I just spent the weekend in Fishers, IN at the Wesleyan World Headquarters for the 10th Annual Indy Christian Writer's Conference. During the summers I'm much more prone to blogging than I am during the school year. The most obvious reasoning this being time and availability of brain cells. I sometimes forget when I'm not writing that I'm CALLED to writing. I often sit at these Writer's Conferences amidst many published authors and creative thinkers and to be quite honest, I feel like I'm not cut out to be a writer.
I grew up writing. My mom is a teacher so I learned to read when I was very young and my first novel of choice was Nancy Drew. I read her, pretended to be her, and wrote mock stories in the Nancy Drew sleuth fashion. This led to writing creative sci-fi stories (of course modeled after Star Wars and Star Trek) and eventually I took a stab at historical fiction. I finished my first novel about a family in the slave south and their escape to freedom when I was 12. The manuscript was written on pages and pages of lined paper which were mostly destroyed one winter when the roof in my bedroom leaked.
Somewhere around my sophomore year of high school, as I was doing the college search and determining my options for a major, God started reminding me of my passion for writing. He started waking me up in the middle of the night with book ideas and titles which I would write down, fall back asleep, and puzzle over in the morning. I've kept track of those ideas to this day. Some have shifted and morphed into more cohesive concepts; others have simply fallen under the umbrella of other, more broad ideas.
Senior year of high school I took an English elective called "Writing for Writers". Our teacher had us individually decide our grading rubric for each writing assignment. Being a perfectionist, I naturally had her grade me on my points of weakness. Ironically, when I'd receive back a "C" for my grade, I was indignant. "I've ALWAYS been told I'm a good writer! Why is she being so hard on me?" Of course, looking back now I know it was myself who was being hard on my writing. At the end of the semester she leafed through my portfolio and handed me my grade. An A+. At my graduation party at the end of that year she hugged me and said into my ear, "You are a great writer. Please never stop writing!"
I've taken that to heart. Not only have I've begun writing more, but I've begun to pursue the course of getting my works published. This has proved a tedious and discouraging task. As I waited anxiously this past Saturday morning for the bell to ding allowing me permission to enter the room where a book publisher was waiting to have a one on one consultation with me was, doubts flooded my mind. "Your ideas are great till they hit the paper. You're a mediocre writer at best. No one is going to care to read anything you write. Just give up and do something you're actually good at." The bell dinged and I peaked around the door into the room. "Are you Angela?" Despite the lack of a name tag (which I had of course left in the car) I confirmed this and sat down. I told him two of my four current book concepts and he nodded incessantly. "That is a really interesting book idea." He told me as he passed both his professional and private business cards across the table. "Please send me your book proposal as soon as you can. I really like your ideas."
I can't say my confidence in my writing ability is much deeper, but hearing a book publisher say these words definitely gives me a sense of encouragement and hope to continue on in what I've loved doing my whole life.
I tell you my story for two reasons: 1) Simply to tell you my story 2) To encourage you in your dreams and calling not to give up.
The apostle Paul puts it well:
I press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:14
I grew up writing. My mom is a teacher so I learned to read when I was very young and my first novel of choice was Nancy Drew. I read her, pretended to be her, and wrote mock stories in the Nancy Drew sleuth fashion. This led to writing creative sci-fi stories (of course modeled after Star Wars and Star Trek) and eventually I took a stab at historical fiction. I finished my first novel about a family in the slave south and their escape to freedom when I was 12. The manuscript was written on pages and pages of lined paper which were mostly destroyed one winter when the roof in my bedroom leaked.
Somewhere around my sophomore year of high school, as I was doing the college search and determining my options for a major, God started reminding me of my passion for writing. He started waking me up in the middle of the night with book ideas and titles which I would write down, fall back asleep, and puzzle over in the morning. I've kept track of those ideas to this day. Some have shifted and morphed into more cohesive concepts; others have simply fallen under the umbrella of other, more broad ideas.
Senior year of high school I took an English elective called "Writing for Writers". Our teacher had us individually decide our grading rubric for each writing assignment. Being a perfectionist, I naturally had her grade me on my points of weakness. Ironically, when I'd receive back a "C" for my grade, I was indignant. "I've ALWAYS been told I'm a good writer! Why is she being so hard on me?" Of course, looking back now I know it was myself who was being hard on my writing. At the end of the semester she leafed through my portfolio and handed me my grade. An A+. At my graduation party at the end of that year she hugged me and said into my ear, "You are a great writer. Please never stop writing!"
I've taken that to heart. Not only have I've begun writing more, but I've begun to pursue the course of getting my works published. This has proved a tedious and discouraging task. As I waited anxiously this past Saturday morning for the bell to ding allowing me permission to enter the room where a book publisher was waiting to have a one on one consultation with me was, doubts flooded my mind. "Your ideas are great till they hit the paper. You're a mediocre writer at best. No one is going to care to read anything you write. Just give up and do something you're actually good at." The bell dinged and I peaked around the door into the room. "Are you Angela?" Despite the lack of a name tag (which I had of course left in the car) I confirmed this and sat down. I told him two of my four current book concepts and he nodded incessantly. "That is a really interesting book idea." He told me as he passed both his professional and private business cards across the table. "Please send me your book proposal as soon as you can. I really like your ideas."
I can't say my confidence in my writing ability is much deeper, but hearing a book publisher say these words definitely gives me a sense of encouragement and hope to continue on in what I've loved doing my whole life.
I tell you my story for two reasons: 1) Simply to tell you my story 2) To encourage you in your dreams and calling not to give up.
The apostle Paul puts it well:
I press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:14
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