy reserves. If you’ve ever felt drained after a writing session you know what I mean.

In order to be effective in our writing career, we need to intentional about taking breaks to restore our creative energy. We need time to rest, refuel, and find new inspiration. Here are some ideas:

Five types of breaks to boost writing success

Give your project a rest

Sometimes the best thing we can do with a writing project is set it aside for a time. When we get deep into a story we lose the ability to look at it objectively, plus we tend to get stuck on certain details, scenes, or sentences. When we set the project aside and work on a different piece of writing for a time, we allow our brains to do a reset.

Taking a break between one draft and the next enables our conscious and unconscious brains to return to the project with clearer thinking. We can more easily spot problems and think up more creative solutions for solving them. If you feel stuck with a piece of writing, try locking it in a drawer (real or virtual) for at least a week, or perhaps a few months.

Take short breaks to enhance efficiency

When we’re in the middle of a busy day, taking a break may feel highly unproductive, but productivity experts have shown that taking short breaks actually enhances our ability to think and perform. They suggest stopping every two hours or so to take a short break.

All breaks are not created equally, however. To make the most of short breaks, walk away from your desk, turn your brain to a completely unrelated subject, and connect with either nature or other humans. Limit the break to about fifteen minutes. Above all, resist the temptation to check social media or email! Those activities are not restorative.

Refill your empty tank

When we push ourselves to keep going after our inner energy tank is on empty, our creativity suffers. If we want to do our best work, we must be intentional about taking refueling breaks. What refreshes and restores your heart and soul? Taking a walk along the seashore? Paining a picture? Gardening? Reading? Talking with a friend over coffee? Do yourself and your future readers a favor by making a point to refuel yourself regularly by spending time in activities that restore your body and psyche.

Seek out inspiration

Along with refueling our inner energy tank, we occasionally need to resupply our stock of inspiration. Now and then we need to take a break from writing to seek other kinds of experiences that will fill our store of ideas and spark creativity. The more varied the activities, the better. Vacations, nature walks, art classes, dancing lessons, or a visit to an art museum are all great ways to refill our cache of inspiration. So is reading a book outside our preferred genres or watching a TED talk on something we know nothing about. It may feel like wasted time, but all positive input is fodder for out subconscious. What new things can you learn or experience this week?

Meditate and pray

Our words reflect the state of our spirit. If we hope to communicate truth and hope to our readers we need to remain connected to our Lord. He is the one who gifted us with imagination and called us to write. He is the one who can inspire, guide, and clarify our thoughts. He is the one who enables us to write with efficiency and purpose. Taking spiritual breaks to pray and meditate will help us stay true to our calling and enable us to communicate the truths in our hearts.

I hope these tips help you avoid burnout and enhance your creative output.

Happy writing!

Award-winning writer Lisa E. Betz believes that everyone has a unique story to tell the world. She loves inspiring fellow writers to be more intentional about developing their craft and courageous in sharing their words. Lisa shares her words through speaking, leading Bible studies, writing historical mysteries, and blogging about living intentionally.

You can find her on Facebook LisaEBetzWriter Twitter @LisaEBetz and Pinterest Lisa E Betz Intentional Living.

Categories
The Intentional Writer

Are You a Intentional Writer?

The intentional writer

Lots of people aspire to be writers. Not so many do the work to become one. The fact that you are visiting a writing website means you are serious enough to do something about your writing dream.

Good for you! Keep it up.

Writing, like any creative endeavor, can be a lonely, frustrating struggle. To move from daydreaming about being a writer to actually becoming one, you and I need to be intentional about what we do and why we do it.

Intentional: done with intention or on purpose; intended; deliberate

An intentional writer approaches writing with purpose

  • They know who they are in Christ.
  • They know writing is part of their calling .
  • They understand that they have a unique message and a unique voice—no matter how mundane the content or unglamorous the genre.
  • They ponder why they write and who they write for.
  • They choose to be courageous about putting their experiences and life-passions into words and then sharing those words with others.
  • They are wise stewards of their writing abilities, always learning, improving, and seeking new ways to share their words.

An intentional writer makes deliberate choices about things like:

  • Attitudes
  • Habits
  • Writing goals
  • How to spend their writing time
  • How they talk about themselves and their work
  • Every element of their craft, from overall theme to individual word choice.
  • When to follow the rules and when to break them
  • Pursuing critique partners who give helpful (and sometimes painful) feedback

An intentional writer knows success is not measured in dollars, fame, or total pages published.

  • They understand the ultimate goal of writing to honor God, whether that means writing an entertaining romance or a thought-provoking theology book.
  • They trust God to use their efforts to challenge, encourage, or otherwise touch people, wherever, whenever, and however he chooses.
  • They are generous with their writing and their knowledge, eager to encourage fellow writers.

Please don’t think this intentional stuff is way too serious for you.

Every aspiring writer can become an intentional writer. All it takes is a decision to be intentional about the how, why and what of your writing.

What one small step can you take to be more intentional about your writing today?

Lisa E. Betz believes that everyone has a story to tell the world. She loves to encourage fellow writers to be intentional about their craft and courageous in sharing their words with others. Lisa shares her words through dramas, Bible studies, historical mysteries, and her blog about intentional living. You can find her on Facebook  LisaEBetzWriter and Twitter @LisaEBetz

Categories
Fantasy-Sci-Fi

The Secret of Your Success by Laura L. Zimmerman

Success.

For writers this word can mean different things. One author may feel success has been achieved once their first book is in print. Another may decide it is only once a certain award has been attained.

Because success is subjective, it can reflect different values within each of us. However, the pitfalls of these ideals are that our perceptions of success can change over time to the point that we are never satisfied with our achievements. This can be particularly difficult for fantasy and sci-fi writers because it is becoming more difficult to sell these genres within the Christian market. If we continue to put our value on our work being published or the accolades it receives, we may never feel we’ve reached true success.

As Christian writers, we have the ability to use a different measuring stick. Instead of applying external measures to guide our definition of success, we can focus on how God measures it. Many authors of faith would say they write because they feel that God has given them the words to write. If you choose to change your idea of what success is, then you may be able to avoid those times of frustration.

Celebrate success each time you complete a short story or a magazine article. Reward yourself for every story you complete—whether it’s for a contest or when you finish that full-length novel. Instead of celebrating years down the road when your work is published, choose to celebrate accomplishment in the moment. This gives you the chance to see success every single day or several times per week! God wants to see his children celebrating the words He has given us to write.

There is no need for external measures of success when you write with God.

The book industry can sometimes feel like a roller coaster ride, and it’s changing every year. The idea that it is harder for fantasy and sci-fi authors to get their work published can be a daunting task. But changing your perspective on how you write just might be the answer to the success of your writing, and the encouragement needed to continue to write with God.

Laura L. Zimmerman is a homeschooling mama to three daughters and a doting wife to one husband. Besides writing, she is passionate about loving Jesus, singing, drinking coffee and anything Star Wars. You can connect with her through Facebook and Twitter @lauralzimm and at her website Caffeinated Fiction at www.lauralzimmerman.com