More than Writers

Over the past two weeks, three so-called “book clubs” have appeared in my inbox. Each one claimed to have thousands of eager readers, all genuinely interested in my books. Each email provoked a different reaction. The first message didn’t mention any of my titles. Considering I have nearly twenty books published, that should have raised a red flag immediately—but it didn’t. Instead, I replied with a simple question: “Are your readers interested in sci-fi fantasy?” The answer, unsurprisingly, was an enthusiastic yes. I was invited to send a PDF of my book and pay a small fee in exchange for the possibility that some members might leave reviews. I politely declined. I don’t pay for reviews—full stop. Next came Patrick. He was more convincing. He referenced a specific title, Strangest Christian Myths Squished , and even mentioned my background in youth work. That detail almost won me over; it suggested he’d done his homework. He assured me participation was “completely free of ch...

 A movement outside my window made me look up and there, strutting nonchalantly across the lawn in front of my French windows, was a brightly coloured pheasant. Bold fellow seemed supremely confident in his finery. It's not something I'm at all good at. Strutting my stuff. In other words, marketing and promoting my books. I know I need to put the effort in to let potential readers know that my books are out there, just waiting for them to buy and hopefully enjoy.  But all the stuff that goes with it - photographs of me in bookshops and at events, holding my book up and grinning foolishly at the camera - or caught unawares looking even worse... No, it's really not me! (I don't mind the events - in fact I love giving talks about my books and my faith.) Maybe it's the way I was brought up: we were firmly told that boasting was not permitted. And there are plenty of Bible verses about how God really does not like the proud! So it sounds as if blowing our own trumpets is...

  Do you find it easier to write something that matches the mood you’re in, or something that contrasts with it? Imagine you come home from an emotional hospital visit, full of sadness and pain. And you sit down to work on a story which focusses on joy. Does it give you a break from your own strong emotions? Or do you just give up, unable to get into the right headspace. Last week I was struggling to write the next chapter in my current work-in-progress. The main character is angry with events and feeling isolated. She needs to express her frustration to God. And I felt a real resistance to even attempting to write the chapter. I’m familiar with procrastination, with the reluctance to get down to work. This resistance was stronger than that. I wondered if I had misjudged how the character was feeling. Sometimes the aversion to writing a particular scene is because the story has taken a wrong turn. Or I’m trying to force a character to go where they don’t want to g...

  The  Writer As A Work in Progress  By Sheelagh Aston Do you remember how, on a racing-track, every competitor runs, but only one wins the prize? Well, you ought to run with your minds fixed on winning the prize! Every competitor in athletic events goes into serious training. Athletes will take tremendous pains—for a fading crown of leaves. But our contest is for an eternal crown that will never fade. 1 Corinthians 9:23-25   J B Philips New Testament I first started writing when I was about nine or ten. I started with poetry and had a lovely English teacher who encouraged me. If it had not been for her kindness to me at that time, I would probably have stopped. Instead, I found a lifelong source of comfort and a passion which I have never outgrown or got a board of. Anguished teenage poetry came and went to be replaced by drama sketches for school and student events, then short stories, and finally novels. Nowadays I write a combination of all. In the scri...

Photo by Kateryna Shevchenko on Unsplash On Wednesday afternoon, I was talking to students about communication. I told them that I became deaf in 2000. Then I looked around the room, realisation striking: “You weren’t alive in 2000, were you?!” They all shook their heads, and we laughed. They were a great group: listening, and participating, and asking excellent questions. The session added to equipping them for their future careers. And they received that equipping from someone who’d been around before they were even born.   What about us as writers? We, too, are equipped by Someone who was around before we were born. Before anyone was born.   He (Jesus) is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:17   How might knowing that we have been - and are - equipped by Jesus Himself shape our writing?   Perhaps those students, in years to come, will be in a clinic situation that causes them to remember our ses...

And it came to pass that a shy girl discovered the Internet, and there within was a chance to pursue writing with something called a Blog, which is to say a Weblog. And behold, the shy girl found that she could write about things that interested her. And, in the beginning, that included riveting things like nail varnish and whether the beans should actually ON the toast and whether sweetcorn is an abomination unto the Lord.  The shyest of the shy girls considered not that people would actually be reading the Blog and very quickly, she moved on from nail varnish, which she could never get to last for more than 16 minutes anyway, and she began to write about the deepest darkest questions of our time.  But I say unto thee that this is a lie because when she began to write about the solutions to the human condition, she found that she was rubbish at it. Indeed, her words were as dust. So, mainly, she stuck to her human condition and what the love of a good God could do about it. A...