Along with an incredible amount of stress, worry, and weighty ministry work … I have just experienced a string of baffling and unexpected miracles.

You probably don’t know this, but I have been so discouraged. I’ve gone way past the stage where people who started writing when I did are getting amazing contracts and winning awards. I’m sitting through keynote addresses by folks who started writing seriously AFTER I did. This is not an anomaly. It’s happened several times. In fact, I’m now sitting through lectures by people who started writing after me who are so successful that they are not allowed to enter contests anymore. The more this happens, the more I wonder if perhaps this twenty-two year experiment was in fact a giant waste of time.

However, there is a conference I have wanted to attend for about a decade. It is too expensive, but I have been lurking on their website a long time. Entering contests (and finaling … but not winning) that granted free attendance. Hoping for a “someday” moment. Then the conference was cancelled. Someone tried to start it up again and failed. Then someone else tried and succeeded. Yay! However, it was still too expensive.

In a fit of optimism, I applied for a scholarship this year.

I got two.

It wasn’t enough and so I stuffed my hopes one more time and declined the scholarships.

Then I pulled a CD I’d been saving for decades (yes, you get $ from the government when you lose a parent as a child) so that we can fix the roof on our house. Scruffy (my husband) pulled me aside. “That can’t just go to house repairs. We’re gonna make sure you get to your dream conference.”

I told him, “Maybe next year.”

The conference was already full, we hadn’t fixed the roof yet, my risk-averse nature just couldn’t handle living the dream quite yet.

The next day, I got an email from the conference director. A spot had opened up as well as another scholarship. An even bigger scholarship. I waffled, still scared. Should I? Dare I?

“Go for it!” Scruff insisted.

And so I did, but with much prayer and uncertainty lurking beneath my excitement. “Lord, I need to know if I should keep trying. I need direction, new ideas, a bit of hope. Could You send me just a little bit of hope?”

Most of the deadlines for the conference had come and gone, but with a few days left, I managed to enter their writing contest about courage.

I found a flight that was one third of the expected cost and I even got the last seat in another attendee’s rental car from the airport to the conference!

Did I mention they have flowers in California. Flowers. I walked away from two feet of snow and into a flowerstorm.

Through getting lost in the parking garage and other hijinks, I made four new friends in the women I shared a car with. Then on the very first day, I ran into a good writer friend I hadn’t seen in a year. Laughter, tears, so many good things.

Then somehow, the key note speakers all spoke about the pain of writing, the uncertainty, the hopeless times, wanting to give up. The lament of writing, the uncertainty. After twenty-two years of hard work with little fruit, I soaked up their words and let them settle on all the dry places I hadn’t dared look too hard at for such a long time.

This year just happened to be the first time in years that they had a major morning track devoted to children’s writing. During the first morning of children’s teaching, I had an idea, a new idea. Then I had another and another.

I met with editors. People I had planned to talk with and people who were surprises. Someone whose house had rejected seven of my manuscripts told me, “I love your writing,” and one more little seed of hope stretched through the soil. Agents gave me fresh ideas and encouragement. Then, Sunday service was about what to do when God doesn’t give you a guarantee.

It was as though God had pulled back the curtain around my dutiful little heart and saw the truth. As I slogged forward, keeping on keeping on for just one more grueling step, my Lord saw me and He brought teaching, talks, conversations, and even a sermon that spoke directly to me. To someone who had been persevering for too long. Too long to actually keep hoping.

The sermon was by the agent of one of my good friends. Bob Hostetler spoke on three times that famous Bible people hoped without a guarantee. When Jonathan son of Saul said “Perhaps the Lord …” and attacked the Philistines just him and his armor bearer. When David said, “Maybe the Lord …” and stopped his men from lopping off the head of a man cursing him. And of course when the three Hebrew slaves told the king of the world they would not bow. That God was able to save them, “But if not …”

God hasn’t given me a guarantee that my words will find a home. However, He absolutely does miracles. I see them all the time about other things. If Jonathan was willing to risk his life for “Perhaps the Lord …” who am I to stop writing after honing my craft for a couple of decades?

Ten years ago, I knelt during worship at the ACFW conference some dear friends paid for me to attend. After ignoring the call to write a camp blog, I gave God my book dreams with tears streaming down my cheeks and told Him yes, I would write the camp blog. Whenever I hear that song, I remember my promise. I remember my call.

Our little blog was a decade old in December and He has worked in it and through it.

There was never a question of quitting the blog. But what about the fact that I’ve spent over twenty years learning my craft, have brought my writing up to a high level, and it hasn’t been enough?

What about those twenty-six unpublished children’s book manuscripts sitting on my computer? Wasn’t it about time to give up on them?

