Author Leslie Green is in THE HAVEN!

V HELENA chats with AUTHOR LESLIE GREEN to discuss her new book, GOD DOESN’T MAKE MISTAKES: LEARNING HOW OUR MISSTEPS FIT INTO HIS PERFECT PLAN. This inspiring work centers on the importance of staying on course while walking in purpose.

Episode Transcript

(00:54):
Hello, James Captains, and welcometo another exciting day in the Writers Haven.
I am your host, and Iam here today excited to be back
in studio and share some great insightson the art of writing and to chat
with very very talented guests who arehere to inspire and enlighten you on your

(01:15):
writer's journey. But today in's studiois author Leslie Green. She has just
released her new book, God Doesn'tMake Mistakes. Let me grab it for
you, learning how our missteps fitinto His perfect plan. And like most
books that center around inspiring us tostay on course as we walk in purpose,

(01:36):
I'm particularly intrigued with how Leslie wentabout the journey of writing this book.
So without further ado, please joinme in welcoming author Leslie Green to
the Hayn. Hello Leslie, thankyou. I'm glad to be here.
You know what, it is sucha thrill to have you here because I
am also a writer of purpose driventype literature, and so I get excited

(02:00):
whenever I pick up a book thattalks about that. So thank you very
much for joining us and telling usabout our Wrifela's journey. Now you have
You're multifaceted. You know, you'reyou're a singer, you're a songwriter,
you own your own business, You'reyou're a p u PR publicist, publicists

(02:21):
working in public relations. How didall of that culminate into your writing journey?
Wow? Well, I think,of course, like any person,
everything that you do contributes to yourstory. And uh, like most people,
I I picked a career when Iwas in college and I decided that,

(02:43):
or rather grad school really was whenI picked my career. And I
knew always that, ah, thatI wanted to write in some way,
and so that was one of thereasons why I decided to go into public
relations, because it does involve alot of writing. And I also found
that I I love to speak aswell, and so taking that journey and
marrying that with my passion of musicand like you said, singing and songwriting

(03:06):
as I was growing up, itjust made sense for me to naturally flow
into becoming an author. I knewthat someday I was going to write a
book. I had no idea whatI was going to write about, and
I didn't know how much of mystory, my own personal story, was
going to be in that book.But that's just how God works, right,
right, Now we talked about thisin the green room, about how

(03:28):
you classify the book as being inspirational, and I would even venture to say
that it's also not necessarily a howto, but it does give a lot
of insight about how to deal withcertain situations. You pourt a lot of
yourself into that book. I didyou know, how was that? What

(03:50):
was that in terms of just beingyour first book in this genre? How
easy or difficult was that for youto do? I would say it was
fairly easy because my starting point wasmy journal entries, and when I first
had the idea of God Doesn't makeMistakes, it was actually going to be
a novel. And as I wentthrough this season of my life I called

(04:13):
the transformational season of my life,I realized that the story I needed to
tell was my own, and soI used these journal entries that or what
I call a review process, ajournal review process where I went back through
seven eight years to see how Ilanded in this place that I found myself.
And as I was going back throughthose journal entries, I saw all
of these insights and revelations that Ifelt other people could relate to. And

(04:38):
so using those journal entries as ajumping off point for the different struggles that
I was having in my life andthe different topics that I felt like other
people could relate to. That wasan easy process because it was a natural
transition from going through my journal entriesand then talking about where I was.

(05:00):
Now that that hindsight information was reallypowerful, and I felt like it was
It was almost like, you know, my drone entries was like a muse
that I was working from. Ilove the way you designed that with dates
and then putting or attaching i'll callthem themes. Attaching themes with dates.

