The Courage To Be Brave

Today's Guest Blogger Erica Vetsch

Did you know that signing up for Speedbo, or writing any fiction, means you’re courageous? I know. If I was asked to name a few of my best attributes (not that anyone has ever asked me this) I don’t know that courage would rank very high.

COURAGE: [kur-ij, kuhr-] noun. The quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain,  etc.,  without fear;  bravery.

The above definition comes to us courtesy of Dictionary.com, and I agree with it for the most part, but there’s one phrase that I don’t think is true. It’s the part that says “Without Fear.” I once read a definition of courage that went something like that. “Courage doesn’t mean you’re not afraid. It means you stuff your fear into your hat and then sit on your hat.” That suits me better, because if the qualification for being courageous meant being ‘without fear’ then I would never attain courage.

But, being a novelist requires a certain level of courage, because writing fiction is creativity at its most basic, and creativity is all about courage. Don’t believe me? Read on!

Novel writing requires risk-taking.

1.       Trying something new and unknown is scary. If this is your first attempt at fiction, the doubts can crowd in louder than Jayhawk fans at a home game at Allen Field House. (That’s loud, BTW.) Why did I think I could write? What if nobody ever reads this? What if I don’t have the writing chops to translate my idea into a story? Even if you’ve written a hundred novels, each time you sit down to create a new story, a new character, a new chapter, you’re launching into the unknown. It’s a risk, every time. Pitfalls abound. Will you be able to do it again? Is this the time when your creativity dries up? Can you create something fresh and new?

2.       Fear of failure…however you define failure…is a part of the writing process.  Nobody likes to fail, not even in the privacy of their own head. What if nobody likes what I read? What if I never land an agent? What if I’m only kidding myself about this writing thing? What if this is the time when my agent/publisher/readers realize I’m not really a writer after all? Even the most seasoned writer feels these doubts.

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Novel writing requires vulnerability.

1.       Writing is deeply personal. When you write, you’re opening up the deepest, most sensitive, most defenseless part of yourself. You’re inviting people into your thoughts. You’re letting people read your mind. If that isn’t scary, then nothing is! You have to muster the courage to be honest about what you think and the way you see the world, and brave enough to let someone else in on it.

2.       Others may or may not like what you’ve created, which can feel like an assault on your character. Not only are you allowing someone else to judge your work, but they are free to spread their opinion far and wide. If there is anything more humbling for an author than the amazon.com review process, I don’t know what it would be. People you’ve never met can say whatever they want about your work, accurate or not, and in some cases whether they’ve even read it or not. And some of it is great! But some of it is not so very great. At times like these, it takes courage to follow the advice of the inestimable Allie Pleiter, who once said “Don’t engage theloonies.”  (If you haven’t read Allie’s guest post here on Seekerville, hie thee to this page forthwith!) 

Novel writing requires having expectations and also letting those expectations go.

1.       We need to have expectations, otherwise we belong to that set of people who don’t write, they just talk about writing. That group that wants to “Have written.” You don’t have to be brave to belong to that group. It’s safe. But safe won’t accomplish your dreams. So set some goals, invest in those contests and workshops and conferences and writing how-to books.  Query that agent, pitch to that editor, evaluate your career and map out a plan to get from where you are to where you want to be. Have the courage to aim high and the grit to work at those goals.

Erica has fantastic fingernails!!
She's also on Coffeecups and Camisoles!

2.       But on the flipside, we need to let go of expectations. This might be the most courage-testing task of all for a writer.  How do we not hold tightly to something we want so very much? How do we not live and die on whether an agent likes our proposal, or whether an editor will ask for a full manuscript? By having the courage to not focus on the outcome and focus on the process instead. By having the courage to let those creativity-paralyzing hopes go and write free for the sheer love of writing, the love of story, the love of creating.

Taking risks, being vulnerable, having expectations…these all require great amounts of courage. The courage to stare down that blinking cursor and put into words the vivid images in your head. The courage to slash and cut and rewrite and edit your story. The…GULP…courage to let someone else read and evaluate your work. The courage to take a critique. The courage to change and grow and get better at your craft, and the courage to stand behind what you’ve written.

So as we are nearing the end of Speedbo 2015, congratulate yourself on your risk taking, on your willingness to be vulnerable, on your guts to set some goals and work toward them. Congratulate yourself on your bravery!

You. Are. Courageous.

Then, of course, stop padiddlin’ around and get back to writing! It’s Speedbo, after all!

