The Dream From Africa is a life-long dream come true for me. I've always wanted to write a novel about Africa. Yet, this process was a very difficult one to complete with the busyness of life. Several factors came together for me to make this a reality. Here's a few thoughts that I learned on how to pursue what God has put into your heart. .
1) Clarify the vision: I had some general ideas of what this book would like, but nothing specific. So I decided to sit down one day and draft a potential story-line for the book. I included different characters and funny anecdotes that would help give the story more life and greater plausibility. In doing this, I found some really great ideas that I was later able to expand into core components of the story. Other aspects that I had originally considered very strong lost appeal as I scrutinized them closer. The clearer the vision the easier to write. I was able to sit down even when time was precious and knock out some pretty substantial sections of the story. By contrast, when I lost the vision and direction of the story, I meandered in a maze of mental blurriness.
I find this to be true when speaking too. Vision is everything. When I know where I want to go in a message it's much easier to craft the ideas and thoughts that frame it. Spend time working on your vision and you will save yourself much tedious work. Vision is the hard work; writing is the easy part.
2) Get some coaching: Yes, as funny as it might sound, I had multiple coaching sessions for writing this book. By coaching, I'm not talking athletic here; I'm talking missional coaching through the process of asking powerful questions. I attended a four day coaching workshop. During this time we had to break up and practice the skills we were learning with other participants. I asked for coaching on my book. It helped me tremendously to lay out a plan that would to write the book.
Coaching is one of the most important things anyone can seek out. Fortune 500 execs all have personal coaches to help improve their business skills and leadership decisions. Ministry leaders are increasingly following suit. If you have never entered the world of coaching, I strongly encourage you to seek one out. It will be well worth any time or financial investment that you have to make.
3) Take small action steps: I found that I was either feast or famine in my motivation for writing. Some days it seemed I could sit down and write for others- usually on days when my schedule prevented this from happening. On other days, when I had more time on my hands it seemed like the writer's wall stared me in the face preventing me from advancing. Both were very frustrating! I found that the best way to overcome this was just to get something on paper. I would try to do at least a page at a time. I'm the kind of person who needs to feel like I'm making progress even if it's minimal. Carving out enough time to write when I felt inspired and forcing myself to at least write something even when I didn't greatly helped. Slowly, but surely the book came to life. It took several months of writing before I hit the 100 page mark. I'm clearly not one of these people who can sit down and write an entire book in a couple of weeks- at least not yet.
Likewise, keep the fire of your dream alive in your heart by fueling it frequently. This may not look like much, but sometimes even a 5 minute investment of talking about it with a friend, studying more about it from other successful people, or attending a seminar or class can be just the thing to get the creative juices flowing again.
4) Pray. I know that sounds cliche. Nevertheless, I found prayer made a huge difference for me. My thoughts always became clearer as I spent time in prayer. In fact, one night I had a dream from which I gathered a lot of ideas that I eventually incorporated into the book. I've never really had a dream about an adventure/political intrigue scenario before. And since that was the general plot I had been considering for quite some time I took that to mean that it was ideas from the Lord.
Prayer unlocks your dream. It gives flesh to your thoughts. It stimulates the creative juices. And opens the doors of connection to make it a reality. Keep praying and your dream will become a reality.
5) Have fun: this one is probably the hardest to maintain. It's all too easy to get bogged down in trying to make something a reality. Self-imposed pressure almost defeated my creativity. It wasn't until I relaxed and stopped trying so hard that the story really started taking shape. I had to learn the all important lesson of having fun.
I would encourage you likewise to relax and stop trying too hard. Have fun. Learn to enjoy what you are doing you will soon find the creativity flowing too.
1) Clarify the vision: I had some general ideas of what this book would like, but nothing specific. So I decided to sit down one day and draft a potential story-line for the book. I included different characters and funny anecdotes that would help give the story more life and greater plausibility. In doing this, I found some really great ideas that I was later able to expand into core components of the story. Other aspects that I had originally considered very strong lost appeal as I scrutinized them closer. The clearer the vision the easier to write. I was able to sit down even when time was precious and knock out some pretty substantial sections of the story. By contrast, when I lost the vision and direction of the story, I meandered in a maze of mental blurriness.
I find this to be true when speaking too. Vision is everything. When I know where I want to go in a message it's much easier to craft the ideas and thoughts that frame it. Spend time working on your vision and you will save yourself much tedious work. Vision is the hard work; writing is the easy part.
2) Get some coaching: Yes, as funny as it might sound, I had multiple coaching sessions for writing this book. By coaching, I'm not talking athletic here; I'm talking missional coaching through the process of asking powerful questions. I attended a four day coaching workshop. During this time we had to break up and practice the skills we were learning with other participants. I asked for coaching on my book. It helped me tremendously to lay out a plan that would to write the book.
Coaching is one of the most important things anyone can seek out. Fortune 500 execs all have personal coaches to help improve their business skills and leadership decisions. Ministry leaders are increasingly following suit. If you have never entered the world of coaching, I strongly encourage you to seek one out. It will be well worth any time or financial investment that you have to make.
3) Take small action steps: I found that I was either feast or famine in my motivation for writing. Some days it seemed I could sit down and write for others- usually on days when my schedule prevented this from happening. On other days, when I had more time on my hands it seemed like the writer's wall stared me in the face preventing me from advancing. Both were very frustrating! I found that the best way to overcome this was just to get something on paper. I would try to do at least a page at a time. I'm the kind of person who needs to feel like I'm making progress even if it's minimal. Carving out enough time to write when I felt inspired and forcing myself to at least write something even when I didn't greatly helped. Slowly, but surely the book came to life. It took several months of writing before I hit the 100 page mark. I'm clearly not one of these people who can sit down and write an entire book in a couple of weeks- at least not yet.
Likewise, keep the fire of your dream alive in your heart by fueling it frequently. This may not look like much, but sometimes even a 5 minute investment of talking about it with a friend, studying more about it from other successful people, or attending a seminar or class can be just the thing to get the creative juices flowing again.
4) Pray. I know that sounds cliche. Nevertheless, I found prayer made a huge difference for me. My thoughts always became clearer as I spent time in prayer. In fact, one night I had a dream from which I gathered a lot of ideas that I eventually incorporated into the book. I've never really had a dream about an adventure/political intrigue scenario before. And since that was the general plot I had been considering for quite some time I took that to mean that it was ideas from the Lord.
Prayer unlocks your dream. It gives flesh to your thoughts. It stimulates the creative juices. And opens the doors of connection to make it a reality. Keep praying and your dream will become a reality.
5) Have fun: this one is probably the hardest to maintain. It's all too easy to get bogged down in trying to make something a reality. Self-imposed pressure almost defeated my creativity. It wasn't until I relaxed and stopped trying so hard that the story really started taking shape. I had to learn the all important lesson of having fun.
I would encourage you likewise to relax and stop trying too hard. Have fun. Learn to enjoy what you are doing you will soon find the creativity flowing too.
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