{"id":477,"date":"2012-03-25T22:50:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-26T02:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/sunday-march-25-2012\/"},"modified":"2012-03-25T22:50:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T02:50:00","slug":"sunday-march-25-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/sunday-march-25-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday March 25, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

And we have tag #2<\/a>. Which I have equally procrastinated completing. I’m not completely sure why except that I am good at procrastinating and secondly, I’m not sure how to answer all of these questions. Which leads me to question whether I am actually a writer at all. Isn’t it just a little telling that I actually headed over to dictionary.com and looked up meme?<\/p>\n

The questions:
1. How long have you been blogging, and how often do you post?
I published my first blog post in August of 2006 so 5 1\/2 years. My posting schedule is random because I don’t have one. I blog online when I have time and write in my head when I’m inspired and sometimes the two worlds collide and I actually get to post something a little more inspired. And yes, I know that to have a successful blog you must deliver regularly and frequently. I’m really not worried about successful blogging. I just need to write sometimes. And I love the social life it provides both through other bloggers and people who let me see snippets of their lives in the comments. <\/p>\n

2. Have you had anything published, and if so, what and when?
Yes. A short article in the Calvary Messenger (a monthly periodical) when I was a teenager and two children’s books. My sister and I self-published a book for new brides.<\/p>\n

You can order all three books here.<\/a><\/p>\n

You can also find them on Amazon.
We Build A House<\/a><\/p>\n

My Brother’s Keeper<\/a><\/p>\n

Marital Bliss with a Kiss of Reality<\/a><\/p>\n

3. Who is the author who best speaks your language and who you would most like to be like, in style and message?
I loved Erma Bombeck for her concise, short humor and I liked John Grisham for his ability to keep you in suspense until the very last page. I hardly read enough these days to know a particular author well enough to say, “that’s the style I like.” I’ve only read a good book here and there. But what I wish that I could be in style is to always be fresh. Unfortunately, I get caught in the same trap so many other writers do and everything begins to sound the same. Same word choices. Same thought patterns. Same old. Same old. I wish I knew how to break that up a bit. Message? I wish that I could always convey an undercurrent of hope.<\/p>\n

4. What do you see as the unique message God has given you to share with the world?
I’m not sure about this because it seems like something that you should feel called to and I haven’t felt that specifically. I do know that women often tell me they find themselves in my writing … that I put words to the feelings they weren’t able to express and it helped them to communicate with their husband, with others, or just to understand themselves. So I’m not sure that is a message from God but it is humbling every time I hear it … to know that the gift God gave me helped someone else. This is also why I feel so passionately that women need to share their gift instead of selfishly hoarding it because of their own fear.<\/p>\n

5. Who or what has made you believe in yourself as a writer?
Affirmation from people. When I was in eighth grade my teacher frequently assigned little creative writing assignments. One day he read my (and another students) paper to the class. The other guy’s paper outshone mine like the sun outshines the moon, but his compliments on my descriptive phrasing were like rain in a parched teenager’s land. My first English semester in college the same thing happened. My professor read my paper to the class about two classes into the semester. He encouraged me to pursue writing (I was on a science track) throughout the entire semester. Later it was David who encouraged me the entire way through our marriage book. Having something published and so well-received has been affirming, but there is nothing like those first few people who draw out a gift in another person. I wonder what talent the world would see if we all encouraged the buried talent we see in other people?<\/p>\n

6. Who or what has done the opposite?
Working with a publisher who stifled literary language with stilted realism among other things. <\/p>\n

Being a Mennonite female writer is an oddity of sorts that can frequently leave you feeling alone and “out there.” I struggled with it some, especially because the culture in our church at the time did not always lend validity to what I was doing. All three of my books were published within one year and it was an incredibly overwhelming time … yet if someone called to see if I could take dinner in for someone my “busy” was not considered valid because I did not have many small children. In an effort to be honest with someone in leadership, we mentioned some of the scenarios that had happened … hoping that we could help to generate a more encouraging community not just for writing, but for others who might be involved in different things in the future. His answer essentially was, “This is not the time for you to be writing or to be having speaking engagements. This is your opportunity to be at home and have children.” It left me reeling for a long time. I felt called to write and I think that his answer would have been wrong either way. But those words in the face of our inability to have the children we longed for was devastating. I truly, truly believe this statement was made in innocence and thoughtlessness. But because it was someone who was in spiritual authority over me, it took me a long time to feel grounded in what I was doing and is one of the reasons I have not heavily pursued writing anything to be published since.<\/p>\n

7. Besides blogging, what types of writing have you done? (journaling, poetry, news articles, letters, short stories, etc.)
I kept journals before I was married, now I mostly do a spiritual journal. I love it because it helps me to remember what I am learning and also because I can see growth over time. I used to love letter writing. I wish I’d do more of that again. My girl cousins and I do a “Mommy Moments” circle letter. Most of them are great writers so it is anything but the hum drum mom talk you often hear. Otherwise, not so much. I’m not disciplined enough to make it happen.<\/p>\n

8. Where would you like to be, writing-wise, in five years?
I have two book ideas brewing. Make that three. I have no idea if they will emerge into existence or go the way of most midnight inspiration. In my wildest dreams, I’d like to see one of them published in five years.<\/p>\n

9. What would need to happen to move you from here to there?
A ton of discipline. The older the boys get, the harder it is to write. A bit of confidence. But mostly inspiration from God. When it’s time to write, I can’t stop myself.<\/p>\n

10. Any advice for beginning bloggers\/writers?
Be your own voice. Write about things that evoke emotion in you … whether that is excitement, passion for a hot topic, sadness, or loneliness. Most of all, don’t create stilted words into writing. See life. Really see life in all it’s color, detail, and emotion. Life and people are absolutely fascinating. All you have to do is describe it and you will be writing without realizing it. Advice for beginning writers? I could do an entire post on publishing versus self-publishing. And I would love to read a post by someone else on writing things besides books. I am stuck between the covers.<\/p>\n

11. Just for fun: what’s a skill you have that almost no one knows about? (example: I know how to develop black and white film in a darkroom.)
I have no idea. Apparently I don’t have any.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And we have tag #2. Which I have equally procrastinated completing. I’m not completely sure why except that I am good at procrastinating and secondly, I’m not sure how to… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39ynQ-7H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}