Betsy St. Amant | Taking Risks

Writers love words—and some of my personal favorites are combined into the following quote by Jonathan Franzen.

"Fiction that isn't an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn't worth writing for anything but money."

This is one of the truest things about writing. When an author plays it safe and cranks out a formulaic or cliché idea, just to guarantee that next book deal and pay the bills, their story suffers for it—and therefore, their readers suffer for it. The author didn’t grow during the process of writing the book, and as a result, the reader didn’t grow either.

A reader will only reap out of a story what an author sows into it. If the author hasn’t laughed or cried during the writing, the reader will not laugh or cry during the reading. If the author isn’t emotionally spent and wrung out by the time he or she types The End, the reader won’t be moved by the time he or she finally reads The End.

Oh, I get the temptation to cut corners, trust me. As a single mom, I more than understand needing groceries on the table and electricity to power up that computer!

But there’s something so much more powerful when an author takes a risk. When an author writes the story of their heart, when they put aside their fears of failure, fears of vulnerability, and fears of rejection, and writes from their very soul.

Every author has that story inside them, ready to come out, and when that story gets matched with the right publisher, at the right time, and falls into the hands of the right reader—it’s truly beautiful.

Those are the books that change lives. Those are the books that inspire and encourage and breathe life.

That’s what I’ve started doing, as an author. Writing from my heart, from my soul, from the depths of my hot pink painted toes. Putting my pain on the page, snippets of my life on the page, glimpses of my brokenness and healing—because to do anything less would be an insult to you, Dear Reader, and an insult to the talent God has entrusted to me.

My September 2014 release ALL'S FAIR IN LOVE AND CUPCAKES is one such story, as is it’s sequel I am currently writing, LOVE ARRIVES IN PIECES. Stories of characters broken and restored, of love discovered, lost and redeemed, of shattered dreams and sacrifice and healing. Those are the themes of my heart—because those are the themes of my story.

Another favorite quote of mine by Sir Isaac Asimov sums it all up quite nicely.

Why do you write? Well…

“I write for the same reason I breathe. Because if I didn’t, I would die.”