The Diet of a Writer: What Feeds Us – Part III by Susan Tuttle

We’ve talked about what we eat, and we’ve talked about ways to grow our craft. Today we’re going to talk about how we feed our souls and minds with two great ways to recharge. Because if we’re going to be putting out stories, we need to be filled up ourselves. How do we do that?

Susan Tuttle

First we spend time with friends. Other writer friends are wonderful because they understand that we talk to imaginary people or that we can spend hours staring off into space—and it’s actually productive.🙂 These are the people who can make us feel normal. But it’s the friendships outside of our writing world that can truly recharge us. Those friends we’ve had since before our writing days who don’t think we’re crazy when we exhibit crazy writer traits. The ones who pick us up in their Jeep and bring us for shakes and fries, go shopping for nothing, pull out our laughter, or just sit side-by-side in silence. These are the moments we need to re-enter the real world and recharge our batteries.

We also need to read. Read. Read. Read. See what is happening within the genre we write. Read outside of that niche too. Push our vocabulary. Find new sentence structure. See new plot devices. When I was six years old I won my first writing contest and was invited to meet an elderly author. He signed a book for me, looked me in the eye, and said, “Great readers make the best writers. Keep reading.” It’s advice I still take to heart.

What are ways you like to recharge between writing ventures? I’d love to hear!
Be sure to check out Part II and Part I of the series, too!

Susan L. Tuttle lives in Michigan where she’s happily married to her best friend and is a homeschooling mom of three. She’s firmly convinced that letters were meant for words, not math, and loves stringing them together into stories that inspire, encourage, and grow women into who God created them to be. Romance, laughter, and cookies are three of her favorite things, though not always in that order. You can connect with Susan at her blog,

That Pregnant Pause of the Publishing World by Susan Tuttle



Susan Tuttle

I have three children, and I remember each of my pregnancies vividly. Nine long months, a few where it looked like nothing was happening, and a few where it was more than evident I was pregnant. And it never failed how at the very end I’d hear the lovely question every pregnant woman longs to hear: “Have you had that baby yet?”

It was even more fun when you were overdue.

Well, for many of us on this publishing journey, it’s much the same. In the very beginning we keep our writing status to ourselves. We enjoy writing small stories or articles, perhaps journaling, but no one knows. It’s our little secret. Yet we’re slowly growing and at some point we can’t keep our writing to ourselves anymore. So we announce to anyone who’ll listen that we are, in fact, a writer. We’ll be pursing publication and all the amazing wonder it entails. We look forward with anticipation at what’s to come. We are giddy with excitement and possibility.

We don’t mind the growing pains. And we experience some wonderful moments along the way. We publish a small article. We are picked up by an agent. We hear wonderful news from a publisher. It’s like the gifts at a baby shower landing in our laps. Fun to unwrap and they point to what will one day arrive: publication and the delivery of our book baby.

Except, much like pregnancy, we don’t have an exact date. We grow, we expand, everything starts to feel uncomfortable and the wait unbearable, but nothing arrives. And then it starts…the question every writer pursuing publication for any length of time loves to hear: “Have you gotten a contract yet?”

It comes in all forms from all angles from well-meaning friends and family. And each time we smile, tip our head, suck in a long breath, and answer as sweetly as we can, “Still waiting.” It’s not that we mind the questions, it’s that we aren’t in love with the answer. We are stuck in the pregnant pause of the publishing world, and just like you can’t force a baby out (okay, not easily, but you get my point), you can’t force this delivery to happen any sooner than God has on his calendar.

That’s because God is the only Author that gets to write our time table. We need to learn to appreciate this pause and understand that he’s preparing us for his perfect timing. He knows exactly when we’ll be ready for our book baby to be born. Don’t rush it. Just wait for him to fill your arms with every promise he’s given.

Because God never forgets to deliver on the dreams he’s planted.

