In this episode, you’ll also hear:
- How God got Anita’s attention when it was time to share her story
- Anita’s journey through tragedy, and how writing her book served her first – and also helps encourage others around her
- The power of working with a book coach
- Anita’s advice for the aspiring author who hesitates out of fear of judgment or resentment from others
A Book Born from Tragedy
Many aspiring authors have had a dream of writing a book from the time they were young children. But for Anita Morris, becoming an author wasn’t something she dreamed about or aspired to –- it was something that happened as a result of a tragic experience in her life.
Six months after Anita’s husband retired from his career as a firefighter, he was diagnosed with brain cancer. Eight months after that diagnosis, he passed away. “That was the most devastating thing I’ve ever experienced,” Anita says, “and I didn’t know how I was going to move forward with my life.”
That’s when Anita was reminded of four words that had come to her while caring for her husband:
- Stand: Anita thought she knew how to be strong, but now it was time to stand in her faith and use the lessons she’d learned from previous trials to carry her through the grieving process.
- Trust: Anita also needed to remember the sovereignty of God and to trust that what He allows, He allows for a purpose.
- Endure: It’s one thing to endure, but now Anita had to learn to endure with grace and be present in the process of grief – not run away, fight against, or suppress it.
- Proceed: Finally, it was time for Anita to continue along the path God had ordained for her and enter into His purpose for this new season of her life.
Throughout the entire journey of caring for her husband through his cancer and then dealing with his death, Anita had shared her story with her online communities so they could pray with her. To her surprise, many people urged her to write a book about the experience, because her words had helped them deal with trials in their own lives.
“That was the beginning of the promptings on my heart to write a book,” she says. “I heard them, but I kind of brushed it off.”
But God has ways of getting our attention. While browsing the internet, Anita kept seeing little nudges – a YouTube video about self-publishing that the algorithm just happened to recommend, for example, and a podcast interview she listened to that featured a book coach. “I was like, that is way too strange to be a coincidence,” she says. So she took the hint and signed up for a writer’s conference with that book coach – and the rest, as they say, is history.
Writing Challenges
After setting out on her author journey, Anita had to overcome some challenges to ensure she was putting out the best possible book.
First, she had to learn not to limit herself by constantly editing while writing. Her writing coach challenged her to write an entire book in 30 days, without editing a single word. Although Anita admits it was difficult to resist the temptation to edit, she sees now that getting all the words on paper first and editing afterwards helped her finish much faster and kept her from getting stuck along the way.
Another challenge Anita faced had to do with the content of her book itself. She knew God wanted her to share a very difficult, painful story about discovering her husband’s affair and how they ultimately reconciled, but she was afraid of how others would respond when they read it. Though Anita says she argued with God over whether to include the story in her book, she finally did – and once it was out, she felt a surge of relief.
“I don't even think about that anymore – what people are going to think,” she says now. “I have so much freedom, because I told my own story on my own ter
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