rebelling against low expectations
Whenever I sit down at my desk to write, I face a sudden and intense battle. Accusations flock to my mind; I imagine the miserable sentences I may cough up on the page; I watch my readers’ eyes rolling, or worse, scanning through my work only to turn the page or click the next link after a few seconds. My courage withers and falters among these intrusive thoughts. They wring my creativity dry;...
I want to explore the concept of writing with excellence through the lens of our Christian faith. As followers of Christ, we are called to live out our faith in every aspect of our lives, including our writing endeavors. While I’m definitely not a professional on the subject (and that’s a huge understatement), it’s important to talk about. Thinking and even theorizing about a topic can often...
Am I really a writer if I’m not writing? Another line marked, another due date on my calendar, but I was coming up empty. My fingers danced in the air above my keyboard without landing. I was a writer who couldn’t write. It wasn’t just that I had no ideas or no motivation. It wasn’t only the fears, doubts, and what-ifs. I was empty. I had nothing to say. During a decade of blogging, I’ve...
“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…” Hebrews 12:2 (KJV, emphasis is my own). As a writer and aspiring author, the analogy that God is the Author of our stories has always resonated with me deeply. When I write, I dedicate hours upon hours of time to my story. Developing the plot, working on the setting, and fleshing out all the little details are necessary to...
Sometimes I have a hard time believing my words can make a difference. Writers get that – the risk, the uncertainty, the naysayers that tell us we will fail. Our world is made up of words – harmful, hurtful, loving, giving, grieving, cherished words. We spend our time rearranging the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, and even when we feel like we’ve crafted our finest, it’s just not good enough...
“I want to be a writer…but I have no idea where to start! Is it even possible to be a successful young writer?” Jaquelle Crowe Ferris, former Editor-in-Chief of theRebelution and bestselling author of This Changes Everything, joins the podcast today to give her very best advice and encouragement for young writers. She shares the mistakes she made throughout her writing journey (and what she...
As I sit down to write, I often forget that my words are not my own. There are many times when I forget that I must seek the Lord and ask him for guidance when I relay my thoughts into words. I often forget that the Lord deserves to be extolled through the words that I write. Words have the ability to either destroy or to build up, and this is a responsibility that I cannot carry alone. Like many...
Rarely has a mastery of so many tenets of literary pursuit been so demonstrated by a single author than that which is apparent in the voluminous writings of one Gilbert Keith Chesterton. G.K. Chesterton was the jovial turn of the (20th) century English writer who penned numerous books, articles, comic verses, and everything in between, all to varying but invariably considerable degrees of success...
Something I realized as I was listening to one of my playlists recently was that quite a few of the songs I’ve been enjoying share the common theme of storytelling or creativity in general. And not only that, a few of them are specifically about how it can relate to us as Christians in our relationship with God. So today, I want to share four songs I think will especially resonate with you if...
7 A.M. rolled around, and I felt fresh. God’s words were alive. Ideas flowed fast. I would dig through Scripture until something caught my eye that I could carry to my desk, and then I spent an hour typing up pages in my pajamas. Those pages worked nicely for Sunday blog posts. I sometimes wondered if a big Christian website might peek at them. And do you know what? Being a young Christian writer...
rebelling against low expectations
