The Artisan Soul

Have you read a book lately that really spoke to your heart? I have to say that The Artisan Soul by Erwin Raphael McManus is one of those books for me. From the very first chapter, the words I read made my soul burn with yearning, agreement, and connection. I've highlighted most of the book so far, wanting the words to be imprinted on my heart, for they encourage and motivate me to be creative, to be brave, to risk, and to truly be an artist.

McManus is not just an artist. He is a creative who uses his gifts to further the work of God. He started a church in LA, CA called Mosaic where the people of his congregation use their creative talents for the Kingdom. And what he calls us to in The Artisan Soul is a life of creativity...every day...no matter the medium or vehicle through which we create. What he teaches is that every soul is a creative soul, whether they think so or not.

"...the great divide is not between those who are artists and those who are not, but between those who understand that they are creative and those who have become convinced that they are not."

We are all creative. We are created by a creative God who made us into His image.

"Yet what humanity needs most is for us  to set creativity free from this singular category of the extraordinary and release it into the hands of the ordinary. Creativity should be an everyday experience. Creativity should be as common as breathing. We breathe, therefore we create."

A person might say that not all people are creative and that saying everyone is just sets a person up for failure. But as people who have the Spirit of God living within them, we are creative beings. We want to create whether it is through decorating a room, cooking a fabulous dish, writing a short story, blogging, painting, making a yard look good, or crocheting a blanket.

Being creative doesn't mean there won't be failures. There will be.

"...we live in the fear that if we aspire to be more we will discover ourselves to be less. We live in fear of failure, convinced that failure will prove us to be frauds. We have bought into the lie that creative people never fail and hence failure is proof that we are not creative."

"Fear is the shadow of creativity....The creative act is inherently an act of courage....To make our lives a creative act is to marry ourselves to risk and failure...creativity is born of risk and refined from failure. If we are at the core both spiritual beings and creative beings, then the artisan soul is where we live when we have the courage to be our truest selves."

It's so hard to step out and risk it all to share our creative selves. When we hit send on the manuscript we have written, we feel we are sending a part of very essence out for the world to judge. We fear we will be judged as inferior, which reflects on who we are at our core. But those rejections are the building stones of creativity. They are what grounds us and molds us. We are indeed "refined by failure".

This book is one that should grace every artist's bookshelf.

Do you consider yourself creative? Do you embrace your artistic soul? Or is it hard for you to say you are an artistic person...whether it is with words, paint, landscape, or food, etc? 

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Sherrinda Ketchersid is a born and bred Texan, preacher’s wife, mother of 4 children, and works part-time as a bookseller at Amazon. With the children grown and out of the house, she weaves tales of fierce knights and their ladies in a time where men were warriors and women had to be strong enough to keep them in check.

After taking time off from writing, she has returned with a new motto in place to spur her on. “Writers write. Everyone else makes excuses.” ~Jack Bickham.  No excuses this time. She is weaving her love of romance with history to bring joy and the hope of love to those who may one day read her stories. Her first book, Lord of Her Heart, released in May 2019.

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Writing Your Art Out

If you've hung around the alley at all, you might know that I am a sucker for suggesting this writing craft of ours is an art. But, it is super easy to lose focus that it is artistic when we have many many factors influencing our perspective on books in general. We have the different publishing trends, the yays and nays of writing for today's reader, the incredible competition of talent out there, and the thick skin that must be grown to handle someone ripping your story to shreds and telling you your art just ain't good enough.

Bravo to all who've stuck it out and are here, with hope, passion, and a clear vision of their dream! Phew, what a journey.

I have six books written and edited. And through that, with all the factors above, I admit that I have had my share of failed attempts to write a story for a certain "trend". This is an art no-no. It wasn't from my heart but from my desire to get published. And let's just say, that kinda writing is pretty transparent and thin in the eyes of a reader. Art is at its best when it's about the heart of the artist. No matter how private a person you are, or how business-oriented you might be, you may as well just read between the lines in this Lichtenstein quote:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/roylichten115381.html?src=t_art

Another way to say it:  In order for your writing to be art, you have to put your heart in it.

Let's put all those above outside factors aside when we set out to write a story.

 I don't want the static of the world to interfere with the rhythm of my heart. Can a painter pour his heart on the canvas with the gallery owner tapping him on the shoulder and directing his every brushstroke?

Shut the doors to the outside world, and let your heart do the writing.

When I step back and look at my heart-directed stories it is then that I sense art has sprouted from my ...er...keyboard. Sometimes, after months of putting a book aside, I'll pick it up again and be surprised that my heart's timeline and my character's arc are aligned.

