How To Be A Writer

Church Girl, what age were you when you started writing?

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For real? I was 46 years old the first time I called myself a “writer”and it terrified me.

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Who was I kidding?
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Then I got a check in the mail for an article I had written on “Establishing Your Core Values” from the Christian Standard magazine and thought, “I guess I AM a writer now!”
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Really, I’ve written all my life. Dumb poems. Bad songs. Better poems, but still not very good ones. Chemistry and biology labs. So-so song lyrics. Physics labs. Public speaking notes. Short essays and commentaries on Christian life. (These eventually morphed into blog posts once I started “Jesus In Everything.”) Bible studies. 6-7000 word research commentaries for sermons. Articles for Hobby Farms CHICKENS, Christian Standard, and The NorCal Christian Voice magazines.
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It wasn’t until I went to my first Christian writers conference at Mt. Hermon, California that I understood what genre I wrote. People kept asking me, “What do you write?” and I couldn’t answer! I wasn’t sure I even belonged. But being around other writers, most of whom are passionate introverts like me, and hearing them explain their writing, gave me guts. I had found my tribe. And my tribe helped me find myself and what I was always created to do.
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Once I finally embraced who I was -a writer! – I really did find my little Ball jar of happiness.
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What is it that makes YOU happy? What were YOU created to do?
Go, do THAT.

🔽🔽🔽🔽🔽🔽🔽🔽

For other post like this one, check out Knife, You Can’t Pee On Every Tree, Set Apart, Gum Wall, and Many Flavors.