#054 - Do You Love Writing?

Do you love writing? At the time of recording this, it is Valentine's Day, so Happy Valentine's Day. My name is Shelly Hitz, the owner and founder of Christian Book Academy. And I've been thinking about this whole topic a lot recently. Like, do I love writing? I'm a writer and I'm prolific. Have written and published over 50 books, who knows how many blog posts and emails and all the things that I've written and created programs and lessons. And if you are in Christian Book Academy, you know, there are a lot of lessons. And yet I've always said, you know, my husband CJ is more the typical writer. I've always considered myself more of a communicator. I love to teach, I love to share and speak, but it's, it's been more of like, I've always considered myself more of a speaker than a writer. And that's why I love recording these podcasts for you is because I process verbally and yet I do love writing. I have been reading Julia Cameron's newest book called Write for Life. She's the.

The author of the Artist Way. Really popular book. But it's just been reminding me as I've been reading this book, she's talking about writing and it's just bringing out this desire and this fire in me to want to do more writing. She talks a lot about morning pages, which I just consider like a prayer journal. In the morning. You do your brain dump. You got, you know, you dump everything out, but then your, you're writing out your prayers, you're asking God for guidance, you're, you're just, it's a two way conversation between us and God. But anyway, she's talking a lot about that and I love that kind of writing. You can ask cj. I will sit in my chair in the corner of the living room and I will write away. I just, I love journaling and writing and it, it hasn't always been that way. Like, I mean, years and years and years ago I would have just told you, oh no. Like, I do not like journal journaling. But I grew to love it. You know, as I was processing just pain and brokenness and all the things in my past, I started to process it through journaling. And then as I've learned to hear God's voice, I began to process that and hear God's voice through journaling. And now there's something just so calming and grounding for me to write with paper and pencil and, or pen and just journal. Just write and write and write. Like I Could I could just write in my journal forever? That's the way it feels. So although, like, sometimes just to think about writing a book right now, like, I have so many things going on and yet it does excite me. Like, I have so much many book ideas in, you know, that I have kept for later. So I mean, I have so many ideas, but I wouldn't say that, like, that's just like, excites me the way that journaling does. And so there are different kinds of writing. And I just have been reminded lately that I do love writing. And so even tonight I was just sitting here thinking, like, what should I do? And I just had this desire well up in me to just get out my journal and just start writing. So I encourage you, you know, even if you're not working on a book right now, or even if you are, if you're stuck, try journaling. Try some prayer journaling. You know, just dump everything out of your brain onto paper. Just kind of let it flow and then begin asking some questions. You know, lord, what do you have for me? What, what is it you want me to focus on? What should I write about tonight? Or, you know, just let him know how much you love him and just, you know, pray in that way. But as we think about Valentine's Day today, we can also think about our love for writing. Make time for your writing. This week in Christian Book Academy, it's our 15 minute writing challenge. If you're in Christian Book Academy, join us. Just go to the member challenges channel. You can jump in at any time, even just 15 minutes a day. I guarantee you will start feeling some things well up within you, some joy, some delight. And there is just something that's really satisfying about getting your words onto paper. I just been experiencing that again lately as I just get my journal out and I am just writing not to be productive, not to publish something, not to, you know, impact lives like we always talk about, but simply to get my words onto paper, to communicate with God, to pray, to just dump the things out of my head, to find clarity, to get grounding. And sometimes we just need to write to write. Amen. All right, so I hope you have a great day and I hope that you continue to nurture your love for writing.