Last Sunday, November 29th, was the beginning of one of my favorite seasons of the year: Advent. Some of my earliest memories are of Advent, of doing devotions as a family around an Advent wreath, my two brothers and I eager to be the one to light the candle each week. I don’t know about your traditions, but for us, the four purple candles were the Advent, Angel, Shepherd, and Bethlehem candles. The white candle in the center was the Christ candle. So what do those aspects of advent have to say to us as writers?
The word “advent,” according to Mr. Webster, is “the arrival of a notable person, thing, or event.” As you enter into this first week of Advent, I encourage you to think about the arrival of an event…
The moment you knew you were going to be a writer.
It’s so easy, in the midst of “being a writer” and “doing the work” to forget how that moment felt—the wonder and excitement of it. The joy of first creating words on the page and seeing them impact others. So let’s take a moment and celebrate our advent together.
When did you first know God wanted you to write?
What emotions accompanied that knowledge?
What was the first thing you wrote that people read and were impacted by?
For me, it was poetry. Yes, poetry. I wrote poems from an early age and shared them with others. But I’ll never forget the time, when I was in my early teens, that I wrote a poem about our church family (Dad was a pastor) and read it at the Church Christmas Eve sharing night. I included everyone in the poem, talking about the love and support they all shared…
People laughed. They cried. They came up and hugged me afterward.
Oh! The joy and wonder of that moment. It was then I knew. And I’ve never turned back.
So how about you?
Actually, It is Personal
I remember the first time I considered writing. I was a teenager and walked into the kitchen and told my mom we could write a story better than the one I just finished. It took years of doing the practical thing versus dreaming of writing. Finally, I took the plunge.
I studied and began to write. Then my husband and I had a financial setback followed by a financial smack down. With tears I packed up my writing books and worked extra hours at my practical career.
A couple of years later, I began to dream again. I dug my box of books out of the attic. As I looked through them, I felt God’s peace flow over me, and I began to write again.
I can’t wait to hear everybody else’s stories.
As many writers do, we simply begin to scribble the stories or rhymes which pour from the soul. I–like you, Jackie—started with poetry . . . in the first grade and was caught daydreaming out the open window while I “created.” The teacher, seasoned and wise, pulled me to the front and read the poem out loud, then encouraged me to stay with “her” lesson.
My quaking heart.
I won a poetry contest, wrote stories, then worked and raised a family. Writing for publication didn’t come until the early 2000s.
Although there have been pauses—sometimes long because of extended family demands—I still press on.
Where the novels will end or nonfiction proposals, I don’t know.
But still we write.
May the peace of this season give us new passion for the mission.
My adventures in writing started out without the written word. Ever since I was three years old, I’ve loved drawing and storytelling, and most of my earliest stories were in picture form. Instead of using words, I’d let the pictures speak for themselves. There were always long, complicated stories behind the illustrations, though, and I’d explain them to my family in detail. When I was a little older, perhaps nine or ten, I got into the habit of walking back and forth in my backyard and telling myself stories. I must have looked like a crazy person, wandering around waving my arms and talking to myself. 😉
Playtime was largely focused on storytelling, too. My dolls and toys became important characters in my long, drawn out sagas of family, life, death, and romance.
I always enjoyed writing assignments, but I particularly remember my fifth grade year when we had an “Author’s Day” at the school. There were fun story challenges and different writing workshops taught by some of the junior high and high school teachers. I wrote a story about a crabby, unkempt little boy who teased a large draft horse until one day when it saved his life. Then they were friends forever. I read it out loud to the class and loved making it come alive with my expressive reading. I already had a heart for writing, but that day gave me an even greater passion.
Throughout my school years, the Lord brought various teachers my way that encouraged and cultivated my writing. I’m so grateful for their kind words and constructive criticism.
Now, years later, it is such a privilege to use this passion and joy of mine to impact others. From blogging to attempting my first published novel, it’s been an incredible adventure. I can’t wait to see where it leads. 🙂
I have this hanging beside my computer and to remind me of what you stated so beautifully. It’s by Tyler Knott Gregson
“Promise me you will not spend so much time treading water and trying to keep your head above the waves that you forget,
truly forget,
how much you have always loved to swim.”
Compared to most of the folks here, I’ve come late to writing fiction even though I’ve been publishing in science for more than 30 years. I suspect you can see that lineage in my more formal writing style when I take part in the conversation here. When I’m not writing fiction, that style is just me.
My first fictional foray (other than class assignments) began in 2008 when I started planning a biotech thriller that included a romance and faith development among a group of scientist who ranged from devout believers to scoffing atheists. The kids were still living at home, so I never found time to work on it. It lies dormant right now. Then on September 20, 2013, with the kids in college, I felt inspired to start writing historical novels whose plots can be summarized as man meets woman under adverse circumstances involving other people, man and woman coming from different world views struggle with conflict between romantic love and faith in the midst of opposition, conflict resolution leads to happy conclusion for many but maybe not for all. I started writing 5 hours a night until I retired. Since retirement, I probably average 12 hours a day except on Sunday.
I’m so addicted to writing fiction that I even carry a 10” laptop when we drive anywhere farther than 30 minutes away and I always have a notebook handy. I can’t imagine not spending time creating the parallel universe of my characters now.
