Encouragement for Writers

Welcome to Fortifying Friday! This is the day we feature guest authors with their personal journeys to publication and encouraging words for writers.

But today we’re going to do something different.

We’re on this writing journey together, so this Fortifying Friday, we’re going to focus on encouraging and praying for other writers and each other.

Many of you will be attending the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) conference next week in Indianapolis. If not that conference, maybe you—or someone you know—plan to attend another in the coming months. It’s exciting to attend workshops, meet other writers, and even pitch your novel to an editor or agent. But it can also be an intimating, stressful, and overwhelming experience.

Perhaps over the next few days you could encourage or pray for someone who is

1) Attending a conference in the near future
2) Stressed about deadlines
3) Struggling through a personal or family crisis
4) Finding it difficult to financially make ends meet
5) Trying to meet the family’s needs
6) Feeling defeated and discouraged
7) Suffering through any illness, whether slight or serious
8) Searching for ideas while sitting in front of a blank computer screen
9) Desiring to have the support of spouse and/or family
10) Feeling spiritually dry
11) Seeking community with other writers
12) Needing to feel energized and inspired to write

Another way to offer encouragement is to write a note of thanks to an author who has entertained or inspired you through his/her words.

If you have need of encouragement, or would like prayer for yourself or someone else, please leave a comment. You don’t have to be specific. God knows your heart.

Blessings to you, dear friends and writers!

Dawn

Pray for Each Other

Thursdays - Devotions for Writers

"With this in mind, we constantly pray for you,
that our God may count you worthy of his calling,
and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose
of yours and every act prompted by your faith." (2 Thes. 1:11 NIV)

How would you feel if someone told you they were committed to praying for you - and specifically, what God had in store for your writing?

Would it overwhelm you?

Humble you?

Bless you?

I felt all three when a friend committed to praying for us. Annette and I love this author. We love her heart, her enthusiasm for her relationship with the Lord – and yes, we love her writing. Knowing that she’s petitioning the Lord to bless our writing and careers feels awesome!

Annette and I pray for each other, as well as our other two friends in our critique group. As we know, Christians aren’t immune from personal, relational, spiritual, physical, or financial struggles. And that includes writers.

We’ve known authors who have dealt with diseases that crippled their writing for a season. At this very moment, there are writers who are in painful relationships. Some are wondering if they’re going to be able to pay this month’s mortgage. And who, even after great success, question their ability to again write anything worth reading.

God has given us a purpose in our writing. Fiction or non-fiction. Articles, devotions, or novels. It’s important to include our heavenly Father in this journey. If we’re not writing for Him, then who are we writing for? (Ohhhh . . . scary thought!)

Let’s commit to praying for each other—perhaps choosing several writers to specifically keep in prayer. Whether we know them personally, or not—whether they’re successful, or just beginning their journey—so that God may find us and our writing worthy of His calling.

Dawn