Writing | Jennifer Clark Tinker

Posts Tagged ‘Writing’

12 Feb

I Signed My First Real Writing Contract–Photo Album

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Vocation. Tagged: Writing. 6 comments

I wrote last Friday sharing that I was getting my first real writing contract. See that post for the details. Well, I signed and faxed the contract today and my husband and I documented the whole thing in photographs. Because, you know–my first real writing contract! And real cash money for my work!

I hope you enjoy the photo album below. The captions tell the story….

I’m holding the contract in my very own hands!

I’m super excited to have received this thing!

I have the contract before me and the pen in my hand…

Here I sign, I can do no other.

I’m a happy writer, today. 🙂

The contract is all signed now!

I’m handing the contract & fax cover letter to my husband, David, for him to send it from the church fax machine.

David is dialing the fax number for Pat at Augsburg Fortress who is waiting to receive my contract.

David is pressing “send” on the fax machine. This is it!

Pat at Augsburg Fortress acknowledges receipt of the contract (and a tax form).

Thanks to Augsburg Fortress for giving me my first real writing contract! I can’t wait to get started on the project!

7 Feb

This Writing Thing -or- And Now for Some Good News

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Vocation. Tagged: Blogging, Life & Liberty, Living Faith, Writing. 5 comments

I have some good news for y’all about this writing thing…actually a couple of newsy bits…

A Real Writing Contract

The first news I want to share with you is that I am getting a contract to write for a Lent devotional for 2015 for Augsburg Fortress (the official publishing house of my denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)! I’ll post pictures when I get the contract in my hands, but I couldn’t wait to tell you about this. [UPDATE: I signed the contract on February 12, 2014 and you can see the pictures here.]

One of the coolest things about this gig is that it came totally out of the blue for me. I have this tension between wanting to put myself forward as a writer but also wanting to let the formal publishing side develop naturally. I can self-promote with the best of them, but it is tiring. And it can be discouraging when I don’t feel like I’m getting “noticed” despite my best efforts at promoting my own work. So to have a real publishing house come to me is a pretty nice bit of notice!

The other cool thing about this gig is the nature of the project. It is a devotional based on the book of Ephesians–which is one of my favorite books of the Bible. The deal is that I am assigned scriptures and a compelling photograph for each of my 15 entries. Then I find a non-biblical quotation and write a reflection. I love the call for a non-biblical quotation because I always have other sources floating around in my head that influence how I process my faith.

And finally, this gig is pretty sweet because I’m getting paid real cash money to write these! I mean, maybe the fact that I told you there was a contract involved implied that I was getting paid. But I wanted to make sure I highlight that because, well, real cash money!

A Promotion

The other bit of news is that I’ve been given a promotion at Life & Liberty. I am now the chief editor! It sounds so glamorous, right? Well, the truth is that it is work. But it is work I pretty much love. I’ve edited newsletters before, but then I had to deal with all the printing part. Publishing online is all the work I love about doing print publications with none of copies, labels and mailing.

I’ve made Life & Liberty my online home away from my own blog. You’ve probably noticed a lot of times I post here and then link to something over there. I’ve been pretty involved over there, helping to promote the site, posting with increased frequency, and learning the ropes of a bigger, self-hosted platform. And I truly believe in the vision of what Life & Liberty is all about–to promote a society that is spiritually grounded and truly free. So, this is a pretty natural progression for me to get to take on even more responsibility over there.

There are several benefits to me working over at Life & Liberty, but one that I most cherish is the way that I am encouraged to find my voice there. Any time I’ve asked if I could try something that seemed crazy to me, I’ve been given permission to do so. And as I try to hone my unique message for the world, I find that platform draws out some of my deepest convictions. There is a whole lot of nuance to my worldview and it is scary to say what I really think about things, but it is just a little less scary to say it over there among like-minded folks.

Along with my promotion to chief editor at Life & Liberty, I’ve also been encouraged to post there with even greater frequency. I’m not sure how often it will be, but at least weekly and I may settle in at twice a week or so. I will continue to post links here for my work over there. I don’t want you to miss anything there because, like I say, that place pulls something deep and important out of me.

This Place

Rest assured, even with my snazzy writing contact and my posh promotion I will still post something original here at Living Faith at least once a week. My standard day for posting original content here is Fridays.