I'd like to believe that God's breath has something to do with it, as well as a little bit of paint:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/henrywardb100771.html

And it's even better when I am in the middle of a story and I suddenly realize that. I might be writing about a situation I've never been in (like a beheading in the 16th century...YIKES), but I have shaped and molded my characters to become an illustration of my own heart journey-without even purposing it! What follows is an awesome ride of discovering greater significance at every twist and turn. And it mustn't be extinguished by quickly fleshing it out, writing only for the market, or worrying about the naysayers. 

If I want my writing to be my art, I must be sure to not only listen to craft podcasts, but my heart:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/aristotle104151.html

We can't touch our readers, change hearts, and share God with others if we are not writing art onto the pages. And by that I mean:

http://www.brainyquotecom/quotes/quotes/l/leotolstoy109611.html?src=t_art

So, when have you written your art out lately?

The Artisan Soul

I have to say that The Artisan Soul by Erwin Raphael McManus is one of the best books I've read in a long time....and I'm not even halfway through the book! From the very first chapter, the words I read made my soul burn with yearning, agreement, and connection. I've highlighted most of the book so far, wanting the words to be imprinted on my heart, for they encourage and motivate me to be creative, to be brave, to risk, and to truly be an artist.

McManus is not just an artist. He is a creative who uses his gifts to further the work of God. He started a church in LA, CA called Mosaic where the people of his congregation use their creative talents for the Kingdom. And what he calls us to in The Artisan Soul is a life of creativity...every day...no matter the medium or vehicle through which we create. What he teaches is that every soul is a creative soul, whether they think so or not.

"...the great divide is not between those who are artists and those who are not, but between those who understand that they are creative and those who have become convinced that they are not."

We are all creative. We are created by a creative God who made us into His image.

"Yet what humanity needs most is for us  to set creativity free from this singular category of the extraordinary and release it into the hands of the ordinary. Creativity should be an everyday experience. Creativity should be as common as breathing. We breathe, therefore we create."

A person might say that not all people are creative and that saying everyone is just sets a person up for failure. But as people who have the Spirit of God living within them, we are creative beings. We want to create whether it is through decorating a room, cooking a fabulous dish, writing a short story, blogging, painting, making a yard look good, or crocheting a blanket.

Being creative doesn't mean there won't be failure. There will be.

"...we live in the fear that if we aspire to be more we will discover ourselves to be less. We live in fear of failure, convinced that failure will prove us to be frauds. We have bought into the lie that creative people never fail and hence failure is proof that we are not creative."

"Fear is the shadow of creativity....The creative act is inherently an act of courage....To make our lives a creative act is to marry ourselves to risk and failure...creativity is born of risk and refined from failure. If we are at the core both spiritual beings and creative beings, then the artisan soul is where we live when we have the courage to be our truest selves."

It's so hard to step out and risk it all to share our creative selves. When we hit send on the manuscript we have written, we feel we are sending a part of very essence out for the world to judge. We fear we will judged as inferior, which reflects on who we are at our core. But those rejections are the building stones of creativity. They are what grounds us and molds us. We are indeed "refined by failure".

I just can say enough about this book, The Artisan Soul. I am reading it slowly to imprint the words on my heart, and I hope to share more of it with you as I glean from it's wisdom.

Do you consider yourself creative? Do you embrace your artistic soul? Or is it hard for you to say you are an artistic person...whether it is with word, paint, landscape, or food? 

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This post is brought to you by

 Sherrinda Ketchersid

Sherrinda is a minister's wife and mother to three giant sons and one gorgeous daughter. A born and bred Texan, she writes historical romance filled with fun, faith, and forever love.

The Beauty of Words

I've always loved words. I have loved books since I was a teeny little girl. I love to read and am always amazed when writers string ordinary words together in a way that sings to my soul. There is beauty in the structure and flow of words.

But I love the beauty of the artistic written word.

My father is an artist and author. While I was growing up, his main source of income was from art. He designed book covers, entered art fairs, and did calligraphy for huge companies like IBM (This was before computers could do calligraphy for award certificates!). I loved to watch his pen glide across the paper, forming a letter so fantastic it fair took my breath away.

So I begged my dad to teach me. And teach me he did. I learned the basics and then I had to practice. And practice. And practice.

Then I started using my skills to make gifts for friends. Handmade cards. Canvases. Fun stuff. I branched out into more freestyle lettering; trying different fonts, sometimes making up my own. And you know what? It became more and more fun! Experimenting with different mediums, trying different tools...it has made the journey exciting in ways I never dreamed.

