In this episode, Belinda Pollard, Donita Bundy and Alison Joy interview Lisa Stilwell, a veteran of Christian publishing. She rose to the position of senior acquisitions editor with major Christian publishing houses, and then moved into authoring devotionals and ghostwriting memoir for Christian leaders and people from the music industry.

Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the podcast! And go to gracewriters.com for show notes, transcript, useful links and factsheets, and to connect with our online community.

Episode summary:

• How Lisa first moved into writing, unexpectedly, after stepping down from her long career as an acquisitions editor to care for her husband who had Parkinson’s.
• The initial uncertainty Lisa felt about her ability to write, despite so many years of working with words, and her tips for others who long to write but are not sure if they have the ability.
• How Lisa sets herself deadlines, which helped her cope by establishing a sense of routine during the years of caring for her husband.
• Counting back from the deadline to work out how much needs to be written per day, but also allowing grace for when things don’t go to plan.
• How Lisa – reluctantly at first! – moved into ghostwriting. Lisa hadn’t ghostwritten before and thought the timing was wrong for her to work on this project because her husband had just moved to hospice, but God knew what He was doing.
• The process of being selected to work with Helen Smallbone, mother of singers Rebecca St James and the duo For King & Country.
• The gentle and respectful process for Lisa of working with Helen Smallbone, welcomed into the home, and guiding Helen regarding how much she asked her children vs her own memories of what happened.
• How to set word count targets relevant to the project, and stick to them.
• Connection and trust as the core of a relationship when ghostwriting someone’s memoir. Having the courage and skill to ask probing questions, while respecting the person’s right not to answer.
• You have to write in their voice, not your own. Listen constantly, for key phrases and the pace of their speech, for formal vs casual expression, for seriousness vs humour and how the two moods interact.
• Transcribing interview recordings is a painful task, but it’s a process where you can really absorb elements of the story and see what extra questions you need to ask.
• Protecting yourself, because ghostwriting is draining work.
• The initially rocky and then smooth road to getting The Heavens Proclaim His Glory published – a coffee table book with Hubble telescope images combined with excerpts from authors and pastors Lisa had worked with across her editing career.
• How Lisa worked her way up to the senior position of Acquisitions Editor.

In this episode, Belinda Pollard, Donita Bundy and Alison Joy interview Kelly Needham – podcaster, mother of five, women’s minister and author of PURPOSEFOOLED and FRIEND-ISH. Kelly has a personal, powerful and honest message about how to resist the pressures popular culture puts on our writing goals, and where and how to find contentment.

Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the podcast! And go to gracewriters.com for show notes, transcript, useful links and factsheets, and to connect with our online community.

Episode summary:

• How Kelly’s first non-fiction book about friendship emerged organically from a ten-year journey of blogging about a topic important to her, and for which she couldn’t find the right book.
• The process of converting blog posts to a book – it ended up forming an outline rather than the actual content.
• The relief of getting the book out of her, and the process of choosing a publishing path: traditional vs self-publishing.
• Finding a literary agent, and choosing one who connected with her project.
• Finding a publisher who cared about the content and was invested in it.
• How Kelly’s existing marketing platform on her blog and social media was appealing to a publisher, but also not necessarily a huge platform.
• Finding the balance between making sales – which does matter a little bit, partly because it shows us what people need – vs having an enduring impact on the lives of individual people.
• Why chasing our dreams is unsatisfying, and yet we will still do it.
• Giving ourselves the freedom to “fail” as writers.
• False narratives from popular culture about what successful writing looks like, and how we can counter those by intentionally being good stewards of our minds.
• How to cope when our achievements don’t match our goals, and when we get post-partum depression after publishing a book.
• How much Kelly struggled with writing her first book, and how much we should be encouraged that we persevered through that.
• The value of making great Art as Christians.

Belinda Pollard, Donita Bundy and Alison Joy celebrate four years of the podcast with another classic episode, AM I CALLED TO WRITE? – a question that confronts and confuses many Christian writers. We discuss ways to discern calling and strategies to help us choose who we listen to as we decide the way forward.

Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the podcast! And go to gracewriters.com for show notes, transcript, useful links and factsheets, and to connect with our online community.

Episode summary:

• The value of partnering with God in our work, whatever it may be.
• Everyone’s story of how they got into writing is different.
• When the opinions of others about our writing might provide clarification, and the times when we should NOT listen to them.
• The value of community, and support from other writers.
• There will be times in your life that you don’t write, but it doesn’t mean you aren’t a writer – it’s a season.
• If you have a long-term yearning to write, it’s probably not a mistake.
• The story of Moses, who didn’t really find out that he’d fulfilled his calling until the end of the process.
• Writing vs other things we waste time on.
• The value of enjoying our writing.