I first knew God wanted me to write in life much later than many. The desire, nay, command, came as a result of my own self righteous arrogance. It happened like this.
I had studied and practiced painting for approx. 30 years. I traveled the world visiting works of the greatest masters. I learned every nuance, technique, style, material and so on. (BTW, my favorite period is baroque.)
I was visiting a gallery that had some of my and many other artists paintings on exhibition. The gallery management had given permission to a homeless (not individuals but the group) writers group to hold a meeting there in the center of a very large meeting room where the walls were adorned with many beautiful paintings. As I, the general public with children and several other artists and guests viewed the open and ongoing exhibition we overhead some of the writing group complain that we were “talking too loud” and could tell that they wished us to overhear and their intent was to cause us to whisper in deference to their meeting.
This irritated some people who felt the writers group may have some pushy “rough edged ingrates” who should have appreciated the opportunity to use the gallery instead of trying to exclusively dominate it when they were there. The mental image of a possible melee among creative groups of differing interests makes me laugh out loud still today. (Kinda like an amish “rumble”)
Getting to the point I thought to myself “Pffffft, writers. Some pencils, some paper and a bunch of amateur rants, hah! They can’t even spell art”, I thought to myself. I think this was the moment my Father decided to teach me just what writing was really about, maybe illustrate his truly wondrous power of conversion and/or reinforce his teaching to me to “judge not”.
Bottom line, from that time on I was inexorably possessed with a seemingly innate passion to write. I have microscopically examined my motivations and they are not fame, money or legacy. I had already achieved any ambitions in those arenas. My motivation is to simply advance the message of the salvation of my Father Jesus Christ and the Kingdom he has prepared for us to as many souls as possible. Secondly, to assist others in THEIR righteous mission of true evangelism whenever possible.
I know this may render me a poor candidate for traditional publishing but I am OK with that, I know this will leave room for some other, hopefully worthy, person.
Merry Christmas to all!
Like Hannah, I started with art and words, meticulously illustrating my elementary school book reports. In junior high we all wrote entries in “slan books” (???) and my entry for career hopes was always “writer/illustrator.” I won a short story contest, published poems, and edited a literary journal in HS, then set both art and writing aside through college. I became a teacher and wrote curriculum for myself, my school, and my district. I got hired by a Christian textbook publisher to collaborate on a textbook. Then at a mission school in Chile, I taught art (and Bible, PE, geography, economics…) ;-D, and turned back to writing when I found it necessary to privately pour out what was overflowing inside. Now I write for a local newspaper and have finished half a dozen books, none published; but like Carol, I’m multi-published in my academic profession, and also in Christian magazines. Not until the last two historical novels I wrote, and the in-depth 12-week Bible study I wrote and taught, did I see the writing as a calling, instead of simply use of my God-given talent. Since ’11, I’ve consulted online for dissertation scholars and taught them how to do high-level academic writing. I still paint, but only occasionally. Right now I have three dissertation clients and a commission for a house portrait, and I’m building my platform in anticipation of having the historical fiction published. I’m still waiting to hear from the three agents/publishers about the proposals I submitted. If I ever decided to pursue art or writing exclusively, I’d get more done; but I don’t see that ever happening. 🙂 Now I think the art is using my gift, and the writing is fulfilling a calling. I hadn’t thought of it that way before. Great questions, Karen!
As others, I began with poetry. I wrote several poems in my youth, reading most of them at church and entering contests, where I found success. In my forties, after my four children were grown, I took a six-week writer’s course at our high school. The instructor’s note on my first prose assignment read, “You definitely have talent!” This gave me courage to write prose for publication. At first, I wrote only hoping for money and fame, but one morning, reading a Guidepost devotion that touched me deeply, I cried and told God, “This is what I want to do, to write to help others, as this devotion helped me.”
For years, I wrote and submitted manuscripts, mostly receiving rejections, but achieving some success (not much financially). I attended conferences and finally got a royalty publication through Lillenas of a small children’s drama book, which is still selling after twenty-six years. I wrote for card companies, magazines, church bulletins any market I had an intrest in till finally settling on books and a weekly newspaper column.
One great thrill was having a couple call and tell me that one of my essays saved their marriage. What better pay? Severe circumstances have slowed my marketing efforts, but I am hoping to build a platform and jump back into the marketing again. Once a writer, always a writer.
When I was 9 years old, I entered a poem in a Father’s Day contest sponsored by Showtime for Mom, a TV program in Portland…and won a basket full of groceries! I laugh now, but that was so momentous an occasion I can still remember the poem. Of course, you want to hear it, so here it is.
My father is so nice to me and very kind and gentle.
Every time I think of him I get so sentimental.
He’s always there to help me, so I have this to say:
Give 3 cheers for Daddy dear for this is Father’s Day.
It may now become clear why I no longer write poetry.
Karen,
Like you I started writing poems to family and friends as a child. I distinctly remember writing an essay in the eighth grade about my desire to be an author. Somewhere along the way it seemed silly, like a kid wanting to play in the NFL. So I went to medical school. After practicing obstetrics and gynecology for twenty years I became disabled. God used my illness to give me the true desire of my heart-writing. I am humbled when others facing adversity tell me my blog has encouraged them. The emotion I now feel is the weight of the responsibility of my words to draw others nearer to Christ. Thanks for sharing the beginning of your story. Enjoy your advent.