I think writing for publication is a similar journey. We learn the rules of writing. We learn the structure of a story. We write and write. We practice and practice. We write book after book, learning new things with each and every one. And then we loosen up and begin to break the rules. We allow the passion...our very soul to emerge within our stories. They begin to breathe life and become a part of who we are.


Writing is an exciting journey. Spinning tales, weaving stories... it's the beauty of words for the world to see.

If you are a writer, what is it about writing that nurtures your soul? Are you creative in other areas? 

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This post is brought to you by

 Sherrinda Ketchersid

Sherrinda is a minister's wife and mother to three giant sons and one gorgeous daughter. A born and bred Texan, she writes historical romance filled with fun, faith, and forever love.

The Confession of a Blank Canvas to a Toolbox Guru

On Flickr by Zen

 You've set up your file with the grid in place. Your layers are labeled in a long list on the right side  your screen...their order intelligently determined. The Opacity is set at 84% on Layer Back Story, and 20% on Layer Character Motive. Each color is balanced to perfectly portray your image...ahem... your setting. And you've plugged in coordinates after coordinates to get it just right.

You open the Text tool and find your font, and place it in the corner at the top of your "canvas" and title it:

Novel 1: Outline Complete

Then click on the menu, scroll down to "Sharpen", and witness your story shine EXACTLY how you expected it to...with your coordinates and layers cheering you on as you type,

"Complete Manuscript" on page 353, just as you had plugged into your outline.

You are probably chuckling at my exaggeration of a Plotter...or a Toolbox Guru to fit the above Photo editing software illustration...but, oh you Plotter-- is it true?? Does it make you tingly to think about outlining each chapter, every plot twist, and thoroughly knowing your character (after all you've interviewed her, her grandma, sister, mom, and coworker) before she's even entered Chapter One, Scene One? If you do just a little bit...do you know how much you are envied? By me?

Let me give you insight into what I refer to as A Blank Canvas...thanks to my dear Alley Cat, Pepper, who helped me realize this post after an amusing conversation about our "different", non-plotter way of tackling a book.

We take a blank page. A canvas, if you will,

     and...

G    A    S   P...

      we...

  t-y-p-e. 

Oooooh, does that scare all you plotters out there? Sometimes, I feel like I should hang my head in shame. How can I not fill out page upon page with each plot point, each chapter, each twist, each drama, each whatever-you-call-it, and build that foundation before I start on my first bedazzling sentence (well...in this fashion of mine (and Pep's, because I must have a partner in crime in this confession...) our first bedazzling sentence is just that, our first...because we might go through twenty different first sentences before we come up with the one that is just right).

On Flickr by Diamond Farah

Do not fear. Or don't think that us Blank Canvas'rs, (I really don't like the implications of being considered blank or a canvas...but for lack of a better term since I am a procrastinator and it is very late...hm...that may have something to do with being a Blank Canvas'r....) please don't think we will never complete a novel successfully...ha! The thing with the Canvas'r  is, we take each brush stroke and begin to "sketch" what we've daydreamed in our mind, or roughly mapped out on an old Hershey's bar wrapper. And if our paintbrush decides to flick a new splatter over here and deepen a motive over there, then we begin to add a new color and take our story in the direction of the paint. We allow the art of writing to create the story on the page...right then and there.

I firmly believe that it really comes down to the way we are wired. There is no right or wrong in this...actually, for the Canvas'r, we might have to go through a little more touch up before adding our signature in the bottom corner...because, after all, the journey's been long and our paintbrush has a mind, or two, of its own!

"To thine own self be true." -William Shakespeare

God is so great. He allows each of us to do His work in a way unique to our gift and our style. Whether you resonate more with the Toolbox Guru, developing a solid outline, a plotted story that takes you from point A to point B just as you had decided in Phase 1,
or
you breathe a sigh of relief that there are actually nuts like me (ahem, and Pepper...and Amy, so I have heard ;)), just like you, who really don't mind crafting the story like a lump of clay--slowly forming the piece without really knowing what fabulous curve or interesting texture you'll create until you're just at that part....

No matter which of these you are...or if you fall somewhere in the middle... trust that the journey is yours, and if you stay true to who you are, equip yourself with the knowledge of the craft, prepare yourself with either the grid or the paintbrush, and listen to your heart and the story, then your confession as a Blank Canvas OR a Toolbox Guru will become a proud proclamation that you are using your gift exactly the way in which He designed for YOU!

So...which one are you???

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Angie Dicken first began writing fiction as a creative outlet during the monotonous days of diapers and temper tantrums. She is passionate to impress God's love on women regardless of their background or belief. This desire serves as a catalyst for Angie's fiction, which weaves salvation and grace themes across historical cultures and social boundaries. Angie is an ACFW member and is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steve Laube Agency.