Susan Tuttle is a homeschooling mom of three who is crazy about coffee, dark chocolate, and words—both reading and writing them. Combine that love of words with her passion for leading women to a life-changing encounter with Christ, and you’ll find her crafting Inspirational Contemporary Romance stories laced with humor, love, and healing transformations. When not cheering on her Ironman hubby, chasing the family dog, or tackling complex math problems to teach her kids (yes, even the third grader), you can catch Susan at her blog, Steps.

Susan contributes on the first Thursday of each month. 

Take a Challenge! by Susan Tuttle

Susan Tuttle

Our first full week of 2016 is over! I can hardly believe it. As we stare down this new year, many of us have made resolutions or are focused on One Word for the upcoming months. New habits and new focuses are wonderful to have. They help us form a fresh start for the days ahead, but what about a new challenge?

If we don’t constantly challenge ourselves as writers, we grow stagnate, and our readers will feel it. It can be easy to churn out what we know, after all, there’s a certain comfort level in the familiar. And while familiar is good for readers, losing the fresh angle to our voice is not.

So this year I challenge you to take on a challenge. Here’s some ideas for varying levels of writers:

1.  If you write full length, try a novella or even flash fiction to tighten your words and plot. This forces you to focus on the main points of your story along with truly considering each word. In tightening sentences you’ll discover new ways to say old things, continue to grow your vocabulary, and ditch overused words.

2.  On the flip side, if you write shorter length, try a full length. Dive into the extra word count that will push you to learn how to weave in secondary characters with, perhaps, their own plots. Learn to juggle the small story within the big. Deepen descriptions. Expand the world you’re creating.

3.  If you’re a Pantser, try at least outlining your story. Push yourself to envision at least the bare bones of where the story needs to travel and write those notes down. You may find it saves you from rabbit trails and major editing later on.

4.  Read books on craft and apply what you learn! Many of us are out of school, but we should never stop learning. Take a month, put away your computer, and pick up a book on something you’re struggling to learn. Some great ones are:

a.  Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Brown & King
b.  Make a Scene by Jordan Rosenfield
c.  Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell

5.  Show your work to others. It can be scary, but the feedback is invaluable. And I’m not talking about people who love you and will gush over your words even when they are not so gushable. If a writer is going to grow, they need constructive criticism. You should have both a great critique partner and also unbiased readers. It’s scary, but at some point you have to put your work out there.

6.  Attend a writers’ conference. Yes, I know, many of us are introverts (my hand cannot raise any higher on this one), but the connections you make—both industry wise and on a friendship level—will enrich your writing life. Plus, to go with challenge #5, the education you receive at these conferences is amazing. I’ve attended both large scale and smaller scale conferences (ACFW and Breathe are 2 of my favorite) and have only grown in my writing life as an outcome.

I’d love to hear any other challenges you may already be taking or have done in the past to improve your writing. We can all learn from one another. Writing may feel like a solitary thing, but it’s in community that we grow the most.

Happy New Year, friends!

Susan Tuttle is a homeschooling mom of three who is crazy about coffee, dark chocolate, and words—both reading and writing them. Combine that love of words with her passion for leading women to a life-changing encounter with Christ, and you’ll find her crafting Inspirational Contemporary Romance stories laced with humor, love, and healing transformations. When not cheering on her Ironman hubby, chasing the family dog, or tackling complex math problems to teach her kids (yes, even the third grader), you can catch Susan at her blog, Steps.

Susan contributes on the first Thursday of each month.

 

God’s Still Working in Your Writing by Susan Tuttle

It’s Christmas time, which means the Christmas story is playing on televisions, homes, and churches all around the nation. I love the Christmas story, and each year I read it like I’m hearing it for the first time all over again. In the past Mary is the character to captivate me, but as I sat in church this past Sunday it was Elizabeth who caused me to stop.

See, Elizabeth had been waiting a long time for God to show up with her dream in His hand. In fact, in practically every way it looked as if her dream to become a mom had died. She was barren, empty, and by all accounts she and Zechariah were past their primes. The idea of her becoming pregnant ranked right up there with her ability to fly—it wouldn’t, couldn’t, happen.