Honestly, I don’t know.

However, on our last day of worship, with tears streaming down my cheeks, I knelt again.

I gave all those stories to Him, one more time. Victory or defeat, they were His. I let myself hurt and let myself hope and rested in the pounding beauty of the song as it filled the chapel.

The next day we enjoyed our final classes and then zipped back to the chapel to wrap things up.

So many new friends.

So much knowledge and encouragement.

It was just so much.

Then the conference director gave out a few awards and shushed me for laughing too loudly. Yes, I always sit in the front. She said that we had made it really hard on her this year as she tried to judge the writing contest about courage. That 50% of attendees had entered. That the entries were all so so good.

Then she said my name.

She called me up and said that they had picked mine.

I still don’t know God’s plan for my writing beyond the camp blog.

But I know that despite the last twenty-two years of stumbling on, I will press on just a little bit more.

I’m not sure that I could have written this piece about courage if my heart hadn’t been so shattered and raw.

Even that, my friend. He uses even that.

Psalm 34:18–“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

Boo Boo

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Princess Leia Freyja and I went on an adventure last weekend! Yes, here she is hogging the bed at our hotel. How can a dainty princess possibly hog a king-sized bed? Well, she managed just fine!

Thankfully, I brought a good supply of dog cookies which were useful for bribing my spoiled companion to scooch over a bit.

We got lost several times on our seven-hour trek to McMinnville, Oregon. I know what you are going to say, “If you would just get a phone, it would tell you where to go, Kristen.” Well, I hate phones! So much hate for the phones!!! Blah! Being at the beck and call of anyone and everyone at all hours of the day. This introvert is does not need that kind of intrusion! And yes, even my 103-year-old grandfather has a phone, but not me. I’m the last hold-out. The yearly cost of a cell phone adds up to the price of an amazing writer’s conference, yay! Plus, I have borrowed Scruffy’s phone and as it shouts out directions to me while I’m zipping along, I still get lost, ha! So, I printed off directions there and back. And … still got lost! What on earth could have lured me and the furry pup off our mountain and into the jungles of the city? Yes, we had to drive through Portland with all of those roads and bridges and crazy lanes going hither and yon in unfathomable directions.

Writer friend Sandra Bensman (pen name Annika Klanderud) asked me to come to her church (CalvaryMac) as a guest author in their Author Spotlight program!

So, I dug out Grandma’s pearls and my make-up, traded my snow boots for actual woman shoes (yes, they were uncomfortable, though very cute!) and brushed up Princess Leia Freyja to fluffy perfection and set out! It was so delightful to discover folks interested in clean, Christian stories. My particular goal is to write the fun and crazy things that the Lord allows into our day. If He gifts me with moments of hilarity, I think that He wants me to use those to spark stories that honor Him. Getting dragged across the park by your dog, story! Chasing beloved pet chickens through the forest, story! Having a homeless person refuse your gift of granola bars because the Bible you were offering was not in the King James, story! Yes, I also got lost on the way back home, even though I’d driven it all before. It was so worth it! I was even invited to be on their Story Night Podcast talking about camp ministry. A true adventure for a girl and her dog. I’m happy to be back, though. Content with my mountain roads, three pesky teens, even peskier husband, and of course my snow boots with the Yak Tracks on so I don’t fall on the ice. Adventures are great, but it’s good to be home!

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There is a lot of talk among writers and publishing professionals about how to get boys to read. Apparently, boys don’t read as much as girls. Since the only family member in our home who is a girl (besides me) is in actuality a two-year-old Newfoundland dog, I have to say it is the opposite in our household, but perhaps we are just weird. Many say that while girls will read a book from the POV of a boy, boys will not read books from the POV of a girl. As a mother of 3 boys who are all ravenous readers I was curious and began watching their reading habits.

I buy books for them every month (as prizes for general awesomeness when I happen upon it) and I just decided to get books that I thought they would like, whether it had a boy protagonist or a girl protagonist. It is the story that makes the decision to purchase or not for me.

Guess what? It appears to be the story that makes the decision for them too. Recently my youngest (9) loved When the Sea Turned to Silver. My middle boy (11) had a concussion (runner sled meets rogue stick meets the sky and then the ice) and he devoured audio book after audio book for a week since he could do nothing else while he waited for his poor brain to heal. His favorite was Sweet Home Alaska, with a girl protagonist and he also loved the How to Train Your Dragon books with almost no female characters at all and The Unstoppable Octobia May with a girl protagonist and of course the Hank The Cowdog books who have (you guessed it) a dog protagonist. My oldest just zipped through The Hunger Games books from Katniss Everdeen’s perspective and thought they were amazing, though slightly scandalous.

