The Day Someone Told Me I Should Write a Book

I didn't set out to be a novelist.

That probably surprises people who know me now, given that I've spent more than two decades writing fiction and have over twenty-five published books to my name. The writing life I have today didn't begin with a lifelong dream or a carefully laid plan. It actually began with a conversation through letters and then emails.

I'd been exchanging both with a favorite author for several years. Her name is Tracie Peterson. If you read Christian fiction, you probably know her. She's one of the most prolific and beloved authors the genre has produced, with a body of work that spans decades and touches readers all over the world.

In 2001, she suggested I join a writer's organization. Despite repeatedly saying, "I'm not a writer," she continued to encourage. So, I did. That led to me attending my first writer's conference in 2002, and we finally met face-to-face. Through a few other email exchanges, I ended up sending her something I'd written, and she shared it with her husband.

At the time, they were acquisitions editors for Barbour Publishing, and they were looking for new authors. Of course, they didn't tell me that! But she saw something in me that I didn't see in myself, and she kept gently pushing.

Even though I had no idea what I was doing, her and her husband's encouragement and recommendation to the publisher eventually led to my first book contract in 2006! Just a few weeks after I turned 30, I sold my first book.

Looking back now, it's amazing to recall what that moment set in motion.

What It Feels Like to Be Seen

There is a particular kind of gift that comes when someone with more experience than you looks at who you are and what you're capable of and speaks it out loud before you've fully seen it yourself.

It's different from a compliment. A compliment is pleasant and often forgotten by the end of the day. This was something else. This was someone whose opinion carried weight, who had nothing to gain from encouraging me, choosing to invest a moment of genuine attention and tell me something true about myself that I hadn't yet claimed.

Writing that book wasn't easy, and it required more learning than I anticipated, which is true of most things worth doing. I made lots of mistakes, and another author friend Linda Windsor, made my manuscript bleed with red revisions. I revised more than I anticipated, but I got it done.

After that contract, I sold another book. And then another. And another, ongoing for the next 12 years.

Looking back now, across more than 25 books and over 600,000 copies in print, I can trace a fairly straight line from those conversations to everything that followed. Tracie said a true thing out loud at the right moment, and that was enough to motivate me.

What This Taught Me About Encouragement

I think about that conversation when I'm around writers who are earlier in the journey than I am now.

I think about how it cost Tracie nothing to say what she said, except a moment of attention and the willingness to speak. Yet, look what it produced in return. That's a remarkable exchange. And it makes me want to be someone who does the same for others, who pays enough attention to see what someone is capable of and says so, who doesn't assume they already know or that someone else will tell them.

Words spoken with genuine intention carry weight that lasts. I know this from a conversation in 2001 that I have never forgotten and never will.

If someone in your life needs to hear what you can see in them, tell them. You may not know for years — or ever — what it sets in motion.

Has there been a person in your life who said something over you that changed your direction? Someone who saw something in you before you saw it yourself? I'd love to hear about them in the comments.