Presidency Message

Well, Sisters—

Please indulge me while I probe into your writer's heart to see where you are going. Hope you don't mind the intrusion into your various reveries.

I am wondering how many of us implemented ANWA ANTI-PROCRASTINATION DAY. Every Wednesday make an appointment with yourself to sit down at the computer and just start working on a writing project that you have been putting off. Has it helped you? Well, ya know, it's NOT going to help you if you don't do it!

I want to encourage you once more to make this a part of your writing routine.... Oh, you DON'T have a routine? Well, that explains it!! To be truthful, neither do I. But I'm working on it!

You know what they say: "If you don't plan to get anywhere, you'll soon arrive nowhere." Or something like that. I just wish you each the very best of whatever it is you want from your writing talents. Some like to journal—more power to you!! Others love to correspond, and in this lightning-fast day of email, that has become a very fun way to stay in touch with loved ones. Many of us write because we can't NOT write...we have itchy fingers to get certain things down on paper and others of us actually feel "called" to write. Some of us have thoughts, stories, and verses parading through our minds that won't leave us alone until they finally find a home on a sheet of paper, or a computer file, as the case may be.

Whatever the drive is to write is individual and the words we record are there for posterity. This is a wonderful legacy, in and of itself. But I have to wonder if we have conferred with the Lord to find out WHAT He wants us to do with these talents? Is tthere someone that only you can reach with your words, some remarkable story to be told, some lesson to be learned from what you have to share, a heart to be touched? Can this happen if we just fill up files with our writing and never offer them to the rest of the world?

I am so thrilled to see so many of our members being published. And getting published is NOT a requirement of enjoying the ANWA sisterhood. But, IF it is something that you DO desire, then I have to ask, WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT IT? Daydreaming? there, that's the one I'm particularly good at. I've written and published numerous books IN MY HEAD. I have so many ideas that they have to take a number, but I find that at the end of the day, week, month or year, I am no closer to publishing them. How about you?

May I suggest that we each invest some time in thought and prayer as to WHAT the Lord would have us write and where it needs to go. Maybe we can each figure out a reasonable time frame for ourselves as to when a particular story, article or book might be finished and then...hold on to your hats, ladies...then...SUBMIT it to a potential publisher, and if we get a cute little rejection slip, submit it again.

Richard Paul Evans couldn't find anyone to publish his book, The Christmas Box, so he kept on trying and eventually self-published it. He has since sold over 10 MILLION copies of his books worldwide. A reporter once asked Evans what he hoped his readers took from his books. He replied, "I hope they take what they need."

I think we all wish that, to be able to offer to others just what they need. Sisters, if you wish to be published, then set a goal: it is the beginning of a new school year, there are four months left to 2002. What can you get finished and submitted and when will you do it? Come on, dust off those dreams and become published, either for the very first time or again and again.