Tony Is A Pony: Making the Most of Your Writing Journey

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Do you ever pause in your busy life to review the journey that brought you to today? I don’t mean looking back to bemoan lost opportunities or rehash disappointments from the past. There’s little value in that. But rather to recognize how far you’ve come and perhaps, how the seed of a talent, maybe a dream you were given, has blossomed over time.
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Recently I was paging through my K-12 school “scrapbook” that my mom so creatively put together in a big binder of top-loading plastic sheets--a condensed collection of my drawings, poems, and stories. A compilation of my growing up years as evidenced on paper.
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I was especially amused by kindergarten and first grade attempts to draw people and horses--my “Tony Is A Pony.” Amused, too, by how in my “child mind” those crayoned images really looked like horses and people looked. But honestly? I can truly say I’ve never seen a real-life horse like my early artistic renderings. (Thank goodness!)
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Yet, what JOY I took in drawing--the freedom of filling a blank page with colorful depictions of the world around me. Being unconfined by the lines in a printed coloring book. By the time I reached junior high my drawings had evolved considerably. Perfect? No. Clearly, though, I’d further honed my fledgling talents. I can’t help but wonder where those unpolished efforts may have led had I persisted in developing my artistic skills.
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During those same growing up years, however, a stronger dream emerged alongside my crayons, sketch pads and water colors--a dream to write stories. Just as with my attempts at art, my writing, too, began with the lowliest of beginner basics.  And again I experienced the JOY of filling a blank piece of paper--this time with a growing repertoire of words fueled by my imagination and the love of Story.
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The journey to publication was a long one for me…I had to pass through many seasons in my life when I optimistically wrote with the dream fresh and alive in my heart…and through just as many others where I wrote very little and the dream lay dormant, gathering dust.
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So, what IS making the most of your writing journey right where you are all about?
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Yes, it’s making an effort to steadily improve your craft—grammar, punctuation, usage, formatting. To learn to apply deep point of view, goal/motivation/conflict, character arcs, effective dialogue and to put emotion on the page. To become knowledgeable about genres and industry trends. Yes, it’s hard work, and all these things are important. We can help you in Seekerville to increase your chances of mastering the nuts and bolts. We can cheer you on.
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But making the most of your journey is all about your choice--a choice not to give up. A choice to enjoy where you're at on the way to where you're going.
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It’s about keeping the dream alive, even when going through seasons when circumstances and life’s blows attempt to convince you that you’ll never attain--or retain--the dream. When little voices in your head tell you you’re not as talented as so-and-so. You’re too young. You’re too old. It will take too much time, too much effort--so what’s the point in trying?
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It’s about looking back and celebrating how far you’ve come--not beating yourself up along the road. How foolish it would have been for me to stop drawing in first grade because I couldn’t sketch like a college art major! Or to have put down my pencil and lined paper early on because self-talk--and feedback--said what I was writing at the time was far from publishable.
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Making the most of where you’re at now is about letting your imagination soar. Feeding your creativity. Looking to God for strength to set aside your fears even if you’re still in the “Tony Is A Pony” stage. It’s focusing on the fun and the JOY of writing wherever you are on the writing journey. Making the most of TODAY.
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Has your dream gone dormant--or lost its momentum? Even if you’re a published writer, you need dreams to move toward in order to keep things fresh. Is it time to brush off the dust and prayerfully revive or revise that dream?
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Where are you on your writing (or other) journey today? Share with us the dream that tugs at your heart--and what you believe may be holding you back from making it a goal, a plan and, perhaps eventually, a reality. What one thing can you do right now to renew your dream and make the most of where you’re at in this current phase of your journey?
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If you’d like to be entered in a drawing for a Kindle copy of Susan May Warren’s informative guide “How to Write a Brilliant Romance,” mention it in the comment section, then check the Weekend Edition to see if you’re a winner!

Glynna

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GLYNNA KAYE treasures memories of growing up in small Midwestern towns--and vacations spent with the Texan side of the family. She traces her love of storytelling to the times a houseful of great-aunts and great-uncles gathered with her grandma to share candid, heartwarming, poignant and often humorous tales of their youth and young adulthood. Her Love Inspired books--Pine Country Cowboy and High Country Holiday--won first and second place, respectively, in the 2015 RWA Faith, Hope & Love Inspirational Reader’s Choice Awards. Her November release, The Pastor’s Christmas Courtship, is available for pre-order! (click here)
 

Her Holiday Homecoming.  Jodi Thorpe’s childhood vacation cabin seems the perfect place for her to heal her broken heart…and avoid Christmas cheer. After twelve years, nothing in Hunter Ridge has changed--except Garrett McCrae. The bad boy who was once her secret crush is now the town minister. And Garrett won’t let her miss out on all the hope and joy the holiday brings.  With every day he’s drawn to the vulnerable woman Jodi’s become, even as he’s about to leave for a mission halfway around the world.  But as they grow closer, their plans begin to change. Can Garrett make it a season to remember, with a love they can’t forget?