My Roller Coaster Experience at the 2023 ACFW Conference

 Hey, Friends! Hope you’re having a great Wednesday. Over the last few weeks, things in my little corner of the world have taken on a vastly different look, and I wanted to share a peek into my writing life with you. 

 

The last year has been a crazy one. What with moving and changing jobs, getting married and everything in between, it’s been a roller coaster and I’ve been holding on for dear life. Unfortunately, I’m the type of writer that doesn’t thrive on a psycho schedule. In fact, not only was I not thriving, I was barely writing at all. I had an idea, but the subject matter of the story in my brain touched on some emotional wounds inside me that still aren’t healed. Finding the words was taking an emotional toll, and my busy life made for an easy excuse to not put in the effort. And in some ways, that was fine with me. I was fine being a super part-time writer. I had a full-time job and so many commitments already, that it felt like something to squeeze in wherever it fit. 

 

Even though my emotionally charged story kept calling to me, I tried putting the idea on the backburner and writing something lighter—as light as you can make a book about a serial killer, anyway. Each time I started a new project, something brought the difficult story back to the front of my mind. Clearly, that was the story God wanted me to tell, so I accepted the challenge and started slowly writing. 

 

I planned to pitch the idea at the ACFW Conference in St. Louis in August, but I didn’t have as much of it completed as I’d hoped. Oh well, I took a deep breath as I printed my pitch for the story. God knew how much I’d have finished, and I knew this was the story, so I would pitch it anyway. 

 

Things at the conference did not go according to the script in my head. I missed a big appointment with an editor due to a memory problem I’ve been struggling with for a while. The speaker at the conference, Charles Martin, spoke about the call to write and that if God has given you something to say, you follow His leading and leave the rest up to him.  Then, at another appointment, an editor told me that God had given me something important to share and I couldn’t be walking out of Charles Martin’s addresses without feeling how much God wanted to use me. 

 

Well, crud. Aside from missing my first appointment, the other two things might sound great, but where was I supposed to find time to fit in writing when it had somehow shifted from a hobby to a calling in the span of two days? Luckily, my next class was about fitting writing into busy lives. Just what I needed, right? Wrong! The class left me feeling more overwhelmed than I’d ever felt before. The main piece of advice that stuck out to me was ‘If you want to write, you have to cut things out of your life.’ 

 

What? I can’t cut out my job. Or ask my husband to join the circus, so I can have the house completely to myself after business hours. I don’t want to quit going to my Bible study. I guess I could cut out watching 90 Day Fiancé on Sunday nights, but that’s only an hour and twenty minutes a week. Thankfully, I went to our Suspense Sister, Robin Patchen’s class on writing during life’s trials, and it left me feeling much more encouraged, but the first class that taunted me to chop things out of my life was the one that stuck in my brain like a barnacle. 

 

I returned home, burdened with a purpose but unsure how that purpose could realistically be fulfilled. Of course, I didn’t ask God what I should do, because that would have been too much like right. So, He stepped in as only He can. Two days after I returned home, my job went from full-time to part-time. BOOM. My plate too-full plate suddenly wasn’t anymore. 

 

God did that. 

 

All this to say, sometimes God can change something you enjoy doing in your free time into a calling over the course of three-days. And when He does that, He is more than able to kick all of those road blocks out of your path—even when you don’t ask Him to, because you think you’re so important that you need to be the one to figure out how to make His plans a reality. 

 

I don’t know what’s going on in your life that seems too big or the obstacles seem too numerous, but our God is so much bigger than all of those things. When He puts something on your heart, He will make a way through what looks like a wilderness. He did it for me, and I know He can do the same for you. 

 

Now, I’m just over here writing the book I’m supposed to write. I’d be lying if I said I don’t still have doubts. What if no publisher wants it? What if no one wants to read the thing? So many what ifs, but God already knows the answers to all of them, and I can trust Him. 

Also, I met Nancy Mehl, which was awesome :)

 

With fall fast approaching, I need to know … do you prefer pumpkin spice or apple? Comment below for a change to win an ebook copy of The Purple Nightgown.