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”