Tag: Authors

Your Writer’s Voice for God

As an author and Christian Life Coach, I’m often asked about how to get started with a writing career. Here’s a mini-course on just that – how to get started on the writing path. There are lots of coaching tips and I’ve included worksheets to help you through those all-important first stages of decision making and planning, plus a guide to help equip you with attainable goals for moving forward in your new career. This course is for anyone thinking about changing their profession or seeking a solid basis to grow their writing.

Is God calling you to write for Him?

  • Do you feel compelled by God to write?
  • Does anyone say your words have impacted or inspired them?
  • Has anyone in professional writing circles said your work is good?
  • Have you ever dreamed of writing Devotionals or Christian Romance novels?
  • If your answer to any of those questions is “yes,” —

Congratulations – You just might be a writer!

As an author and Christian Life Coach, I’m often asked how to start a writing career. Here’s a workbook to help you with that. It has a questionnaire about how to get started on the writing path.

There are lots of coaching tips, and I’ve included worksheets to help you through those all-important first stages of decision-making and planning, plus a guide to help equip you with attainable goals for moving forward in your new career. The workbook is for anyone thinking about changing their profession or seeking a solid base to grow their writing.

Your Write Voice for His Kingdom is available from Amazon as a print book and  Etsy as an instant download.

Writing for God - a beginner's guide book, front cover showing a blue hydrangea.
Writing for God – a beginner’s guide.

If God is calling you to write for Him, there’s no better partnership.
You are His masterpiece, Blessed one.

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

Lynne

“Eyes” – Communicating with an Autistic Child

ConsumerView logo(Photo courtesy of ConsumerView Marketing )

Communicating with a child who has Autism is no easy feat. Every child is different. Benjamin was in a different world than ours and connecting with him was a lengthy process, taking several years. The following is a segment from, Raising Benjamin Frog – A Mother’s Journey with her Autistic Son.

When Benjamin was very young he didn’t communicate much at all. He simply did as he was told, as much as he knew to do so. We would use single words to tell him “sit”, “stand”, “walk”, “washroom” etc and he would do it. Questions were met with no response, but we talked to him in complete sentences when we were having a one-sided conversation with him; as if he understood everything, in hopes that someday he would.

If we needed a response from him or he just ‘wasn’t with us’, we’d say his name and tell him to “Stop”. Sometimes it took several attempts and louder voices but eventually he’d stop. Then we’d walk over to him and hold his head until our eyes were directly in line with his and say, “Look at my eyes”. Once we had his focus on our eyes, he seemed to understand that we wanted to talk to him and he listened. After a while, we simplified things and just said, “Eyes”, and he would stop and look at us.

By doing this, we were trying to make a connection between our world and his; a way for him to see us and to step into our world for a short time to hear something important.  We would do this, for example, when we needed to do something potentially dangerous like crossing the street. We would say, “Cars. Hand”, and he would hold our hands and cross the street. Without this strategy, Benjamin was prone to walk in straight lines regardless of traffic, people or brick walls. So this technique was, I believe, a linking of souls which otherwise wouldn’t be able to communicate in typical ways.

Who would have thought that this little boy would one day become a published author and public speaker?

benjaminfrog.wordpress.com

Ben’s prognosis at this early age wasn’t high, as far as communication skills went. But as he grew, we learned to listen to the clues he gave us about the way he learned. He taught us so much more than any book could (we didn’t have the internet back then, and very little support except for our amazing pediatrician). Children with, or without Autism, show us their unique design if we take the time to listen and watch.

I hope you have a blessed day,

Lynne

Give It Away

Stop hoarding your work! Start sharing!

Do you have a collection of something you treasure; art, books, old coins, stuffed animals? Most of us do. Our collections say a lot about who we are – our personalities and what we hold dear. I have a collection of books which belonged to my husband‘s parents.

Antique Book Cabinet

In it are yellowing pages bound in fraying covers and tattered spines. Some are old children’s stories, some are poetry, and one is even a much dated ‘Household Management’ book with instructions on how to set a formal dining table for 12 guests. (I don’t pull that one out very often!).

Victorian Dinner Table

Photo by Living History

These treasures are very dear to me because they remind me of the dear people who owned them, and also they link me to authors from long ago who had a vision of telling others what was close to their hearts. These family heirlooms I will not give away or sell, but will someday pass on to my family so they will tell stories of their grandparents to their children too.

Prompted by my daughters, I’ve recently ‘de-hoarded’ much of my home and given away what I thought would be useful to others. In the process, I realized I had collected notes and half-written short stories and poems. I felt compelled to share the literary treasures I had found, and have since turned some of the short stories into blogs or compilation pieces, and collected enough notes to write another e-book!

Do you find yourself hoarding your literary treasures? Is your notebook or laptop full of fascinating gems you haven’t done anything with yet? Share some of those gems with your audience every day. Let them see who you are and what inspires you.

I ‘follow’ several authors whose work I admire, but before I ‘liked’ them on Facebook or subscribed to their newsletter, I researched them online and got to know them as individuals. Once I liked what I saw, I followed them and even bought a book or two. Their online presence sometimes mentioned other authors they were inspired by, and I often bought their books too – all because they shared something that they treasured.

Austin Kleon

Austin Kleon – an author I follow

Now I do my best to pin or post one of my treasures every day. It’s not always about my work, but rather a gem I’ve discovered from someone else. I’ve collected a piece of their collection, cherished it, and then given it away for others to do the same. Check your notebooks and archived files. Are you hoarding treasure? If you are, start giving it away and see what happens…

Gemstones