I hope you will purchase boatloads of the Lent devotional next year and that you will click over to all my great content at Life & Liberty! But if not, just know that I appreciate you reading here and walking with me on life’s journey.

I owe a lot to the ongoing positive feedback that y’all give me. You keep me going and propel me toward these cool new milestones in this writing thing. So, let’s keep doing this “Living Faith” thing together!

P.S. Although my devotional project won’t be ready until next year, you can order the 2014 version online now: Too Deep for Words: Devotions for Lent 2014, based on Romans.

8 Jan

The Madness of Writing

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Brokenness, Vocation. Tagged: Blogging, Writing. 5 comments

Now that I’ve stepped through this door, broken this threshold, and entered The Writing Life, I simply must stay. I must keep writing no matter how maddening it can be.

But it is maddening putting these words out here and wondering if, hoping that they will be what somebody needs.

The truth is that I don’t know anyone else quite like me, but my brain is the only one I know to write from.

And so I pull these truths, these stories, these musings out of me and put them out here for…well, for someone…

I am touched by the people who read regularly. There are people I see in-person that tell me they’re reading. And they tell me it is good. And I am so grateful.

But I do get discouraged because those doubting voices try to mess with me and say that something can be good but still not meet a real need.

I don’t want to be a good writer.

Lots of people can write well even with nothing to say.

I want to say something.

But I don’t just want to say something, I want to say something that somebody needs.

And while I get lots of “attaways” from people, I still wonder if I’m meeting a need.

Of course, that itself is a rabbit hole of madness to wonder because how can I even know? How can I possibly measure?

And what if simply reading what is on my heart meets a need all on its own? Maybe, just maybe, the regular readers are having a need met by reading and the reality of them sticking around should clue me in to their satisfaction. Just maybe.

But no, I’m far too mad to let that be enough.

I want more notoriety. Somehow I reason that I will know my writing is needed if I get noticed by more and more and more people.

I’m not sure how or when the desire to be noticed became so strong in me.

Only this…I get jealous when I see a clever post from someone else get shared and reshared around the Interwebs. And I think I write clever things and I wonder why my links aren’t flying through cyberspace.

And it sounds so silly to admit this petty jealousy.

I am petty indeed.

And it is maddening to be so petty.

And I know in my brain that this all takes time and I can’t expect to go from obscurity to notoriety in 10 silly months.

I know, I know, I know…

But the madness is that I hoped I would be the exception. Of course I know I can’t expect overnight success, but I wanted it anyway.

So petty.

This Writing Life messes with me like that. It draws from my deepest, wisest and best while simultaneously exposing my pettiest, silliest, and worst.

So maddening.

But I refuse to let the worst in me be an excuse to squelch my voice. I’m going to keep writing from this brain, this heart and I’m going to keep hoping that somehow, sometime, something of it will be needed.

The only thing more maddening than this Writing Life would be if I quit. Luckily, I’m just crazy enough to stick with it.

31 Dec

So Far: First Calendar Year

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Inspiration, Vocation. Tagged: Blogging, Living Faith, So Far, Writing. 1 comment

Despite the necessity for typing most of my writing on a computer, I prefer to start a writing project “old school,” writing longhand with a notepad and pen. This collection of supplies was from my son for Christmas.

This is the end of my first calendar year of blogging. As 2013 comes to a close I thought it would be fun to take a look back.

My 2013 started with a decision–that I’m doing this writing thing. I knew how to write, but wasn’t too sure about how to be “successful” with it.

I kept looking around at friends and people I admire gaining ground with their writing and I got so jealous. I started taking stock of what they were doing with their writing that I wasn’t with mine. And a couple things emerged as trends:

They were writing–daily.
They had blogs that they kept up with.

I know there’s more to writing than just these two things, but these were the glaringly obvious things that they were doing that I wasn’t.

So along with my decision to do this writing thing, in 2013 I started writing every day and I started this blog.

I’ve been all over the place in post frequency (though never less than weekly). And I’ve tried out various topics and styles of posts.

In a very real sense, I’m making this up as I go along. But the more I go along, somehow the more confidence I gain.

