Finding Inspiration

 

 

Normally, this time of year I’m travelling. Autumn in the northern hemisphere is my favourite time to travel. Italy, France, Norway, Finland, Vermont, Maine, and Canada are all beautiful in the fall. 

 

For the last fifteen years, I’ve travelled for at least two months of every year and every time, my mind was expanded as I experienced new languages, new places, and met new people. 

 

My writing is inspired when I am experiencing new things. 

 

My faith also informs my writing. Ideas that are God-breathed and God-inspired flow out of my soul like no other.

 

Things in everyday life inspire me–people I meet and things that happen all spark my creativity and inform my writing.

 

I guess we writers are like magpies. We collect inspiration in so many ways.  We catch snippets of conversation, enjoy art, watch movies, see plays, read widely, get intrigued by news items, laugh at, or thoughtfully consider, Instagram memes, and so much more. 

 

Sometimes though, we need to be intentional about inspiration. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the lockdowns, and travel restrictions, I found the well of my inspiration running a little dry. 

 

So, I’ve done a few things lately to try and inject a little more inspiration into my life. Here are four things that have been inspiring me: 

 1. Volunteer: I’ve begun a volunteer job at my local church in their community services department. In this role, I interview people who need emergency relief. The church provides food vouchers, help with bill paying, fuel vouchers, and referrals to others services if required. 

 

Of course, I didn’t just do this to inspire my writing. Writing is a big part of my life but doing something in my community to help others is something I love doing. I’m sure that a by-product of the experiences of working in this environment will inspire something in my writing. 

2. Attend A Workshop or Retreat (in-person or online): Recently, I attended a workshop on the topic of writing your story with self-compassion. During the day, I was able to write a new ending for a novel I've been working on for years. 

As we shared our writing in small groups, I was inspired by the other writers in the group. I was challenged when I shared my own work. I still feel nervous tension when reading my work aloud, but I love being challenged to keep stretching and dreaming.

The Omega Writers Conference is running an online retreat on October 8 and 9. Why not consider signing up and joining others to be inspired? 

3. Do Something Way Out of Your Comfort Zone: In August, I signed up for a songwriting course. I’m not a singer or a musician, in fact, I’m the only non-musician in the group. Why on earth am I doing this? 

I thought it might help me to look at writing in a different way. I think doing the course will help develop my writing brain in a new way. Perhaps it will help make my writing more poetic and rhythmic. Perhaps something will be sparked as I listen to other's stories, songs, and music.

The last week of the course requires us to perform the song we’ve written. I’m not sure how I’ll fulfil that requirement but there are some helpful people in the class who said they will help me. 

 

4. Study Something New: Next term, I begin Italian lessons. Since I can’t travel to Italy at the moment, I thought that I’d learn more of the language before I go back one day.

 

There’s so much that has been taken away from us during the Covid-19 pandemic but it doesn’t mean that we can’t still be inspired. We just have to find different ways to live a life filled with inspiration.

 

Do you need a creativity boost? Why not try doing something new that will push you out of your normal routines?   

 

What have you been doing that inspires your creativity lately? 

 

 

 

 

CWD Member Interview – Elaine Fraser

 

Question 1: Tell us three things about who you are and where you come from. 

1.     I used to be an English teacher and began to write seriously in 2005. 

2.     I live in Perth, Western Australia in the hills.

3.     I just published my eighth book. 

 

Question 2: Tell us about your writing (or editing/illustrating etc).  What do you write and why?

I write non-fiction inspirational books, YA novels, blogs, magazine articles, performance speeches, and commercial women’s fiction novel. 

 

Each one of us has a purpose that’s beyond ourselves and we should use our gifts and talents to help others in any way we can. My books have a strong social justice theme and encourage kindness and compassion. 

 

Because of my teaching background, I always have a message in mind when I write. Every story, whether it’s non-fiction or fiction, expresses ideas about love, sacrifice, and redemption.

 

I hope that readers are left with the knowledge that God loves them beyond anything. No sin is too big that God can’t forgive. No problem is too small for God to be concerned with. God cares about every facet of our lives. 

