Author: Lynne Collier/Author

Hello. My blogs are primarily about my work as a writer, faith as a Christ follower, gardening and my childhood in mid-century England. I hope that something I say will make you smile today and encourage you in your journey.​

Redefining What I Do || Lord, What Do You Want Of Me?

Lord, what do you want of me?

In Part One of my self-discovery posts I told you about questioning my identity as a Christian and what God wanted me to do with my life after my children had grown.

In the books I read and the classes I took at church, I came to realize I’m God’s unique design; a one-of-a-kind human being created in His image for a specific purpose at this moment in time. It’s no accident I’m here right now, writing these words, and knowing that makes a world of difference to how I live my life. God made me with a specific intent – and you too! If you’ll bear with me for a while I’ll bring it full-circle.

Me on the back deck reading a gardening book
What I Do – When I Can

My Unique Design – part two

So here’s who Lynne is in a nutshell, from my studies:

My Top 3 Spiritual Gifts

  • Faith
  • Encouragement
  • Service/Helps

I have 4 supportive Gifts which aid me in using my top 3, according to most online tests which are an indication and not an absolute, and which we all need to try out to see if we agree and if others see these Gifts in our lives too.

My Passion

To help people who are searching for identity and purpose, who may have lost direction or feel disheartened and hopeless.

My Natural Abilities

Here are my 5 strongest abilities:

  • Encouraging
  • Writing
  • Networking
  • Counselling
  • Creating

I’d like to list them all but I don’t want to brag 😉

My Personality

INFP  – with a quirky twist, I’ve been told

  • Introvert
  • Intuitive
  • Feeler
  • Perceiver

My Personal Experience

  • Christian Writer
  • Lay Pastoral Counsellor
  • Workshop Leader
  • Kingdom Purpose Coach
  • Mentor
  • Helper in church ministries, community events and in public schools

I’ve listed only a few things here, but there’s a reason for that (it has to do with age…)

How I Discovered God Had Been With Me All Along

As part of my Kingdom Purpose Coaching, I help my clients bring all their attributes together to discover how individual they are and what they can do for God’s Kingdom by His unique design for them. I do this by asking them to take note of the repetitions in each category. Here’s what I learned about my own Kingdom Purpose:

‘To help others see the hope in Christ; encourage them to discover their purpose for God’s Kingdom on Earth, and equip them for their assignment’.

Do you see the repetitions?

So with that in mind, how did I apply it to my life moving forward? I’ll blog about that in Part 3 – Redefining My Life.

Till next time, know you are loved by the One who created you in His image.

Lynne

Resources:

S.H.A.P.E by Eric Rees

The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren

Redefining Who I Am || My Backstory

Part One – My Backstory

LynneCollier.com
Lynne Collier – Author & Kingdom Purpose Coach

 

Discovering My Kingdom Purpose

I now know about God’s purpose for my life, but in early adulthood, I attended a church which didn’t speak much about the Holy Spirit and His work in our lives. The congregation was taught the laws and rules of ‘being a good Christian’ and entrance into heaven, it seemed, was by doing more good deeds than bad ones so the scales ‘tipped in our favour’. The atmosphere was one of perfection and judgement. I often thought God must be very disappointed with me and I felt that I let Him down constantly. The overwhelming feeling of falling short of God’s grace led me to fall away from the church and it was several years before I felt strong enough to try another church. Maybe you’ve experienced this too.

So I sought the Lord and He heard me. I was invited to a church for a dedication of a newborn, a baby born to friends of the family, so I happily attended. The difference between my previous church and this one was like night and day and I was drawn to follow Christ again. This new church spoke about the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Trinity works together. They also had classes I could take during the week to study my faith more and find a deeper relationship with my Lord.