Yet God.

Aren’t those two beautiful words?

Yet God had a different plan. Sometimes for His plan to gleam brightest everything around us must die. See, God will allow His glory to shine through us, but he will never—never—share it, and if the only way that can happen is to let our dream become a virtual impossibility, he will do just that. Not to discourage us. Not to make us lose faith. And not to harm us. Only so that everything points to Him when our dream becomes solid reality.

Isn’t this like our writing world? Maybe it’s the idea of finding time to finish your story. Perhaps you’re too dry to come up with new words. Possibly you’re waiting for a “yes” from a publishing industry that seems stuck on “no”. Whatever it is, could it be that God is allowing the parts of your dream to die that may point to you rather than Him when that dream finally materializes?

Dear friend, whatever you do, don’t lose grip on your faith. If God has made a promise to you about this writing ministry, cling to it. He is ever faithful—you only need to look at the many facets of the Christmas story to see that faithfulness repeated over and over again.

Merry Christmas friends!

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Susan Tuttle

Susan Tuttle is a homeschooling mom of three who is crazy about coffee, dark chocolate, and words—both reading and writing them. Combine that love of words with her passion for leading women to a life-changing encounter with Christ, and you’ll find her crafting Inspirational Contemporary Romance stories laced with humor, love, and healing transformations. When not cheering on her Ironman hubby, chasing the family dog, or tackling complex math problems to teach her kids (yes, even the third grader), you can catch Susan at her blog, Steps.

If You’re Writing, You Better be Reading! by Susan Tuttle

I recently attended the writer’s conference Breathe in West Michigan where the keynote speaker was Stephen James. (Side note: if you ever get to hear him speak, don’t pass up the opportunity!) After the Friday night closing session, Stephen entered into a conversation with a group about whether or not writers should be reading the Classics.  

Now, I wasn’t there for this conversation—though a friend of mine was—so I’m not revealing his answer. I am, however, stating the overall answer everyone around that table agreed with: If you’re a writer, you better be reading. 

As writers we are all too often consumed by our writing. And rightfully so, it takes a huge bulk of time. If we have family, work another job, or basically have any other life outside of our writing desks, then finding the time to read on top of writing can seem impossible. Yet we need to make sure we are building that time into our schedules somehow. 

Why? Because reading feeds our imagination. It keeps us dreaming, and that’s a vital component to writing. Reading also allows us to widen our voice, whether through learning new tools we come across that we’d like to implement or steering us away from ones that didn’t work. It also deepens our vocabulary, both in actual words and style. If we see writers pulling off unique metaphors or stylish imagery, it pushes us to strive for the same. We dig deeper. Work harder. Edit longer.  

But best of all? When we continue the role of reader, we see words through another spectrum. We see their impact, and we know we want ours to be as powerful. Bottom line? Reading allows us to retain the wonder of the written word. When we’re filled with that, friends, we can’t help but pass it on to our own readers. 

So whatever you do, don’t stop reading. 

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Susan Tuttle

Susan Tuttle is a homeschooling mom of three who is crazy about coffee, dark chocolate, and words—both reading and writing them. Combine that love of words with her passion for leading women to a life-changing encounter with Christ, and you’ll find her crafting Inspirational Contemporary Romance stories laced with humor, love, and healing transformations. When not cheering on her Ironman hubby, chasing the family dog, or tackling complex math problems to teach her kids (yes, even the third grader), you can catch Susan at her blog, Steps.

Are You Still Waiting? by Susan Tuttle

The wait.

It’s the hardest part of this writing game. Putting words on paper for all of us is fun (writer’s block notwithstanding), but once all those words are down, we wait.

For an agent.

For a contract.

For those books to show up on our doorstep.

For reviews—the good ones.

For everything we just poured ourselves into to be noticed by someone…anyone.

