#393: Writing Well: 3 Strategies to Write About Painful Topics

Welcome to Kingdom Writers where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelley Hitz.

This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters.

Hey friends, it's Shelly Hitz here and I wanted to make sure that you are signed up. We have opened registration for the Kingdom Writers Conference Write youe Story Edition. We'll be hosting it live on September 14th, 2023 and you can get your free ticket at kingdomwritersconference.com story now even if you're listening to this later, you can still and sign up. But we want you to do this now if you're listening live so that you can join us and share with your writing friends because this is a free one day conference to help you take the courageous step of sharing your story so you can bring your writing dreams to life and leave a lasting legacy. As always, our conferences are completely online so you can join from anywhere around the world. It is an audio conference and so we pre record most of the the training and the presentations. You can join us live twice on the conference day, but we are just making it as easy as possible for you just to fit this into your life and your timing. You don't have to pay thousands of dollars to travel to a conference. Join us. Go and get your free ticket. Sign up@dommywritersconference.com story and I will see you there. Welcome back to the Kingdom Writers Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Shelly Hitz, and today we're going to talk about three strategies to write about painful topics. And I'm talking about emotionally painful topics. And I know this firsthand because I went through this when I was writing my book Broken Crayons Still Color. I pretty much shared most of my testimony in various books through the years. And then when I really sensed God asking me to write the book Broken Crayons Still Color. It was like a memoir. But then it's also a book study, an application for other people. But it's like all the hard stories in one book and it was tough to write. And so I've heard from many of you too. You know, as we mentor writers inside our membership Christian Book Academy, you'll tell me that it's hard to write about certain things or that you're feeling like you're getting stuck because it's such an emotionally painful topic that you're writing about. And so I wanted to share this today and just give you some thoughts about three strategies to write about painful topics. Now, there is wisdom in knowing when is the right time, because there. There is a very, very real thing that you may not be at the healing point yet to share your story in this way publicly. So there is a difference between sharing your story privately with a friend or a counselor and sharing your book or your story publicly in a book. And so I would really encourage you to, first of all, to ask the Lord, Have a business meeting with him. Ask the Lord, is this the right time for me to. To begin sharing this story? And it could be that you're getting it onto paper and maybe you won't publish it for a while, but maybe if it's really, really, really hard for you right now, it may be that this, this could be for later. But I also want to challenge you that just because it's hard doesn't mean that it's to be for later. It was very hard for me writing that book. Broken crayons still color, but I know it was the time God was like, shall I finish the book? That's what I sensed him saying to me. So only God can really tell you, but I want you to know too. Sometimes you're just like, the wound is gaping. It is still just bleeding in a way, quote, unquote bleeding. And you personally may need some more healing. First. I personally have worked with three different counselors. They were all Christian counselors. But there may be a time where you work with a counselor or there's something that you go through. Like, I've went through Caroline Leaf's program several times, and I've went through other things and read books and all the things. But.

