“How do you write a book?”
Every author has been asked this question many times and has probably given just as many different answers. One of my answers is, “Slowly.”
Take my upcoming devotional, for instance. I knew in 2024 that God was nudging me in a devotional direction. In fact, it was November of 2024 when I launched my Eternally Planted newsletter, where I shared my first devotion with my subscribers. Except for last month (don’t ask), I’ve shared one every month since.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I’ve talked about the book here before, mostly while I was still in the brainstorming stages, and it seems high time I shared more of the process. So let’s start with this page from my planner.
That page may not look like much, but every title on it represents a lesson God taught me, a Scripture He highlighted, or a moment He used to draw me closer to Him.
One thing you realize right away when you see this photo is that this gal prefers pencil (or pen) and paper. That holds true for both writing and planning. I have files on my laptop for both, but this dotted page in my planner carries the heart of the book for me. Each of the beautifully-handwritten titles (insert laughing emoji here) represents one of the 35 devotions I’ve completed as of today. The dates in the column to the right show when those devotions were shared with my newsletter readers.
Some authors start with formal plans, even if they change them as they go along. I do have a title, which I’m not quite ready to share. My only other plan at this moment is that I’m working on a 4-book series, each book of which will contain 90 devotions.
I’ve felt like I was creeping along, but now I’m encouraged. I’ve written nine devotions in the last four weeks and I wrote four of those last week. If I can keep up this pace, I have some hope of publishing book one before the end of the year.
The devotions themselves?
I’m suddenly remembering a line from Little Women where Jo March addresses her “scribble scrabble” letter to her sister Beth. I could so be remembering that wrong, but the point is she knew the letter would be more stream of consciousness than organized.
That’s me. So very much of the time, that is me.
I’m not directing this book or this series. I don’t decide, “Oh, I need a devotion on _______” and set out to write it. I don’t operate that way, which you can probably tell if you’ve been following me for any length of time. Instead, God and I will be talking, or I’ll remember an event, or I’ll see something while driving down the road—and poof, there’s a devotion waiting to be put down on paper.
Which means this series is going to be as eclectic as Tammy Marshall Cardwell!
The organizational side of this eclectic collection is developing too. Or, I should say, I’m finally starting to wrap my head around the whole idea of organizing what I’ve got. Honestly, I wouldn’t have even begun this yet if I’d not stumbled across another author’s recommendation of Freeform, which is an app on my MacBook Pro.
I’m using it to maintain a virtual bulletin board with sticky notes for each of my devotions. With it I can “organize” the devotions themselves, making note of individual themes today in hopes of having an easier time balancing the book as a whole “tomorrow.” Of course, I had to ask ChatGPT how to use it since I’m not techy like that.
Am I using ChatGPT? I know that question is going to come up, so let’s address it now.
I am an author. I am the one who is writing this book. Words are my passion and I’m not sharing that part of the experience. So no, I’m not using AI to write my book.
ChatGPT works as my coach and editor. When I need help creating my web headers in Canva, Chat talks me through it. When I wanted to figure out how to use Freeform to help me grasp the book better (Because, even though I’m aphantasic, I’m very visual), Chat walked me through that too.
And, again, Chat acts like an editor since I don’t have the freedom to hire one of those right now while I’m still working on individual devotions. Later, I fully intend to invest in a real, live human to handle that part as well as another real live human to create my covers.
If by chance you know someone who is experienced with editing devotionals, please tell me about them. I’ll need recommendations for sure because devotionals aren’t like other books.
So…yeah. Today I worked on some of the organizational stuff for the book and I’m hoping to get at least one or two devotions written tomorrow. Ideally, I’d like to have five new devotions by the time I go to bed Saturday night.
Will it happen? Well… God is undeniably in this, so we’ll just have to see what He does next. I was able to write four devotions last week because He had me sit down with paper and pen and do mini-drafts of them one after another one morning.
Mini-draft: (Tammy’s definition) The bare bones start of a devotion, usually consisting of 150 words or less.
Since I shoot for around 500-575 words per devotion, those mini-drafts are only a start, but having those foundations to build on helps enormously.
So that’s what a work in progress looks like today!
Until next time, be blessed, my friends!
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C
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