I hope my readers relate to the characters in my novels. Relate to characters who may have the same questions they do and feel that they’re not the only ones who struggle. They’re not the only one who is still working things out. 

 

Question 3: Who has read your work? Who would you like to read it? 

I started out writing inspirational non-fiction and fiction for young adult women aged 13+. 

In 2014, I began writing blogs for Kinwomen, a network of women bringing together women of all ages, cultures, education, abilities and passions to share life and wisdom.

 

My women’s fiction novel is written for women in relationships and recognises the complexity of why people stay or leave. 

 

Live Your Story Promise is my latest inspirational non-fiction book and it’s directed at a more general audience–both male and female. 

 

 

Question 4: Tell us something about your process. What challenges do you face? What helps you the most?

 

Last year, Covid threw me a little at first and my writing slowed up. I became a bit stuck. During the second half of the year, I got myself together and decided to finish all that I’d started. 

 

The best tip I can give is to never stop writing, even when you feel stuck or motivation seems to have disappeared. I kept writing little bits here and there and all of a sudden I had enough to publish. 

 

Even writing for fifteen minutes a day for two hundred days of the year at about two hundred words each session will add up to about forty thousand words. If you also include a few long days of writing, a retreat, and a few shut up and write sessions here and there, you could easily write double that in a year. 

 

Maths was never my strong point at school but numbers are helpful when quantifying your achievement or setting goals. 

 

 

Question 5: What is your favourite Writing Craft Book and why? 

I have a few key craft books, but the most helpful one is Lisa Cron’s Story Genius.  It will teach you how to frame your story using your character’s origin story. I used her model to plan my last two novels and it has saved me a lot of time. 

 

Question 6: If you were to give a shout-out to a CWD author, writer, editor or illustrator – who would they be?

I have two editors from the group who I’ve worked with for several years. Nola Passmore and Iola Goulton. These ladies give so much more than they know. The confidence I get from the encouraging comments in between the corrections has been so, so helpful when I’ve felt like giving up. Iola Goulton and Nola Passmore have become my go-to editors when I need a professional and thorough edit that is both pedantic and encouraging. 

 

 

Question 7: What are your writing goals for this year? How will you achieve them?

The first half of the year has been about getting three books out: Books Four and Five of the Beautiful Lives Series –Scarlett Love and Finding Joy and Live Your Story Promise–my latest non-fiction book. 

The second half of the year will see me doing yet another draft of a book I’ve writing for several years. It’s a women’s fiction novel and I really want to get it finished by the end of the year. 

 I’ve also got another book I’ve begun plotting and I’d like to make a start on writing it. 

 

Question 8: How does your faith impact and shape your writing?

How doesn’t faith affect my writing? My faith constantly informs my writing and reflects my relationship with God. I can trace my relationship with Him through my writing over the years. All the questions, the prompting of the Spirit, the challenge to be Christ-like, my prayers, hopes, and dreams are all found in my writing. 

 

Even my latest work in progress, a secular work, has a character named Joseph who loves a woman who has had a child by another man and he loves her as if she were the purest, most precious woman on Earth. I only just realised that Joseph had these Biblical qualities when I wrote the synopsis when I finished the latest draft. 

 

Even when I’m trying to write for another market, ideas of love, sacrifice, and redemption permeate my thinking. 

Elaine realised she wanted to be a writer at ten years of age when the words flew off the page during a creative writing lesson. 

 

She studied English and Education at university and went on to spend many years as a high school English teacher teaching others how to write.  

 

In 2005, Elaine took the plunge and began writing full-time. Since then she has published eight books and blogs at www.elainefraser.co

 

Elaine’s passion is to write about real issues with a spiritual edge. 

 

When she’s not travelling the world in search of quirky bookstores or attending writing retreats in exotic locations, she can be found in the Perth hills sitting in her library—writing, reading, and mentoring writers. 

Doing the Deep Work by Elaine Fraser

The monotony & solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. Einstein

I often wish I could just go into a cave and write and write and write. However, my life only allows me to do that for a couple of hours a day–unless I go on a writing retreat. 

