Developing Courage as a Writer

Erin and Karen had me on the Write from the Deep podcast to talk about courage. Without it, your writing will never touch hearts. You can find a link to the original episode (as well as subscribe links) here.

Summary

Karen Ball and Erin Taylor-Young sit down with author, speaker, and CEO of Author Media, Thomas Umstead Jr., to talk about one of the most universal struggles in the writing life: fear. From writer's block to cancel culture, they unpack what fear really is, how it shows up in a writer's work, and what can actually cast it out.

Key takeaways:

Courage is not the absence of fear. It is doing the right thing anyway, while afraid.
Writer's block is just a more socially acceptable name for fear.
Writing with a fear of giving offense strips the power out of your work.
Your motivation for writing shapes how you handle rejection and criticism.
Two things cast out fear: a greater fear, and love.
Loving your reader and loving God can move you from courage into boldness.
The fear of the Lord is not something to avoid. It is the beginning of wisdom, and it reorients every other fear in your life.

Welcome and What's Happening at Write From the Deep

This is Write From the Deep. I'm Karen Ball, and I'm Erin Taylor-Young. This is the podcast from Writers for Writers, answering the question, why am I doing this right? As writers, editors, and a former literary agent, we're in the deep with you, encouraging and equipping you to find your truest story in the deep places. You can get our show notes and more, including a free audio download on how to safeguard your writer's heart, at writefromthedeep.com.

Karen: A special thank you to all our patrons on Patreon. You help make this show possible, and we truly appreciate you. A special thanks to our February sponsor of the month, Wendy L. McDonald. Not only is Wendy a writer, she also produces a weekly short inspirational podcast called Hope Walking With Wendy. You can find it on Spotify and at her website.

I am also excited to share that I will be teaching at the West Coast Christian Writers Conference, February 25th through 27th, which is coming up real soon. I'll be doing sessions on podcasting to build your platform and on whether God really asked you to write. There is still time to register, and there are lots of great videos. It's all online. For more information, go to westcoastchristianwriters.com.

A Little Wonder in the Midst of Hard Things

Karen: Erin and I have been sharing the little wonders that God is giving us, and mine is tied to a really hard thing. I mentioned that at the beginning of October my older brother died unexpectedly. And just a couple of days later, we lost our little three-year-old Corgi-Boston Terrier mix, Radar. He ruptured a disc in his back, and we had to put him down, which was unbelievably difficult on top of losing my brother.

Since then, the wonder is that Kirby, our purebred Corgi who is between 11 and 12 years old, has suddenly turned into a puppy again. He wants to play. He wants to go for walks. He gets all excited and dances like crazy when it's time to feed him. Clearly, this is a dog who loves being the only dog in the household. He gets to go between Don and me and ask for pets and snuggles. He has gotten a lot more demanding, so we're having to work with him on that. But it has been fun to watch him blooming again, being like he was when we first got him some 11 years ago. I really miss Radar and I always will, but it has been a wonder to see Kirby branching out and loving being an only dog, for now anyway.

Erin: That's very cool. I love that he takes you on walks.

Karen: He does.

Introducing Thomas Umstattd Jr.

Karen: We are venturing into the deep again, and we are so glad you're here with us, because we have a guest. And not just any guest. We have the amazing Thomas Umstattd Jr., and I'll let Erin introduce him.

Erin: It feels like I've known Thomas almost as long as I've been writing because I met him at one of my very first writing conferences. Back then he was building websites and helping authors connect with their audiences, and doing it very well. Since then he has become an award-winning speaker, teaching creative people all over the world how to build their platforms, sell more books, and change the world with writing worth talking about. He has also authored a book, Courtship in Crisis, and he has had experience as a literary agent with the Steve Laube Agency. As a podcaster, he hosts the Novel Marketing Podcast, which we'll have a link to and highly recommend, and he also hosts the Christian Publishing Show. Right now he serves as the CEO of Author Media. We are just delighted to have you with us, Thomas. Welcome.

Thomas: Thanks for having me here. I'm excited.

What Does "the Deep" Mean to You?

Karen: As we always like to start, what does the deep mean to you today?

Thomas: I think it's anchoring. It's about how deep your roots are. I think of a palm tree. There's not a whole lot going on above the surface. It's just a single branch. But underneath, palm trees go about as deep into the sand as they go up. They're very different from redwoods in that way. Redwood trees don't go very deep, but they connect to each other and rely on community for their strength. Palm trees are able to stand on their own even in hurricanes. You'll see a palm tree bend almost flat with the ground, and then when the wind stops blowing, it pops right back up because it has that deep root system. Even though it's planted in sand, which you wouldn't think of as a strong foundation, its roots are deep enough to make it work.

