Writers: Are You Asking for Help?

We’ve talked a lot about writing with community. Surrounding yourself with a group of people that you can trust your heart and writing with. People that become your friends beyond this writing journey and support you in nearly every aspect of your life.

They are your warriors. Your champions. The people that hold you up in prayer when the going is rough and the people you in turn laugh and cry with when they are joyful or struggling.

This is your tribe. These are your people.

But I was challenged recently for how often I actually come to my tribe—my people—and ask for help with my writing.

Allen Arnold has talked and ministered to many, many writers about not writing in a vacuum. About not being the “orphan” that writes alone, creates alone, processes alone and instead invites the Creator into the creative. Instead, invites in the people that the Creator has given the creative to form this story that He has laid on their heart.

It’s shockingly few and far between that I ask for help.

I don’t want to inconvenience someone. Take away time from their projects they need to be doing. Make them obligated to say “yes”, when they just really need to say “no.”

But I’ve been stuck on my story now for about a month and a half. Only written about a thousand words between family being in town, ACFW national conference and then more family being in town. It’s been a great month of fellowship and reconnection, but also a month filled with the trepidation of the next thing I have to do: which is dust off that story and start writing the next scene.

Only problem is: I have no idea what that next scene is.

Minor detail is all.

So the other night, at my writer’s mentoring meeting, I decided to pipe up. Gulp back any feelings of worry that I would put something beyond their time in helping me, and asked for help in outlining my story.

See, outlining your story might not be a big deal to you. You might love it. Get inspired from it. See new plot twists and scene ideas.

I hate it.

I’d so much rather sit down with my laptop and just write. Except then, I write myself into a corner and oops, I don’t know what happens next.

It’s not a complicated project, this request that I’m making. A lot of the work has already been done

in a previous brainstorming session. This is just me, needing a friend to join in writing these scene ideas out on 3x5 cards and inspiring my love for this novel all over again—and putting me back on track to do the work.

Once the words are said, it’s not hard asking for help.

It’s hard getting to that place where you have to ask for it. Invite someone else into your story world; let them take your hand and journey with you in this process.

Don’t get stuck in your cave. The answers don’t all lie in what only you are capable of doing.

So invite someone in. Let them take partnership with you. Don’t be ashamed, but let yourself be motivated and encouraged.

Because remember that tribe of friends you’ve formed? Yeah, they are here for you in this too. And you’re not alone. By a long shot.

What are you needing to ask help for in your writing today? Have you done it? 

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Casey Herringshaw is a homeschool graduate and has been writing since high school. She lives in colorful Colorado where she gets to live her dream stalking--er--visiting with her favorite CO authors.