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Yay, more questions! 🙂

@maddiejay – Thanks for bringing this thread to our attention 🙂

I wrote a couple kids books as a kid, probably starting when 7-years-old. But as far as considering it as a career, I’m a late bloomer. It wasn’t until I was into my nursing career, at age 25, that I began taking things seriously. Over the past nine years (yes, I’m that old 😛 ) I’ve focused on honing my craft.

I don’t know that I’ll ever make my living off it, as such, but I’d still stay career. Just that I want it to be one of my careers, and that I take it that seriously. I enjoy the pressure-free of not needing to make money, so I can take my time with trying to achieve excellence.

I think my biggest struggle is in realizing that it’s OK to write. Not only OK, but something God does want me to do. I tend to focus so much on “doing” ministry. I’ve even had a church leader tell me that writing isn’t ministry. Why? Because I put words on a page, and who reads it? Family? A few friends? It’s so hard to see writing, in it’s arduous improvement curve, as something worthwhile. I might write (as often as I can) for twelve years, and only then have any reasonable readership. Or it might take longer. Who knows? In the meantime, writing can feel like treading water, not doing ministry. So why would I prioritize *that*?

The one thing that’s helped me with this is to see writing as worship. I truly want it to be. Anybody else feel that way? Just today I was editing a short story (now in Critiques), and I wanted to do it as a love-gift for Jesus. So even if nobody else reads it, or likes it, it’s His. My desire is to write because I want to, yes, but primarily for Him and no one else.