(05:26):
I thought that that was just very, very creative to do, and you
just answered the question I was goingto ask about how you did that.
But in terms of putting the booktogether and the flow of the book,
how did you take those dates andthose experiences and put them in some kind

(05:47):
of order, so to speak,to design the book right? Well,
when I was writing it, andof course at the time, I never
knew that I was going to besharing it with the whole world, you
know, and publishing it. Butwhen I went back through that journal review
process, I realized that in eachjournal entry I was talking about a different

(06:08):
theme that was challenging for me atthat time. So whether it was just
simply waiting on something to happen,I felt like I was. This season
for me was just a whole periodof waiting, and so that's how I
came up with the chapter The Weight. And then there was a journal entry
that focused a lot on just beingfrustrated around the fact that I could not

(06:32):
come up with my purpose, myassignment, why I was here on this
earth, which I know a lotof people struggle with, and just in
dealing with singleness. There was ajournal entry that focused specifically on my frustration
with the dating scene. And sothat's essentially how I framed each journal entry
and how I chose each journal entrywas based upon what I felt was the

(06:58):
most relatable thing that I could putinside of this book that somebody could get
real transformation from. Yeah, yeah, I want to highlight Actually a part
of a journal entry, it's theDecember third, twenty fifteen, spiritual Warfare.
I think all of them are relatable, but this one really touched me.

(07:19):
It says I believe I am inthe midst of spiritual warfare. I
find it hard to get up inthe mornings. I literally have to fight
discouragement with what sometimes feels like lyingto myself. I'm starting to believe that
every time it looks like I havetwo I take two steps forward, I
go three steps back. Not justin one area, but in several areas

(07:41):
of my life. I have thoughtsthat I shouldn't be having, like am
I really good enough to get thethings I desire? These are not my
thoughts, and they certainly aren't God'sthoughts. So I've come to the conclusion
that they belong to the enemy,and it's got to stop. That is
something that I know would resonate witha lot of people, you know,

(08:01):
being in that place, yes,where you're discouraged and you know, just
trying to figure that out. Whenyou were writing this, did you have
a target audience in mind? Idid, and I didn't. So I
believe that this book anybody can certainlyrelate to the different topics that I talk

(08:24):
about in the book. But onceI had a chance to look at it
as a whole body of work,I realized that the people who really needed
to hear this most were people whowere in my same I guess phase of
life. If you will, likethat that middle struggle season between thirty and

(08:46):
forty, where you understand now whatadulting is like. You really don't fully
get the understanding of adulting, Ithink until you get into your thirties and
you've been there. Fully, forsome people it's different because they may have
a family where during this period oftime I did not. But to a
certain degree, I think that manyof us who are in our thirties are

(09:11):
really struggling with purpose are struggling withyou. For many, particularly black women,
they're struggling with the fact that theymay be at this age and they
have not gotten the family yet.And you know, I talk to women
about that pretty much every day,and I realize that that's essentially who I

(09:31):
was targeting, people who were goingthrough what I was going through when I
was going through it. So nowthat I'm nearly forty, I look back
on that scenario and I say tomyself, well, I know I'm not
the only person who was going throughthis. I know this is for somebody
like me who's dealing with the samethings. So that's essentially how I came

(09:54):
up with that target audience. Sohow long did it take? Of course,
the journal entries came first, butat what point did you decide,
you know what, I'm going totake those experiences and I'm going to put
them into a book. And howlong did that process take? Well,
it was interesting because I when Ioriginally had the idea for the book,

(10:15):
like I said, it was anovel, and then I went through that
season in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen, that's when I had the idea.
Okay, now that I've gone throughthese journal entries and I know now that
God doesn't make mistakes, it's aboutthose journal entries. I started furiously writing.
And then it was also during theseason where I was trying to establish
myself as a businesswoman, as anentrepreneur, and I, you know,

(10:41):
just transparently, I was struggling inthat space, and so I stopped that
project and started working on my firstbook, which was teaching me PR one
on one that was the business bookfor entrepreneurs. And that period of time,
it was like a year maybe inbetween actually making the decision and starting

(11:01):
the writing from the journal entries andthen picking it back up again. But
once I picked it back up again, I think I had written like maybe
three chapters. It took me allof maybe two months to do the actual
writing for the rest of the book. Yeah. Yeah, What were some
of the challenges that you faced inwriting and then also in publishing? Right,

