I’m trying a new thing this week. This month? This year? This isn’t my first attempt at setting habits like this, but this time my mindset feels a bit different. I’ve scheduled days on my calendar for going to the gym and then to the coffee shop to write. Exercise is important to me, mostly as disease management. My MS is better managed when I am exercising on a regular basis. It’s also better managed when I’m eating well, but I’d rather not talk about that today.

Writing is also very important to me, and I’m really trying to write a book length memoir. If you are tired of hearing about it, imagine how tired I am of saying it. Of thinking about it. Of thinking about it and talking about it and not seeing any progress toward the finish line. It feels like I’m running a marathon (26.2 miles) on a 400 meter oval running track.

However, I had a really awesome thing happen to me last week while on the ride home from a weekend trip to Tennesee. While I was on this glamping trip with my sister and niece and nephew to visit our mom, I had listened to a podcast about writing memoir (my favorite pastime). This podcast was memorable because the woman being interviewed was stressing the importance of two things when writing a memoir. 1) Get a therapist. Check! And 2) Work with a book coach. I listened to that podcast again and took notes, then resolved to look into getting a book coach once I got home to Michigan.

I’m not kidding you, on the ride home from Tennessee, a memoir coach I had had a brief interaction with a couple weeks prior reached out and offered me a scholarship to her masterclass. I’ve looked into online writing classes over the last year or so and they are quite expensive, and it’s hard to know if they are worth it. It’s hard to justify spending thousands of dollars for help writing a book you don’t plan on making any money from. My aim at writing a memoir is strictly because I feel called to. This is something God has put on my heart and won’t let me give it up (believe me, I’ve tried).

I was hesitant to take the offer, but the price was actually low enough (super discounted) to be realistic given our current finances. I was tempted; she was offering me a deal I couldn’t refuse. I was reminded that only a week or two before this invitation came, I had asked the women in my BSF class to pray for me as I wrestled with writing this book. After that prayer request went out, I started hearing from the Lord. Whispers to my heart as I read Scripture, “random” conversations affirming this desire to write a memoir. None of these things on their own are out of the ordinary, but the timing of all of it seemed quite unusual and I strongly believe this was God answering my prayers for wisdom and guidance.

And then that memoir masterclass. I started looking into the coach. She has taught writing for over 30 years. She’s not one of those people who just hopped on the internet bandwagon when memoirs started blowing up. This was already in her wheelhouse, and she has adapted to her surroundings by offering her classes online (she lives in Alaska). Also, she is a believer. Not just a Christian in name. She truly lives out her faith. I’m reading one of her books and I’ve read what people have said about her over the years. She’s the real deal. As a believer myself, I’m still often very skeptical of other believers. I know how easy it is to say you have faith and that Jesus is your Lord. It’s much harder to live it out day after day after day. I often feel like an outsider in a lot of these writing spaces I’m in, so to be offered a scholarship to a class led by a woman who shares my faith felt a lot like coming home.

I’m almost two weeks into the class and I’m learning so much. I don’t know where it’s going to go, but I’m trusting the process, and trusting the God who led me here. If He led me here, it must be what I needed.

So. That’s not at all what I came here to say. I had a different train of thought about not letting yourself down. Doing things I’ve set out to do even though I’m tired or fatigued. And those are still valid thoughts to discuss or write about, but I guess today wasn’t the day. You got all that exciting stuff about my new memoir writing class! You are welcome. I hope you are having a wonderful day. Shalom.