Your Turn to Talk (and a Giveaway)

We do a lot of talking about writing around here.

Like this set of posts on character emotions.

Or how to network and make friends.

How about adding the spice to our writing?

Avoiding (or maybe accepting) flat characters.

And always being aware of our plot points.

There is a wealth of posts to pull from and scan through for writing advice. Most of it comes from the experience of taking this journey one step at a time.

Yesterday, I spent several hours working through The Book Buddy for plotting my latest novel. A story about living your dreams, taking each day and making the most of your life you possibly can. It's a story of bucket lists and relinquishing our dreams to God all at the same time.

And I kept learning new things. Not just about my characters, but also about this novel process. None of us are ever "there". We never reach the point where we can say "ta-da!" I've made it and now everything is just going to fall into place. 

Wouldn't it be nice, if we knew that would happen someday?

But you know the nice thing, as Christians, someday it will happen like that, we leave this earthy domain for our heavenly one. 

Which to me, that makes the process of novel so very exciting. With each new story I write, I notice new things about myself and my writing that continues to improve. I'm not staying stagnant, I'm not stuck where I'm at in my journey. I'm always getting better.

All of us are trying so hard to get to that "ta-da!" moment of freedom from trying so hard to improve our POV, show-don't-tell, character depth, plot, dialogue, passive voice, setting, senses and the list goes on and on and on...

We get discouraged. We find despair, realizing we can never learn it all, we can never apply it all, so why keep trying to succeed in something we are bound to fail at?

Knock, knock? Are you still there? Take a deep breath and calm that hyperventilating, because I'm not done.

Do you ever stop and realize how far you've come? Really? Do you? Do you go back and read that first chapter of your first manuscript and then read the chapter of the one you just finished and realize how far you've come??

Even if you're still working on that first novel, stop where you are, back up and read past edits and what it looked like before and don't worry about what NEEDS to be fixed and be thankful for what is RIGHT.

God wants our best exactly in this moment. Not ten minutes or ten years from now, we'll worry about that when we get there. Give Him your best, right now and be encouraged by how far you have come.

So today, in celebration of how far YOU'VE come, I want you to join the conversation! All those that share in the success of how far they have come, either by personal experiences, contest news that has been especially encouraging or comparing past and present projects, will be entered to win a brand new novel from my stash of well-treasured authors. Including: Susan May Warren, Julie Lessman, Tamera Alexander and Beth Vogt. 

YOUR turn to share. We'll be sharing snippets of success in the weekend edition, so don't be shy! Winner announced tomorrow in the WE.

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Casey Herringshaw is a homeschool graduate and has been writing since high school. She lives in rural Eastern Oregon in a town more densely populated with cows than people.