(11:28):
Well, one of the challenges Ikind of chuckle at that was quite
frankly, what I was dealing within the book. M You know,
Spiritual Warfare. You know, itcame again during that writing season, and
I believe it was a little bitof testing that I that I talk about
in the book, and also alittle bit of preparation as well for whatever

(11:50):
is coming next. I realized thatwhen you are an author, you have
deadlines, and you have these goals, and you set an outline, and
then life happens like it does withanything that you do, and you have
to use what that is. Ibelieve as an author, you have to
use what it is that you're goingthrough as motivation and as fuel to finish

(12:13):
that project. And that's what Idid. It was challenging, but I
sort of took my own advice,so to speak, and realized what it
was and called out what was happeningat the time, particularly that chapter you
talked about in Spiritual Warfare, andI pushed through also had you know,
a huge accountability group of people Ididn't call them that at the time,

(12:37):
but that's what they were because theywere encouraging me by asking me, Okay,
what's happening with the book? Howmany chapters have you written? When
is it coming out? And thatfueled me, that kept me going and
motivated me to stay on track.So that was the challenge in the writing
process. In the publishing process,I really didn't have a lot of challenges
there. I was grateful to workwith a m what I call a hybrid

(13:01):
publisher where they had a lot ofthings laid out for me that I didn't
have when I went through my firstbook, and there were certain things that
they walked me through and they actuallydid for me. Uh so I could
focus on how I was gonna presentmyself and present the book once it got
published. So uh, I hada a pretty challenge well I can't say

(13:24):
completely challenge free, but it wasa pretty smooth process for me as far
as publishing is concerned. Uh S. The first book was that self published
that was self published through Amazon anduh at the time, I don't know
what it's called now. I thinkit has somethings with the initials KDI,
but at the time it's called createSpace, and I went directly through them.

(13:45):
I did have someone who had gonethrough it before who was giving me
advice on what to do. Uh, but I didn't have someone who was
managing the whole process like I didwith with the second book, w having
gone through Amazons Platform for publishing,would you recommend that to new authors?
Yes and no. I would fromthe standpoint that it gives you. It

(14:13):
does really give you a sense ofaccomplishment that you have done this whole publishing
process on your own, so tospeak. I would recommend that you have
someone walking you through it who's doneit before, because there are a lot
of things that you can miss.And the whole getting the ISBN number,
I mean, something that seems sosimple that would that trip me up a

(14:35):
bit in that process. And Ialso felt like doing the book in that
way, I wasn't necessarily earning asmuch money as I could have. Where
now, when I sell the bookon my own, or you know,
when I'm in an environment at atrade show or you know a certain event

(14:58):
that I've purchased these books from theprinter directly and now I can just sell
it outright, So you know,I think they're pros and cons to each
side of the publishing process. Ido believe that there are opportunities for people
doing the public doing the publishing processthat way. And you know, like

(15:20):
I said before, it gives youa sense of accomplishment. So and that's
what I got. Okay, Sowhat do you hope the reader will get
out of reading your book? Whatis the main message that you want them
to hear and to get? SoI want them to really understand. And

(15:43):
this was the whole reason for menaming the book God Doesn't Make Mistakes,
is that I want them to trulyunderstand that God has already written this story
out and He already knows what's goingto happen from beginning to end. And
I think a lot of times,as human beings who make mistakes, we

(16:06):
believe that something that we've done inour past can somehow take us off track
from what God has for us,like it's a surprise to him when we
make these mistakes, and it's reallynot. He's factored all of these mistakes,
missteps, whatever you want to callthem, into this plan already.
He knows what you're going to say, He knows what you're going to do,

(16:29):
and so it really should take someof the burden that we put on
ourselves, take some of that off, and also encourage us to draw closer
to God. I really that waswhat I believed was my purpose, and
I wrote about this in the bookthat my purpose in writing this book as

(16:51):
well was drawing people closer to Godso that they have an actual relationship with
him. Many people say that theyfollow God, and you know, they
believe the Bible, but they don'tactually live out their lives in that way,
and they don't actually believe that thereis a relationship with God like a
father daughter father son relationship, whichit is. And so I hope that