Leave a comment to get your name in the drawing for a copy of The Homestead Brides Collection-Autographed by all NINE Authors!  

The Homestead Brides Collection--Nine novellas...Nine Authors...all fun. Including THREE SEEKERS AND ERICA!!!

Mary Connealy, DiAnn Mills, Erica Vetsch, Kathleen Y'Barbo, Darlene Franklin, Carla Olson Gade, Ruth Logan Herne, Pam Hillman, Becca Whitham

Promises of free land lured thousands to stake their claim to the vast American plains. 

They built make-do homes and put all they had into improving the land. 

Readers will enjoy nine adventures as God helps homesteaders find someone with whom to share the dream—the work—and the love.

Erica Vetsch is a transplanted Kansan now residing in Minnesota. She loves history and romance, and is blessed to be able to combine the two by writing historical romances. Whenever she’s not immersed in fictional worlds, she’s the company bookkeeper for the family lumber business, mother of two, wife to a man who is her total opposite and soul-mate, and avid museum patron.

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COURAGE! by Regina Jennings

 Happy Speedbo Month!
How’s it going? Are you staying on track? It’s still early in the game and some might be questioning their commitment.

Yeah, I said I’d give it a try. So far, so good, but we’ll see how next week goes.

I’ve already accomplished more than I thought I would. I could quit now, and still be proud.

But did your Mama raise a quitter? I hope not. Instead of calling that sympathetic, kind friend who you can always trust to let you off the hook, we’re going to give you what you really need.

A Shot of Courage.

And who in history administered more doses of courage than Winston Churchill?

I’m sure if he were alive today he’d be right here on Seekerville, telling you to sit your rear in your chair and get busy. You have a book to write. You have a story to share. The world will be blessed by your efforts and bereft if you fail.

And since Winston never quite got the hang of blogging, we’re going to show him the ropes by sharing some of his more pertinent quotes.

“Promises are the blowing of glittering bubbles; performances are the molding and hammering of iron.” – Dundee, May 7, 1908

When people find out you’re an author many of them will tell you that they’ve always thought about writing a book. They have plots, great characters, a sweeping theme. What they don’t have are words on the page. Do your molding and hammering today. You can look at pretty bubbles when you’re finished.

“We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.” –Canadian Senate and House of Commons, December 30, 1941

Take a moment to think of all the trials you’ve overcome in your life. Remember the late nights, the physical exhaustion and the mental stress you’ve survived. You are strong. You are determined. You can do this.

“We kept on doing our best, we kept on improving. We profited by our mistakes and our experiences. We turned misfortune to good account.” –Hull, November 7, 1941

Fast writing produces mistakes, but it also provides something to build on. Don’t criticize your work now. No one will see this draft, anyway. Once you’ve reached your goal you’re going to go back and clean it up. And while you’re looking at a rough draft you’ll learn from your mistakes and be able to identify your natural voice.

“Criticism is easy; achievement is more difficult.” –House of Commons, January 22, 1941

Amen! No matter how your final work is received, by the end of this month you've accomplished greatness. Not only have you set a demanding goal, but you've reached it with aplomb. And when someone asks what you've been up to, you’ll smile and say, “Well, I wrote a novel last month. How about you?”

Now stop surfing and start writing!Right after you LEAVE A COMMENT to get your name in the drawing for Love in the Balance.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Regina Jennings is the author of Love in the Balance and Sixty Acres and a Bride. She is a graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University and has worked at The Mustang News and First Baptist Church of Mustang, along with time at the Oklahoma National Stockyards and various livestock shows. She now lives outside Oklahoma City with her husband and four children.

Regina can be found surrounded by laundry or at any of these places online–

Website – www.reginajennings.com

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/ReginaLJennings

Twitter - https://twitter.com/ReginaJennings

Goodreads - Regina Jennings    

Comment for a chance to win Speedbo Prizes!

Courage

by Debby Giusti

My book club’s read last month was SARAH’S KEY, by Tatiana de Rosnay, a fictional story about a terrible event in France’s history that some in that country wish to forget. On June 16, 1942, nearly 10,000 Jews, many of them children, were rounded up—not by German Nazis—but by French police and held for six days without food or water in the Vélodrome d’Hiver, an indoor stadium used for sporting events. The conditions were deplorable, sanitation was non-existent and many died in the unbearable heat within the tightly enclosed structure. Those who survived were eventually herded onto transport cars and taken to a camp outside the city, where parents were separated from their children and, a few days later, sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

Stumbling upon information as she browsed the Internet, French author Tatiana de Rosnay says, “I realized I didn’t know much about what exactly happened that day. I was not taught about this event at school, during the ‘70s. And it still seemed to be shrouded by some kind of taboo. So I started reading and researching.”