Belinda Pollard, Donita Bundy and Alison Joy celebrate four years of the podcast with this short series of classic episodes. Today, we go back to our discussion of TACKLING IMPOSTER SYNDROME – that feeling that we are maybe not very good writers and may also be letting God down. The problem with self-doubt is not so much how it makes us feel – although that does matter – but how it can deter us from following our calling as Gracewriters. We share some strategies that might help.

Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the podcast! And go to gracewriters.com for show notes, transcript, useful links and factsheets, and to connect with our online community.

Episode summary:

• What is imposter syndrome, and why does it affect creatives so much?
• Quotes from famous creatives showing that even “successful” people suffer from imposter syndrome
• Does it affect Christian writers? (Spoiler alert: yes!)
• The fear of not honouring God, or that perhaps we are not actually called to write
• How can we tackle imposter syndrome to stop it interfering with our calling as Gracewriters?
• The role of false concepts of other people’s apparent successes, as well as misunderstandings of the value of our own work
• The value of momentum and keeping going as a writer
• Giving ourselves permission to be ordinary at first, and expecting to develop across a writing career
• The value of prayer, meditation and focusing on God’s glory and His purposes for our writing, which may have little to do with worldly “success”

Belinda Pollard, Donita Bundy and Alison Joy celebrate four years of the podcast by going back to the beginning… our very first episode, WHAT IS GRACEWRITING?, which continues to be one of our most popular. At this time in history, for some reason God seems to be moving in a new way among creatives, using us to reach places and people that might not be open to other forms of communication. Whether you’ve joined Gracewriters recently or been with us from the start, we hope you enjoy touching base with who we are and what we’re all about.

Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the podcast! And go to gracewriters.com for show notes, transcript, useful links and factsheets, and to connect with our online community.

Episode summary:

• How did Gracewriters begin, and what is Gracewriting?
• Changing the way Christians – and Jesus! – are portrayed and perceived in popular culture.
• How the idea for a Gracewriters Podcast developed, and the value of looking at the writing process, in fellowship, from a Christian perspective.
• How Belinda, Alison and Donita got involved in writing in the first place.
• Why we can sometimes find it hard to pray about our writing - worrying that we are "bothering God" - when in reality he loves to hear from us.
• The particular opportunities and difficulties for Christians who write for mainstream markets, and how we can work as a team.

In this episode, Belinda Pollard, Donita Bundy and Alison Joy interview Buck Storm, the critically-acclaimed award-winning author of 8 literary Americana novels, who is also a songwriter and recording artist. Buck dives deep into the issues of engaging with biblical and cultural research, and writing from the heart about God’s extraordinary love.

Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the podcast! And go to gracewriters.com for show notes, transcript, useful links and factsheets, and to connect with our online community.

Episode summary:

• Buck’s process of starting with a blank page and seeing where the story takes him.
• How creating cadence in songwriting transfers across to cadence in fiction, especially in dialogue.
• Buck’s habit of reading his books aloud to a family member once the draft is complete, and how seeing their reaction to the story informs his further work on the manuscript.
• How Buck wrote and researched The Light, the story of a broken, powerless person in the 50 days between the Resurrection and Pentecost – and how the process differed to his more intellectual book The List which looked at Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea coming to faith through prophecy. Authenticity and the power of research, plus the reactions of readers to the characters.
• Working at avoiding using a Western lens to understand biblical background.
• The relevance of OT prophecy today, and the power of how Jesus united Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who were from opposing parties.
• Changing popular culture as a writer, one person at a time, by sharing your heart with them on the page.
• Not writing to “teach a theme” but just to tell a story and share the love of God. Not knowing the theme until the book is finished, or even until the reader tells you what it means to them.
• Writing on automatic pilot vs the times when God really digs deep into the writer. Taking time out when it gets too mechanical.
• Praying for our writing, and the practice of praying without ceasing.

In this episode, Belinda Pollard and Donita Bundy interview romance novelist (and podcast co-host) Alison Joy. Alison writes romance novels set in Australia and the South Pacific. She shares a variety of research techniques she has developed to help her create fictional locations, events and characters that ring true.

Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the podcast! And go to gracewriters.com for show notes, transcript, useful links and factsheets, and to connect with our online community.

Episode summary:

• How Alison got an idea for a novel series from an exercise class.
• Creating small town communities on the page using a combination of research and personal experience.
• Different ways to use recurring characters in a series.
• Using actual locations, buildings, sites, facilities to inspire authentic fictional ones.
• How Alison produced an actual country song for book promotion.
• Different research techniques used by Belinda and Donita – interviews, travel, experiences, googling, historical research.
• The benefits and pitfalls of research – how it enriches your writing and your life, but you can end up down rabbit holes!
• Coping with the uncertainty of whether we should be writing, especially when we don’t write “Christian” books.

