I’m going to borrow something from an author I’ve just read. In his book ‘Five More Minutes’, Geoff Woodcock gives the analogy of a clock. A clock has a purpose. One purpose. To tell the time. This is what it is created to do. Some tick, some don’t. Ticking doesn’t matter. Telling the time does. And it’s the specifically created well-crafted mechanics that allow it to do so.
As of today, 852 people are following my Instagram page. These are small cookies in the world of writing and platforms – or anything on social media. But to me, this is . . . well huge. You wanna know why? I have done very little to grow it. I’m not even sure why it has.
When I began in business oh a hundred years ago, I was told to ‘begin the way I meant to continue’. I did and it grew well. But I haven’t applied that same principle with social media. I’ve just been ‘ticking along’.
See, I started on Instagram well before I began writing, then changed the page name to my publishing nom de plume. Ideally, you’d think I would have followed through with that. I’m sure that was my intention. You know what they say about ‘good intentions’ though right?
But even though I have published a Historical Christian Fiction novel of intrigue and romance, which got pretty good reviews, and though I’m writing the next in the series, I feel like a bit of a beginner. I could definitely toss the word fraud in there. I’m not alone. It is apparently a very common feeling amongst newbie writers.
So how do you get on a platform of any kind and talk about things, even semi-confidently, if you feel that way? Maybe some can, but not me. I have never been able to self-promote.
And I don’t even want to. Everything that is good about me – including writing – is Jesus.
Here’s the thing.
If I were asked to stand on a stage to tell you about what I’m an expert in, it wouldn’t be writing. In fact, it probably wouldn’t even come to mind.
I would talk about how I know what it’s like to grow up feeling like I don’t fit in. Nope not my gender, but in family.
I would tell you about what it’s like to betray the one to whom you have given your marriage vows.
I would tell you about what infidelity does to a person—a marriage.
I would tell you about the time it takes to rebuild the trust that makes a marriage even when you have been forgiven.
But most of all I would tell you about the love and mercy of a phenomenal God Who loved me so much He allowed me to hit rock bottom and then saved me from myself while I was travelling at 160km per hour secretly hoping I would hit a tree.
I would tell you about His love that took two broken and hurting people and lovingly steered us to a life with Him, where we no longer do a single day on earth alone.
I would tell you just how astonishing that love is – through all our good and bad – and how it never changes. And how we keep growing and daily being changed by that love in all our life experiences – good, bad and ugly.
Yip, that’s what I would tell you about.
So, I’m not going to waste any more time focusing on ‘ticking’, or what is irrelevant. I’m gonna tell you My Time. And that means letting you in on my created, well-crafted mechanics – my life experiences. That’s what I’m an expert in. It’s these very experiences I want to give the characters in my books.
I might lose a significant number of followers, and that’s okay. Maybe you didn’t want to get to know me. But maybe – just maybe – you are here because you didn’t even know this is what you also want to hear.
Why don’t we find out?
PD Dawn xx
Beginner, Expert, Infidelity, Marriage, Purpose