We don’t pour those words onto a page to sit in a drawer and never be seen—unless of course they are our rough drafts. We write because we feel a burning need to tell a story that God has placed on our hearts, which means he must desire for someone to hear that story. And we truly believe he’ll share that story with the perfect audience he has for it.

But then we wait. For weeks. Months. Sometimes for years. And we start to wonder when God will open that door.

See, sometimes our crisis of faith isn’t if God can do what he says he can do, it’s when will he do it? We know he’s the same God who does the impossible. We believe in a God who can raise the dead, surely he can handle putting our books into the right hands. But if he’s capable, why isn’t anything happening? With that one question, or faith begins to ebb.

Friend, we need to remember that our God sees time so differently than we do. He transcends it He doesn’t play by the rules of time—he created them. And he created us, with a purpose, plan, and eternal calendar that has our names written across it. We feel like we’ve been waiting forever, but he designed forever. With his leading we will not arrive one minute earlier—or later—to our destinations than needed. His when is perfect, even if it’s carving out our patience along the way.

I love Isaiah 60:22. “I am the LORD; in its time I will do this swiftly.” If you’re wondering about his when today, keep this verse close to your heart and running through your mind. If God has called you to this writing life, he has a time appointed for you. It will happen, and it will be perfect timing, because God’s when always is.

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Susan Tuttle

Susan Tuttle is a homeschooling mom of three who is crazy about coffee, dark chocolate, and words—both reading and writing them. Combine that love of words with her passion for leading women to a life-changing encounter with Christ, and you’ll find her crafting Inspirational Contemporary Romance stories laced with humor, love, and healing transformations. When not cheering on her Ironman hubby, chasing the family dog, or tackling complex math problems to teach her kids (yes, even the third grader), you can catch Susan at her blog, Steps.

What’s Periscope and Should You Be On It? by Susan Tuttle

Social Media. 

Two words that most authors have a love/hate relationship with. Which mediums work? How do you interact with readers? How do you build a following? It’s difficult, that’s for sure, but I recently stumbled on a new app I believe could be a great friend to writers, especially those who are currently published with a readership. It’s called Periscope.

Periscope is a new video app linked to your Twitter account that lets you interact in live time with followers. You broadcast on a video stream, and anyone watching can comment as you record. Their interaction runs across the screen in comment bubbles, allowing you to give a shout-out or answer any of their questions as they’re asking them. Then the video stays in the Periscope queues for twenty-four hours so anyone that missed the live chat can view it. It’s like Snapchat and Facetime had a baby.

So…why should a writer be on it? Here’s a few reasons:

~Readers love interacting with their authors. This gives them a venue to do that without handing out your phone number.
~You can broadcast live from book signings or conferences, giving behind-the-scenes moments.
~You can work this into contest giveaways, pulling names while they watch.
~Live Q&A’s about your books with readers from all over the country.
~Have chats with readers about new books coming out.
~Share from your everyday life moments with a weekly scheduled chat.

You get the picture. Bottom line? Periscope allows you a new, deeper level of interaction with your readers, and that is something they look for. But before you jump on, here’s a few things to know:

1) Periscope links to your Twitter account and will generate a Tweet (unless you tell it not to) each time you broadcast. Therefore, hashtags are important in your scope titles.

2) If you’d like to limit who can comment on your broadcasts, there’s an option each time you set up a new scope. (A small comment bubble to click just above the “start broadcast” button) This option allows only people YOU follow to comment, thus increasing shared follows and also protecting you from anyone in the world being able to comment. (Unwanted commenters are called “trolls”, and they’re out there.)

3) There is also the option to turn on or off your location for each broadcast. If you’re broadcasting from home, I highly recommend you click this off.

4) Hearts. Hearts are VERY important. When you watch a broadcast, you can tap the bottom right corner of your screen and give the broadcaster a heart, or two, or five hundred—which is currently the most you can give in a day. As a broadcaster, the more hearts you have the higher your scopes rank on the Periscope sight. For me, it’s just fun to give hearts. Everyone needs a little love.

