Dear Younger Me

       

        Life felt simpler back then. You didn't have to worry about bills, or paychecks. All you really had to worry about was keeping up with chores and schoolwork.

        But then the growing up thing happened. Then life got a little more complicated and weird. You got your first job, you got your first car, and then, eventually.... you moved out.

        But the one that hasn't really changed?

        Your love for stories.

        You spent hours at that computer you used for school, writing a plethora of stories. Most of them probably weren't very good, but you had a lot of fun doing it.

        But even before high school you were writing. Writing fanfiction about Saturday morning cartoons (the good old days). You were writing and it didn't look like it would ever stop.

        Spoiler: It doesn't stop.

        You get better at it. You learn the craft and do the work. Put in the late hours writing and writing and reading writing books. You read fiction, you learn what works and what doesn't. You absorb, you put it to work.

        And eventually you find your way to The Book. The book you'll publish (no, it's not the girl and her horse). And that's when the real work begins.

        That's when the real growing begins, too.

        You keep putting in the hours. Late nights, early mornings. Squeezing in writing around chores and jobs and college.

        And you write. And you grow. Your faith grows too, and your faith touches your stories. And your stories grow too.

        Because what you believe ultimately influences how you write. You learn, and you adapt. You intake God's Word and you gain a better understanding of His love, and His great story. And how you're part of it.

        You learn how powerful stories are. You realize how much you love the concept. How much you absolutely love creating worlds and characters that are as fallen and broken as you.

        You love to write about characters who find second chances even when they don't think they deserve it. Because you did too.

        Those early stories shaping your writing skill. The later stories shaped your reasons for writing.

        And it was bloody hard. As The Book got bigger, slowly got shinier and more refined, it got harder. You had a better understanding of how stories work, and so you had a lot of work to refine it.

        Tears were involved. Frustration, doubt, second thoughts. The works.

        But you didn't stop. You came around, you did the work. You fixed the problem.

        And you learned from that too.

        You continued to grow. You wrote stories and edited stories and gained an even deeper understanding of God through story. Your faith grew a little more. It's always growing.

        You didn't know what was ahead. You had plans, but you didn't truly KNOW. You knew to leave it all to God's will. You're still learning to give it to God, though. But that's okay.

        Because learning to write, to tell stories, is always a growing thing. Today, you're still learning. You learn things that you'll wish you'd known before, because by golly wouldn't THAT have been useful to know earlier?

        Growing in faith is ongoing too. You're still learning so much, and some things you learn you'll be wondering gosh, why didn't I grasp THAT before?

        But that's okay too. Better now than never, right?

        Writing will always be hard. You want to make it your career. You don't want a "regular" job. A 9-5 in retail, or at some company's desk, having a boss who tells you when you come in and when you can leave. Always having to plan your life around the job.

        Instead, you want stories to be your job. To write them, and to help others write theirs. Instead of a 9-5 it might look more like 24/6 (not 24/7, because we're not insane). You want to handle your own taxes even though you're like 95% sure it's gonna be a pain in the butt.

        But you believe strongly that God gave you these stories for a reason. That he gave you such supportive parents, and all the resources you could ever need.

        He gave you a writing conference to drive 8 hours to solo, to listen to skilled authors teach, and to meet friends who also wrote stories.

        God gave you all of this. So you want to make the most of it.

        It's hard to give it to Him, to trust He's got this when it feels like you don't. Because it will feel like it. You'll have jobs, an apartment, and some days it'll just feel like no writing gets done and will you EVER finish this book? Outcome is not promising.

        But God does have a handle on it. He knows what's up, He knows what you want.

        And he provides. He provides jobs that feel casual, that don't make you feel so drained of life that you don't want to write. He provides a week with time to writing. He provides the inspiration to fix a writing problem.

        He provides a heck of a lot of stuff, honestly.

        So writing will get harder. It won't be simple fanfiction or 100% not outlined stories you write after schoolwork is finished. You have to plan things now. You learn that outlining gives you a little less headache to deal with later. And you learn a bunch of other writing things that make this writing thing harder.

        But you won't care too much.

        Because you love it.

        Because God gave it to you to love and cultivate.

        Because you see how it can change people. How it can bring them to Christ.

        Because in small ways, it did that for you too.

        So it's going to get harder. it's going to involve more early mornings or late hours. It's going to involve more tears and frustration and doubt and second thoughts.

        But after a good cry, you won't care so much.

        Because you love it. And you love what, God willing, you hope it will become.

        Being an author with lots of stories under her belt. Novels, short stories. Maybe even serialized stories.

        Being an established editor, maybe a coach, who love to see other writers reach their goals. Uplifting other stories that speak truth in a world that tries to replace truth with something twisted.

        Because writing stories is fun, but it's hard work. And maybe some people won't get it. That's okay. Not everybody has to.

        Because God gave you these stories, this drive to tell them. To create these characters that you hope will touch readers. Characters that touch you, too.

        Someday you'll watch a movie based on how Mary Poppins became a movie. And you'll love it. You'll almost cry in the theater at the end.

        But you will walk away with one quote that touches you most:

"That's what storytellers do. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again."

        And I think that's beautiful.

        Because it's true. You want your stories to be God-honoring, to portray hope when it doesn't feel like there is any. To restore truth to a world that spurns it.

        Your imagination can be tricky, but under God's guidance, it's powerful.

        So it's gonna be hard. You're gonna want to quit. You'll have days where you seriously consider deleting the file.

        But you won't. Because you want this to be your job. So you'll have a cry, you'll take a breather. But you'll come back to it.

        Because you love it.