In order for me to do my best work, the kind of deep work you have to do in order to go deep into the topic, deep into the research, deep into the thinking, with long cycles of reflection, I need to make sure I get to my version of a cave as often as possible. 

That’s how I develop ideas. That’s how I do good stuff.

After a busy couple of years of travelling, I was beginning to forget how to get back into the wellspring of the deep, quiet solitude of work.   

Hopefully, each book I write will be better than the last, however, if I’m so busy travelling and doing myriad other things, I question if I am bringing my best to my work. I want the quality to always get better, so I really need to put myself in a place where I can disappear into my thoughts. 

I’ve found that NaNoWriMo doesn’t work for me. Neither does Stephen King’s advice in his instructional memoir, On Writing (A strict diet of 1,000 words a day, six days a week). 

Anne Lamott proposes something similar in her guide, Bird by Bird (Sitting down to write at roughly the same time every day).

The problem for me is that each week has a completely different routine. I also work from home with my husband, and we have projects and unexpected things that come up. 

So, I have to have a different approach. When I’m working on a book, I have to approach each week as its own scheduling challenge. The reality is that I just have to squeeze as much writing as I can manage in the most practical manner.  

Sometimes, this might lead to times where I write at a regular time or other periods where I binge write for days.

The point is that I commit to plans that I know I can achieve and commit to as many hours of deep work as I can. 

Every week looks different, but what’s consistent is that I rack up deep hours and watch my next book start to come together.

And those persons who can shut themselves up for long periods and work out their thoughts alone, constructing beautiful and orderly representations of their own spirits, are to me a continual mystery. I know this is the way that things are accomplished, that ‘monotony and solitude’ are necessary for him who would produce creative thought.Youth and Life by Randolph Bourne (1913)

In February, I went camping for a week and hardly looked at my phone or computer. I realised I'm rarely left alone with my own thoughts and imagination. One of my goals this year is to increase the number of hours I spend in solitude and in deep work.

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, tries to log one thousand hours of deep creative time every 365 days.  He says, there’s no rule about how many you get in a day. Sometimes there’s zero and sometimes they can be nine or ten–it doesn’t matter if you’re sick, it doesn’t matter if there’s other stuff you’d like to be doing. Collins keeps 1,000 creative hours a year as a minimum baseline. 

The number isn’t important, but the overall objective is that over time there’s quality work. Creative hours lead to some kind of creative output–whether it’s research or writing or thinking–it’s leading towards producing something. 

Are you challenged in this area? Are you a Stephen King, Anne Lamott or Jim Collins? How do you get into the wellspring of the deep, quiet solitude of work?

Elaine Fraser writes YA fiction and inspirational nonfiction. She writes about life issues with a spiritual edge. Elaine blogs at http://www.elainefraser.co, Kinwomen, and several other journals. She travels several months of the year and is otherwise found in her library in Perth, Australia—writing, reading, and hugging her golden retriever.

Making rough places smooth...together. by Jo Wanmer

I sat on my back veranda in the sun. (I love Brisbane at this time of year; any time of year really!) My friends sipped their coffee. All was good in my world until the sun fell on my legs like a spotlight. Shock! Horror! Only thirty centimetres of leg showed below my three quarter length pants but...

You see the forest on my legs (I’d convinced myself no one would ever see) was highlighted, the blond hair so long it looked as though it needed brushing not shaving! I excused myself hoping they hadn’t noticed, and rushed to do the only possible thing. I changed to jeans that covered me to my toes.

The incident, traumatic as it was, reminded me of Paul the apostle, saying some parts of the body that are unpresentable should be treated with special honour. In other words, we cover up the ugly. I’m comforted to find at least my response is biblical.

Last weekend I attended the Omega Writers Retreat in Toowoomba. (My apologies to any attendees who may have been subjected to a glimpse of unbrushed leg hair!) We gathered as a body of Christian writers. Yes, a body. As Paul says, we are many diverse parts, but one body. There were fingers pounding keyboards, eyes reading, ears attentive, hands cooking. Wisdom was taught, expertise shared, counsel given and received. Together we made a whole, and even those of us who took the word ‘retreat’ literally and forgot the word ‘writing’, were treated with honour and love.

