Why I Keep Writing and Why You Should Too

It’s a love story

Unlike many writers, I didn’t always know I wanted to write

I liked writing in high school and did well in composition and creative writing classes, it just never dawned on me that writing was my gift and the thing that would bring me as close as possible to my true self and help me find happiness in life.

It wasn’t until I was in my early 30s and I had a life crisis that writing got on my radar. All I thought I believed and had been living for had been stripped away.

My faith was in crisis mode as I recovered from an abusive church.

I had also recently walked away from my job which had been like a family and my additional social circle. I was adrift, only chugging along each day because I had a family to care for. I got out of bed each morning and did life things because two little faces appeared by my bedside every sunrise and said, “We’re hungry.”

I used this isolated time to seek God more than I ever had, to try to understand His word and straighten out where my thinking had gone wrong. I wanted no other influence in my life — no Christian books, bible studies, or mentors.

I wanted to be face to face with God and my heart so when I heard direction or wisdom I would know it was from Him.

With all the distractions removed from my life, I leaned into God and focused on hearing His voice

What do I do with my life? was basically the essential question that drove me day and night. My identity had been entrenched in church and in a group of people I thought I was supposed to “do life” with. And now we were all scattered like sheep without a shepherd and I was questioning everything I thought I knew about faith and life and my purpose.

One day — I can’t recall what led up to this point — I felt the nudge — really more like an urge — as if the Lord took me by the hand and led me into our small attic. Amidst boxes of baby clothes and my grandmother’s gold-rimmed drinking glasses, I saw the small box labeled “writing.”

I opened it and found every piece of writing I had ever done — that silly story from a 9th-grade creative writing class, the essays from college, and some poems scribbled in a yellowed, dried out, spiral-bound notebook.

Sitting there, digging through this box of unimportant papers, it dawned on me that I was supposed to write

I silently heard the Holy Spirit ask, “Why do you think you kept all this writing if it didn’t mean something to you?”

It’s a beautiful truth that God knows us better than we know ourselves and He longs to reveal to us who we really are.

As I reflected on my stories and A+ papers from college, it occurred to me that I loved to write and that I was good at it! I also knew that over time journaling had helped me navigate the murky waters of life and distill the anxious thoughts that took over my mind and heart when I didn’t have things lined up or when I didn’t know my next steps.

Combined with my insatiable love of books and my career as a reading teacher, it seemed logical that the written word was God’s gift to me and my way back to myself.

So, I began to write

No fancy moleskin journals, laptops, or even a typewriter. I scrounged up empty notebooks that were leftovers from school projects and put pen to paper.

The first line came to me after a time of prayer and morning devotionals. In a purple, coil bound notebook, I wrote, “It was May and the lilacs were in bloom.” And I followed that line until the story, A Whisper in the Lilacs, was written. I had never envisioned writing for publication or for a living or to be paid, but I had a feeling this piece was good enough to share.

Next steps

These were early Internet days, so I went to the library and checked out all the books I could find on writing, including On Writing by Stephen King. I read them all: Writing Down the Bones, Walking on Water, The Right to Write, The Creative Call, Bird by Bird, and more I can’t recall. Then I sought out a writers’ group. I figured I needed some real feedback on my lilac story.

I drove across town to meet with a group of men and women I didn’t know and shared copies of my lilac story. I had no idea what to expect, and looking back, I realize this pivotal moment could have crushed my fledgling writer heart if someone in the group had been unkind or overly critical.

The group read it and our leader asked, “This is the first thing you’ve written other than papers for college?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“You need to get this published,” she told me. All the heads in the room nodded in ascent.

I began my clunky Internet search for somewhere to submit this story and found A Cup of Comfort for Christians was taking submissions.

I sent it in, and as they say, the rest is history.

I wish my story continued like this: I found such confidence in getting published that I never looked back and soon launched a blog and found Medium and now I make 9K a month writing and I’m my own boss and we live in Fiji in the winter and my husband retired at 50 and we travel the world.

Nope — that’s not my story

Although, I did go on to get published in two more anthologies with A Cup of Comfort series: A Cup of Comfort Devotional for Mothers and A Cup of Comfort Book of Christmas Prayer. One of these stories was even selected for a smaller online devotional out of the larger selection. I also had the privilege of co-authoring a book with a colleague that helps parents teach their children how to read, Teach a Child to Read with Children’s Books, published by New Learning Concepts.

All in all, I had a pretty good start as a writer, so what derailed me?

My story sounds a lot like many of yours, I suppose. Once I knew that I could write, I felt like I should write.

And shoulds shut me down.

Once it felt like a purpose and a calling, it felt like a burden. And I was too weak to bear more burdens, and I was too afraid of messing up disappointing God (not that we can disappoint God but that’s what toxic teaching does to your relationship with God).

So, I did nothing.

