Clear property: Pray
Build It Right Series by
Dora Hiers
Unless the Lord builds the house,
its builders labor in
vain.
(Ps 127:1 NIV)
Your family is in the market for a new house. You’ve toured
at least thirty houses, but none of them will work. Battling discouragement and
frustration, you notice a property for sale.
A property? You hadn’t considered building a house. Will it work? You crunch numbers and flip through
floor plans to find the perfect layout. With each floor plan, you imagine sipping
coffee in the kitchen and watching the kids play in the back yard, their
laughter floating through the open window. Or snuggling next to your loved one
in front of a toasty fire on a cold winter’s night.
Finally, with a picture of
the house and all the memories you’ll make firmly planted in your brain and in
your heart, you’re ready to make the next move.
Whoa! Don’t swing that hammer yet.
You have some work to do first. “What?” you ask.
Pray.
When my husband and I considered a home-building adventure,
horror stories about builders, shoddy workmanship and lawsuits frightened us. After
all, the decision involved our hard-earned money. Lots of it!
With the lot for sale by the contractor, we prayed about our
relationship with him and that our finished house would be a place of peace and
tranquility.
In the same way builders construct a house, writers
create stories. Doesn’t it make sense to pray over our books and our writing
process?
Make prayer your first step. There’s no point in moving
on if you don’t ask God to be part of the process. After all, He’s the Master
Builder.
Ask Him to clean out the junk, to free your mind to ideas,
to unlock the creative well. To clear the land. To prepare you for the journey.
Then, do your homework. Devour tons of books written in
your favored genre. Study sentence structure and dialogue; identify action
beats and speech tags. In the same manner that you would choose a floor plan, determine
which writing methods you like and practice to see what works best for you. Attend
a writer’s conference. Join a writer’s organization, or several. Take online
classes. Read “how-to” books. Follow blogs dedicated to offering writing tips,
like Seriously
Write and Seekerville.
Pray some more before you move on. You’re going to need
it.
What
about you? What’s the first step in your writing process?
Join us next week as we discuss building on a firm
foundation.
~~~~~
Journey's Edge:
A Routine Audit? Hardly. Red flags-including some goon who's following
her-raise McKinley Frasier's suspicions that numbers don't add up at the
insurance firm. When someone tries to snatch McKinley's daughter from
school, she turns to police officer and ex-fiance, Renner Crossman-the
cop who walked out on her a month before their wedding. But Renner's not
the same guy who broke her heart ten years ago. He calls himself a "new
man." She trusts the new Renner with her daughter's safety...but what
about her heart?
~~~~~
After a successful auditing career, Dora Hiers left
the corporate world to be a stay-at-home mom to her two sons. When her youngest
son didn’t want her hanging out at school with him anymore, Dora started
writing heart racing, God-gracing books. Dora belongs to the American Christian
Fiction Writers (ACFW) and the Carolina Christian Writers. Her first
inspirational romance, Journey’s End,
released with White Rose Publishing in 2011, and her second, Journey’s Edge released in March 2012.
White Rose also contracted her third book in the Marshals of Journey Creek
series, Journey’s Embrace, and her
first short romance, Small Town Treasure.
Dora
and her husband make their home in Kannapolis, North Carolina.
Connect with Dora:
Website: www.dorahiers.com
Email: Dora@DoraHiers.com
Facebook:
Dora Hiers Author
Twitter: @DoraHiers
Twitter: @DoraHiers
Thank you so much for inviting me, ladies. Always a pleasure to visit Seriously Write. :-)
ReplyDeleteWonderful advice, Dora! It's so easy to get caught up in all the technical aspects of writing. Thank you for the reminder to give it all back to Him.
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
Dora, what a sparkling post! Thank you for this reminder to always turn to God when making use of our gifts--to give Him the invitation to stretch through our spirit and make our stories matter for eternity. Keep up the great work, and God bless my friend!!
ReplyDeleteWe love having you, Dora! Thanks for visiting and sharing your thoughtful and helpful series with us!
ReplyDeleteWonderful to have you back, Dora! Thanks for the reminder that when we're writing, it's important to begin with a foundation of prayer. I needed this today. :-D
ReplyDeleteIt's great to be back! You ladies encourage and inspire me on so many levels. Thank you for allowing me to reciprocate!
ReplyDeleteMarianne, you're such a sweetheart! Talk about keeping up the great work ~ you're awesome! Blessings on your upcoming fall release, DEVOTION! Thanks for stopping by. Hope you're staying cool in MI!
Thank you for the reminder to pray first. When a new story idea comes into my head, I'm so guilty of diving in instead of kneeling in. Wonderful post. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteAmen, Amen, Amen!!! Great analogy. It spoke right to the core of my heart. We've never built our own home, but have moved and toured more houses than anyone ever should. This is a writing process I understand. Thanks. I look forward to foundation building lesson next week.
ReplyDeleteLisa, you're not alone. I'm so thankful that when I step out ahead of God, He tugs me back to Him. Thanks for your kind words!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Merrie. I'm glad you enjoyed this post. I enjoyed reminiscing through our pictures and writing it. See you next week. Maybe we can talk you into sharing your house tours?