Today I am excited to present something that will be a ticket to freedom for many of you. Introducing my new free ebook, To Write a Life: Telling the Truth before Telling the Story!
If you have been thinking that you would like to write a nonfiction book or memoir, then you will benefit from this ebook. If you have been thinking about starting a blog, then you will benefit from this ebook. If you have been wanting to change professions, move to a new location, try a different hobby, or walk into any kind of endeavor for the first time, you will benefit from this ebook. If you are ready to embrace your calling, you will benefit from this ebook.
In To Write a Life, I present ten lies that kept me bound for many years. Eventually, I saw them for what they were, and eliminated them from my life. In this free ebook, which you can receive by signing up for my email list, I tell you how I exchanged lies for life.
Want a sample?
This is from the Introduction:
If a life is worth living in the first place, it is worth reliving on a page. Each year leaves a bounty of lessons and experiences that can be passed on through writing. Some of those experiences may have felt like the end of us, but they weren’t. We survived.
And survival tips should be shared.
When it comes to life lessons like these, most of us could offer enough practical advice to populate a Dear Abby column for decades, if it came to that. We want other people to learn what we’ve learned ourselves before it is too late. We want the next person—our nephew or neighbor—to see the trouble in the clouds before it comes. We want the next person—the new mother or the newly diagnosed—to see the treasure in the clutter before it’s gone.
The desire to write a life is universal. Your lessons, your grandfather’s lessons, your mother’s lessons are probably badgering you. These lessons of growth are begging to be written. You may even feel that God is moving you to write them down. Growth is a gift from Him, but the lessons within growth are an even greater gift. They are a gift we receive and then give to others through writing.
I certainly felt that God was moving me to write.
From my earliest memories, I knew I was destined to be a writer. My first publication was The Maples Messenger, a monthly newspaper that I mailed to my parents’ friends when I was in third grade. I charged five dollars for ad space (hustlin’ since 1983), and a few friends bought some.
It wasn’t long before I knew I wanted to pursue a career as a journalist. I was the yearbook editor in high school, and something within me ignited during that experience. I remember the rest of the yearbook staff teasing me because I bought a pair of gun mufflers to wear over my ears each day during seventh period (Writing was serious, so very serious). While everyone else enjoyed themselves, comparing photo spreads and eating caramel popcorn while they worked, I burned through my list of assignments in a vacuum of silence. Picture a new recruit at her first police academy target practice. That was the look on my face as I wrote—and I already mentioned the gun muffs. Yes, writing evoked a unique kind of intensity from me.
And it felt like pure and perfect joy.
I entered college as a mass communications major. Newspaper reporter, nightly news anchor, radio DJ … all of these opportunities captivated me. I couldn’t decide which, but I knew I’d wind up in one of them. What I needed to do was complete my bachelors degree, then my masters, then take an entry-level position in the journalism area that appealed to me the most, then move up the ladder. My career as a communicator? By then it was all-planned, baby.
I shake my head in wonder as I remember that innocent confidence. My life would happen according to plan, all right. But not according to my plan.
In 1994, my sophomore year in college, a life-threatening medical crisis pulled me from my studies and left me in the hospital for two months (then in home rehabilitation for several more). During that time, God overwhelmed my family with His faithfulness. Somehow, we were able to cultivate hope during the darkest season of our lives. That was only possible because Jesus stayed close beside us. Suddenly, I wanted to tell the world all about His goodness. Peace and continued faith under trial were possible! People needed to know! I had to start writing my story. Right there in the hospital.
I guess you could say I still wanted to be a journalist. I just went from wanting to report the daily news to wanting to share the Good News.
The physical therapists in the hospital were accommodating, and I asked them to allow me access to a computer after hours. Day after day, I wheeled myself to the dark physical therapy gym to type out my story.
With one finger.
After I left the hospital, my typing had not improved, but I was gaining speed with cursive penmanship, so I wrote the rest of my story by hand. It took me a year, but I pressed on, filling ten composition notebooks with my scrawled handwriting. Then I hounded my aunt to type it all for me. She worked at her own job during the day and then came home to type my notebooks at night (Yes, she loves me).
When my manuscript was ready, I printed six plastic-comb bound copies at a copy shop. Then I sent four of those big, fat monsters directly to publishers. I got four rejection letters in the mail. They were kind and personal, but they were a shock because I hadn’t even imagined that someone would not want this story. I read the final letter and then stood there, stunned. This was just before the Internet, so I did not really know how to find information to move forward. What was next? Everywhere I turned with a query letter or proposal was a dead end.
Over time, I completed my mass communications degree and became a high school English teacher, still dreaming of writing full-time. Deep inside, I felt finished with that first manuscript. I even found a dumpster far from where I lived (I was ashamed and afraid someone would find it), and I threw one of the last two comb copies in the trash. I stored the other one in the back of a drawer because it felt like sacrilege to get rid of it altogether. But that drawer may as well have been the trash, because I never intended to touch that painful thing again. Hopelessness hurts.
I might have felt finished with my story, but my story wasn’t finished. God had much more in store than a story.
Then in 2007, after a decade of wallowing in a sense of personal failure as a writer, after learning to love the education profession, after years of not writing at all (at all!), my life took a dramatic turn. A new chapter opened for me. It seemed that the testimony I had been content to tell had not been the whole thing.
I got busy and rewrote the manuscript from start to finish, including the exciting things God was doing in my life. Then two brushes with traditional publishers almost worked out.
But didn’t.
I felt heart-sore once again. I buried the manuscript in the back of the drawer-o’-death.
Oh, but God loves a good resurrection.
(To read more, download To Write a Life. Click here to sign up.)
