Why I Stopped Writing, and Why I’ve Started Back

I stayed away from writing for over a year.

Literally, I didn’t write a single word.

It wasn’t just that I started teaching and found myself with less writing time (which partly contributed); instead, I was burned out.

You see, when I signed a book deal with Penguin a couple years ago, I felt I had a lot to say. And I was hungry to say it.

However, as I began writing my book, and the more I studied the faith-based essay genre and the writers who had inspired me along the way, I found a strange thing happening: it slowly became less and less about my feelings on God and more and more about what I had to say about Him.

Which is not only childish, but also, downright evil.

I came to a place about eighteen months ago where writing became absolute drudgery for me. Part of this, I think, was because I had grown to see myself as a “Christian writer” as opposed to a “writer.” Which was a lot of pressure, to be honest. Because the truth of the matter is, at 29, I only had so much to say about God.

And I felt I’d already said most of it.

I can see why some writers go crazy; it’s because it’s a very alienating job.

And by that, I simply mean a writer spends most of his day alone. And when things aren’t flowing properly, or he isn’t producing quality material, he only has himself to blame. Then he starts thinking he’s stupid. And, more crippling, that he’s unworthy of being a writer.

The worst part is, the further a writer plunges into self-defeatist thoughts, the more he begins envying and begrudging successful writers.

This is awful of any writer, but again, it’s downright evil for a “Christian writer.”

Because by definition a Christian writer, if he is indeed doing his job for the right reason, should genuinely hope for the success of all Christian books. I mean, isn’t the purpose of Christianity to spread the teachings and good news of Christ?

Over the last year, as my book made its way into the world, I became something of a monster. I fretted sales so much that I was scarcely able to enjoy the emails I received from readers because I felt, for the book to be successful, I needed those emails to come far more frequently.

For instance: I remember getting an email from a woman in Alaska, one of the nicest emails I’ve ever received about the book, and before I even closed her message I was already wondering whether she was the only person in Alaska who had bought my book. And would she tell her friends, I wondered? Oh, please tell your friends, I thought, I need those sales.

Then, as always, I began wondering how many emails writers like Don Miller and Anne Lamott receive each day, and how many more of their books sold that day than mine.

It’s evil. E.V.I.L.

The whole thing speaks of that passage in C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce where he writes:

“Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to the love of telling until, down in deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him… They sink lower—become interested in their own personalities and then in nothing but their own reputations.”

Last year I began to feel that Lewis was here speaking of me.

And now that I have begun blogging again, and because my writing—and consequently this blog— often takes a Christian/spiritual direction, my greatest fear is that I will reach this point again.

Therefore, I want to say up front that, though this will be a decidedly Christian/spiritual blog, I plan to write about whatever happens to be interesting me or on my mind at the given moment.

So don’t be surprised if one minute I am writing about the Kardashians and the next I am contemplating the existential merit of Dostoevsky’s minor novels.

For instance, tomorrow’s blog—which is all set to go—is on Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, which will be followed by one on Tuesday that is the third installment of last week’s two-part look at music and joy and transporting into the past.

In other words, I’m all over the place.

The bottom line is I am delighted to be writing again, and especially to be writing again simply because I enjoy writing. It’s been a long time since I could say that. The goal is to post every day this year, and I hope the schizophrenic nature of the blog won’t deter you from coming.

Over the coming months the blog will undergo some changes as it is going to be revamped, receive a facelift, and become even more user friendly.

Until then, though, I am very grateful to all of you who have been regularly checking this blog over the past week, and I hope you will continue checking back and interacting with me as the blog moves forward!