I'm A Writer: Catholic Writer's Conference Adventure #2

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If any of you are a fan of old movies, you may recognize this bit of repartee from the classic film Breakfast at Tiffany's: 

PAUL:   "I'm a writer, I guess." 
HOLLY:  "You guess? Don't you know?" 
PAUL:  "Okay, positive statement, ringing affirmative! I'm a writer." 

- Breakfast at Tiffany's

"I'm a writer."

What a solid, self-assured statement. It wasn't one I repeated with any kind of confidence a few months ago. When pressed, I would say that I enjoyed writing. Or I might even call myself an "aspiring author", but that was as assured as I got. I had gotten used to sharing with people that I was writing a fantasy adventure series for teens, and even that I had finished my first book last year, but I didn't feel like I was entitled to identify myself as a writer. When people asked if I was going to publish, I was wishy-washy. Publishing would be nice, but it was more like a hobby that I hoped to share with others someday.
​So I said.

My hesitation could be justified, I suppose. A bold claim needs to be backed up. No one wants to find out that they're no good at something they love. It wasn't until the Catholic Writers Guild Conference that I realized how afraid I was to embrace what God was calling me into. 

The realization came when one of the authors at the conference offered me a bright, golden button that read, "Ask me about my BOOKS!-- Catholic Writers Guild Member." I quickly--and sheepishly--told her that I couldn't wear one of those buttons, because I had not been published. She just as quickly asked me if I was writing, had ever written, or even had an idea for a book. Of course, I had. THAT, she informed me, was what I should tell people about when they heeded the button. It was a revelation. 

Something changed in me in that moment. I went from feeling like the rookie with nothing to offer, someone who was "not there yet" or might never get there, to feeling like I belonged. I was a writer. Not because I had been published. Not because I had a blog with ten thousand followers. Not because I had sold something I had written. I was a writer because I wrote. Plain and simple. Because God gave me a gift that He wanted me to use. Because I followed the tug on my heart that said, "WRITE." 

The time for burying my coins in a hole in the ground was done. Now it was time to see what I, by the grace of God, could make of them.

My confidence grew as I practiced my "elevator pitch" on the people I met, and was met with interest and enthusiasm. I could only marvel. Maybe there was something to this after all. And when my pitch went well, resulting in a request for a book proposal, I finally began to admit to myself that God might actually want to do something with this. That realization was as exciting as it was terrifying. What would need to change in my life if He really did want this of me? And let's be honest, just because I had a great idea for a book didn't mean I could write one well. Still, that echo of a dream that had long been in my heart reverberated as I actually began to consider that I may have been selling God short.

Later during the conference, I had a chance to spend some time in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. I reflected, as I sat in the Lord's presence, upon certain moments over the years that led me there, to that make-shift chapel at the Catholic Writers Guild Conference. 

I remembered the first time I ever let someone read pieces of one of my stories. It was my junior year of college. The readers were my roommates. It was terribly embarrassing. At the same time, it was so exciting to finally share with  others something that had previously existed only in my own mind. And they liked the story. Or at least they were very nice about it if they didn't. Haha.

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Years later, I told a few of my friends about a different story. It was my first fantasy adventure, and their enthusiasm opened me up to the possibility that people other than myself might actually be interested in my stories, too. 

One of the most impactful moments came while watching a one-man play about the life of St. Maximilian Kolbe. At one point, I was struck by the words spoken in the play by this Saint: "Don't worry, I will not write anything that the Immaculata herself would not write." The Immaculata was Kolbe's favorite name for Jesus' mother, Mary. The power of Mary's example comes from her "fiat", her response to God's call in her life--"Let it be done unto me according to your word." And later, her unmitigated trust in her Son at the wedding in Cana--"Do whatever He tells you." 

It struck me in that moment, watching the play, that what I wrote mattered. The gift I had been given was not mine to use however I wanted, but was given to me for the glory of God. And if I ever wanted anyone to read my writing, it was important that the words I wrote and the stories I told led others toward Him, not away. My prayer in the midst of my writing had to be, "May it be done unto me (and my story and my characters) according to Your will, O God." And the heart and soul of it all? "Do whatever He tells you." 

It changed everything.

After the play, I prayed a prayer of surrender, offering all of my gifts and talents to the Lord to use however He saw fit. A few weeks later, the plot of my fantasy adventure book exploded, and suddenly new themes and characters made the story come alive as it never had before. One book turned into a trilogy. My little story became an epic. Over the next several years of writing that story, I learned so much about myself and the Lord, and what it meant to write for His glory. 

Fast-forward to four years ago. A friend of mine shared with me that he'd heard J.R.R. Tolkien would pray to the Angel of Inspiration while writing The Lord of the Rings, and that the angel had helped him whenever he got stuck. I had run into writers block in my trilogy, and decided to do the same.  

A few weeks later, I woke up in the morning with an idea in my head. A new idea. For a new story. One that grabbed me and wouldn't let go. I started writing. A few months later, I had a series outlined. I shared the idea with some of the youth I worked with, and they elicited a promise from me that I would finish Book One before they graduated from eighth grade. Months of writing and imagining and praying and revamping turned into years. And by the grace of God, last June, just three days after eighth grade graduation, I finished my very first book. 

At the time, I didn't know if anyone other than my students would ever read my story. Well, they and a few friends. And my mom. Haha. But somehow in God's timing and wisdom, He set just the right things in motion to get me to the Catholic Writers Guild Conference 2022, where He gave me the opportunity to pitch that story, and ask the very real question of what He is calling me to next. 

I have no idea if the story I pitched will be picked up. I hope it will. But in a way, it doesn't matter. Because the experience I had, the people I met, the truths I heard, the graces I encountered, they were all set up by the Lord in advance. He knew what He was doing. He used the Catholic Writers Guild Conference to stretch me, to call me out of myself, to remind me that all of my hopes and dreams are ultimately in His hands, and that He can be trusted with them. He reminded me that ultimately, I am HIS, and that's really all that matters.

Into the loving hands of the Father, I place all of my hopes and dreams, gifts and talents, fears and insecurities, my past, my present, and my future. He can make of me whatever He wills. And if I am interpreting correctly the work He is and has been doing in me, He wants to make me a writer. Or He already has. I have only to embrace it.

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PAUL:   "I'm a writer, I guess." 
HOLLY:  "You guess? Don't you know?" 
PAUL:  "Okay, positive statement, ringing affirmative! I'm a writer." 

- Breakfast at Tiffany's

I'm a writer. Indeed.

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