Join me today in welcoming author Stephanie King as she shares about her adventure.

Most writers would agree that our writing journeys are packed with ups and downs. There is no low quite as crushing as the all-powerful rejection letter, is there? But then the mountaintop high, the absolute rush of joy we feel when we see our work in print (or online) buoys us for another round of valleys. It’s an arduous expedition that makes us tougher, better students of our craft. We have come to accept that the highs and lows are a package deal with this chosen path.

My youngest child is fifteen now, the last one I have to get to teach how to drive. If you’ve never been in the passenger seat next to a novice driver, avoid it at all costs, and trust me when I say it’s harrowing! I’m wearing a bald spot in my passenger floorboard where I continually jam my foot into an imaginary brake pedal. I have also come to know that handle that helps a short girl hoist herself into the high SUV as my “Dear Jesus Handle” because I grip it and pray for my very life every time my son pulls into traffic.

These driving lessons have become a metaphor for my own writing journey. While it’s of course full of highs and lows, it’s been packed with jerking motion, hard stops, veering left for no reason, and stalling out in intersections on occasion. Here’s why: I have let other people’s opinions of my writing steer me more than God’s opinion.

When a writer I admired told me my style of writing was not something that people would relate to or enjoy, I internalized that criticism and let it completely stop me in my tracks. When I took a fiction writing course and learned that my first attempt was horribly cliché and a perfect example of what not to do (opening novel with main character waking up from a nightmare, for instance), I believed I wasn’t cut out to be a writer. I veered away from fiction for an entire decade.

I could write pages about how I let external voices take the wheel instead of God himself, and maybe you can relate. However, the very good news is that my Creator tells me I am wonderfully made for such a time as this, and that by burying the talents He has given me to use for His glory, I am acting in disobedience (Ps 139:14, Est 4:14, Mt 25). He gave me a voice and desire to write, and He has equipped me for the journey. If your own writing adventure feels more like there’s a fifteen-year-old in the driver’s seat, take heart and keep moving forward. Let the voice of truth take the wheel and write the story God placed within you.

About Stephanie

Stephanie is a biologist who began writing humor at an early age. It proved to be a useful coping mechanism growing up in an odd family that had a pet ostrich. She has written articles for faith-based publications and been a finalist in several short story competitions. Her first contemporary manuscript was a semifinalist in ACFW’s Genesis Contest this year.

She and her husband of twenty-one years live in Texas and have three mostly grown children and a rule-following German Shepherd who thinks being off-leash at the dog park is total anarchy. You can read more spiritual lessons learned through her daily adventures at www.StephaniePaigeKing.com