called to write

Your Unique Writing Gift

Published on by Kristi Holl

If you lack confidence in your writing ability… If you doubt that you have anything unique to say to a reader… If you think it doesn’t matter if you share your writing with the world, you’ll want to read this.

Your Writing is Unique

Last week when in Waco, TX, I visited the beautiful Homestead Heritage craft-based community. I found a book there called Write Words: the Grace of Writing by Blair Adams.

If you doubt that you have anything unique to share with the world through your writing, this quote might well change your mind.

You speak with a unique voice that comes from a unique perspective. Just as each person possesses a one-of-a-kind speaking voice, so each possesses just such a writing “voice.” … “if a reader says, ‘That sounds just likeyou,’ take it as a first-rate compliment. No one else experiences the world from precisely the same intersection of relationships and events, from the same angle of vision. No one else has journeyed through the same life. That life has shaped your focus on the world to give you special insights and perspectives, a special mix of knowledge and experience, information and relationships, victories and defeats, joys and sorrows, hopes and dreams. All these enable you to view and understand the world in a particular way. This unique way of seeing and saying means that from experiences re-created in written words, you can uncover and disclose insights and perspectives that will otherwise be lost to the world forever.”

Lost to the world forever: that’s what will happen if you give up on your writing projects. Don’t quit! Don’t let your work be lost to the world forever.

You would be missed.

Surrendering to the Call

Published on by Kristi Holl

The post below was written almost four years ago, when I was struggling with this question. I was pleased to see that I no longer struggle with it. In fact, after a full surrender, things shifted for me in a wonderful way. Not only do I have as many contracts as I can handle, I’m having a chance to write the kind of books I have always loved to read. What made the difference in four years? Read below, and you’ll see…

Do you believe you are called to write? Or do you suspect you are?

If that’s true, why aren’t you pursuing your calling?

Food for Thought

This weekend I started reading Callings by Gregg Levoy, the author of a very practical book for writers called This Business of Writing. In Callings, he said some thought-provoking things that gave me pause.

I started writing thirty years ago, and until six months ago, there were many reasons why I couldn’t give my all-out devotion to writing: a full-time day job of teaching, raising four children, multiple jobs in the church and community, serious health problems and surgeries, etc. But last fall I retired from teaching, my children are grown, and I can decide how much I babysit grandchildren and how much volunteer work I do. It’s a time I’ve been anticipating for three decades.

So…am I pursuing my writer’s calling with full devotion? I want to. I dream about it. I can almost taste it sometimes. But do I do it? No.

Why?

I’m not sure, but these quotes from Callings are helping me ask the right questions. Maybe these ideas will help you too.

  • “Although we have the choice not to follow  a call, if we do not do so,..we’ll feel alienated from ourselves, listless and frustrated, and fitful with boredom, the common  cold of the soul. Life will feel so penetratingly dull and pointless that we may become angry, and turn the anger inward against ourselves (one definition of depression).”
  • “Generally, people won’t pursue their callings until the fear of doing so is finally exceeded by the pain of not doing so.”
  • “Perhaps the main reason that we ignore calls is that we instinctively know the price they’ll exact.”
  • “All calls lead to some sacrifice because even just one choice closes the door on another, and some calls lead to much sacrifice, which may feel anything but blissful.”
  • “At some level we need to devote everything, our whole selves. A part-time effort, a sorta-kinda commitment, an untested promise, won’t  suffice. You must know that you mean business, that you’re going to jump into it up to your eye sockets and not turn back at the last minute.”

Will the Rubber Meet the Road Now?

I’ve had thirty years of (by necessity) a “part-time effort” and “an untested promise.” Now that I have the time and could choose to do so, will I “jump into it up to [my] eye sockets”?

Is the pain of not doing so finally more than the fear of trying? Yes, I think so.

How about you?

What Am I Called to Write?

Published on by Kristi Holl

Do you have a writing gift? Do you have a knack with words? Do you feel an  inner desire to write? Even if you don’t use the word with friends or family, do you feel called to write?

Most of you who read this blog said a resounding “yes!” to those questions a long time ago.

And yet, one of the most common email or conference questions I hear is, “How do I know what I’m supposed to write?”

So Many Possibilities!

Sometimes the confusion is about subject matter. Should you write homeschool educational materials? Tips on raising children? Picture books that help preschoolers overcome fears? Humorous books to make teens laugh?

Sometimes the question involves age groups. Should you focus on preschoolers, early childhood, lower or upper elementary, YA, adults? Should you zero in on one age group or be flexible, writing for all ages?

Sometimes we wonder about form. Should we try a verse novel? Rhyming picture books? Series fiction? Nonfiction with photographs? Hardcover stand-alone novels?

Clues to the Answers

The following set of questions from The Soul Tells a Story by Vinita Hampton Wright are some ways you can explore those questions and perhaps find some answers. Take time with each question–each one serves a particular purpose.

  • The activity that gives me greatest joy is…
  • The good qualities that best describe my life are…
  • The help that people often solicit from me is…
  • The part of my personality that I would most hate to lose is…
  • The work that is most satisfying to me is…
  • The activity that I feel drawn to, even when it’s scary, is…

Finding Your Writing Niche

When I began writing thirty years ago, I only knew two things: I loved to read, and I loved my small children. I read the ICL ad and something went off inside of me, like a little burst of fireworks.  Me? A writer? Neat!

But what kind of writing?

I assumed, because my children were newborn, two and five, I would write stories for the very young. But by trial and error over two years’ time, while selling fiction and nonfiction for preschool through adult ages, I finally settled on middle-grade fiction as my first love. I occasionally write other things, but always come back to that.

You’ll find your answers in much the same way. Take time to explore. It’s an exciting time of your writing life!