How Do You Define Success?

By Niki Turner

Last month our newly established ACFW chapter on the Western Slope had the privilege of hearing from ACFW national board member Allen Arnold. He presented a one-day seminar titled "Finding Your Creative Connection."

Of the many, many things he said that have been rattling around in my heart during the last three weeks, transforming the way I approach my writing journey with God (instead of "for" or "about" God... those prepositions are tricky!), I keep coming back to the following question:

How do I define success for myself as a writer?

As many of my writer friends head off to the ACFW national conference this week, and many others (speaking for myself) are at home wishing we were at conference but can't be this year for financial, or familial, or work-related reasons, this seems like a good question to consider.

According to Arnold, we need to know the answer to this question, and know it early in our writing journeys, because,

"The enemy loves to keep changing the definition of success so it never quite arrives."

I started writing with a goal toward publishing as a teenager. I received my first rejection letter before I graduated from high school. (I don't have it... but my aunt, my first beta reader, saved the typewritten manuscript I'd submitted and sent it back to me a few years ago. I'm so glad that publisher said 'no.') After a lengthy writing hiatus wherein I raised and homeschooled four kids and my husband and I planted and pastored a church, I started writing fiction again. I signed my first official contract last spring. And I thought I'd be satisfied. But suddenly it wasn't enough that I was an officially published author...
I found myself telling people "it's just a novella" or "it's just an ebook," and quietly fretting over Amazon rankings, marketing, reviews, and so forth.

Hey! Wait a minute! That dream of being an author didn't have a list of contingencies back in the day. What happened?

My definition of success had changed, very subtly, without my consent or awareness.

I should have recognized the trap right away. When we were young Christians, getting into "full-time ministry" was the definition of success. Then it was pastoring a church. Then it was the size of the church. The constant striving for "the next thing" left us frequently frustrated, anxious, restless, and questioning the call of God and His purpose for our lives. Our definition of success was tied up in a lot of unspoken expectations, not what God said about us individually and what we were doing.

So what's the solution? According to Arnold, we need to distill our personal definition of success down to six or seven words, anchored in our identity as children of God, and in our day-to-day interaction and relationship with our Creator. We need to let God tell us who we are, tell us our story, our brand, our identity as writers... not the industry, not fellow writers, not our Amazon author ranking or the number of reviews we have on Goodreads.

I don't think God wants us to spend our lives striving for the next thing any more than we want to spend all our time with our children while they strive and strain and wish they were 18 and moving out of the house.

I think He wants to spend time with us experiencing life. Experiencing writing. Experiencing His love, creating with Him... not just for Him, not just about Him, but with Him. 

The more I chew on this idea, the more I realize this concept needs to be applied to every area of life. What's my definition of success as a mother? As a grandmother? As a wife? As a Christian? As a woman? Where am I striving? Anxious? Restless? Dissatisfied? Confused about my identity as a child of God?
Is that because I don't have my own, God-given definition pinned down and the enemy of my soul is moving that line, keeping me in a constant state of subtle discontent, always chasing the next goal or the next event or the next big thing?

How about you? How do you define success? 
Have you ever caught yourself striving instead of abiding? 

Niki Turner
www.nikiturner.net
Sadie's Gift (2014) - Available on Amazon and Nook and as part of the Christmas Traditions Collection.
The Skiing Suitor (2015) - Available on Amazon Forget-Me-Not Romances

Santiago Sol (2015) - Releases in October, Pelican Book Ventures

Uh Oh!

by C.J. Chase

If you follow current events at all, you’ve no doubt heard the name Rachel Dolezal this week. She’s the white college professor who for years successfully passed herself off as a black woman. In order to do that, she changed her appearance and invented an entirely new background for herself, complete with different parents of a different race.

She has gone so far as to claim that there’s no proof (in the form of a DNA test) that the white couple who raised her are her biological parents. The major question that has arisen: is it a sham or is she so deep into her make-believe life than she can't separate her delusions from the truth?

It was in this context that I first heard the phrase “fantasy prone personality.” Psychology Wiki describes it as “disposition or personality trait in which a person experiences a lifelong extensive and deep involvement in fantasy.”

But…isn’t that normal? No? Uh oh.

This fascinating New York Times article suggests about 4% of the population spends half (or more) of their time living in internal fantasy worlds with “fully articulated plots.” You mean, 96% of the population doesn’t spend their days conversing with imaginary people? So what goes on in their brains all day then?

