by Glynn Young
Like most, if not all writers, I follow several writers who post and talk about the craft of writing. Like other writers, it’s helpful, encouraging, and instructive to see what others, Christian and non-Christian alike, are struggling with, learning, sharing, and figuring out.
I published my last book in late 2024. What followed was a period of exhaustion. Writing that book had been an intense experience; the research had begun in 2016 and continued through the writing of two other novels and deepened in the final two years. The published book includes nine pages of bibliography. I’d never written historical fiction before, and it was one of the most intense writing experiences of my life. Through the process, my respect for writers of historical fiction grew exponentially.
After publication, I stopped writing fiction. I just stopped. It wasn’t that I didn’t have story ideas, plots bubbling in my head, or characters who suddenly intruded into my consciousness. I did have all that. But I was also bone tired, a deep exhaustion. I was still writing simple things – book reviews, poetry, and blog posts, things that were short, with a definite endpoint, and required only reading a book or poetry collection, or needing a few online searches. I couldn’t imagine tackling another novel.
It wasn’t only writing exhaustion. It was also a period of family upsets and the death of my older brother. Other things needed attention.
One writer I follow is a veritable writing machine. I’d met him almost 18 years ago, when I was working in corporate communications and arranged for him to do an afternoon writing seminar with my team of 25. He explained how to apply techniques of writing fiction to the writing we did in communicating for a large company.
I’d followed him online ever since, including his migration from his blog site to Substack. He’s no-nonsense, knows his stuff, and understands that, if you’re a writer, then you write. He’s also a proponent of what he terms “writing into the dark,” which essentially means not using an outline but instead letting the characters tell your story for you. It’s how I write five novels. Even my last novel, in spite of all the research, gave control to the characters.
Some months back, he started a writing challenge for his readers. Specifically, it was a short story writing challenge. Each week, participating readers reported how many words they’d written in short stories. In any given week, participants ranged from five to ten. Some wrote multiple stories. Others disappeared for a while. No judgment or criticism was made; people self-reported by name, title, number of words, and genre. But it was all about short stories.
I didn’t initially participate. I watched. I had been writing a few short stories for a Christian publication, based on a specific theme for each issue. I had the benefit of a very good editor, who knows exactly how to edit in such a way that you see the immediate improvement. But this weekly challenge was something else again.
About two months ago, I began to participate. I can’t say what was the final push, but I just started. Writing stories doesn’t require the sustained intensity of a novel, but it does have its own definite demands. I kept submitting.
And then I realized that the stories I was writing and reporting on each week were related. I was using a short story challenge to write a novel. I’m still reporting my word counts each week, and right now, I’m 21,000 words into what is becoming a novel-length story. Or, I could stick with the program and turn it into a short story collection.
The important thing is that I’m writing again. I’m enjoying writing again. It feels like coming home.
Glynn Young is a national award-winning speechwriter, communications practitioner, and novelist. He’s the author of five published novels, Dancing Priest, A Light Shining, Dancing King, Dancing Prophet; and Dancing Prince; the non-fiction book Poetry at Work; and the recently published historical novel Brookhaven.
Visit Glynn on Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, his blog and the Dancing Priest book page.