Are you at the point where you have healed enough to where it's not a gaping wound? That's the major question. So if you are at that point, here are three strategies that you can use to persevere and finish your book when you're writing about these painful topics. So number one is recruit a beta group. I used this strategy when I was writing my book, Broken Crayons Still Color. I had literally been stuck for a year, and I knew that this was a book I was to write, but then I just got stuck. And I think it was partially because it was such emotionally painful topics that I was talking about. And it was opening just these whole, you know, just all of the memories and the different things. And then when I sensed God saying in a church service, we were worshiping and I was at my sister's Church in Florida. I sensed God saying, my spirit, finish the book. And I knew which book it was. And I. I believe he gave me that strategy of putting together a beta group. What the beta group does is it helps keep you accountable for moving forward. So I told my beta group I was going to send them one chapter a week, and now I was doing this full time. And I really was not working on hardly anything else at the time. I mean, a majority of my time and energy was going towards writing this book. And so I worked it out with my editor. And what I did is I already had a first draft. So then I took that first draft and I created the final draft. I sent one chapter at a time to my editor. My editor made some corrections, sent it back to me, and my editor was willing to do it this way, do one chapter a week. And so, I mean, it depends on if your editor is willing to do that. If not, you can send the unedited version to your beta group too and say, just know this is unedited, and it will be going to a professional editor later. But what this did was it gave me accountability. So I opened a free Facebook group, and then I had an email list where they would sign up, and that way I could keep track of everything very easily, and they could always unsubscribe if they wanted. But I actually had over 100 people sign up for my beta group. And then I was also creating supplementary videos to go along with each chapter, and I would host those live in the Facebook group, and my beta team would come and they would comment, and it was so exciting, and it was so much different than just standing in front of my computer and recording something to myself, Right? And I was able to see, as I was writing it, how God was using the book to impact lives, to transform people, to heal them. And it got me even more excited for what he was wanting to do through this book and give me even more motivation to finish. So not only did I have the accountability, like with my editor, we had made this agreement that I was going to send her a chapter every week. Not only did I have all the beta group members, and I told them I was going to be sending it every week, but I had the motivation from the feedback of the group. Now, you don't need a big group. I had over a hundred. But you could have just a few people in your beta group. It does not need to be a big group. You just need a few people that will actually read, it will actually show up and give you some feedback and so it was just. It was a way to get some accountability. So the first strategy is to use a beta group. The second strategy is to have a prayer team. And I really got serious about my prayer team during this time when I was writing my book Broken Crayons Still Color. I had had a prayer team, I think, since 2013, and I have been, you know, regularly emailing my prayer team, you know, since then. But, you know, it might come and go a little bit. But during this time, I realized, like, this is essential. And I'm not saying that we rely on our prayer team, because some people have pushed back on me about this in the past, and they're like, but, Shelley, you're relying on people instead of relying on God. And it's like, no, we are relying on God through the power of prayer. And we're asking the body of Christ to come around us and hold our arms up like Aaron and her did for Moses. And we are working together to have God's purposes accomplished. And so this is a whole topic that I've talked about in depth about before. And I really encourage you, if you haven't, to go check out our free conference on prayer. And one of our speakers talked about prayer teams. But you can get free access@domathonwritersconference.com prayer and I highly recommend writing and sending prayer requests to your prayer team once a week. So set a calendar reminder and send it out once a week while you're in the process of writing this book. For me, I almost. I do it without fail now, and it is just such a powerful way that God works, and we see him move and answer prayers all the time. So, number one, consider having a beta group for accountability. Number two, email your prayer team and recruit a few people for your prayer team and email them on a weekly basis asking them to pray. And number three, know that this is a season. Like, as you're writing about this particular painful topic, whether it's a specific chapter in your book or it's a specific book, know that it's a season. You will not be here forever. You will get get through it. For me, it was a season of about five very intense months when I was writing and creating all the content for Broken Crayons Still Color. And it was a season. It was a season. It was one of the most difficult seasons I walked through. I don't struggle with depression, but I literally felt depressed many times through that season. And yet the Lord sustained me and he gave me what I needed. He was able to help me through it. And if you've been through trauma and you know you're revisiting some of that, your nervous system could become unregulated. What that means is that you're. You could go into that fight or flight response, your stress response, because you're. You're feeling. You might feel triggered, you know, thinking back to some of the things that you're talking about. And so one of the things I've learned over the years as God has began to heal me more and more from the trauma that I walked through in my own is how to regulate my nervous system. And so, as you know, it's a season. There's also tools and ways that you can regulate your nervous system as you're going through this. And so breathing is one of the best things for this. I just had a podcast episode on breathing recently, so you can go back and check that out. But breathing, breathing in and then breathing into your nose and then out through your mouth. Longer breathing out than you breathe in. You also want to use your diaphragm. Diaphragmatic breathing is shown to calm your nervous system. So breathing is such a key thing that can really help you. There are so many ways that you can regulate your nervous system. Even just going for a walk outside, I mean, it seems so basic, but walking, the. It's the rhythmic pattern, the alternating swinging of your arms, the alternating stepping of your legs. There's something in your brain that it does. It helps to calm your brain. And I don't know if you've ever noticed, like, walking can be really good for your mental health, and that is one of the reasons why. But you're also getting outside, you're getting vitamin D, oxygen, you're able to get out of your environment for a little while, and so just find what works for you. I have a whole list of things that I can go to. For me, I also love taking baths. I do Epsom salt, lavender baths, and those are really calming for me. Essential oils can really be helpful. There's so many ways. But the three strategies I've talked about today are, first, to consider a beta group for accountability. Second, to be connecting and sending specific prayer requests to a prayer team weekly. And then, number three, know it's a season. And then find ways to regulate your nervous system. There's many other ways that you can work through this process of writing about a painful topic. And there might be a situation where maybe it's easier for you to just record it as yourself speaking it than having to sit down and type or write. I mean, maybe Somebody interviews you, maybe, like I said, maybe it's not for right now, maybe it's for later. But I hope that this has helped you. Let me just pray for you because if you are writing about a painful topic, I know that God wants to use your story to impact others. So God, I just pray for every person listening right now and I just pray that as they're writing about specifically painful topics that you would help them. You would help them to first of all depend on you and to know, like when is the right time to really share these things publicly and if ever, and how much to share. Give them wisdom on what to share and what not to share. I know for me, I didn't share all the gory details. I shared just enough for people to know what I walked through and then focus on the hope that I found in you and the healing. And so just get give wisdom on what to share and what not to share. And Lord, just I pray that they would be able to persevere when the time is right to share their story. Because Revelations 12:11 says we overcome the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. So we thank you Lord that you are working through our stories and that you are using us in powerful ways. And we pray this in Jesus powerful name. Amen.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you as a Christian writer, have a specific role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for eternity.

And because of this, we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories, but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom writers.