It was at one of these classes I learned about Spiritual Gifts and I was astonished to hear I had been given special Gifts by God and didn’t know it! I took every class I could to learn about God and spoke often with believers who had been involved with the church for many years. Through their guidance and mentorship, I gradually realized the unique way God has designed me for a specific purpose. I’m not just here to live then die and hope the in-between is good enough to get me into Heaven. I’m here for a reason! We all are. God has a royal assignment for me and every believer. Yes, royal; He is the King of Kings and we are His children, princes and princesses in the Kingdom of God on Earth. How cool!

I learned to realize my Kingdom Purpose by studying about my Spiritual Gifts and how God, my Heavenly Father, has also given me a heart passion for his work for me, a personality that works well with what I need to do, natural abilities which help me to carry out specific tasks, and life experiences to help me grow in my faith and calling. These are all in a book I studied at church, called S.H.A.P.E by Erik Rees. This book has played a major role in every aspect of my life, as you’ll come to know if you follow my blog. Another great book to study is The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.

I tried to fit everything I could into one blog, but there are so many areas of my life I had to work on to find my Kingdom Purpose I’ve decided to blog about each aspect separately, so you don’t need to read a ten-page blog.  I hope you’ll join me as I share with you how God brought clarity and purpose to my life.

Stay tuned for part two — Redefining What I Do.

Till next time, I hope you are blessed.

Lynne

 

Resources:

Spiritual Gifts Test

S.H.A.P.E by Erik Rees

The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren

Switching Focus

My next blog was going to be about compiling a playlist to inspire you as you write your fantasy novel. Instead, I’m letting you, my fellow bloggers, know I’m switching my focus on this site. I’ll let you know how you can still read the playlist post later.

Switching Focus
New Path

#WritingFantasy  Will Carry On

I’ve completed the series of posts I wanted to share with you about Writing Fantasy and the steps I’ve taken on my own journey writing my first fantasy novel. I’m very excited to start the actual writing process this November for my second NaNoWriMo! If you’ve followed my posts over the past few months I hope you’ll join me in November as we fire out 50,000 words together.

My Outline, Setting, Characters, World Building and Premise are all going to be relocated to another blog I write on, White Rose Writers.

So What’s My New Focus? #AmWriting

As most of you know from reading my profile, as well as being a writing coach I’m also a Christian Life Coach and Certified Lay Pastoral Counselor with many years experience coaching and encouraging believers in their walk with God. This will be my main focus on this blog going forward.

I’ll be blogging about Your Sacred Path, Finding Your Life Purpose, Hearing God’s Voice, Choosing Careers and possibly sharing a few gardening tips along the way. I love to network so I’ll be giving you links whenever I can for you to explore further.

My newsletter will be about the books and courses I’ll be writing, plus I’ll let you know when I’m launching something new, and I’ll have giveaways and social media events exclusively for my blog readers. If you choose to continue following me here that would be lovely, if however, you’re interested in continuing to follow my posts on writing, head over to White Rose Writers and follow my posts there, along with branding and marketing tips from my social media partner, Kirstie Shanks.

Thank you for taking time out from your busy life to read and comment.

Till next time here, or at White Rose Writers, I hope you are blessed.

Lynne

Writing Fantasy || Conflict

Writing Conflict Into Your Novel

So you have a nice fantasy/fiction story going on and you have a happy ending. Guess what? We’re going to turn that all upside down now! Get ready to throw your readers a curveball and upset the apple cart. Every story needs conflict – even children’s stories. Think about it. Where would Little Red Riding Hood be without the big bad wolf? We all love a villain to hate.

Writing Conflict
Little Red Riding Hood and the Fox

 

10 Things To Consider Before Writing Conflict

Some elements to think about as you write the outline of your conflict.

  1. What motivates both your hero and the villain so they’re drawn into the upcoming conflict?
  • Love
  • Greed
  • Pride
  • Anger
  • Duty
  • Other ideas…

 

  1. What keeps your hero and villain locked together in this conflict?
  • Past History
  • Jealousy
  • Mutual Love Interest
  • Loss of Someone or Something
  • Misunderstanding
  • Other ideas…

12 Key Elements On Writing Conflict

Your hero tries to understand what just happened in the inciting event and what it means to them and their way of life. This is the start of Act 2.