Fortunately, the researchers say this is only a problem if the person can’t distinguish between fantasy and reality. Whew! I was afraid they were going to say it was a serious problem if you couldn’t stay in the right fantasy—you know, like when your contract says you’re supposed to create a “fully articulated plot” set in 1857 Virginia and your mind keeps sidetracking you to 1796 France or 1881 Montana instead. (Not that this has ever happened to me, understand.)

So, let's discuss. What about you? Are you a 4%er? (Or, like I, do you believe that the number has to be higher than that? After all, it sure seems like everyone and his brother wants to write a book.) Do you think an overactive imagination is a hindrance or an advantage in "real" life?

Oh, and if your flights of fancy become too debilitating, you can always check out this Wiki page for How to Deal with Maladaptive Daydreaming. After you wrap up that "fully articulated plot," that is.

Color Me Challenged

by Susanne Dietze

One of my friends posts photos of her accomplishments on her Facebook page...nothing new there, right? We all do it, or have friends who do. But these photos caught my attention because they were of coloring book pages she'd filled in with colored pencils.

I hadn't heard of Adult Coloring Books. Maybe I'm just out of the loop, but it's a Real Thing. A Big Thing. Johanna Basford's Secret Garden, published in 2013, has sold 1.4 million copies and is an Amazon bestseller.

Amazon purchase link

The last time I colored a picture (with colored pencils or crayons, between the lines) was at church, helping kids with a project. I remember many, many hours coloring with my kids, and a looong adventure spent coloring a complicated American Girl poster with my daughter.

But me, coloring, all by myself, for myself? Umm... Nope. Can't remember anything once I was out of school.

Basford's second book, Enchanted Forest, is pretty popular, too. It has over 300 Five-Star reviews on Amazon.

Amazon purchase link

Basford hand-draws each page, which is far too complicated for young hands. The pictures look beautiful, I admit. But spending time coloring one? Me? Maybe you're thinking something similar. I'm too busy. If I'm going to indulge in something creative, it has to pay off...

Uh-oh. I think I'm getting the point.

Basford isn't alone in creating coloring pages for grown-ups. Lucy Mucklow and Angela Porter offer an entire Color Me Series.

Amazon purchase link

Here's the back cover copy:

Our lives become busier with each passing day, and as technology escalates, so does our access to work, obligations, and stress. Constant stimulation and expectation have left us burnt out and distanced from the present moment. "Now" has become something that happens online, not in the space and time that we physically occupy. Color Me Calm is a guided coloring book designed for harried adults. Art therapist Lacy Mucklow and artist Angela Porter offer up 100 coloring templates all designed to help you get coloring and get relaxed.

I don't know if I'll hop on the coloring bandwagon, but I am challenged by its intention. When was the last time I did something creative just to be creative? Not for my career (writing books). Not to give as a gift or complement my new release (beading bookmarks with my daughter for giveaways for my book).

I honestly don't remember, because even though I didn't realize I was doing it, I've judged creativity without "purpose" as something I'm too pridefully-busy to do. And as you might have guessed, I'm stressed out. Fretting. Sad about a few things.

Stress and sadness are part of life, but God has given us many ways to cope while we shelter under His arms. One of them is trusting Him enough to rest.

In resting, we let Him do the work. We trust Him enough that we can let go and let Him handle things while we take a break. He made us to need sleep, after all. So why do we often look at fatigue and rest as a weakness?

Coloring might go along with that idea. Letting something go. Creating just to create. Not for show. Not for anyone else's eyes. Just to feel the paper give way to our pencil, to hear the swish of strokes while the color of our choosing fills the space between the lines.

Blood pressure goes down. Heart rate, down. Rest.

I think I still have a Spiderman coloring book around here somewhere...

***


Look for The Most Eligible Bachelor on Amazon!

The Gap

If you're the creative type, you've probably noticed that there's a gap between what you want to create and what you end up creating.  Since none of us is God, there will always be a gap between our imaginations and our abilities, but we can narrow that gap if we keep on trying.

Watch this Ira Glass video and see if at least some of your self-doubt fades away.









DeAnna Julie Dodson has always been an avid reader and a lover of storytelling, whether on the page, the screen or the stage. This, along with her keen interest in history and her Christian faith, shows in her tales of love, forgiveness and triumph over adversity. She is the author of In Honor Bound, By Love Redeemed and To Grace Surrendered, a trilogy of medieval romances, as well as Letters in the Attic, The Key in the Attic, The Diary in the Attic and The Legacy in the Attic, contemporary mysteries. Her new series of Drew Farthering Mysteries debuted in the Summer of 2013 with Rules of Murder, to be followed by Death by the Book and Murder at the Mikado in 2014 from Bethany House. A fifth-generation Texan, she makes her home north of Dallas with three spoiled cats.