Actually, I did something. I took the safe path, the secure road — the job and the regular paycheck. And even as I was doing it, I was writing about how I shouldn’t be doing it. My journals were filled with angst about how I no longer had time for writing and I was worried I wasn’t listening to my heart and that I was burying my dreams.

I dreaded losing the quiet and margin in my life that I had attained and I prophetically declared that my time would get swallowed up by the responsibilities of a full-time job and life.

And you know how this story goes, right? Life got in the way

Amidst raising a family, working full-time, moving three times, caring for my aging mom, and obtaining a masters degree, where was the time to write?

So I tucked all my story starters and ideas written on scraps of paper, and all I had collected on how to submit stories and begin a career in writing into an accordion file folder and shoved it in the back of the closet for Someday. The magical day when I would be able to write, be free to write, and have unencumbered time to write.

And that folder traveled with me to three new homes, two cities, and two states and lurked in the back of my closets as a dirty reminder of deferred dreams, lack of follow through, and the Big Should that haunted me day and night.

I used to say things like, When I grow up I want to be a writer. When did I think that day would come? But each year that passed, I grew further from the thing that made me feel alive and gave my life purpose and meaning.

Two years ago, I made a deal with God

After reaching the end of myself, I was miserable in my work and bored with my busyness. The excuses for not writing were falling away and a newly found margin in my life allowed me to hear the voice that was faint but still squeaking in my heart, When are you going to get back to writing?

Maybe it was that accordion folder I had so carefully safeguarded calling for me from the closet. Maybe it was the Holy Spirit. Maybe it was my heart. You can choose. All I know is the soft knocking became a pounding and as I opened my heart to the idea of writing again, it became a pulling sensation I could no longer ignore.

I knew that I knew that I knew I was doing the wrong thing with my life.

So I made my bargain with God. I would start a blog and He would give me two years to make it successful (read: make money) then I would quit my job and write full time.

Have you ever made a bargain or tried to plead a deal with God? I guess He and the universe at large were already conspiring behind my back to bring me to my senses. All they were waiting for was for me to surrender.

About two weeks after the deal with God (I talked it through and assumed He was okay with my plan), I received a call from my company’s HR representative and was politely told as of 5:00 P.M. I would no longer be an employee with them.

I heard words like severance package and separation papers but all I could think was, I’m free! It was the feeling you got when you asked your mom for permission to do something all the cool kids were doing but you secretly did not want to do and she said no.

It was a relief to have an “out” with your friends, right? Gee, I really wanted to do [insert fun and wild thing] but my mom won’t let me. This was the feeling that overwhelmed me that day. I really wanted permission to quit my job and pick up writing again, but what responsible adult does that?

God gave me permission. I was not going to pass up this opportunity.

It’s two years later and I would like to tell you I have a published book and am pulling in a full-time income from writing, but I can’t. What I can tell you is how devoting my life to writing has changed me and that I am moving along a road I want to be on for the rest of my life.

I can tell you that my writing gets better every day because I write every, single day and writing on Medium has helped me establish this important habit.

I can also tell you that people want to read what I write and that some even tell me this!

Some readers reply to words I write and tell me how those words helped them through a bad day, or inspired them to keep going, or increased their trust in God, or made them smile. Some tell me how they relate to what I write and that I speak feelings they feel but can’t put into words (this is probably my favorite thing about writing — giving voice to those that don’t feel they have a voice — and I doubt anything will be more fulfilling no matter what measures of success I attain as a writer.)

I have been published in print magazines, my articles have been distributed in Medium topics, and I am growing a small base of followers. I have some subscribers to an email list and about a thousand people visit my blog each month. I sell a few books to homeschool parents, and I am even earning some money from Medium and a few free-lance articles. I do part-time contract work to earn additional money but I guard my time to ensure I have the margin and space to write daily.

I say no to things that in the long run will push writing to the closet again

I keep writing not because I can or because I should or because it pays the bills, but because I love to write. And in the end, the only motivation that matters is love. This is why I continue to write and why you should too.

Don’t write because you feel guilty if you don’t. Don’t write to impress yourself or others. Don’t write because you made a promise or a deal with yourself, your God, or your spouse. Don’t write because you started something and have to finish it. Don’t write because you like to write or because you are a good writer.

Write because you love to write.

Thanks for reading. I am grateful to those of you who do and clap and encourage me to keep loving to write. I am grateful for the friends at that writing group who urged me to submit the lilac story. I’m grateful for a husband who allows me the time and space to write while he puts the food on the table (literally and figuratively!). I’m thankful to writers like Nikki Tate who coach and cheer me on and for the generous editors and publishers of the wonderful Medium publications who welcome me to their spaces. Let’s all keep writing because we love to write! ~Mary

This story is published in Koinonia — stories by Christians to encourage, entertain, and empower you in your faith, food, fitness, family and fun.

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