Tag Archive | work

Writer Wednesday: Kendra Broekhuis

Nov5
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Writer Wednesday: Kendra Broekhuis

I’m happy to welcome author Kendra Brockhuis to my blog to discuss her writing journey.

When did you decide you would be an author? Was it something you fell into, felt called to…?

My husband and I got married and one month later moved to Guatemala to teach at an English immersion school. I realized the “cool” thing to do when one moves overseas is to start a blog, so I did. This is where my deep love for writing began. While in Guatemala, writing became much more than a way to keep in touch. It was also a way for me to process whatever was happening in my life, including our move overseas, my passage into motherhood, and my grief. I wrote Christian nonfiction articles and social media for about a decade before pivoting to fiction in 2020.

What’s your pet peeve?

I asked my husband for help on this question and he said: “You don’t love clutter.” He’s right. It’s not about having a perfectly clean house—though I do enjoy the two seconds after I’ve cleaned my house that it stays clean—it’s more about holding onto things our family doesn’t use that take up space in our home and make me feel sensory overload.

What was your most embarrassing moment as a writer?

I once visited a book club who’d just read and discussed my book. A few days later, one of the women from that book club posted a review online saying how much she didn’t like it. Readers are very much entitled to their opinions on what they enjoy, but it was slightly embarrassing to rub elbows in the intimate space of a living room with someone who goes on to publicly bash your work.

What has been your most difficult challenge as an author?

See above answer. I love getting to create. I love getting to work with a publishing house of people dedicated to helping me write the stories I want to write! The hard part is learning to be okay with my work not being everyone’s cup of tea. It’s all too easy to focus on the negative, even when you have encouragement coming from people who both enjoy and invest a lot in your work.

How do you process rejections and/or negative reviews?

Rejections are hard because in the writing world, they often come after 6-8 weeks of waiting and checking your phone for email notifications an unhealthy amount of times. Negative reviews are hard, and I’ll stop jabbering about why. Here’s a random list of a few things that help me:

  • Giving myself a day to feel hurt by those things, then opening my computer and getting back to the work that I love.
  • Buffering myself from reviews in general. Author Camille Pagán shared the idea of having someone you trust read your reviews and give you the basics. My husband has done this for me recently.
  • Being around people who “get” the difficulties of writing books—they remind me I’m not alone.
  • Being around people who know nothing about writing books—they remind me there’s a great big world out there I am not the center of, and there’s more to life than this work.
  • Clarifying my motivations and mindset. I am playing the long game in writing and publishing. This requires an attitude of accepting feedback and realizing how much I still have to learn. Also, I’m creating stories for the joy of creating stories. The work is the reward. The most joy I experience as an author is not even reading a positive review, but those precious days of getting to stare at the Word document of my current Work In Progress.

What do you feel is the best success so far in your writing career?

I’m constantly having to redefine success, and maybe that’s a success in itself? Here are a few things that make me feel successful as an author: Being adaptive to the publishing world in order to keep writing. Putting in the time to finish writing an entire novel. Getting to connect with other people—both authors and readers—who love the joy of books.

Creativity and connection—those are things I celebrate as a success!

What is your current work in process?

My next novel is a quirky dramedy called The Housewarming. It’s about a family who moves into a strict HOA neighborhood and, on their first night there, the house next door burns down, sending the block into juicy, what-just-happened spiral of drama.

Bio: Kendra Broekhuis writes stories on life’s heavy stuff with a dose of humor and a lot of love. She is the author of the novels Nearly Beloved and Between You and Us, as well as the nonfiction book Here Goes Nothing: An Introvert’s Reckless Attempt to Love Her Neighbor. For her day job, she stays home with her four kids and drives them from one place to another in her minivan. She and her family live in Milwaukee.

Website: http://www.kendrabroekhuis.com

Newsletter: http://www.kendrabroekhuis.com/newsletter

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kendrabroekhuisauthor

Amazon Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Kendra-Broekhuis/author/B06W5CRG3K?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=45a40d7e-7426-4551-872e-11065655c2fc

Latest book release: Nearly Beloved with WaterBrook.

Author Confessions: Fighting the Lie That There’s Not Enough Time

Jun16
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Author Confessions: Fighting the Lie That There’s Not Enough Time

I’m in a busy season and I was aware that during this year I would be stretched and would face some challenges. Some of those were of our own making. We believe God called us to something but just because He leads us on a path doesn’t mean it will be an easy journey.

My word for the year is BREATHE because anxiety can well up when I am overwhelmed with too much to do, it can border on panic. I’m juggling a lot of balls of different weights, colors, and shapes and I’m not that great at it.

My mind wants to complain: “There’s not enough time to do all this!” And yet, somehow I’m in the middle of June and things have been accomplished. Maybe not as fast as I would prefer as I’ve had to put some things temporarily on the back burner, but they have been done.

One day when I was busy doing marketing stuff, a friend texted wanting to meet. Right now. My first internal response was NO! I don’t have time for this! I paused and reminded myself of a lesson I learned many years ago–the hard way–that people are more important than tasks. So I said yes. I closed my laptop and headed out the door and I’m glad I did. My friend had gone through terrible losses and was in the midst of several significant life changes all happening at the same time. We sat at a mostly empty Dairy Queen and she sobbed out her fears, grief, frustrations, hope. Dreams were coming true but there had been a gut-wrenching journey to get there and it wasn’t over yet. I listened, consoled, empathized, and gave lots of hugs (and napkins to wipe away tears). We parted and I returned home to resume my work. My friend needed me and I’m grateful I could be there for her.