  1. Reveal the power of the antagonist (villain) and the true nature of the conflict arising.
  2. The hero begins to recognize what’s at stake and searches for ways to fight the battle.
  3. Your hero recognizes the true reason behind the conflict.
  4. With new knowledge and understanding, your hero gains headway in the conflict.
  5. Foreshadows Act 3 (sets up the base for what’s coming next) and reminds the hero what’s at stake. (We’ll look at foreshadowing more later).
  6. Your hero rallies everything they’ve got and launches it against the enemy with a seeming
  7. A defeat for your hero after the seeming victory in Act 2. This begins Act 3.
  8. The hero questions their goal, commitment and choices. They begin to doubt themselves and their ability to win the battle.
  9. Your hero comes face to face with the enemy.
  10. The next event is a duel to the death for the hero and the villain. This can be physically or metaphorically. The reader needs to be kept on the edge of their seat here because they know one or the other will lose.
  11. The hero wins and the conflict is ended.
  12. The ending of your story should give the reader ‘breathing space’ and ease them into the hero’s new reality.

 

Watch a favourite movie – it doesn’t need to be fantasy – and see how the conflict escalates and is resolved.

 

 Til next time, know you are loved by the One who created you in His image.

Lynne

 

Resources

The Hobbit -The Battle of the Five Armies

Maleficent

Divergent

Writing Fantasy || Story Arc

What Is a Story Arc?

Most best-sellers and box-office hits have a main character that goes through an enormous transformation and either becomes a hero or ends up becoming a villain. (Anakin as he turns to the Dark Side). The result is what keeps us talking about it long after the story has ended and we’ve slid back into our own reality. It’s this change that intrigues the audience and keeps them riveted to the story, not wanting to put the book down or leave the theatre for a refill of popcorn for fear of missing something huge.

Darth Vader
Darth Vader

4 Key Elements For Character Arc

Award-winning novelists seem to agree that there are four key elements to a character arc which drives a compelling story arc.

  1. Need
  2. Yearning
  3. Weakness
  4. Desire
  • Your story will usually begin with your main protagonist and their setting. His life lacks something he needs and causes a sense of something unfulfilled.
  • The need may be fuelled by a yearning which he may or may not be aware of.
  • The yearning may come from a backstory that caused them to feel weakened by a loss of love, ability, or perhaps a sense of purpose, and makes them fearful, limited by their circumstances and feeling unable to change. The yearning is most likely to be the opposite of what the protagonist’s life is like now. Identify their yearning in a single sentence and let that drive the story arc, for example, he wants to be free (of something or someone), to find true love, to go home again (or make a home for himself).
  • Something happens to your protagonist that changes their view on their daily life and stirs a desire for change. This is the Inciting Event.

This will all happen in Act 1. After the event that happens to your hero to stir their desire, you’ll be ready to think about your story arc and which scenes belong in Act 2. This took me some time to figure out, but I think I have the most important points now. Remember we’re not writing yet, just outlining. Simple point form or one-sentence sticky notes will do.

The Anticipated Conflict

Create intensity towards the anticipated conflict. About a quarter of the way into your novel, the hero will be frantically searching for a reason behind the villain’s antagonism. The hero may not yet realize there’s an underlying cause for the building conflict, or they may have a vague idea but not yet know what’s at stake. The villain may still be taunting the hero to make them give up and turn back.

Before the halfway point of your story, the hero will realize the true nature of the conflict which is imminent and the ultimate power of the villain. Do your notes on story arc build up to your halfway conflict? Include your notes on the hero’s personality and flaws that hold them back, how their mentor tries to persuade them to believe the truth, plot twists, and some fun scenes with their companions for comic relief (The Avengers).

Next time we’ll look at how to generate conflict and why it propels the story.

Til next time, know you are loved by the One who created you in His image.

Lynne

 

Resources:

Personality Types 

Star Wars – Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

The Avengers