Our books outlive us - just ask Job!

 Job was being maligned by his friends because God had decided to let Satan test him in horrendous ways. The expressions of faith that came out of Job's laments as the ordeal continued have challenged and encouraged people for millennia. May my words do the same. One of the passages he is recorded as having spoken is this about writing books: 

"Oh that my words were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book! That they were engraved on a rock with an iron pen and lead, forever! For I know tat my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God" - Job 19:23-27 New King James Version.

Job knew that his skin was like the cocoon of a butterfly. Once his metamorphosis was complete, his cocoon could rot without compromising his life. Job knew that he had a secure, everlasting future thanks to our Redeemer, whose crucifixion and resurrection were guaranteed before the world was made, in the same way that an author knows the resolution of the plot of a novel prior to writing the story.

Writing our words in books gives us writers an eternal influence that lasts beyond our earthly existence. This is why it is so important to obey the prompting of the Holy Spirit when He calls us to write. 

Just imagine if these men and women had not written their words in a book:

• John Bunyan
• Frederick Douglass
• C.S. Lewis
• Dorothy Sayers
• Madeleine L'Engle
• Andrew Murray
• Hudson Taylor
• George Mueller
• Jeanne Guyon
• Hannah Hubbard
• Watchman Nee
• Amy Carmichael
• Elizabeth Elliott

There are so many writers from every culture and every time whose words continue to impact us every day. What if they had not obeyed the call to write? 

If you are called to write, write. If you don't know how, consider purchasing the book I was prompted to write several years ago to give a devotional approach to writing under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, Called to Write? Don't Know How? by Lesley Barker is available at book-klatch.com/authors/lesley-barker and at Amazon.

Writing books is an eternal calling

 Have you ever noticed that there are books in heaven? Some are sealed. Some are open. But they exist and, as Solomon wrote, "of the making of many books there is no end." He was not being cynical. He used the Hebrew word for eternity, without end.... So, my conclusion is that to be one of God's writers is an eternal calling. We will be able to keep writing forever. May my preparation here on earth set the tone and the direction for the books He will assign me to write in heaven! If God has called you to be one of His writers, may you embrace that calling with joy. Learn the craft. Write what He assigns you. Become skilled in following the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and let God determine who finds, reads, and hears your books. Let Him receive all the honor for allowing you to write an important book. Then trust Him for the next assignment.

The parable of a character gone rogue

 For me, writing is a calling. But until writing the second Mid-Mississippi Valley Mystery, Midnight Mass Murder, which should be available the day after Thanksgiving, I didn't realize how writing fiction is a spiritual work that reveals a lot about how God fully knows us and how we also have independent agency, free will, to go in a direction He has not chosen- to go rogue. I've seen hints of this before when I've read or heard an author tell about how a character's choices shifted the story even though the character is a pure invention and the author is technically in charge.

The characters I thought I knew from the first book, Stuck In the Mud, bring their same issues and habits to Midnight Mass Murder, but as they interact with some of the new characters, they reveal things about their pasts, their opinions, and their motives that I did not plan. So, I find myself surprised and delighted by what is unfolding as well as sometimes dismayed and terrified. 

I realize that it is Psalm 139 unfolding and flowing out of my pen. I have created these characters. I thought I had intricately penetrated into the deepest layers of their hearts. I know them. I know how they respond. I know what they are thinking about. I know where they are going and when and even where they rest. I know what they are going to say, until they surprise me. But even then, like the psalmist recognizes, even if they take flight and go to the farthest edges of heaven or hell or the sea, they cannot escape from my observations. As the the author, I must answer the character's rogue revelation by asserting my intimate omniscience until they yield again to the current of the plot pulling them towards the conclusion of the story.

This makes me appreciate the love of God more. He doesn't interfere when we go rogue but neither does He abandon us to our rants and wanderings. He is with us. We can't escape His notice. He doesn't let anything destroy us before out time this woos us to Himself like nothing else. Let God search me and know my heart more fully than I can ever know one of my characters.

Four Key Decisions Writers Must Make Before Starting to Write

Writers need to make four key decisions before starting to write. They function as guardrails for the document as it is being created. They are the boundaries that inform every revision. They are the what, who, why and how of your piece.

1. Decide the what - your topic
2. Decide the who - your audience
3. Decide the why - your purpose 
4. Decide the how - your format

Once these decisions have been determined you can use Green Light Writing to get the flow going. Then, when it's time to craft the words into a final document, you can apply Red Light Writing based on these four key decisions.

Green and Red Light Writing

A Green Light Writing session is as satisfying as when all the traffic lights are green on your way to work. There is a flow. You feel energized. Writing is fun. You remember what a high you get from being a truly creative word-smith.

Red Light Writing is different. You can't seem to get into a flow. You keep having to stop, to wait, not to be bothered by the impatient drivers who are beeping their horns behind you. You get to work late, stressed out and annoyed by your own bad attitude. Red Light Writing has its purpose at the end of the process.