5) When you start a live broadcast, tap the screen twice to reverse the camera—if you want people to see your smiling face. When you’re ready to stop the broadcast, swipe down on the top of the screen.

6) You have a few options once the scope is done. Queue your scope for twenty-four hours for anyone on Periscope to view—and keep giving you hearts—or delete it. There’s also a great new hashtag #katch that will record, hold, and give you a replay link to tweet again at any time. Check them out on Twitter under #katch.

If you’re unsure about this new medium, I still encourage you to check it out. Watch others’ scopes for a while to see what works and what doesn’t. Then sign up with a few of your friends and create “private chats” to practice with before you go live for the first time. And be ready to laugh at yourself, because no matter how much you practice you still learn as you go.

If you do jump into the Periscope waters, look me up: Susan L. Tuttle. It’s a fun new place to be—one I’ve just dipped my toes into—and your readers will love getting to see a new side of you.

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Susan Tuttle

Susan Tuttle is a homeschooling mom of three who is crazy about coffee, dark chocolate, and words—both reading and writing them. Combine that love of words with her passion for leading women to a life-changing encounter with Christ, and you’ll find her crafting Inspirational Contemporary Romance stories laced with humor, love, and healing transformations. When not cheering on her Ironman hubby, chasing the family dog, or tackling complex math problems to teach her kids (yes, even the third grader), you can catch Susan at her blog, Steps.

4 Tips for Setting Realistic Goals by Susan Tuttle

Susan Tuttle

I recently hit a wall with my WIP. Feeling it had sat on my computer for far too long, I labeled myself a failure as a writer and nearly gave up in the form of tossing my computer out the window. What had brought me to this unbalanced place? 

Unrealistic goals. 

As writers it’s incredibly important to set goals. Otherwise, yes, we could fall to distraction or procrastination—two of our greatest enemies. But another enemy we often don’t see is an unrealistic goal. So how do we avoid this? 

1. Don’t set your goal based on someone else’s. 

Social media is a killer for this one! We pop on Facebook or Twitter and see a fellow writer’s word count for the day. Or we hear they whipped out a manuscript in two weeks. Then, either due to competition or the honest belief that we should be able to attain similar results, we set a matching goal. Except your life isn’t theirs. Your schedule, your family, your other job…even your writing style are all different and need to be taken into account. A goal crafted from someone else’s life will always fail. Create a goal that is as unique as you are. For me, I’ve learned it takes around a year to fully write one story, polish it, and send it out. That’s far slower than many of my writing friends, and that’s become fine by me. 

2. Be real about your schedule and what you can’t use. 

What stage are you at in life? Retired? Homeschooling? New mom? Full time employee? This stage of life won’t last forever, but it’s the one you are in now, and you need to become okay with it. I’m a homeschooling mom. Many of my friends can write while their children are at school for the day. I cannot. When I try to, I always end up frustrated…and I shouldn’t be! This is the current stage I am in. What’s yours? Be honest about it. Then mark off those hours on your calendar as non-writing hours. Let them go. Don’t even expect to use them. If you wind up able to, it’s a bonus.  

3. Be real about your schedule and what you can use. 

Now look at that calendar again. What blocks of time are left? Choose which ones you’ll use for writing, and—again—be honest with yourself. If you’re not a morning person, don’t mark an open block at 5 a.m. But make sure to look at all your available evenings. Then put it on the calendar and honor that time. Even if it’s a twenty-minute opening you can write a few hundred words or do some necessary research. It’s like that old saying, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Approach your writing and open time slots the same. Use each one you can find, no matter how big or small. 

