More than Writers

 As I write, I am surrounded by piles of copies of ACW's new book, "Write Well - a handbook for Christian Writers.' If you were at the launch in London on the 9th of October, I trust like me, you had a wonderful time there. Meeting face to face with ACW friends was long overdue, and such a blessing.  I joined the committee when the book was still being compiled. It was not yet the beautiful finished product I see around me. It was a series of emails, and phone conversations, proof versions and cover ideas. If you've published, you'll remember that stage of your book's development. The tweaking, the checking, the double checking and finally releasing it for print and to the world. Now imagine that with 50 different contributors! That was the mammoth task, compiler/editor Amy Scott Robinson, editors Jane Brocklehurst, Rosemary Johnson, Jane Walters, and publishers Instant Apostle completed.  As well as being a resource filled with advice and encouragement from in...

  Matthew 13: 31-32 The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants. It grows into a tree, and birds come and make nests in its branches. I used to love those little moments right before an appointment or a meeting, even time spent in a queue. “Margins” the coaches of life and business used to tell us. “Build margins into your day,” they said and I did. Margins built into my daily routine were the breathing space moments, the catch up on an email or message a friend moments. I counted on this time in my day. In these brief minutes, even waiting at a bus stop became priceless times of silent prayer or reading a devotional.  Have you noticed their disappearance? Text messages come from the dentist or doctor saying “please do not arrive at your appointment more than five minutes early. This is a Covid measure for the safety of our clients/customers/whatever we are these days.”  This...

We never stop learning, do we? And when we step out of our comfort zones and venture into new territory as writers, it can be a steep learning curve. Here are some of the things I have learned in the last six months of my writing life: 1. Despite apparently ridiculous delays and waits that test the patience of the saintliest, God always comes though somehow, in His time and His way. After a frustratingly long wait to see the phonics books I had written, finally printed and in my hand, they arrived in a week where Ofsted was looming at work and life was feeling rather gloomy. They cheered me up beyond reason. “ God has made everything beautiful for its own time ,” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NLT). 2. Even if you think you haven’t done much in your writing life, you have probably done a lot more than you give yourself credit for. When I recently agreed to be the guest speaker at a Zoom writing group and was given an hour, I panicked, thinking I had about ten minutes of material at most. If you...

  Alfie, three years old and going on seven, lies on his tummy on the cobble path. His dad pauses and leans on his fork. Is he about to stroke a caterpillar? Pat a spider? Suck a worm? The man takes a step towards his chubby little son. Ah. A line of ants moves as one, as if there’s a miniscule tightrope bearing them over an invisible gorge, a rush of water in silent progress beneath them. Alfie looks up at his dad. ‘Why are they busy, busy, busy?’ he asks. Soon after Alfie completed his first journey from darkness to light, just like every healthy baby in the world, he became a mini-scientist, watching, listening, patting, touching, pulling, tasting, smelling. Once he could crawl, he was off, crumpling lovely newspaper, investigating his dinner with his hands, exploring anything and everything experience brings him. His mum recalls the time she left a cupboard door in the kitchen slightly ajar, and Alfie tipped the contents of the veggie waste bin onto the mat by the sink! Sch...

  This is one of those posts born out of a sleepless night – anyone else ever use the ‘A-Z game’ to help you nod off? The idea is that you think of something on a subject for every letter of the alphabet, and at some point (hopefully not too long into the alphabet) you nod off. There I was, the other night, thinking about an A-Z of Christian writing – so do excuse any kind of insomnia induced surrealism! A is for ACW , obviously. It could also be for Adverbs , and Adjectives , and Agents , and the overuse of the word And , but ACW wins hands down, because it’s such a great support and wonderful community to Christian writers (if you’re not a member, why not?)   B is for Bookshops , especially those little independent Christian bookshops we all so value, the ones that cheer us on and the ones we love to go in and soak up the ambience. May they stay strong against the tide of the Internet. C is for Comparison , which is the thief of joy and doesn’t do us any good. It’s too easy ...

  I was off to London! I used to go approximately fortnightly for over 50’s dance classes and visiting my daughter but of course that hadn’t happened for nearly two years. It felt like an adventure. I remembered which shoes to wear to negotiate the London streets. I emptied my small suitcase that usually houses song books for when I play my cello in church. I hunted out my largest backpack. I was only going to be away for one night, but it was for the ACW writers day, and that involved taking books to sell. I was one of the speakers, so this was a golden opportunity to urge along sales that had been so slow during the last 18 months of Covid management when five book signings and events had been cancelled. My OH and I had the following conversation: Me: Will I have flights of steps to negotiate? Him: Well, once you are on the Tube you change at Euston. But you change to another part of the Northern Line, so probably not, because they are at the same depth. Me: Are there s...

 There was an @ACW1971 tweet in August reminding us to be grateful for our writing skills and the ability to express ideas. It went on to ask what skills members were using that week. Creating plot? Imagery in a poem? Crafting an argument in an article? Answers came up like editing, creating character, writing blog posts. And I was about reply with something light hearted, maybe even a little facetious, about the only writing skills I would be using would be for patient notes and ordering equipment. Hardly creative and it didn’t feel like skillful either. But then my thoughts wandered off down a little snicketway of an idea with the signpost ‘the value of writing as work’… Now I don’t mean the obvious idea of a writing job like author, poet, or journalist. But how many of us write as part of our jobs? And how much do we value the skills we use in these day to day, far less romantic tasks of writing? For my own job, I have to write up all my visits, assessments, plans, and i...