 |
Cultivating Your Writing
By Margaret Cook, M.Ed., Licensed Professional Counselor, Life Coach
|
Schedule a time to identify one story a week or month and try to get it written. Send it to Next-Step-of-Faith, or to your favorite publication. Keep writing. Use these tips to help this become the spring time or the growing season of your faith writing calling.
1. Plan your article garden. Consider the tone, color and fragrance that will cause a reader to stop and enjoy the story.
2. Identify one incident or experience of your life and outline the beginning, middle and end of the story.
3. Review your outline and revise. Think of a garden bed at the end of winter. Develop the outline a little like you would when you prepare the garden. Rake out the weeds and winter debris. Break the large ideas into the fine soil that will drain and support the growth.
4. Center the middle of the story on what changed and prepare the reader for the drama that is about to unfold. Put in the seeds of change and work the soil of the reader’s heart.
5. Bring forth the life of the story and the result of God’s grace in the third part of your outline of the story. Think of this as the plant pushing through, blossoming and coming to full bloom.
6. Invite the reader to action in their own life.
7. Revise and rewrite your story to make it as vibrant as spring and as glorious as Easter morning.
8. Allow God to use the seasons of your life to encourage others. Published writing becomes a perennial invitation to readers to realize God’s love.
Copyright © 2009 – Margaret Cook. All rights reserved.
Permission to use or duplicate this article is available by contacting the writer at
Back to Articles Main Page : : : : Back to Articles Sorted By Writer : : : : Back to Articles Sorted by Title
|
