How was your weekend? Mine was inspiring if busy.
Along with Rick Hamlin and Amy Wong, I was in Portland, Oregon, conducting one of our refresher workshops for graduates of our Writers Workshop program. The big workshop is held every other year in Rye, New York.
We choose 15 aspiring inspirational writers from thousands of entrants and teach them everything we know about writing inspirational stories. They then become part of what I call Guideposts workshop nation. There are scores of trained and talented workshoppers all over the country keeping their eyes and ears out for compelling and uplifting personal stories of hope, faith and inspiration.
Where do our stories come from? I am often asked. Well, a lot of them come from our incredibly dedicated workshoppers. So periodically we hold mini-workshops where each writer brings a story she is working on and we spend a day or so going over them and asking questions like, How does the narrator of the story change? What is the spiritual turnaround and takeaway? Where is the help for the reader?
I love talking about stories. Stories, especially inspirational stories, are how we reveal and define ourselves. Our stories are a record of our spiritual growth. They are the very essence of who we are, the legacy of our journey in life. So spending a weekend talking about stories and how to write them is exhilarating. I get so much energy from our workshoppers. They are an incredible group of people and I want you to know how much they contribute to the vitality of the magazines you love.
It wasn’t all work, though. I flew out to Portland early on Friday so I would have time for a long hike in the mountains above the Columbia River valley. I took a six-mile route through the woods that brought me past 10 waterfalls. It was an amazingly beautiful day. And I have to confess it is the reason I didn’t get my blog written until this morning. Sorry about that. But hey…
Some of you are probably wondering when the next Guideposts Writers Workshop contest is. We’ll be asking for entries in a little less than a year from now for the 2012 workshop in Rye. Watch for the announcement in Guideposts and Angels on Earth magazines. It’s not too early to start thinking about what your inspirational story is. As I’ve said so many times, everybody has a Guideposts story. What’s yours?
