Writing for the Soul Conference, III

Prospects

I did have some edifying appointments there. I met with an educational publishing company that specializes in church resources. She was very encouraging.

I met with a magazine publisher who tore apart my article but I learned a lot from the process and will submit the article to CBN who was sitting right next to the one who tore it apart.

The best is that I met an editor at Saturday dinner who is interested in seeing more of The Bowery Jumpers. That is exciting. I didn't think I was going to be able to pitch that idea and did.

I hope to make something happen with all that.

Take Away Value

I was encouraged. I am a writer I know that and I feel that I do have the go ahead to pursue this in the States with an view to returning to Japan in the future. I can still go on learning the language and such and I will serve at Crossroad as best I can in the meantime.

Writing for the Soul Conference, II

The Conference

The conference kicked off Thursday evening. I got my apprentice name tag and then joined a few people for drinks at a tavern who are involved in The Christian Writer's Forum. That was OK. I met Julie Marx there. She was nice. I also met another guy there named Eugene. He was kind of boring.

Overall, I really felt that I knew many of these people already. I was concerned that I would come away from the conference conflicted about my call to Japan and my call to be a writer. I was the first day or so. I remember arguing with God about it and thinking that I would just go my own way and use self-determination to succeed. God corrected that notion. He is the one who decides not me. So, I got more conflicted about it. I didn't want to be inspired to write because that would all be a long way off after I got to know the language better in Japan.

God wasn't finished speaking with me. I did get excited about the classes. I was being challenged to be a better writer--in English. And Saturday night it hit me as one of the Keynote speakers was up there. Liz talked about how when she became a Christian she felt that she was supposed to be a missionary but then she found out that wasn't her calling. She wasn't allowed to go to Indonesia. She became a writer instead and twenty years later her books were being translated into the native languages of Indonesia and she was called upon to go there and see it happen. I cried when she said this.

Also, I had the opportunity to talk with Jack Lewis over Skype about the matter and he concurred with an earlier POV that it takes time to answer a call to ministry. It isn't overnight. Even the disciples took three years of intense training before they went out on their own. Paul took fourteen years before he was a major player in church doctrine.

The more I thought about it the more it made sense to me. This thing with Japan is going to take some time. It isn't going to be overnight. I started thinking about my wife's insecurities. They are well founded. It's not that she doesn't believe that everything isn't going to work out. There are some big things here. Now, she is the primary breadwinner. I need to step into that role in America before I can step into it in Japan. That is going to take some time. It is not as simple as just swinging over. My wife needs to feel secure and I need to provide that for her. That is a need that I need to meet.

I will meet that need as a writer. I will get my self established and start pulling down an income from it.

Writing for the Soul Conference

The Flight

That was mostly uneventful. I was delayed coming out of Kansai a few hours. Lightening had struck the airplane a before it landed and it took them a few hours to do all the necessary maintenance checks to make sure everything was working properly. I was concerned that it would mess up my connections but it didn't because I originally had a three hour layover in San Francisco.

I sat next to a fellow gaijin. We didn't talk much on the way. We both tried to get a fair amount of sleep. He was friendly though. He and his wife are doing the same thing that Brenda and I are doing. He is teaching English part time and his wife is teaching full time. They don't have kids and his Japanese is horrible.

On the jump from SFO to COS I sat by a fellow conferee, Gretchen Ricker. She is also the administrator for The Christian Writer's Forum. What a coincidence. I pegged her by the Grammar for Dummies book on her lap. I asked her why she was going to Colorado Springs and we chatted happily for the next few hours.

It was snowing when I arrived in Colorado Springs. Everything was in order though. My car was ready for me. I found my way to the Inn after a stop at a Carls Junior. It got dark and I skidded in the snow a few times.

As bed and breakfasts go this one struck me as unusual. The innkeepers don't stay on the premises and neither are the owners the innkeepers. There was an envelope taped to the door with my key in it. It was kind of impersonal. My room was nice but very cold. It was equipped with all the niceties of a hotel room though. There was a phone, Cable TV, VCR and wireless Internet. I thought that was odd for a B&B. It was convenient for me so I won't complain too loudly. This was my room.