I never want to get too comfortable with my work because I always want to remain open to growth…yet the evil second-guessing that tries to hold me back has diminished significantly. The voices that try to tell me I’m no good and my thoughts don’t matter are more and more drowned out by the ever-increasing number of ideas of what else I need to say.

So, I am doing this writing thing and I can’t get enough of it!

Since no calendar-year-in-review post would be complete without some numbers & lists, I thought I’d share some of that here too.

The blog is averaging 577 visitors per month.
It’s averaging 1009 page views per month.
There have been a total of 10,096 page views on the blog.
The most page views on a single day was 416.
The most-viewed post has had 597 page views.
The blog has been viewed from 66 different countries.
Visitors have come from 6 different continents.

The top 10 most-viewed posts have been:

Thanks for coming on this journey with me and for helping make 2013 a great starting year for the blog!

13 Dec

How The Internet is Almost as Funny as God

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Brokenness, Community. Tagged: Blogging, Depression, Faith, Greatness, health, Taking Risks, Writing. 11 comments

Who knew the Internet and God had this one thing in common–a be-careful-what-you-wish-for sense of humor?

God recently showed his sense of humor when he answered my prayer for more preaching opportunities.

In my current setting I don’t have a formal, ongoing, paid position in my church. Instead, I use my Deaconess training* here and there with a mix of paid and volunteer tasks in my own church and in other churches around my area.

Some of my most favorite work–times I feel most alive–are the times when I get to preach or speak. I’m still working on developing a formal speaking ministry. But the preaching opportunities are easier to come by when neighboring pastors need back-up, so I prayed for more of them.

It had been months since I preached last, but then, this fall, my church invited me to preach our Advent series. That would be 3 chances to preach and I was thrilled! Then a neighboring pastor called me with an additional 3 dates this month for which he needed back-up.

Suddenly here was December with 6 chances to preach! I just had to laugh at God’s sense of humor in answering my prayer in such a big way!

In a similar way, the Internet showed its sense of humor when it challenged my fears about being relevant with my blog. Last week I wrote the post How Being “Relevant” Eludes Me (click the title to read that post) and I lamented to the Internet:

I have a ton of ideas about what I want to write about. But I just never know what’s going to resonate with people.

I watch my blog stats (the details that I can view as a blog administrator about how many visits there are to my blog and what posts are being viewed) more closely than I need to. And I fret when something I feel good about doesn’t get as many views as I wish it did. And I hope, in admitted vanity, that this blog will really take off.

I know all the right things I should be thinking about my blog–that if even one person is touched by my writing then I am doing good work here. And I am always, always glad to know when that one person is touched. Please keep writing comments and e-mails and Tweets and Facebook messages to let me know because, truly, that’s what keeps me going when one person at a time is indeed touched by my work.

But right or wrong, I want to reach more people. And sometimes I shake my fists at the Internet and ask, in all ignorance, “What’s it going to take?”

And the Internet seems not to answer.

And then I had this really crummy day when I almost didn’t write anything. Except I have been trying to write more often and I was determined to post on Monday or Tuesday. Monday was a migraine day and I truly could not write. So it was Tuesday or bust. And despite my depression knocking me down, the idea of skipping Tuesday was worse than the idea of cranking out something irrelevant.

And so, I wrote Eat, Sleep, Preach: A Deaconess in Depression (click the title to see that post) and that post got a lot of attention. In fact, it became my most viewed post ever! Wednesday was my all-time biggest day on the blog. Lots and lots of people reached out to me in one way or another to express empathy or appreciation for what I wrote. Thanks to all who supported me by reading, responding to, or sharing the post. I am deeply grateful.

And I had to laugh at the Internet’s way of giving me such a big day over a post that I almost didn’t write on a day when I just wanted to stay in bed.

See what I mean? God and the Internet are both hilarious!

* I was trained and consecrated by the Lutheran Deaconess Association (LDA), an independent Lutheran diaconate based in Valparaiso, Indiana. The LDA allows me to keep the title of Deaconess despite not having a formal call as they recognize a wide range of service as diaconal. For more about my journey of becoming a Deaconess, see my post How I Became a Deaconess (click the title to read that post).

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Posts Tagged ‘Writing’

I Signed My First Real Writing Contract–Photo Album