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The Writer's Life
by Keri Wyatt Kent
Just as you receive this
newsletter from me, I also receive a few newsletters
from other writers and ministries.
This week, I received my friend Karen Mains’ newsletter,
Soulish Food. (You can read it below as our guest
column.) As usual, Karen’s musings were
thought-provoking. One paragraph especially struck me.
She talked about “the writing life.” Like a lost pair of
gloves, Karen felt this life was something she once had,
but had lost somewhere along the way. She’s done
ministry with her husband David for decades (they did
Chapel of the Air radio ministry, and now run MainStay
ministries). The demands of ministry edged out that
“writing life” she wanted.
While I have to say that Karen’s notion of the writing
life may be a bit romanticized, her description of it
twanged something in my soul.
Because I am a few years
younger than Karen, and look to her as a mentor and wise
woman, I felt a sense of warning in her words. Don’t
lose this, she seemed to be saying to me. This writer’s
life. Because at the moment, the writer’s life is one I
am living, or trying to live. If I listen to my life, I
will hear very clearly the call to write.
In
order to listen to my life, and to obey God’s call on
it, I must say no to certain things, and yes to others.
And the same is true for you. You may not be a writer
(or perhaps you are), but you are called to some kind of
life: being a teacher, an engineer, a mom, a doctor, a
minister, or something else. Answering that call means
considering very carefully when you will say yes, and
when you will say no.
During certain seasons of the year, I say yes to
requests to be a speaker or retreat leader. Most
writers, once published, get these kind of requests.
It’s ironic to me, because I believe speaking and
writing are two very different skills. They’re both
communication, but then again, so are Swahili and
English. And I suppose you can become relatively fluent
in both. But one will likely remain your native tongue.
There are speakers who write, and writers who speak. I’m
the latter, and the written word will always be my first
language and my deepest love. I enjoy speaking, it’s a
way to connect with readers and also provides me some
income, which is something the writing life doesn’t
always give you a lot of.
So what
does a writing life look like?
In order to live this life, I have to write. That takes
discipline. You do not write only when you feel like it.
It’s just after 7 a.m. I’ve been up for an hour, seeing
my kids off to school. They make their own lunches while
I sit and make a shopping list, drink coffee. I remind
my 12-year-old to comb his hair, I remind my 14-year-old
about her dentist appointment later this week.
Because my writing life is juxtaposed with a mothering
life, those things must be combined. But from the time
the kids walk out the door, I get my butt in the chair,
and I put words onto a page. It’s one of the most
important yeses of the writing life. So many people tell
me that they would like to be a writer. But when I ask,
do you write? They say, well, not at the moment. Wanting
to write and actually writing are two very different
things.
The writing life requires discipline. I make time to
write five days a week—and I give my best, most alert
time (usually from 7 a.m. until noon) to that task. I
set goals of 1000 words per day, or more. I read books
on writing, read good books in general, to study my
craft. The writing life seems solitary, and it is, but
it also requires me to be in community—to ask other
writers to read my work, to offer feedback so that I can
improve it. And to provide that kind of feedback and
encouragement to other writers. So, within carefully set
boundaries, I do some of that as well.
This weekend, I drove to another state where I led a
retreat. This is part of the writing life, too, because
the retreat was based on one of my books. Speaking,
especially when you do a retreat and really talk to
people, seems more hands-on ministry than writing. But
really, speaking before a large group creates a sort of
distance. In contrast, if you share your soul in the
pages of a book, you provide an opportunity for
one-on-one ministry, soul to soul connection with your
reader.
A writer’s life isn’t just poring over the dictionary or
even just writing. As most of you know, I have a new
website. Many of my working hours over the last two
months have been poured into communicating with the
designer, or trying to communicate with her, via e-mail.
I only know what I think looks pretty. She taught me a
whole new language as we figured out what the website
needed to be able to do, how it would function. And
we’re still working out a few last glitches with the
site.
Karen’s lament of losing the writing life made me more
determined to hang onto it myself. Because I don’t
travel to speak during the summer, I can spend the next
four months living the writer’s life. Which is important
not just because I love writing, but because I have a
book due September 1.
In your
life, you may often wrestle with what to say yes and no
to. But often, we don’t feel we have a guide for making
those decisions. The question is, what does your life
intend to do with you? What is God calling you to? What
sort of life do you have, that you don’t want to lose?
Or what life have you lost, that you want to find again?
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