Right now life is kind of crazy, in the world and in my personal life. We're moving right now and I'm moving my office too. What is deep is what remains when the wind is done blowing.

Karen: Amen. I love that. And I'll just say that Thomas has been very brave because he's moving with his family and little kids. It's tough to move with little kids, even when you're not yet outnumbered. You and your wife have two kids, so you're not outnumbered yet, but it is still so hard when they're so young. You're brave, Thomas. And that brings us to what we want to talk about with you today. We want to talk about courage, and specifically courage for writers.

Defining Courage: Fear Is the Starting Point

Karen: Let's start with how you would define courage.

Thomas: Courage is being afraid. You can't be courageous without first being afraid. And there's a distinction between courage and boldness. Boldness, which you see often in the Bible, is when the Holy Spirit comes on somebody and they do something without any fear at all. There are times in our lives when we experience boldness, and some people are bolder than others.

Courage is different. Courage is doing the right thing anyway. It's not letting the fear control you. And there's something really special about courage because the easiest way to be bold is to be ignorant of the risk. You have no idea there is a chasm there, and so you walk without fear. Courage is knowing the chasm is there and walking forward anyway.

There's a terrific book called The Courage to Write, and the subtitle is How Writers Transcend Fear. I absolutely loved that book because I can tell you that almost every single writer I have worked with has that element of fear and insecurity. They want to make it better, and yet they feel like they can't, and they wonder how they could ever beat their last success.

The author shares the story of E.B. White, an amazing writer, and describes him as a consummate rewriter. White would rewrite things five, ten, twenty, thirty times and never wanted to let them go. In fact, after mailing a manuscript, he would sometimes return to the postmaster and ask to have his book back so he could rewrite it some more.

But in addition to being a consummate rewriter, he was a gifted procrastinator. He often managed to avoid the trauma of writing altogether until he had no choice. He said that he was the most frightened person in the world. He wrote, "The old emptiness and dizziness and vapor seized hold of me" when he was trying to write. "Nobody who has never suffered my peculiar kind of disability can understand the sheer hell of such moments."

All of that speaks to the fear that writing requires, and the necessity of courage as we write and share what God has asked us to share.

Writer's Block Is Just Fear With a Fancy Name

Thomas: Procrastination really is often just fear. Sometimes it's a time management technique we use to determine if something really needs to be done, because we often procrastinate things we never end up doing. We deep down know the task doesn't need to happen, so we put it off. But for writers, we know the writing needs to happen. And so when we procrastinate, it's fear.

Writer's block, by the way, is a new term. You know what they used to call writer's block? Fear. It's just a fancy term for someone who's ashamed of being afraid, someone who says, oh, it's not that I'm afraid to write bad words, I just have writer's block. But no other profession has dentist's block or doctor's block or bricklayer's block. In those other professions, there's something that casts out that fear, which is another fear. The fear of the boss.

Journalists don't get writer's block because they have real deadlines. The paper is going out. There's a printing press that will print it at five o'clock, and if your article isn't in by four thirty, there are consequences. That greater fear casts out the lesser fear of writing something terrible. I've noticed that writers with a real journalism background, people who actually worked at a journalistic outlet, are faster with their writing and complain far less about writer's block. They've learned to overcome that fear because they have a bigger fear of missing the deadline.

The Two Places Fear Gets in the Way

Karen: What else do you think writers fear? In your work with writers, what do you hear most often?

Thomas: There are two places I see fear really getting in the way for writers. The first is in the writing itself, and it goes beyond procrastination. It actually affects the craft. There is a fear of giving offense, of making people mad. Authors writing with that fear often fill their work with so many qualifications and filler words, or they speak so indirectly that no one understands what they're saying. They end up taking all the power out of their craft because they're afraid.

Deep down, they're afraid to be understood. And if you're afraid to be understood, you'll never make it. The act of writing is all about being understood. You have to be willing to be understood. That requires courage because you will make people angry. Especially nowadays, it doesn't take much for someone to say they're offended. You have to eventually get to the point where you're not letting someone else's offense control your life.

It does take wisdom, because sometimes genuine feedback comes in through that. But being offended has become such a powerful tool of manipulation. Any element of diversity you have, any way your thinking breaks from theirs, offends them, and they're trying to control you through that. It takes courage to stand up to that.

