Growing in writing
Are you intentionally developing the gifts God has given you?
This is the 50th “Good Writing” article that I’ve written for this magazine. That seems like a lot, but I still feel like there is so much more for me to learn about writing, and this is one way that I do it: by reading and writing about the craft. In the last issue, I wrote about the writing retreat I ran in Aomori last year. As we talked and breathed writing all week, I found myself learning and being amazed by those around me.
Starting my writing journey
Sometimes people wonder how I got started as an editor. I did not study literature or communications at university; I have learned on the job. And I’ve discovered that this is not uncommon for editors. But my story really starts with frustration with God in 2007, during our second term in Japan. I’ve mentioned more than once in my editorials that I am not good at Japanese. The first article I published in this magazine, “Crying in the Snow,” came from an incident during my first months of language school when I was feeling particularly stupid as a language student.1
In 2007, several years after the incident at language school, I was still struggling to gain any reasonable competency in the language. At that time, I cried out to God, asking him why he’d brought me to Japan at all. My husband was enjoying his full-time work at CAJ (Christian Academy in Japan), but my job had become mostly looking after our three boys under eight. That year, God provided for me to go to the JEMA Women in Ministry retreat in Karuizawa. There, the speaker challenged us to “write our stories”. Years earlier a close friend had encouraged me to write more—so this challenge resonated with me. From then on God continued to prod me and provide opportunities to work on my writing. I joined a small international online nonfiction writing group, and they taught me both about writing and how to critique other people’s writing. That was also the start of my learning about how to edit.
Moving into editing
I wrote the “Crying in the Snow” article as part of a one-on-one online writing course I took and submitted it to this magazine. As a result of that article, Gary Bauman, the Japan Harvest managing editor at the time, invited me to join the JEMA communications team. In August 2010, when my youngest child started school, I joined the magazine team and started the long journey of learning about how to put together a magazine, work with authors, and edit.
In 2011, when the triple disaster hit Tohoku, I’d really only just started to learn the magazine business, but I got thrown into the deep end when Gary put me in charge of the Stories of Hope issue that we published about the disaster just two months later. A year later, I officially became the managing editor of Japan Harvest, taking charge of the nitty-gritty stuff that magazine editing is full of, with Gary stepping up to the broader role of executive editor.
Continuing to learn about the craft
Over the years, I’ve also intentionally learned about the craft through:
- reading about writing and editing,
- writing (in addition to articles for this magazine and others, I’ve written over 3,300 posts on my personal blog since 2009),
- writing workshops and retreats, and
- welcoming feedback on my writing and editing.
I want to encourage those of you who are reading this—and who have been told that they write well—to listen to God’s quiet voice. Perhaps he’s calling you to pull out the gift he’s given you and work on it.
God continues to challenge me to use the gift of writing and to keep getting better at it. I read this recently: “God has given you talents—things you may be unusually good at. Are you using these for his glory? . . . God has bestowed on you a greater-than-usual enthusiasm for a certain issue or cause. Are you pursuing it enthusiastically?”2 How does this apply to you? For writing? Or some other talent?
1. Wendy Marshall, “Crying in the snow,” Japan Harvest, https://japanharvest.org/crying-in-the-snow (Winter 2009).
2. Tim Challies, “On Hoarding Wealth and Fostering Gifts,” @challies, https://www.challies.com/articles/on-hoarding-wealth-and-fostering-gifts (November 7, 2022).