Writer's block happens when you start with Red Light Writing.   

I applied this idea from Dale Carnegie's Leadership Course for Managers that I attended about 30 years ago. Green Light Thinking is a strategy for facilitating the design process for a new project. It relies on the notion that no idea is too absurd. Everyone is encouraged to be as imaginative as they can without regard to logistics, practicality or cost. It is only after all the ideas have been collected, shared, laughed about and considered that Red Light Thinking is applied. This is when reality meets the imagined. Green Light Thinking stretches everyone's ideas of what could be possible. Red Light Thinking refines the best ideas into doable tasks that lead to an innovative project or product.

Green Light Writing works in a similar way. No idea is too whacky. No sentence is too long, short, complicated or confusing. No editors allowed at this stage. No proofreaders, No grammarians. No outlines. Just let words out. Put on a timer.

But set a goal for the Green Light Writing. Is it to describe a character for the first time in a novel? Is it to write a hook for a persuasive article? Is it to explain a process using a metaphor? Is it to prime the writing pump for the day? 

Start the clock. Write without thinking about whether these words will make the final copy. Stop when the bell rings or keep going if you have found a flow.

You don't need to apply Red Light Writing yet. It comes after the flow stops. 

You may choose to do Green Light Writing for an entire session. You may write pages or just a few sentences. You may have three or four goals so that when you finish one, you turn the page or start a new file and Green Light another goal, and another, and another.

Red Light Writing structures the flow, applies the mechanics, rearranges the sentences, edits, revises, proofreads, perfects. It's the last phase.

Writer's block happens when you try to write final copy before the words come. The flow happens with Green Light Writing. The crafting happens with Red Light Writing. Both are essential.

By Lesley Barker c. 2026

Lesley Barker is a writer and writing coach. See her author's page at https://www.book-klatch.com/authors/lesley-barker

Writing Is a Lot Like Knitting

 You start with the end in mind but with no canvas. Success depends on the threads being woven together without dropping a stitch. What you produce can take a variety of shapes. There might be a pattern. It involves a process that can become repetitive. Mistakes can be fixed unless they require you to tear out a whole section or start again using the same threads. It takes finishing. Like knitting, writing can be taught but it takes patience, diligence and practice to knit fluently. It is profoundly satisfying.

By Lesley Barker c. 2026

The story behind the story

 

Isabel Woods Edwards was born in St. Louis in 1865 and died of tuberculosis in 1897 after nursing her mother and her mother-in-law as they each succumbed to the same plague. Isabel was married to Ben Edwards, the first of the “sons” in A.G. Edwards and Sons, the investment firm started by his father. Isabel was the mother of Albert. Her other children died in infancy and she died when Albert was three. My mother-in-law was Albert’s daughter and she is the person who gave me a set of letters written by Ben to Isabel in 1887 before they were courting describing his observations on a train journey from St. Louis to San Francisco and back. Isabel kept these and a few other letters which are rich in details about trains and banks and churches but devoid of emotion and with scant if any interest in what she may have been doing. My mother-in-law knew Ben (she called him Grandfather Edwards) and Flora, Isabel’s younger sister who married Ben soon after Isabel died and who raised little Albert along with her own children. The stories she told about Ben combined with how the letters provide a window to his mind and heart make me think that he would have been diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum had he lived today. In addition to the letters, I own a dresser that was Isabel’s and the little spun silver purse described in the book.

I wanted the story to function as Isabel’s last week choreographed. As she fades further and further into the world of stories and in the certainty that her death was imminent, she faced death with dignity and grace knowing her future lay with her Savior. Her only fear was that Albert would grow up in a world without stories. I layered the stories of the family’s past into the week’s news. I envisioned Ben, always concerned for his health, visiting Isabel’s bedroom doorway each morning before he left to work at the bank. I spent time in the newspaper archives hunting for news about banks, trains and churches from the last week of Isabel’s life. Ben reported the news to Isabel in the doorway. Flora and Albert also visited from the hallway. Only Lizzie, the African American maid, Isabel’s brother, Matt, and Dr. Barker ever entered the room. After Ben left, Isabel recalled, reread and reflected on passages from Ben’s actual letters that happened on the same day of the week. Monday’s news reflected letters written on a Monday, for example. Isabel died on a Sunday. “Safe in the Arms of Jesus” is inscribed on her tombstone in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis – the photograph on the book’s cover.

Whenever I work in fiction, my goal is to juxtapose dysfunctional families with authentic faith and to continue to explore an academic interest of mine in the history of race in America. I work with four main values. I want to demonstrate honor for every person involved even when they act in ways that are troublesome. I want to redeem the lost stories that did not make the typical American historical canon. I want the story itself to be a transformative experience for the characters, for myself, and for the readers, and I want the story to diffuse wisdom. I hope that my readers will find that I begin to succeed in these goals.

By Lesley Barker c. 2025