(17:15):
the revelations and the ideas that Igot in writing this book and sharing it
with other people would help them,and doing that would would take that pressure
off and also encourage them to actuallyreally know God and know why he asks
us to do the things that heasks us us to do, and to

(17:36):
be obedient to that. So,okay, so I, if my memory
serves me, the chronology of thejournal entries are, it's in order.
So when you were putting the booktogether and you had your theme, so

(17:59):
to speak, because you had yourjournal entry and you were writing to that.
Talk to me about that process andhow it just really blossomed into how
you went about finishing the book.Did you write an order in chronological order?
Did you just kind of skip arounddifferent chapters once you established them,

(18:21):
you know, you know what camefirst, just that whole process. I
would say for the most part,I stayed in chronological order by the chapters.
I think the only one that Imay have written out of order,
which wasn't even really a journal entrybased on a journal entry, was that
bonus chapter, which was sleeping atthem. I realized that I wrote it

(18:44):
before I started writing the other chaptersbecause I used some of what I wrote
there in a blog, and soit was interesting that, as I said
before, some of the things thatI was going through or writing about in
the book, I was going throughat the same time. So that Spiritual

(19:07):
Warfare chapter, I think I wrotethat one out of order as well,
because I had to go back tothat when I realized that I was going
through it again, and I said, Okay, I realized it for what
it is, and now I'm goingto just do what because for me,
when I write, that's a bitof a stress reliever for me, and
that's part of the reason why Ijourned therapy. It's like therapy absolutely,

(19:30):
So I was writing and writing itout, and I said, Okay,
this needs to be a part ofthe book as well. So these new
journal entries also became a way forme to fill in the gap, so
to speak, with the old journalentries. You know, once I gained
insight and discernment and wisdom from whatI had gone through three years prior,

(19:52):
it made sense. Yeah. Youknow, one of the reasons why I
really wanted to have you on theshow is because I know for our dream
catchers out there who are listening,who are writing nonfiction work, who are
writing inspirational work, you know,I want them to understand that there's not
a right or wrong way to approachit, that there's no cookie cutter way

(20:17):
of doing it. It's kind ofa flow that you just allow to happen,
yes, and flow through you andflow out of you. And so
the way that you're describing it isexactly what I want them to know and
hear about the process. So Ithank you. I thank you for honoring
your process and allowing it to justflow through you. Some people might get

(20:40):
discouraged by it. You know,they might want to focus on this,
but their hard and their life istelling them that they need to go over
there and just to be flexible inallowing that to happen. And even with
fiction work, you know, it'sthe same thing. You know that I
don't know a lot of people whowrite literally their writing fiction work, but

(21:02):
I know that there are people whodo. And I'm not sure, you
know, if that's a challenge forthem, if they may not want to
kill Mike today, but that's thenext thing that's supposed to happen, and
you got to struggle through and killMike because that's the very next part of
the story. So I thank you, thank you very much for that.
And a common complaint that I hearfrom new authors especially is time finding the

(21:33):
time to sit down and write.How much of a challenge or was that
a challenge for you? It was? It definitely was, especially when two
things. One, you have somuch going on in your life, as
you know, like I said,adulting that you have these periods, these

(21:55):
little segments of time that you've designatedto write, and you realize is that
you may be blocked at that timeand so now you're forcing yourself to write
during this one hour time period andnothing's coming out, and so that can
be a very frustrating experience. Andthen on the flip side of that,
when you don't have any any timenecessarily planned out, you can let your

(22:21):
life kind of run over your writingand put you in a place where you're
looking and you know how time goesby super fast, right, So you
look and you're six months into thisyear and you realize you haven't written anything
for your book, not a word, not a peak, right, And
so it's like, Okay, well, I do have to have some sort

(22:42):
of structure. I do have toyou know, put a goal and a
timeline in place. But how doyou balance that against when you're actually inspired
to write? Yeah, so Iwould say that that can be one of
the challenges to writing. But oneof the ways that I kind of got
past that point is when I wastelling you about how I was inspired at

