Tag: the writing process

Writing as an act of worship

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I am delighted to welcome Rob Seabrook to my blog, as part of the blog tour for his book Beneath the Tamarisk Tree, which is a fictional retelling of the story of the penitent thief who met Jesus on the cross. Awaking in heaven, he is welcomed by Jesus and looks back over his story… At the start of the book Rob provides a ‘Note from the Author’, in which he says: “This book is ultimately an act of worship, to bring glory to God. It is attempting to help us understand more of who God is and what he had to endure for each of us.” Over to Rob…

Reflecting God’s creativity

I am not musical in any way, I cannot sing well and I am certainly no dancer! But I like to think I can write, and even if no one else likes my writing then at least it gives me pleasure to be creative. And creativity is a reflection of God. It is His very nature to be creative, infinitely creative. His imagination is unlimited, displayed in the endless creativity we see around us, as well as the way He has created each of us to be unique. Billions of souls, all made in His image but all unique. What depth of imagination that takes. So to me it makes sense that our imaginations are a gift from Him, which, if well directed, can be used as an act of worship to bring the glory back to Him.

The power of storytelling

This concept of my writing being an act of worship was new to me when I began the writing process. As the story developed, the characters became real to me, the images of each scene began to grow in my imagination and I began to see how the creation of a novel could be an act of worship. Especially if I kept hold of the overall mission, which was to communicate the good news of Jesus to the reader and help to bring them on in their relationship with God. After all, storytelling was a tool that Jesus often used to communicate His message, each time bringing the focus back to the Kingdom of God. For millennia, people have used storytelling to communicate important truths…stories grab our attention, spark our imaginations, engage us in the narrative and help us to associate with the message.

Writing biblical fiction

My chosen genre for my first novel was ‘biblical fiction’ – two words that Christians don’t really like to put together! I certainly felt the responsibility of creating a work that in no way presented an alternative narrative to the Bible, that did not detract from the Word or add to it (Deuteronomy 4:2 and Revelation 22:18-19 are quite clear on this). However, I read quite a lot of other biblical fiction books as a part of my research, mostly very good but a few that made me wince as I read them, and I began to see a way through it. The genre can certainly be used to expand the reader’s understanding of a Bible story and bring deeper understanding. In many cases, when it is well researched, it brings cultural context that is often not clear to us as we read the Bible text, and hence it can clarify the meaning and improve our understanding.

Asking for feedback

There was one element that I found especially hard to write, which was when Jesus needed dialogue. Who am I to put words into the mouth of Jesus? I felt the weight of responsibility to pitch this right. As much as I could I tried to keep the dialogue brief, but using sentiment and phrases that were aligned to His words as quoted in the Bible. At all times I kept in mind the character and intentions of Jesus, and how He was most likely to have approached the conversations. And then I read, re-read, edited and re-edited many times, then ensured that a number of much more qualified theologians than me read it and gave me whatever feedback necessary to fine tune it. My measure of success was that they would read it and the words would not grate, or feel out of place. They indicated that they were the sort of words they could imagine Jesus speaking. I was thankful for a great team to support the writing process.

Leading others

I would like to encourage others to use their God-given gifts to create worship. Our first thought is so often that worship is for others to lead us into, but those of us who like to write can do so with a clear purpose to bring glory to God and help to lead others into a place of worship. Short stories, novels, teaching books, poems, prayers, blogs, newspaper articles and even church newsletters – all can be written as an act of worship.

Rob Seabrook lives and works in beautiful Devon, is married to Gemma, with three grown-up children, Bruno the dog and some chickens. As foster carers, together they have gained insight into the impact of trauma on children, and have seen that rebuilding a life takes endless patience, full acceptance, love and care, and there is always room for second chances. It is this experience that part inspired the context for Beneath the Tamarisk Tree.

A keen reader, after a few years of procrastinating he finally felt challenged to have a go at writing a book for himself. Beneath the Tamarisk Tree is his first novel.

Visit Rob’s website and/or follow him at: Instagram: @rob_seabrook, Facebook: @authorrobseabrook, Twitter: @SeabrookRob

Rob is running a giveaway up to 15th February, offering five copies of the book or eBook to new subscribers.

The long and winding road

I am delighted to welcome Fiona Lloyd, author of the intensely honest, moving and funny The Diary of a (Trying to be Holy) Mum to my blog. I had the pleasure of proofreading it, and can thoroughly recommend it. Here, she explains how writing has always been a part of her life – and details the journey towards becoming a published author…

I was 10 when I self-published my first book: a dozen or so of my own poems (written out in my best handwriting), with pencilled illustrations and a cover purloined from an old calendar. I was immensely proud of myself.

