I may be prolific, but you don’t have to be.

This is a follow-up post to yesterday’s post on how to post everyday. Post. Sorry, I just wanted to get one more mention of post in there, but it didn’t quite fit. Yesterday, I gave a few tips on how to get content regularly onto a blog, but today I’m going to ask you to forget about what I said. Well, forget about it if it isn’t helpful for you.

I attended a speaking & book signing event tonight with Sheridan Voysey, author of Resurrection Year (Thomas Nelson, 2013) and the forthcoming book, Resilient (Discovery House, 2015). After speaking through his experiences that were laid out in his books, Sheridan opened up the floor for questions.

As great of a writer as I think Sheridan is, he may even be better at asking and answering questions. It probably has something to do with his years as one of Australia’s top radio program hosts. One of the questions that he was asked related to his practice of journal writing. In order to capture his experiences over the span of life covered in Resurrection Year, Sheridan relied heavily upon his journals. The question asked was on how to keep writing in a journal when you hit a dry spell in your writing life.

Sheridan responded by saying that journals should serve the writer, not the other way around. He uses journals to capture the highs and the lows, the questions and the discoveries. If there isn’t anything to talk about relating to these things, don’t write in them.

He said that he may go for a few weeks between writing in his journal, but he is still a big advocate for keeping one.

I would like to draw some parallels between Sheridan’s journal advice and what could be a healthy approach to blogging. If your blog is your online journal, if its audience is made up of you and the people with whom you choose to share it, then by no means should you feel compelled to write everyday or even all that regularly. But if you are blogging in order to hone your writing or to gather an audience, then don’t treat it like a journal.

As with any project worth doing, you are going to have to ask yourself why you are doing it. I don’t think it is possible to write for no purpose (you’ll either write something worthwhile or learn something by writing), but I do think you should know your goals.

Why do you write? And how often? I’d love to hear your answers!

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My wife is my St. Hilda.

Yesterday, on Sheridan Voysey’s blog, I read this story about St. Hilda, an English saint from the 7th century. In the story, a farmer named Caedmon had a dream that a man told him to sing a song about Creation, but since he was a farmer and not a singer, he refused. But upon further prompting, Caedmon did write a song.

St. Hilda with Caedmon

When he woke up, he remembered the song and told his foreman about the dream. The foreman took him to St. Hilda, who treated Caedmon with respect, tested his calling toward song-writing, and became his patron, enabling him to pursue his calling.

The thrust of Voysey’s post was that each of us have a calling to use our talents for God, but sometimes we need a St. Hilda in our life in order to help us see that.

When I began writing, my wife was my biggest champion. I am, at best, an enthusiastic amateur when it comes to the written word. But when I told my wife that I wanted to write, she didn’t laugh; she offered to read my stuff.

I started writing quirky stories about a squirrel and his invisible roommate. She encouraged me to continue. I joined a writer’s group. She gave me the time I needed. I participated in a 3-day novel-writing contest, and she helped me develop ideas for my book.

DeAnne has been with me and my writing career from the beginning. She has helped make my dreams into realities. My wife is my St. Hilda.

Book Review | Resurrection Year by Sheridan Voysey

I was given this book (among others) by my old pal and new co-worker, Andrew Rogers, when I showed up at Discovery House to drop off some new hire paperwork. Andrew mentioned that Sheridan Voysey has done work with Our Daily Bread Ministries before and thought it would be a good idea for me to be familiar with his writing.

Now, I’m usually not big on non-fiction stuff, but memoirs hit me close to home. After all, what is my blog if not some unholy mix of non-fiction and personal storytelling. So I started to read Resurrection Year.

At first glance, Resurrection Year is a book about life after the broken dream of parenthood. Sheridan and his wife, Merryn, went through round after round of IVF in an effort to have kids. And after so many cycles of expectation, hope, and disappointment, they needed to move on. But moving on meant giving up an influential job in broadcasting and taking new jobs on the other side of the world.

But upon reading it, this book is about more than difficulties in getting pregnant and starting families. This is a book about what to do when God says no to your dream. This is a book about dreaming new dreams and being open-handed with our wants and our fears. After all, we serve a God who is larger than our fears who is capable of giving us more than we think we want.

Sheridan and Merryn’s journey didn’t just take them into new situations across the globe. They went on a pilgrimage through some of Europe’s landmarks as well as L’Abri, a spiritual retreat center started by Francis and Edith Schaeffer in the 1950’s. And as God revealed himself to them, they reveal God to us, the reader.

I’m excited to see what’s next for Sheridan, because it’ll definitely be on my reading list.