(23:06):
this point, about my purpose,and I think remembering your why, having
it in front of you at alltimes, what it is that you feel
like why you need to get thisbook out. Remembering your why, remembering
I love that it's critical for youto be motivated. So even during those
times when you're tired or you mayhave a million things going on, you're

(23:30):
inspired by that Why. It maybe two o'clock in the morning, it
may be you have to sacrifice someof the time that you've set towards something
else because that why is so importantto you. Yeah, and that's what
helped me get through that process right, right, because there's only going to
be twenty four hours in the day. That's all. We get mad how

(23:51):
much we try to manipulate that system. That is. That is the way
that it is. So I lovingyour bio. You say that you left
well, I'm gonna use the worda comfortable job. You said a good
a ggj GGJ to to branch outand basically follow your passion. How difficult

(24:14):
was it a decision? I knowthat when you made that decision, it
wasn't to be a full time writer. It was to follow your passion as
a professional as a pr person,as a publicist. But you know,
just as a way to relate it, there are some folks out here that
their passion is writing, sure,and so the difficulty in saying, you

(24:38):
know, stepping out on faith.I know many writers who have done it
stepping out on faith, leaving thatgood government job or whatever, lucrative business
that they're in, corporate job orwhatever, and in right full time and
just follow that passion. How challengingor difficult was that for you to just
make the make the leap into justdoing what you knew you were purposed to

(25:03):
do. For me, it's atestimony about how when you jump out there,
when you take that leap of faith, letting God kind of work out
the details for you. I knowthat's a scary thing to think about,
like not having every single piece linedup, But that's also what's gotten me
in trouble in the past too,is like having all of these plans made

(25:25):
and then being disappointed when they don'tthey don't unfold the way I'd like them
to. Yeah, yeah, butit's it's trusting and believing that what He's
purposed in your heart is where youshould put your focus. Yes, and
believing that He's got you that's right, and just taking that leap. That's

(25:45):
right. So what's next, Leslie? So what's next for Leslie? So
that's a good question because I dosee myself now that my business has stabilized,
I want to hop back out thereand start writing songs again. I
actually started writing a new song justin the last week, which was it

(26:08):
felt so good for me to dothat because I hadn't actually taken the time
to do that in a long time. So I am using this platform of
the book that you know, Goddoesn't make mistakes for launching my ministry,
which is Golden Life Ministries. Andnow as a part of that ministry,
I'd like to write some music thatinspires people in the same way that I've

(26:30):
written this book. So I seemyself doing that. I also want to
write another book, okay, andor both. I think it's going to
be a combination. Actually, I'vebeen toying with the idea of having it
be a little bit of both andin somewhat the same way, having maybe
a collection of stories inside of thisbook. But I do want to have

(26:56):
a theme, one common theme that'srunning through it, which is relationships.
And that last chapter, that bonuschapter in the book called Sleeping Adam,
that was a topic that you know, I really wanted to explore some more.
So I see myself writing another bookthat just talks about that topic of
men and women in the dating scene. Awesome. That sounds exciting. Can't

(27:21):
wait to hear more about that.Definitely have to have you come back when
a songwriting kicks off. Whichever oneyou do, whether it's a book or
it's songwriting, you let me knowand I would love to have you back
on the show, Dreamcatchers. I'mcertain you've enjoyed this episode of our show.
Tune in next week when we willhighlight the work of playwrights with productions

(27:42):
showcased as part of Arena Stages twentynineteen twenty twenty lineup of award winning theater.
You don't want to miss it.In case you haven't caught up with
seasons one through four, what areyou waiting for? Go to our website
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(28:03):
Don't forget to subscribe and you'll neverever miss a show. I'll see you
next time in the Haven, butuntil then, catch fire on purpose.

(28:25):
Hello, Dreaming people, and welcometo another exciting season of the Writers Haven
Show. I'm v Helena, yourhost and executive producer. Since twenty seventeen,
we've invited you into the Haven wherewe showcase the passion process and projects
of writers of literature, television,film and music. Over two point five

(28:47):
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(29:07):
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next time, catch fire on purpose