Karen: Isn't there also an element of rejection in being afraid to be understood? If they understood me, and this is what I truly believe, they could reject that.

Thomas: Yes, especially when someone identifies their ideas as part of themselves rather than as a separate entity. Some people think of their ideas as this thing that exists out there. If it gets criticized, the response is just, okay, come up with a better idea. But for other people, the idea is me. If you insult my ideas, you're insulting me. That can be really scary.

You have to decide where your value comes from. Does it come from having good ideas, or does it come from something more substantive? Because here's the thing. You have some really bad ideas. I have some really bad ideas. We all do. If your ideas are your source of psychological validation, you're in for a really tough road. Either you'll refuse to let your ideas change as you learn, and then you're not maturing or gaining wisdom. You're staying just as stuck as you were. Or every time something is challenged, you throw everything out and start from scratch, which is also not gaining wisdom.

Karen: Rejection does force you to look at your ideas again, to reconsider them in light of someone else's argument. That's a good thing. What would you say to the writer who has trouble separating themselves from their ability to write? Someone who is afraid they just aren't good at it?

Thomas: Well, you do stink at your writing. If you have that fear, you probably do. Most people aren't very good writers, and it takes a lot of work to get good. There's a meme going around TikTok and Instagram right now. The wholesome one of 2021. It says something like, to get good at something, you must practice that thing. And then the person responds, I tried it once and I was terrible, so I'm quitting. And the message is, no, to get good at something, you must practice that thing.

You're not good at writing yet. The way to get better is through practice and training. Get a mentor, read books, do the work. It takes a long time to get good at writing. Embrace it. See it as a thing that you do rather than an identity you take on. And evaluate why you got into this in the first place.

I've noticed that a lot of people are writing because they want a legacy. They want to be somebody. Those are often the ones who struggle most with insecurity. Whereas if you're writing because you want to reach a group of people, to minister to them, you want to get as good as you possibly can so you can serve your readers as well as possible, you welcome feedback and criticism because it allows you to minister better. That mindset, am I in this for me or am I in this for others, really affects how you handle everything.

I also see it a lot with people who get into writing thinking it's a good way to make fast money, which shows an unbelievable misunderstanding of both writing and publishing. When the contracts don't come and agents say no and editors say no, they get angry based on their fear. They say, well, these people don't know what they're doing, so I'm just going to self-publish. Then they jump into self-publishing and it doesn't go anywhere either, and they get angry and discouraged and start blaming everybody else.

It comes down to motivation. Are you doing this to make money and be famous? If so, forget it. It's not going to work that way, because if that's your goal, you're not going to be willing to be vulnerable. And if you're not vulnerable, your writing will not touch anybody.

Karen: And there are easier ways to become famous than writing.

Thomas: Writing is a really hard way to become famous. It's a devastating career, one where rejection is part and parcel of the work. No surgeon stands next to another surgeon and says, I really don't think you should have done that with that particular vein. But lots of people will read your book and say they could have written it better. It's tough on your heart and your spirit.

It's kind of like being an offensive coordinator in football. Everyone thinks they can pick better plays. And going back to the surgery example, even if another surgeon gave a colleague feedback, it would be a peer doing the critique. In writing, it's not the other surgeon giving you feedback. It's the patient who doesn't know anything. And yet they're the ones giving you the feedback, and it's really easy to judge yourself based on what they say.

What to Do When You Don't Know What to Say

Thomas: What would you want to tell a writer who feels called to write but struggles with self-doubt, wondering if they have anything to say or why anyone would want to hear from them?

There are two things that cast out fear, and I want to share those in a moment. But first, if you don't know what you're going to say, you're not ready to start writing for publication. You're ready to practice your craft, but you're not really ready to start writing. You have to have a message. You have to have a story in your heart before you're ready to do that work.

It's like saying, I don't know what sport I want to do in the Olympics. Okay, you're not ready for the Olympics yet. But you are ready to start training. All Olympians run. All Olympians lift weights. You can do basic training. But the kind of writer you need to become if you're writing mysteries is very different from the kind of writer you need to be if you're writing theological breakdowns of the Book of Romans.

It's like a football team. You have the guys who are skinny and fast, and then you have the really big guys who are hard to run around. They serve different roles and they train differently depending on what that role is going to be. If you don't know what you want to say, write for practice. Write short stories. Get to know what a good sentence is, what a good paragraph is. Purge passive voice. Purge adverbs and adjectives.

Karen: Oh, bless you.