I am starting to think that the question we should ask is not “Is the hero a boy or a girl?” I think perhaps a more important question about engaging boy readers is “Is the hero heroic?”

Now, observing the reading habits of three boy readers who devour books and audio books like rampaging T-Rexes for a couple of years is not a study in any way shape or form, but it can give us some insights.

1. Boys love bravery–Whether it is Percy Jackson whose big mouth and arrogant snark are always getting him in trouble or Katniss Everdeen who essentially pits herself against her entire world and then some to protect her little sis, boys long to be a hero and love to read about characters who discover the hero within. Even a quiet character like Pinmei in When the Sea Turned to Silver is immediately thrown into circumstances where she must be bold and brave despite her desire to fade into the background. My guys love a true hero or heroine.
2. Boys love action–What did all of those characters, boy and girl, have in common? They were all doing something, something important. Is there a vampire in the boardinghouse Octobia loves? Will Trip’s family make it homesteading in Alaska? Will Hiccup save the dragons? What about Katniss’s little sister? Big stuff better be going on. When the stakes are high, my boys are right there in the story.
3. Boys love slapstick–Now, what Hank The Cowdog might lack in ultimate stakes (sometimes the story question is as simple as “Will Hank eat the steaks off the table or not?”) he more than makes up for in the slapstick department. My boys love it when there are falls and gags, humorous predicaments and dreadful mistakes. When Toothless poos in the helmet of Stoic the Vast, that is just the best. Some stories lend themselves better to slapstick than others, but if at all possible, bring on the funny!
4. Boys love survival and skills–Why did they enjoy Sweet Home Alaska and even portions of Little House on the Prairie? Survival information just totally fascinates them. How do you build a chicken coop that will protect hens at 50 degrees below zero? How did Pa make the cabin door when they didn’t have any doorknobs? A balloon out of a pig bladder, sign them up! Boys love to learn things that they just might use someday. Provide those interesting tidbits to keep your boy readers happy.
5. Boys love the “Oh Wow” factor–My guys enjoy sharing strange tidbits of information, science, or snappy dialogue with us when they come upon it. Is there an image of a knight riding a giant spider on the cover, they want to tell you all about it. Do the dragons have a special way of breathing fire that boggles the mind? Did Prince Charming gain his phobia of cat fur in a strange and hilarious manner (The Heroes Guide to Saving Your Kingdom) … (which incidentally is full of brave heroines and bumbling Princes and the occasional well-mannered giant)? What animal can eat more pounds of raw meat per second than any other? In general, boys love non-fiction and the stories that are sprinkled with fun and amazing facts or detailed maps of the land or drawings of huge robots are much  more likely to thrill and delight.

So there you have it, 5 tips for writing for boys from a mom of boys. Set your pen to paper and let the fun begin!

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Now that our grand Yellowstone Adventure has run its course and the boys are back in school, I’m writing every day once more. What am I working on this month? Well, I’ve been promising my mom’s good friend Johnnie Sue to send her another story to read over for me. So I pulled out a manuscript that I wrote from 2008 to 2010 and have been revising ever since. I’m about half way through and determined to get this to her after going over it “just one more time.” It’s about a young hypocrite who has been pretending to be a Christian to please her family. Now she’s been signed up for a reality TV show and must prove her faith before a much larger audience, solve a strange series of kidnappings at the Cancun orphanage where the show takes place, resist falling in love with a super cute and sweet and always honest boy, and live with herself at the end of the day.

But that’s not all, because my 98-year-old grandfather has been writing down his life story this last year (over 1000 hand-written pages) and his niece just finished typing it. Now it is my turn to do some very light editing (we don’t want to lose his distinct voice) and so I am reading through his story as well. So yep, that is what I’m doing on the writing front this month. I hope to be done with both projects by October 1st so that I can think about getting ready for NaNoWriMo. We shall see.

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The post Writing News appeared first on KristenJoyWilks.com.

The post Writing News appeared first on KristenJoyWilks.com.

Then I jumped into one more revision of my Ancient Assyrian story. I opened it up for the first time in about two years or so in preparation for attending our yearly writer’s conference. While getting some writing samples ready, I realized that, yes indeed, I have learned new things in the last two years. New things that I think can make this story into what I had hoped it would become. Amazing how what you think something will look like and what actually is written on the page turns out to be so different. I have spent the last eleven (thirteen if you count the two years I spent writing it in the first place) years trying to align what ended up on the page to the glorious tome I saw in my head. Hopefully this draft will put it just a little bit closer. I received a request from an editor to send in the full manuscript so I want it all sparkly and perfect…ish…before I mail it in.

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