4. Be fluid. 

Understand life is always changing and moving. Even with scheduling our time, things out of our control happen. Be all right with having to change your goals. At the end of last summer we lost my father-in-law. I had just started my current WIP, and it wound up on my back burner for several months. It’s all right to set writing aside, but remember why you did it. When I came back to writing I didn’t adjust my goals. I assumed the same timeline as before and was frustrated when my book wasn’t accomplished in that time frame. In reality, my true start date for this WIP wasn’t until I returned to writing in January. I’m still under my year mark, I simply had to remember to account for the change. Be ready to do the same. Life is fluid, writers need to be also. 

So that’s it. The current guidelines I’m using to knock unrealistic goals from my life. Hopefully it helps you do the same and pushes you to set some attainable ones for your future writing. I’d love to hear any additional points you’ve learned or adapted in your life. I’m always growing this list.  

Happy writing! 

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Susan Tuttle is a homeschooling mom of three who is crazy about coffee, dark chocolate, and words—both reading and writing them. Combine that love of words with her passion for leading women to a life-changing encounter with Christ, and you’ll find her crafting Inspirational Contemporary Romance stories laced with humor, love, and healing transformations. When not cheering on her Ironman hubby, chasing the family dog, or tackling complex math problems to teach her kids (yes, even the third grader), you can catch Susan at her blog, Steps.

Don’t Skip a Word by Susan Tuttle

Image courtesy of JulesInKY on Morguefile.com

As writers we want each word we put on the page to mean something to the reader. If it doesn’t, we pull it out. We count each word—literally—and only keep those that add value to the story we’re writing. Each one is thought over and chosen with careful deliberation. And only the best word choice is used. We pour over synonyms to create the perfect picture that tells the story exactly as we created it to be seen.

We don’t want the reader to skip one single word.

This thought was with me recently as I remembered Hebrews 12:2 where God is mentioned as the author of our faith. It occurred to me that if the words I choose for my story world are selected so carefully, then the God who writes my story is doing no less. Just as we don’t want anyone to skip a word we put on the page, God doesn’t want us to miss any of the moments he’s chosen for us.

But we try, don’t we? We skip words, paragraphs, even pages out of the moments he’s penned into our lives. Sometimes they’re too painful so we avoid them. Maybe we’re incredibly busy, so we skim through certain periods. Maybe it’s a section that doesn’t hold our attention or a portion that we’re so busy rewriting in our head that we miss it all together. Whatever the reason, we skip the words.

Yet just as people won’t get the full effect of our stories if they leave pieces out, we miss out on the fullness of what God has for us when we don’t take it word-by-word. The happy, the sad, and yes, even the painful. Each word he authors in our lives is meant to build upon the next one, and when we stick around for the entire tale the end product is beyond what we could imagine. It’s our happily-ever-after.

Best of all? He meets you on every page of your story.

So don’t skip a word of it.

Susan Tuttle

Susan Tuttle is a homeschooling mom of three who is crazy about coffee, dark chocolate, and words—both reading and writing them. Combine that love of words with her passion for leading women to a life-changing encounter with Christ, and you’ll find her crafting Inspirational Contemporary Romance stories laced with humor, love, and healing transformations. When not cheering on her Ironman hubby, chasing the family dog, or tackling complex math problems to teach her kids (yes, even the third grader), you can catch Susan at her blog, Steps.

Sandwiches & Writing by Susan Tuttle

Image compliments of MorgueFile 

I was making a sandwich for my kids the other day (an occurrence that doesn’t happen often) when it hit me…writing is like sandwich building. I’m not sure how I missed it before.

You see, first you take out the bread. That’s the framework of your story. It’s the bones you’ll be building on. This is the place where you decide what type of story you’re about to write—romantic comedy, thriller, historical; novella or novel—who your characters are and where this story is taking place. Honestly, this is where I can find ways to procrastinate the most. I love visualizing my characters and naming them. I can get lost thinking of the perfect setting or finding pictures of look-alikes online and pinning them. But while Pinterest boards are really cute, they’ll never be enough to satiate a reader. You have to add meat.