At CWD we too, are a family. Just this week there was a plea on Facebook for someone to read a MS. Another asked what a MS was. There is interaction and reaching out in love. And there can be also be lively debate and different points of view. But we treat each other with honour and respect, remaining in unity within our diversity. I love that.

But what happens when a writer displays an ugly side, submits or publishes an unshaved manuscript, or condemns another through a review or a cutting comment? How does our body of writers cover these episodes with special modesty as Paul says in 1 Cor 12:23?

I am forever thankful that my book was submitted to several mentors and editors before a publisher laid eyes on it. They covered its ugliness with gentle words... ‘If you’re willing to work hard I think I can teach you how to write.’  ‘It will need a lot of editing.’ ‘Show the story. Don’t tell us about it.’ Others taught seminars, led workshops, read and critiqued, edited and covered my shameful spelling.  Yes the Christian writing body worked very hard to stop me embarrassing myself.

Over the years in CWD I’ve watched as writers patiently imparted their knowledge again and again to ones who are still learning. They have graciously but firmly led them away from the danger of rogue publishers, pointed them to necessity of good editing and offered to read and make suggestions.  If necessary they will go off line to bring correction or rebuke. Why do they do this? Collectively we are known as Australasian Christian Writers. What one writer publishes effects our reputation as a whole. This is why we host conferences, retreats, chapters etc. and I believe we are seeing the results in the level of writing expertise being displayed.

The hardest thing to cover is pride, quickly followed by stupidity! I was working on a novel in NaNoWriMo several years ago and a member of CWD was also writing. She shared every step on Facebook about her efforts and reached the goal of 50,000 words before the deadline, 30^th November. Allowing only one night to edit, she posted the story as an ebook the next day, under a different name. I was thankful it wasn’t written in Christian genre for I was appalled at its unprofessionalism, mistakes and even storyline. But, with no editing work, how could it have been any other way?

Writing is a process and when that production uses others’ talents within the body of Christian writers, we all stand proud. And then, we, with unshamed faces, celebrate together.

I did get Steve’s chainsaw and cut down the forest on my legs. Likewise, thanks to the Christian writing community, I have pages and pages of advice from friends, publishers and editors about how to smooth out my current MS. One day soon I’ll get the courage to take the axe to some of my beloved words so the storyline is more easily seen. 

Currently Jo Wanmer is enjoying the Queensland sunshine and wind in her hair. When she's not touring with Steve or minding wonderful grandchildren, she's communicating hope. She is a pastor at a small family church at Burpengary called Access and loves speaking anywhere people want to hear of the love of God. 

Her book ‘Though the Bud be Bruised’ was published in 2012 and there are two more novels in the pipeline. Her passion is to bring the love, healing and hope of Jesus to men and women who have walked through life’s valleys. There is always light at the end of the tunnel.

We Need Each Other

The principle - no person can succeed alone - whether in their personal life, work life or, in this case, creative life, is one of the reasons that groups like Christian Writers Downunder exists. I think it has been demonstrated clearly over the years that fellowship and connection that takes place within a church community has many benefits to not just a person’s spiritual life, but also their emotional, mental and relational life as well. In the same way, the connections and friendships we make within Christian Writers Downunder contribute to each of us who identify as creative with the written word. 

We should not take this group, or other groups that provide resource and support, for granted. 

This last month, I have been in constant communication with the leaders of Omega Writers. Similar to this Face Book group and regular blog, Omega Writers seeks to provide help for writers, editors, publishers and other creative types. Omega Writers are the group who sponsor and organise our Christian writer’s conference – coming up next week. They are the group who sponsor and organise the CALEB award writing prize – winners to be announced next week.

But Omega Writers and all that it provides by way of resource and support doesn’t just happen. In my discussion with the leaders, it has become evident that we need to appeal to the greater Christian writing group, and see if they would be willing to help. I have written a piece, but rather than put it here in text form, I decided to stretch my skills in presentation, and have filmed, edited and uploaded a short piece. I’d love for you to click on this link and have a look. It has been endorsed by the Omega Writers leaders.

PS my skills in audio manipulation are not well developed, and I have discovered it sounds much better if you use ear-buds or ear phones. 