Eventually, she wrote the story that was first released in her native country and then picked up by St. Martin’s Press for publication in the U.S. The novel chronicles the lives of two heroines—one a young Jewish girl arrested on that terrible day in 1942. The other is a modern-day journalist in Paris assigned to write a magazine article about the sixtieth anniversary of the seemingly forgotten event. The lives of the two characters intertwine as Tatiana reveals the horrors of the roundup and the ramifications that play out in France today.

Tatiana had the courage to write a difficult story about a dark time in her country’s history in hopes that, by knowing the past, we will be ever vigilant to ensure nothing similar happens in the future.

Over the weekend, I read an article about Gene Patterson, a Georgia journalist who wrote for the Atlanta Constitution, during the civil rights movement in the 1960s. When a church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, killed four African-American children, Patterson penned an editorial, which began, “A Negro mother wept in the street Sunday morning in front of a Baptist Church in Birmingham. In her hand she held a shoe, one shoe, from the foot of her dead child. We hold that shoe with her.”

With unrelenting determination, Patterson took up the cause for integration and radial equality. Threats were made to his life, and the Ku Klux Klan frequently picketed the newspaper building where he worked, but Patterson had the courage to be a voice of reason in a stormy sea of unrest. His editorials helped change the hearts and minds of the old South and earned him the Pulitzer Price in 1967.

Six months before my first book sold, the word courage played repeatedly through my mind and appeared wherever I looked, in newspaper articles, on television shows, in the books I read. I didn’t need a degree in theology to know God was placing the word in my path for a reason. At first, I feared it concerned my son who was deployed to Iraq, but upon reflection after I received “The Call” a short time later, I realized courage is a necessary virtue for any writer to possess. Courage, or fortitude, strengthens us to continue on in the face of rejection and to step boldly into new, uncharted territory when the Lord calls us forth.

As writers, I believe we have a responsibility to use the talent God has given us for a greater good. A wordsmith can craft a letter of recommendation that sells a person or product, affirms the excellent service received from a hardworking employee or heaps well-deserved praise on a teacher who has laid a strong foundation for a child’s future progress. Are you using our gift to uplift and affirm?

The Christian fiction writer is given an opportunity to bring his or her characters to faith and in so doing can impact readers as well. But, even in fiction, the faith thread must be gently woven. Is there, perhaps, another forum where God is asking you to proclaim him as Lord and Savior?

In prayer, I always hear God telling me that his children are hurting and need to know of His love and mercy. Are you doing enough to spread the message of His love?

Recently, our world has been stricken with disasters—fires in Arizona, floods in Nashville, tornadoes in Minnesota and a massive oil spill in the Gulf. A mountain of pain lies behind each catastrophe. Are you being asked to reach out to those struggling to rebuild their lives after their world has crumbled into oblivion?

Politics aside, we know our economy is teetering on a giant precipice, just as other countries, such as Greece and Spain, are near collapse. Do you have advice or words of caution in the face of such an eminent threat of financial ruin?

Pick up any newspaper or listen to any local newscast and you’ll see stories about strife and heartache. Are you troubled about an injustice that needs a spokesperson? Could you be the lone voice shedding light on a situation or problem in your local community?

How are you using your gift of writing? Are you a courageous writer or are you ignoring a call to action the Lord may be placing on your heart?

I’m eager to hear your thoughts and hope you’ll share examples of people you know who made a difference, who stepped out in faith, who took the hard road that did not bring popularity but did effect change for the better?

Wishing you abundant blessings and much courage,
Debby Giusti
http://www.debbygiusti.com/

http://www.ladiesofsuspense.blogspot.com/

Grab a cup of coffee. I brought some of Paula Dean’s favorite Southern fare from her Lady and Sons Restaurant in Savannah, Georgia, so help yourself to the Lady’s perfect scrambled eggs, smothered chicken and biscuits, chocolate chip pancakes with cinnamon cream and pineapple blueberry crunch cake. You’ll find the recipes at: http://www.pauladeen.com/index.php/recipes/category/breakfast_and_brunch/P0/

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