Meat. The thick part that sustains your audience. What’s the plot? In that romantic comedy, what’s going to keep the two leads apart? In the thriller, who’s your big bad and why? In the historical, are we dealing with a great moment of the past or are you creating a new one in an amazing old city? The meat is where you dig in and brainstorm your story. You discover the theme and overarching story question. You know what motivates your characters, what conflicts will arise, and how they will be resolved. Then you put it down on paper. This is where the rough draft happens. The story begins to take shape, and you get the important stuff down, but it’s not very exciting. No one wants just a meat sandwich.

It’s time for the flavor. Like swiping on mayo or spicy mustard, perhaps adding pickles or jalapeños, this is where your story really starts to shine. You add those little traits that make your character unique. Something they always say or a habit they can’t break. You flesh out the setting, adding color and depth to each location. Deepen the five senses, making sure you hit at least three per scene. You add beats and pull tags. Drop the overused sayings and replace them with fresh words. Sometimes these last layers take the longest, but they’re where the sandwich goes from ho-hum to delicious.

So where are you at today? Are you pulling out some bread, in the meat stage, or adding the flavor? Better yet, what’s your favorite part? I’m finishing up the meat of a story and ready to head into my favorite part—the flavor. Anyone else?

Hoping your sandwich building is producing something tasty today!

Susan Tuttle

Susan Tuttle is a homeschooling mom of three who is crazy about coffee, dark chocolate, and words—both reading and writing them. Combine that love of words with her passion for leading women to a life-changing encounter with Christ, and you’ll find her crafting Inspirational Contemporary Romance stories laced with humor, love, and healing transformations. When not cheering on her Ironman hubby, chasing the family dog, or tackling complex math problems to teach her kids (yes, even the third grader), you can catch Susan at her blog, Steps.

Valley of Dry Bones by Susan Tuttle

Image courtesy of Morguefile.com

He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” Ezekiel 37:3 

As a writer, this verse remains close by my side for two big reasons. The first is for all those moments when I stare at a screen and nothing comes. You know what I mean, right? No words jump forth, and the ones you do manage to squeak out feel drier than a mouth full of cotton. 

Dry spells. We all have them. It’s what we do with them that makes the difference. If you’re struggling to get the story that once seemed so alive in your head down onto paper, make sure you’re first digging into The Word. God is the creator of all things, including the tale he’s got for you to tell. He knows how to make it come alive, leaping off of the page and into the heart of your reader. But he can’t give it to you if you’re not communicating with him. I find when my writing time is the driest that my quiet moments with him are at their fewest. Don’t sacrifice your time with the ultimate Author so you can work at being one. When you place him first your writing grows stronger, your story more creative, and he multiplies your time. I don’t know how he does it, he simply does. 

The other reason that verse stays close by is for all those stories I’ve written that sit in a drawer while rejection letters pile up. See, there are moments where this dream of writing feels completely dead. Stripped bare of all meat and muscle, there’s simply no life left in it. Countless rejections can do that, right? Yet God has a purpose and a plan for each of us. And he is the giver of life. Our physical life, yes, but the life of our dreams too. It doesn’t matter what state your dream is in or how often the word “no” has been lobbed against it, if God can breathe life into a valley of bones, he most certainly can do the same with your writing career. 

So today if you’re struggling with another rejection or a blank screen in front of you, I challenge you to speak this verse out loud. Read the whole chapter. Remind yourself of all his promises and abilities. Because he can take your dry writing bones and bring them to life in an instant. Believe it.  

Susan Tuttle

Susan Tuttle is a homeschooling mom of three who is crazy about coffee, dark chocolate, and words—both reading and writing them. Combine that love of words with her passion for leading women to a life-changing encounter with Christ, and you’ll find her crafting Inspirational Contemporary Romance stories laced with humor, love, and healing transformations. When not cheering on her Ironman hubby, chasing the family dog, or tackling complex math problems to teach her kids (yes, even the third grader), you can catch Susan at her blog, Steps.