Writing with the best intentions by Lesley Hargreaves

 

 

 Hello. This is my first blog for ACW so please be gentle with me. Most of my
writing these days revolves around my weekly blog but, in the past, I have
written newspaper and magazine columns and a small book and am moving
towards doing some more again.

 
When I wrote my book, I received some lovely positive reviews which was very
cheery and encouraging. The book was a small non-fiction paperback, intended
to be a funny, non-threatening introduction to Christianity. I included things
that I had experienced to make it accessible to as many (mainly women) as
possible so that they could empathise with a very VERY ordinary woman. In the
main, it went down well with some decentish sales and I was happy with the
way things had gone. 

Then I saw a review. It wasn’t a bad review but it did say that what the reader
hadn’t liked was the way that they felt that I was flippant about breast cancer.
I was mortified. I had had breast cancer a few years before and it informed a
lot of my thinking but I had decided that I would still be me as much as possible
i.e. quite shallow sometimes. But I would NEVER
be flippant about sitting in front of a consultant and getting the worst possible
news. That someone should think so was a failure on my part as far as I was
concerned. 

Sometime later I received a letter from a lady I didn’t know. She thanked me
for the book which she had used in a small ladies’ group that she ran once a
fortnight. None of the ladies had any kind of church background and they
would start the evening by having coffee and biscuits, then they would give
each other manicures before looking at a chapter of my book and having a
non-threatening chat around it. That sounded so lovely, although, when I look
down at my nails I can only see something that you would find on the end of
an old bald eagle, it still sounded like a top evening.
Then, the best bit. Another small note fell out of the letter. Written with an
inexperienced hand, it just said “Thank you for showing me the way to Jesus,
through your book.” Arrrgh! Really? 

The thing is neither of my reviewers was wrong or right. They both just had
different experiences and I knew then that, as long as I wrote to the best of my
ability and as honestly as I could, I couldn’t really worry about how it was
received. You could drive yourself mad and never produce anything if you are
frightened of how it lands. The old “stony ground - fertile ground” really holds
here. You just give out your best and trust it lands well and be at peace with that - hopefully.

Lesley works at a Transport Charity in Plymouth and blogs (more or less) weekly at Wrinkly Martha. The title is because (a) she is old and (b) she is always trying to be a Mary and very spiritual but usually ends up more like Martha - in the kitchen banging pans together.

 https://wrinklymartha.blogspot.com/