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Some Shameless Storycrafter Retreat Promotion!

Where did the time go? That’s the thought I had as I hung up with an aspiring writer after spending two hours helping her with a novel. We had so much fun brainstorming her book the time slipped away.

I love helping writers find their story. And I’m blessed when I receive feedback like this:

“Something in your approach (all those check points and lists) caused some pieces to click into place that hadn’t before so that I could think better about the process.”

My favorite moment in teaching – when I hear an “ah ha!” or someone looks up at me with a sparkle of understanding in their eyes.

That’s what the MBT Storycrafter’s Retreat is about – helping you unlock your story. Whether you’ve written a handful of stories or are just starting out, we’ll spend a weekend working together to help your publishing dreams and goals come true.

You come with an idea, and leave with a story.

I’m going to brag for a moment on a few of my former attendees:

Mulit-published non-fiction author Beth Vogt showed up thinking that she’d just listen in, pretty sure writing fiction wasn’t for her. After I barred the door and told her to “come to the dark side,” she discovered she had a fiction voice. Look for her 3rd novel with Howard to hit the stands this spring!

Marketing guru Melissa Tagg knew she had a story in her- but she just didn’t know how to untangle it from her brain. She wowed us with her first chapter – and walked away on fire to write. Her first book came out with Bethany House last month!

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What Are You Harvesting?

Right now all over America, farmers are hard at work bringing in the harvest a year’s crops have yielded.

If they planned well, did their diligence and were fortunately enough to avoid severe storms, they most likely have a bumper crop.

Just like Farmer Brown in Iowa, you are harvesting as well. Maybe you’re not picking the last of the tomatoes but you are reaping the writing seeds you sowed way back when you began your year.

Hopefully, you decided on what you wanted to harvest right about now and planted the right seeds. You worked on that craft and made sure you got in your weekly word count.

Things come up just like on the farm. Perhaps you’ve dodged more than your share of early spring snows and late summer tornadoes. But what did you do after the storm? Did you care for your writing crop or did you throw in the towel?

The answer to that question determines what you’re reaping at this moment. If you are a farmer, you always farm. When things get rough and don’t go your way, you farm. When storms come across your crops, you still farm. When the tornado leaves, you pick up the pieces and, well, farm.

Writers—true honest to goodness committed wordsmiths—write. When things are good, they write. When things are bad, they still hammer out word counts. When the storms of life cause waves of despair to crash over them, they still write.

Why? The farmer can answer that better than I can. Right now—today—he’s very glad he kept farming because his silos are being filled, his cupboards are being stocked with food for the winter and his bank account is busting at the seams. He’s reaping what he sowed.

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Finding Your Sweet Spot

I played competitive tennis in high school and college. I quickly learned that if I positioned my racket to connect with the ball in a certain spot, I could put the ball wherever I wanted. It’s known as the sweet spot.

I’d like to encourage you to apply the concept of the sweet spot to your writing because everything has one. Here are a few things I learned about the sweet spot from a tennis racket.

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It’s About the Journey, Not the Destination

Almost daily I speak to writers who pine for publication. They figure once they get there, they will have arrived. They’ll be where they always wanted to be. Sadly, I also know published authors who look back with an emptiness that haunts them. Why? They were so concerned about the destination of publication, they forgot to enjoy the trip.

It reminds me of a bicycling event in central Florida I rode once. The route took riders right by the space shuttle on launch pad 39-A at Cape Canaveral, as well as the largest known eagle’s nest in the United States. The roadway was cut right through coastal marsh land, providing a natural home for the alligators, snakes and countless water fowl.

At the end of the event, I listened as a group of riders standing close by recounted their trip.

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