Thomas: Really learn how to write well. That's the first thing.

Two Things That Cast Out Fear

Thomas: Now, when it comes to finding your courage and casting out fear, the first way I already alluded to. One fear can cast out another fear. You're on the high dive, afraid to jump. Then someone cocks a shotgun behind you and says, jump or I'll shoot. Suddenly jumping isn't as scary anymore, because your assessment of the overall danger has shifted. That's an extreme example, but that's what deadlines mean.

In journalism, deadlines are real. There are real consequences for missing them. In book publishing, there are not always major consequences for missing a deadline. Often publishers even expect it. I've heard that 90% of authors miss their book deadlines.

Karen: I just want to stop you for a second. People shouldn't hear that as saying it's okay to miss deadlines. It's not. I want to stress that.

Thomas: Absolutely. The authors who make a living at their writing are in that 10% who hit their deadlines. When you miss your deadline, you are cutting your own pay. Say you have a $10,000 advance and your deadline is in two months. That means you're getting paid $5,000 a month to write your book. If you miss your deadline and it takes you four months instead of two, you've cut your own monthly rate from $5,000 to $2,500. Part of the reason your publisher may be fine with you missing the deadline is that it means they don't have to pay you quite as quickly.

If you really want to be a professional and provide for your family, it means hitting your deadlines. Once you get really good and really popular, there's a whole series of things that need to happen. I was talking with Jerry Jenkins, and he was describing how during the Left Behind series, they had trucks reserved to take shipments of books from the printer to the warehouse. If he missed his deadline, there were truck drivers getting paid to do nothing. There were real consequences. If you want to get to that level, you have to be faithful in the little things.

So fear is one way of casting out other fear. It's probably the most common way amongst authors, where fear of a deadline or fear of other consequences creates the momentum to write.

But in the Bible, we're given something else that can cast out fear. And you know what it is. It's love. The better that you love, the less fear you will have. If you can fall in love with your readers, if you can write your book out of love for your reader, it will make the fear go away. I don't think any of us can love perfectly without supernatural help. But the Bible tells us that perfect love casts out all fear. And then suddenly it's no longer courage. It's boldness. You're not working in the midst of fear. You're working without fear.

Loving your reader matters, but so does loving God. If you feel like God has called you to do this, do your writing as an act of worship and as an act of love.

Writing Courageously in the Age of Cancel Culture

Karen: I want to take us back to the causes of fear, because I think there is an added cause nowadays. That's the whole idea of being canceled. Without getting into politics, we are seeing in social media and in publishing houses that contracts are being canceled with authors because the books they want to write have a conservative focus. I've been hearing writers say, how can we write that now? If I write that, no publisher will ever touch me, or readers will come after me, or it'll get my name on some list. We used to think of things like that as conspiracy theories, but those kinds of things are actually happening now.

I understand the source of that fear. But Isaiah 43:1 has this to say. "But now, this is what the Lord says, he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel, do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have summoned you by name. You are mine."

So if that fear hits you when you think about writing God's truth in the crazy world we're in today, remember that God doesn't call you to back away from the hard things. He calls you to speak his truth, however he is moving you to do it. Don't pull away from that. Don't let fear stop you from serving God and writing something that can change people's lives and help them face their own fears. Remember, he has summoned you by name and you belong to him.

Thomas: That's really good. And remembering that our love for God can cast out fear, but also our fear of God can cast out fear.

Erin: Amen.

Thomas: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and it is a consuming fire.

Erin: I agree with you, Thomas. I think sometimes we have a God that's just a little too friendly in our minds, and we've forgotten that he's holy and righteous and that he holds the whole world in his hand, the whole universe. Sometimes we forget to reverence that.

Closing Encouragement

Karen: Deuteronomy 31:6 is a great scripture to close out this segment. It's about remembering where your fear belongs. It's what God said to those building the temple. "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them." Whatever that "them" is for you in your life, do not be afraid or terrified of them. "For the Lord your God goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you."

He hasn't put you on a path to write only to say, oh, you're afraid? Okay, never mind, I'll find someone else, I didn't realize how scary this would be for you. God knows every aspect of what's happening in your life, in your career, in your writing. He knows every aspect of what's happening in your heart and your spirit. And he tells you, be strong and courageous in him. Fear him with wisdom, but do not be afraid or terrified because of them. For the Lord your God goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you.

Friends, you can write. You can do anything that God asks you to do because he is right there with you, breathing his courage into you. You can rest in that.

Thomas: Amen.