Leah Grace I’m going to be sharing my writing journey, but I’ll be doing it in two parts! Today is part 1, stay tuned for part 2 next Tuesday 🙂
At fourteen years old, I discovered what would become one of my greatest passions: writing.
After attending an online writing summit, I dove into a vibrant writing community and quickly started drafting a novel.
Fast forward six months. I was 55,000 words into “Liberated,” had launched a blog (Harmonious Rose, which would one day become The Grace Haus), and was looooving it. I’d found a sense of belonging and purpose in this creative outlet.
But something was going on at the same time that I wasn’t aware of. It wasn’t about the other people in my community—it was about my heart & soul.
Growing up, I had a lot of insecurities, rejections, and weaknesses. I often felt lonely & overlooked. When I discovered my love for writing stories, I immersed myself in it.
The storyworlds I created seemed tangible. I felt like my fictional characters were real people. I lived half in reality and half in fantasy 24/7.
I made characters like me and then gave them the lives I always wished I’d had. They were beautiful, content, and always noticed by the people around them.
Without realizing it, my relationship with writing had become very unhealthy.
Rather than using stories as a tool to reach people’s hearts, they’d become a coping method to help me deal with my insecurities and hurt.
Then, two years into my writing journey, something started to shift with me. I felt the Lord leading me to leave my writing community. I was really troubled and felt like I was experiencing demonic things in my life. The next few months were very challenging as I navigated with my parents what was going on and how to walk in victory.
The Lord walked me through repentance, deliverance, emotional healing, finding my identity in Him, and learning to live in the moment rather than a fantasy world. I experienced great freedom, and decided to take a break from writing. Then, we entered a very busy season in life when we sold our home and moved into a skoolie for the purpose of traveling & sharing Jesus with others. So, I completely paused fiction writing and even my blog went on the backburner for a while.
Then, several months ago, I revisited an old fiction idea that I wanted to finally develop. I started writing and wanted to get momentum going. So, I decided to take one week to really focus on my writing.
Yet as I did, I started to feel the same way that I used to—troubled, fearful, restless, and out of control of my thoughts.
As I sought God for clarity and freedom, He helped me see what was happening. This time, I wasn’t writing from a place of insecurity or hurt. Something different was going on. Here are some of the things that took place that week.
On Monday, I kicked things off strong by getting an unusually early start to my day, making a super nutritious breakfast, and then diving into my first brainstorming session. Very early on, I found myself desperate for ideas. Things weren’t flowing and the details simply wouldn’t come together no matter how much I tried and prayed. So, I turned my music up and forced myself to write faster. I hoped that in my frenzy of word-dumping, a good idea would come out and then I’d have something to work with.
But there were two things with this approach that weren’t good for me. In fact, some of my actions and mentalities with writing went completely against scripture—and I’d had no idea.
- I was not guarding my mind
- I was not guarding my words
Next week, I’ll share about these two things & what my writing strategy is moving forward.
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