What a journey I’ve been on the past nine months! For it was just nine months ago that I posted my first blog! And, since then, self-published the first of what I hope and pray will be many novels and started writing the sequel. I was, and am still, such a novice, feeling my way through both the creative process and the technical aspect of writing in the digital world, struggling to grow my platform, and, most importantly, discerning who I really am as a writer. I’ve learned some lessons (and need to master many more).

Lesson learned #1: Early morning awakening can be a blessing! More times than I can count during the development of Freely Given (the first book of the Four Corners series), I awakened at three a.m. and was blessed with a sudden revelation, an epiphany if you will, regarding the direction the story should take. I have learned that those quiet early morning hours are to be welcomed as a special time when the spirit can be at rest and the mind can be open. Sometimes it is simply a time to be present with God. People who I characterize as the strongest prayer warriors I know often tell me that early morning awakening is their signal that someone needs prayer. One dear saint tells me at those times she prays “through the alphabet”, lifting up those whose names begin with each letter. For me it seems that my creativity is at its peak, although I cannot conceive of actually approaching the keyboard at that hour. The ideas have to be filed away, ready to be put into play during the next opportunity to write.

Lesson learned #2: You don’t have to know the ending when you are beginning. I was dismayed when, early on during the writing of the above mentioned book,  I didn’t always have a sure sense of its ending. How gratifying to find this Robert Frost quote printed on a bookmark picked up at a local writer’s conference. Writing anything, I think, is discovering. Life, I know, is discovering, for is there anyone of us who knows our own life ending? We just need to keep beginning!

I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.

Robert Frost

Lesson learned #3: The Christian faith is, it seems, completely and uncontrollably, central to everything I write. As I view stats of this blog, posts bearing the tag faith are the most viewed. It seems that Christian, rather than popular, fiction is my calling.  Readers of the book frequently reference the thread of day to day Christian life that flows through the story. One gentleman noted, “You could be a preacher.” Really? The book was originally intended to be a romance! And, I guess it is, if one imagines one’s relationship with Jesus as a romance. He does, after all, woo us and call us to an eternal relationship with Him. The Bible calls us, the church, His bride. Sounds kind of romantic. But I am forced to consider: Is it possible for inspirational contemporary fiction to be popular in our culture?

Lesson learned #4: Writing is work! I so admire my fellow bloggers who are so prolific. To turn out the quality and quantity of your work strikes awe in my writer heart and mind. You are truly focused and gifted. As for me, life as wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, nurse, etc., etc. carries on. A TV commercial (I cannot remember what product was being advertised—take note, ad agency) last evening caught my ear–the phrase “the human race” was used to focus attention on the demands of 21st century American life. It seemed very apropos. And, for now, writing must be more of an avocation rather than profession as I race on.

So, back to my lessons for now! May you, dear readers, have a blessed day! What lessons will you learn?