In this episode, Belinda Pollard, Donita Bundy and Alison Joy interview Billie Jauss, author of the books MAKING ROOM and DISTRACTION DETOX. Billie speaks across America and hosts the Family Room Podcast. She shares what she’s learned about finding God’s purpose in our writing – even when it’s surprising – and finding real solutions to toxic busyness, self-doubt, shame and distraction.

Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the podcast! And go to gracewriters.com for show notes, transcript, useful links and factsheets, and to connect with our online community.

Episode summary:

• Being “dragged kicking and screaming” into writing. How Jesus opened unexpected doors and provided support.
• How 10 years of writing devotionals for a baseball website evolved into authoring a book.
• The secret blog Billie began when she became an empty nester.
• Adapting the devotional structure and content to create chapters of a book.
• Learning new writing skills through reading books and blogs, and observing what she liked and didn’t like about other people’s writing.
• Tackling imposter syndrome after the too-fast publication of her first book, and how it stopped her writing with purpose.
• Writing a list of negative thoughts that arose, realising she was her own worst bully as she would never say those things to someone else. Challenging each negative thought with the truth of scripture.
• Being too busy, and how to learn to say no so that there is time for God to speak into our lives. How we get in the way of someone else’s calling if we do the thing they are supposed to be doing.
• Finding moments of pause and listening to God. Listening to the Bible while exercising or driving.
• Changing popular culture by loving our neighbour.

In this episode, Belinda Pollard, Donita Bundy and Alison Joy interview Jodie McCarthy, who writes quiet, contemplative words in the midst of a noisy and painful world. Her books of poetry and prayers are transparent expressions of grief and loss, but also hope and healing. Jodie is also honest about the times when creative writing needs to take a back seat for a season. 

Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the podcast! And go to gracewriters.com for show notes, transcript, useful links and factsheets, and to connect with our online community.

Episode summary:

• Journaling as a way of processing life, and how that led into blogging.
• How poetry helped Jodie process the emotions of infertility, miscarriage and grief.
• Becoming an “accidental author” when people shared her first book of poetry, and later an “accidental self-publisher”.
• Talking about hard things gives people permission to talk to you about their own hard things. Learning to hold other people’s heavy stories lightly helps you avoid overwhelm.
• How the content influenced Jodie’s production decisions, such as hardcover over paperback for a sense of solidity.
• Software (Scrivener) that helps with the process of organising a book and overcoming writer’s block. Also using old-school techniques and moving around handwritten or printed pages.
• Writing more poems than needed to allow choosing the best.
• The poetry market that is emerging on Instagram.
• Taking time from creative writing to work on analytical writing during a study program in Spirituality. A season of input rather than a season of output.
• The blessing of writing gracenotes in a time when the news is so heavy and everyone is feeling heavy.
• Jodie’s beautiful “prayer for creatives”.

In this episode, Belinda Pollard and Alison Joy interview our co-host, urban fantasy author, writing teacher, and preacher, Donita Bundy. Donita writes the Armour of Light series of spiritual warfare stories set in near-future versions of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of Revelation. She has useful tips for those writing on ‘Last Days’ themes, and encouragement for all of us who Gracewrite in an increasingly hostile and difficult world.  

Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the podcast! And go to gracewriters.com for show notes, transcript, useful links and factsheets, and to connect with our online community.

Episode summary:

• What End Times, End of Days and Last Days mean, and why these themes are so attractive to storytellers, both Christian and secular.
• How physical illness ‘accidentally’ led into Donita writing on these topics, and how her own health challenges have influenced the way she writes her characters.
• How Donita draws plot inspiration from Scripture and also from historical events and situations from the ancient world.
• The role of Bible study and prayer in apocalyptic writing, and in fact, all Gracewriting.
• The fear of getting it wrong, and how to persevere in spite of that.
• Encouraging readers as they feel seen and heard by what’s happening in the story. Writing with openness and honesty about genuine human struggles. Helping readers to feel less alone in their own battles.
• Encouraging readers to pay attention, and not become complacent in a world that is changing rapidly. Inspiring them to ‘choose God’ even when it’s hard.
• Entertaining readers with a good story.
• Thinking about what message your reader is going to go away with, no matter what genre or topic you are writing. How to open a fissure for the Holy Spirit to flow into someone’s heart through story.
• Giving readers (and us) the courage to stand in the challenges to come.
• Whether to make writing a priority in stressful times. Why our voice is needed.
• How the content of our writing might change in the Last Days. How our writing might be set apart from the world’s writing.