Fast-forward a few years into my teens, and I had titles in my head for several more books. Some even made it onto paper, although I never seemed to get much beyond the first page. As I grew up, my dreams faded: I got a sensible job (in teaching), and settled down to married life followed by – at a respectable interval – three children.

It wasn’t until I was in my mid-30s that the idea of writing began to niggle at me again. I started work on a non-fiction book, aimed at helping people to grow closer to God, but my prose was stilted and formal, and relied far too heavily on quotes from other books I had read.

Then one afternoon, while doing the school run, the phrase ‘the day it all went wrong’ drifted into my head. This triggered off all sorts of questions in my mind. Who was talking? What had happened to make it such a bad day? And what were the consequences? Gradually, the character of a flustered mum, trying to do her best (but often failing) formed in my head.

WRITING FROM EXPERIENCE

As a young mum, I frequently felt overwhelmed by the responsibility of looking after three small children (much as I loved them). It appeared as if everyone else knew exactly what to do: I thought I was the only one whose toddler had tantrums in the supermarket, and whose children who refused to eat more than one variety of vegetable. If I tried to set time aside to pray, it was pretty much guaranteed that I would be snoring 30 seconds later. Worse still, there always seemed to be plenty of people around to tell me I wasn’t doing it right.

By the time I got to child number three, I was older and maybe a little wiser. I could see that other mums often struggled with similar issues, leaving them lonely and discouraged. My book started to take shape, inspired by the things I knew that I and others had wrestled with. I hoped that if it ever got to the stage of being read by other young mums it would help them feel less isolated.

GAINING CONFIDENCE IN THE WRITING PROCESS

By now, I had plenty of ideas in my head, but lacked confidence to develop them into a full narrative. I tackled other (shorter) writing projects, with varying degrees of success. I joined the Association of Christian Writers, finding valuable advice and supportive friendships. Still – after several years – my words petered out around the 5,000 mark: I found I spent more time editing the work I’d already done than adding new material.

What eventually got things moving was my decision to take part in NaNoWriMo [National Novel Writing Month] in November 2014. I knew I was unlikely to hit their proposed target of 50,000 words in a month…but I did manage 20,000. I was delighted: I was also reinvigorated. I knew I needed a more defined story-arc, so I spent my work commutes having lengthy conversations with my protagonist, Becky, about what was going on in her life. My word count crept steadily up until August 2015, when – after much reworking and tea-drinking – my first draft was completed.

SUBMITTING MY WORK TO A PUBLISHER

One of the advantages of having spent such a long time on it was that I knew (from conversations with other writers) that several rewrites would be required before it was ready to go off to a publisher. I quite enjoy a bit of nit-picking, so I spent many happy hours deleting unnecessary or over-used words – ‘just’, ‘actually’ and ‘but’ were popular culprits. Over the next year I tweaked and re-tweaked. A few kind friends read the manuscript for me, resulting in yet more amendments. Even after I’d incorporated their suggestions, I agonised about whether I’d really got it to the point where it was ready for submission.

This raised another issue: where to send it? I’d written a clearly Christian work of fiction – because I wanted to encourage Christian mums – only to discover that there are very few publishers taking on such books nowadays. I wondered about going down the self-publishing route – and I have friends who’ve done this very successfully – but I wasn’t sure I felt able to take on such a huge task.

It was through a writing friend that I found out about Instant Apostle, a small – but growing – Christian publishing company. At the time, they’d just taken on a second novel from her, and she knew that they were looking to publish some more overtly Christian books. I did some last-minute fine-tuning, dithered for a few weeks, prayed like mad, and finally sent off my first three chapters plus synopsis to Instant Apostle.

BEING ENCOURAGED

A few weeks later, an email pinged into my in-box: they liked what they’d seen – could I send the rest of the manuscript? Could I? Could I?? I’d pressed ‘send’ almost before I’d finished reading the email. This time, the wait was much shorter. On 17 May 2017, I received a phone call: Instant Apostle wanted to publish my book! I’ve been very pleased with the support they’ve given me, and I think the finished product – now entitled The Diary of a (Trying to be Holy) Mum – looks amazing. I’m trying to keep both feet on the floor, and my prayer is still very much that young mums (and others) will be encouraged by it.

So, I’ll leave the closing thoughts to another friend who has just read the book.

‘It’s so reassuring,’ she told me, ‘to know that I’m not the only one who struggles.’

I can’t ask for more than that.

Fiona Lloyd is vice-chair of the Association of Christian Writers, and is married with three grown-up children. Her first novel, The Diary of a (trying to be holy) Mum, is being published by Instant Apostle on 18 January 2018. Fiona has also had short stories published in Woman Alive and Writers’ News, and has written articles for Christian Writer and Together Magazine. Fiona works part-time as a music teacher, and is a member of the worship-leading team at her local church. You can find her on Twitter: @FionaJLloyd & @FionaLloyd16