After two weekends in a row away from home (which is when I’d usually have prepped blog posts), I’m still playing catch-up on the blog. So today, rather than just sharing my thoughts, I want to share some other people’s. =)

First is my husband, David. As I’m sure anyone who reads my posts can tell, we have a lot of awesome conversations. And they’re almost all begun by David–I’d usually be content to just sit there in my own little world, LOL. But David asks questions. David thinks things through (some might say too much, ha ha). David never assumes that the standard answer is the right one.

As the publisher at WhiteFire, he’s been doing a lot of thinking about stories and how they interact with the world. And I really love the articles he’s started writing. Two weeks ago, we launched the “From the Publisher’s Desk” blog at READ.WhiteFire-Publishing.com, and he talked about emotional counterfeiting (with a bonus review of the movie Unplanned). SUPER good thoughts about why some stories stay with us, resonate, and change us, and others…don’t.

Today he’s talking about how the things of Christ are foolishness to the world…and how as storytellers, we can use that to our advantage by creating wonder in the audience.  Here’s a snippet–do go read the whole thing, his thoughts are spot-on!

In the circles of Christian art (books, film, music, even
visual arts), we often hear talk about the purpose
of our work. Of how to make the end result positive. But what, exactly, does
that mean?  We tend to answer with things
like “to make sure God/Christ is glorified” through our art.  That’s a bit of a difficult standard, really,
when you think about it.  If the things
of God are foolishness to those outside the church, then glorifying God in a godly
way isn’t going to connect with the outay isn’t going to connect with the outside audience in a traditional way.  Meaning that logical arguments for the Gospel
message don’t make sense (all the time—there are of course,
exceptions), and worldly appeals to the gospel risk damaging the message
itself.  You also can’t connect with the
outside audience in the same way that you would with the church/Christian
audience.  We understand things
completely differently.

What that means, to me at least, is that we have to be aware
that we’re speaking foolishness to the outside world.  I know that scares some people. They want a
“clear presentation of the Gospel message.” 
But as storytellers it ought to thrill us.  Confusion and wonder are awesome tools in our tool bag (as long as you’re being
clear in the confusion you’re using – confused yet?)  There are cases of truly bad storytelling
where confusion brings the audience out of the story, but when done well it
makes the audience wonder why a
character did/said a thing. Read the Full Article

~*~

Are You Ready to Write Your Story?

And then, after you’ve read that, I wanted to share about a writers conference WhiteFire is sponsoring, which is founded by one of our new authors, Paula Wallace. Paula runs Bloom in the Dark, a non-profit organization with a television show whose purpose is to help those who’ve suffered from abuse, addiction, or other trauma to not just survive it–but to thrive with the help of the Lord.

The Writing from a Bleeding Heart Conference is geared specifically toward people who hear the Lord whispering Write your story but don’t know how to start. Even seasoned authors run into this–we know how to write other people’s stories, but how do we incorporate our stuff into it, or write a memoir or…? Writing can be an incredibly healing experience–but it’s also a challenge. If you feel that nudge on your spirit, though, it might be because God not only wants to heal you through the process, but because your story could help another of His precious children heal as well.

I get a lot of questions from my readers about this sort of thing, so I wanted to share the information on this conference. David and I will both be there, and I’ll be teaching some of the sessions (on the writing side of things). It promises to be a time of fellowship, education, encouragement, and healing! If it sounds like something you’d be interested in, please check out the website!

Writing from a Bleeding Heart Conference

June 26-29, 2019

Franklin, TN (just outside Nashville) 

www.BleedingHeartConf.com