PPS the background music was written and recorded by one of my sons – used with permission. That definitely sounds better if you use ear-buds or ear-phones.

Meredith Resce has been published in the Australian Christian market since 1997. She has been part of Omega Writers since its beginning, and is still very much a supporter of Australian Christian writers.

To read more about Meredith Resce, visit her website – www.meredithresce.com

That link again: Omega Promo Video

Emerging from the Rubble

For every creative soul there comes times of discouragement and confusion; perhaps even that horrid question: ‘Should I just give up?’

Well, should I? I’ve been published for twenty years, and enjoyed huge success—relatively speaking—in the Australian Christian market. I couldn’t write fast enough, and the re-prints kept rolling in. I didn’t realise that I was riding a wave, and that somewhere around 2007, the wave began to beach. Things didn’t immediately collapse at that time, but with the introduction of the wonder medium, the eBook, the Australian Christian market began to stutter, then cough, then choke.

Concurrently, with this change, Australian Christian writers began to emerge. Writing groups, like Christian Writers Downunder and Omega Writers, began to form and gain momentum. We had conferences where we could listen to some excellent advice on just about anything writing (including how we should avoid using the word ‘just’). Groups like Wombat Books and Even Before Publishing got legs and started to walk. 

But unfortunately, none of us seem to have got to the running pace in the Australian Christian Market.

From my own experience of small independent publishing, I’ve seen the huge support of the Christian Booksellling Association of Australia (CBAA) dwindle by degrees. Part of it has been because of the digital changeover, and some of it (in my case at least) has been because a good part of my audience and support base of twenty years ago were people 60+. Twenty years on, and these people have gone on to the Lord.

So where does that leave me? Where does that leave any of us who have been educating ourselves in the art of writing? Australian Christian writers are more abundant now than when I first started, and the quality of writing is improving all the time. And yet, the better we get, and the more of us there are, the less the opportunities to get that piece of work into the hands of readers.

Sometimes I feel as if the whole thing has collapsed into a heap of rubble, and we are left, picking over the ruins, looking for signs of life.

At a recent conference, I was chatting with a pastor’s wife, and she told me the story of her son. He is a young man who has a music degree, made it to the finals of one of the television singing competitions, had been leading their church music team and is a competent worship leader. He made the choice to go to Nashville in the US to see where else God would take him. This young man and his wife found themselves in a church in Nashville—ironically, it was a church run by a well-known Australian worship leader. This church has exploded, and there are a lot of Australians gathering together there. One morning, the worship leader asked for anyone in the congregation who was a worship leader to stand. No less than fifty people stood up. The young man could see that his chances of becoming a worship leader in this church were not high, and yet he had committed himself to serve in the carpark team.

As I listened to this story I thought, wow! There’s nothing apparent there for him to hope for in terms of his gift, and yet still he chooses to serve.

Then, last week, I caught up with a movie producer friend of mine, and we sat and talked the Australian film industry, which shares many similar frustrations to the Australian Christian book industry. He told me a story from a documentary he saw. The film team were in a Hollywood producer’s office and the camera zoomed in on one corner of the office. Piled up to waist height on both walls in the corner were manuscripts waiting to be reviewed—from the last week! AND apparently these were only the scripts that had a catchy log line and pitch. The rest had been discarded. Wow!

So, in this day and age where everyone can write, and write quickly; anyone can set a manuscript, and put together a cover, and publish online; how does my work or your work find an opportunity to bless others? The competition is ridiculous.

Actually, I don’t have a definitive answer. I’m still troubling through the variables myself. Should I give up?

One thing I do know, if I am picking through the rubble of a collapsed industry, then I must find the survivors, and give them nourishment, however that might be. If I am serving the Lord, and that comes in the guise of cooking a meal for a sick neighbour, or giving courage when I have opportunity to do so, then that is what it is. After all, I do believe the Word of God when it says:

^“5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.”

Proverbs 3:5-7New International Version (NIV)

Meredith Resce is author of 17 published titles, including The Heart of Green Valley series, and Mellington Hall. 

 Please connect with Meredith on her facebook page or website

www.meredithresce.com