A couple weeks ago, I had the privilege of talking with Jeff Medders, host of the podcast Home Row: A Podcast with Writers on Writing. He started the podcast over a year ago, and it’s one of my favorites!
Writers, if you’re looking for a helpful resource on the discipline and craft of writing, you’ll want to subscribe to Home Row.
Jeff and I talk baby names, swimming, editing, Hope When It Hurts, and more. Here’s the episode…click to listen!
A war continues to wage within this writing sinner’s heart.
My first three confessions covered identity, comparison, and motives in writing. Here are the final four:
There. I said it. Someone’s going to find me out because I’m not sure I know what I’m doing. By this, I don’t mean I know nothing about how to write. I know something about this. Otherwise I wouldn’t have scored well on research papers in college or be writing anything remotely helpful today…
What I mean is: I’m young and inexperienced and don’t have a turnkey process for writing. I compare myself to other writers (there it is again), and I see the sin in my heart, my mixed motives. All this makes me feel unqualified, undeserving, and, most of the time, incapable.
But this is a good place to be.
A war is waging within this writing sinner’s heart.
We’ll call this war “The Battle of the Insecure Writer.” It’s an (almost) everyday battle, a consistent fight. This is an attempt to describe that war, in hopes that I’ll better grasp its ins-and-outs and fight sin and temptation by the strength God supplies.
I’m also hoping this will help you, fellow writer. You, too, are fighting an inner war against sin, pride, and other fruit of the flesh. The ins-and-outs of your battle may look different than mine, but I’d guess much is similar. I’m hoping this will help you identify sin and temptation, and rest in God’s infinite grace as you pursue writing as a gift, a vocation, a calling.
So here-goes my first three confessions (and there are more to follow)—