Another friend called the other day, stranded, and needing a ride to a city about 50 miles away. Right now. I again was diving into an intensive work project (that I still haven’t returned to!). I dropped everything and went to pick her up and drive her to her destination, with a stop at Chick-fil-a along the way because neither of us had had lunch. She apologized and was grateful but I reminded her that we’ve both been busy and I’m grateful that we had a good time to visit and catch up.

My husband complained about a project taking too long. I had to remind him that God is in control and perhaps those delays were to protect us. Nothing is wasted in God’s economy.

There is the lie that there is not enough time, but somehow things get done and if I have too much to do, maybe it’s not what God intends for me to do today. If I seek Him for the next steps, somehow He accomplishes what He needs for me to do. That’s hard when there are several items on a to do list beyond the everyday things: dishes, laundry, yard work, paying bills, making meals, shopping, church, and sleeping.

The lie is there isn’t enough time. The truth is, perhaps I’m not focusing on what God really wants me to do. If I believed the lie I would have worked instead of being there for my friends. Maybe God understands that our timeline is not possible and if things are delayed, it might be because He, in His perfect wisdom, understands our limitations.

That’s a hard one to swallow to someone who likes to check things off her list. And likes to know the plan. Well, I have a glimpse of His plan and it’s exciting, however, the journey to accomplishing all of that is requiring more of me than I expected.

BREATHE.

I had a nightmare last night that somehow in the busyness of the last few days, I’d forgotten to write a blog post. A few hours after I woke up this morning I realized it was not a nightmare, but the reality of life. I even debated about not writing one at all. Here I am after two appointments and mowing the lawn, writing a post that just gets scheduled a few hours later than normal.

I’m OK with that because maybe the lesson God is reminding me of, is something you need to hear as well.

I’m going to take a few breaths, finish up this project and a few other things that slipped through the cracks and then get back to the grind, or not, if I run out of time for today. I’m good with that because God knows my heart and the purposes He calls me to. Sometimes I get too caught up in the small stuff to see the bigger picture and to remind myself that God is faithful and will see me through. If I need to cry like my friend, with all the emotions that fight to be felt, that’s going to be fine as well, and maybe, if I’m brave enough to ask, a friend will sit and listen to me too.

Fight the lie that there is not enough time. Let God guide your next steps. A friend often reminds me: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. How do we follow the path God leads us on? One step at a time, clinging to Him all the way.

Author Confessions: You Don’t Work Do You?

Mar11
Reading Time: 3 minutes

You Don’t Work Do You?

A writer is an unusual person. It may seem like an idyllic life. Sit town and write. How hard could that be?

Until a kid wants something or the dog wants to play or your spouse needs help in the garage…

Writing is hard work and it involves concentration to put a story together. It also involves concentrated time and effort. Hopefully some skill.

If I want to set a goal to write a chapter a day I  can usually manage that in an hour. Well, if a book takes say, 35 hours to write, then why couldn’t I knock that out in a week?

Because some of writing is breathing, praying, researching, thinking, and reading. Non-fiction could possibly go faster but it’s still not easy to put words on a page in a way that would be good, and impact a reader. Something that someone would want to read.

Take that 35-40 hours of writing time for a book that might take 6 hours to read. Add editing. An author will read through a book many times. It could take me two days minimum to usually do one round of edits on a book. That’s a lot of concentrated time considering the overused words, phrasing, plot lines, time consistency throughout the story, great beginnings and endings to a chapter, finding typos, tightening up sentences and paragraphs, and maybe even deleting unnecessary words or phrases.

Then making sure the story engages all the senses without using the words: feel, look, taste, hear,  see and smell.

Oh, and after that, grammar. Commas, quotation marks, hyphens, spelling … Then you submit it and the process begins all over when another set of eyes surveys the version you sent. I have some novels with so many files of edits it is unbelievable.

Even with all that being done by myself and maybe two other editors, if I go back and read older works I can see how I could have done it better.

Are you exhausted yet? All of this is without a penny coming into my checking account.

Do I work? Yes. And hard.

My husband will lament that I don’t make what I’m worth for writing books. He then will say, “But that doesn’t seem to bother you.”

Sure, a nice income would be lovely, but it’s more about heart impact than it is about making money. The first book I ever wrote I wrote for myself. I’m my first audience. Now I could do that and enjoy the stories without ever doing one edit. That would be selfish though. If God gives me a story why wouldn’t I share that with others? If God leads me to publish, then I need to be as obedient to Him in writing the first draft as I am with every subsequent edit.

Is it work? Absolutely. Unless God decides to bless I will never receive an income equal to the time I put into my stories. I’d be wealthier working at a fast-food restaurant. (I’ll pass, thank you. Been there, done that!). It’s a good thing I enjoy what I do—at least most of the time!

When you see a book for sale for $18.00, realize that there was a lot of work for that amount of money. It amazes me how someone will pay $5 for a cup of coffee that lasts maybe 30 minutes? A book can be read in maybe 6 hours – and more than once! Wouldn’t that be worth $30 then? And e-books are even cheaper! They never grow cold or contain calories!

If you do spend that money, and enjoy the work of an author, please give them a review on Amazon. Only a few words are needed. It may not fill our bank accounts, but it will help others find our books and in time that might net us a little bit of compensation for our labors. Let them know you appreciate their hard work as well as the labors of their editors, marketing people, layout and cover artists.