Tuesday Tidbit: Polish your writing skills at a writers conference

Cecil Murphey says, 

“If your New Year’s resolution 

was to learn how to write 

or to become a better writer, 

one of the best decisions you can make 

is to attend a writers conference.”

In March, Cec will be the keynote speaker at the Blue Lake Christian Writers Retreat held at Blue Lake Camp in Andalusia, Alabama.

Cec is a man I studied under at a writers conference a few years ago, a man with a most remarkable heart and extraordinary skill. He has authored or co-authored more books than any other living writer—135 books and counting. Several have been on the New York Times bestseller list for years at a time.

In addition to two keynote speeches, he will teach three workshops (see below) and will take appointments for one-on-one mentoring.

Cec’s three workshops are Ghostwriting, Memoirs and Autobiographies, and Writing About the Hard Issues.

In his workshop on memoirs and autobiographies, Cec will teach the difference between the two and how to write both.

I can’t think of a better person than Cec to teach a workshop on Writing About the Hard Issues. This dear man has experienced more than his share of hardships—and yet he has survived and thrived and now loves to help others do the same. The conference website describes his workshop this way: 

“Because of the pain and the trials in your life, 

you have a message 

that can offer healing and encouragement 

to others. 

But to write about them effectively 

you must relive the experiences 

and allow old emotions to emerge. 

We’ll discuss how to make these feelings work for you 

to deeply impact readers.”

Learn more about Cecil Murphey at his website, and learn more about the Blue Lake ChristianWriters Retreat at its website.

Give serious consideration to attending this retreat. It could change your life and your writing.

Your memoir can have an outcome beyond your expectations

The Bible’s characters “may not have realized the privilege and certainly didn’t know the eternal impact they would make,” writes Priscilla Shirer in her Bible study, Jonah.

“How could they have known that their names would go down in God’s Word to encourage us millennia later?”

Realize the truth of what Priscilla says here:

“Like those holy heroes, you’ve got an outcome you can’t make out.…” and:

“The fog of your life’s journey will clog your spiritual sight.…”

(Let me interrupt Priscilla here. That fog she refers to—that’s a holy fog. It keeps us from navel-gazing and pride. By God’s grace, He dims our self-absorbed vision in a blessed fog!)

OK, back to Priscilla and this important point of today’s blog post:

“In future generations, your story will be the one that encourages someone else to follow hard after God.”

Read that again and believe it:

“In future generations,

your story will be the one

that encourages someone else

to follow hard after God.”

Priscilla’s insights here suggest two ideas for your memoir:

First, which Bible characters have impacted your life? Abraham? Moses? Ruth? Joseph? David? Esther? Peter?

What did they say that helped define your life’s choices?

What did they do that changed your life’s direction?

Include vignettes in your memoir illustrating why and how those Biblical characters have inspired you, influenced you, and shaped you into the person you are today.

Then do an about face. God has used other people’s stories to encourage you, teach you, admonish, and inspire, and now it’s your turn to pass on the blessings: Turn from the past and look toward the future.

Your stories are important.

“I’ve seen it happen.… A lost human being

feels like they’re the only one

who has ever felt this much pain.

They don’t know how to reach out for help

but then, inside of a story …

they see every emotion or secret

or hope-for happy ending

that they’ve ever kept bottled up inside, acted out,

and they start to believe—maybe there’s more.…”

(Martha Carr, Just Keep Writing)

Do you see your writing as a privilege?

Do you realize the impact your memoir can make?

“Have you ever considered,” Priscilla asks, “that just as the previous stories encourage us along the way, yours will encourage someone else?”

God can use your words to help readers experience God’s grace, cling to hope, remain strong in their faith, and delight in God’s love.

Write your stories!

“Life is a steep climb … and we must help one another”

“Life is a steep climb,” she wrote almost a century ago, “and it does the heart good to have somebody ‘call back’ and cheerily beckon us up the high hill.”

In the past hundred years, tens of thousands of us have received blessing upon blessing because Mrs. Charles E. Cowman called back—in writing.

“We are all climbers together,” she continued in Streams in the Desert, “and we must help one another. This mountain climbing is serious business, but glorious. It takes strength and a steady step to find the summits.… If anyone among us has found anything worthwhile, we ought to ‘call back.’”

How long ago did I first read those words? Over 30 years ago. And they became an important theme in my life—a goal, a focus.

Below is a poem she wrote and, despite sounding old-fashioned, it contains precious gems of wisdom and inspiration for even the youngest among us:

If you have gone a little way ahead of me, call back—

‘Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track;

And if, perchance, Faith’s light is dim, because the oil is low,

Your call will guide my lagging course as wearily I go.

Call back, and tell me that He went with you into the storm;

Call back, and say He kept you when the forest’s roots were torn;

That, when the heavens thunder and the earthquake shook the hill,

He bore you up and held you where the very air was still.

Oh, friend, call back, and tell me for I cannot see your face;

They say it glows with triumph, and your feet bound in the race;

But there are mists between us and my spirit eyes are dim,

And I cannot see the glory, though I long for word of Him.

But if you’ll say He heard you when your prayer was but a cry,

And if you’ll say He saw you through the night’s sin-darkened sky—

If you have gone a little way ahead, oh, friend, call back—

‘Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track.

(from Mrs. Charles E. Cowman’s Streams in the Desert; emphasis mine)

Little did I know that Mrs. Cowman’s message would live so long in my heart and lead me to the word “memoir” and it all means, and the ways memoirs can bless others.

The point of her post echoes in this:

“ … The God of all comfort … comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

“Any grief we have gone through ourselves

and given over to the Lord’s healing

is preparation for comforting others.…

As one who has received comfort from Christ,

I will think of myself as a communicator of comfort.”

(Lloyd John Ogilvie, Silent Strength for My Life; emphasis mine)

Was there a time when your world fell apart, when your faith was at a low point, when you longed for God to heal your broken heart?

If so, it was “preparation for comforting others.” You “have gone a little way ahead” of others. Let God use your experience and your words to comfort others.

If you have experienced the death of a dream, or if you have endured devastating illness, write for those just beginning their own long, discouraging battle: “Call back, and tell [readers] that He went with you into the storm.”

If you’ve faced financial ruin, or if you’ve survived abuse or infidelity or betrayal, “call back” to encourage readers in the midst of their own heartache—those dear ones reeling while “the heavens thunder and the earthquake shakes.” Tell them the ways God “bore you up and held you.”

You cannot know who will read your words, but your stories are important. No one else can write them the way you can, and God can and will use them. 

Someone needs to read your God-and-you stories.

“Say He heard you!”

“Say He saw you!”

“God gave us the gift of language to express something extraordinary. Well chosen words launched intentionally from one heart to another … soothe, heal, edify, build, and bring comfort.” (Birdie Courtright)  

Write stories for your memoir that will call back:

Be a communicator of comfort.