Evelyn Griffith - May Monthly Newsletter

|Evelyn Griffith|

Monthly Newsletter

First of all, thank you so much for subscribing to my author newsletter. If you’re new, I’m grateful to have you join me. If you’ve been here since the beginning, welcome back and thank you for your continued support!

In this newsletter, I hope to tell you about what I've been working on, what’s new in my writing world, and how my career has developed recently. 

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Professional Development

Hi there everyone! Sorry this newsletter is a little late this month, but everything has just been SO crazy. In a good way, I think, but crazy none-the-less. I didn’t go to any conferences this past month, which is why I’ve changed the title heading to “Professional Development,” but I DID go to a writing retreat at Wildacres Retreats in North Carolina. I stayed in this absolutely beautiful historic log cabin in the woods and I was able to explore Little Switzerland, NC and the beautiful retreat in the blue ridge mountains! I have some photos to share too which is rare for my newsletter, but I hope you enjoy them!

Below you'll see the outside and inside of the beautiful historic Owl's Nest Cabin, where I spent most of my time during the retreat! It was really beautiful and fun, but I won't lie that I felt a little scared and isolated at times. There was no cellular or internet, and there weren't any other people for over a mile. I had some restless nights, but overall it was a beautiful place to get some writing done! It was nice to unplug a bit!

While I was at the retreat, I got to walk around the main lodge and spot beautiful views from 3300 feet up in the mountains. I found five lookout points, but this one was my favorite:

I was also able to explore this beautiful local coffee shop/used book/art gallery called Books and Beans!

There was a lot to love about staying here and exploring. I had a bunch of fun, but I'm also so excited to be home and build my routines in my own space!

The Undiscovered

The Undiscovered has been THRIVING lately! I now have 282 subscribers and almost 800 followers! I’ve also been able to make a connection with a wonderful author and substack writer who said she’d like to do a live stream with me in July. It will be my first one, so I’m a little nervous but I’m also really excited to put my interview abilities to the test in a different environment. If it goes well and I end up enjoying it, I was thinking that I could maybe even start interviewing my authors via livestream and then use the transcript from that for the written interview!

I’m still trying to figure out how to develop this project into a profitable business. Right now I have a few ideas, but they require me to build up a large following of people reading and interacting with the work, so I’m trying to continue on with figuring out how to get subscribers while also thinking about my business plan and how to move forward with some of my ideas!

I don’t want to speak about those ideas in any specifics right here, but I have a lot of thoughts about where this project could go as a business and I’m excited to talk with more experts about how I might be able to move next!

The Undiscovered

Progress on The Singing String

If you’re curious about this project’s origins, you can read about it on my website!

The Singing String

While I was away at my writing retreat, my plan was to go through my entire novel and write detailed notes about where I wanted to take it next. However, I only ended up going through half. For the past semester, I spent every week thinking about the second half of my novel. I didn’t write scenes for the first half or even really think about it (in fact, I avoided thinking about it because I didn’t want to get caught up in that while I was making great progress with the second half). So while I was at the retreat, I decided that instead of going through the whole book, I was going to write scenes and make changes that i’d been itching to make after rereading the first part. 

I ended up writing about 6,000 words, including a new chapter between my second and third chapter as well as significant expansion and edit toward my third chapter (which has been a bit of an undertaking because chapter three is VERY pivotal to the rest of the story). It was such a wonderful feeling to write all those words and FINALLY start moving toward all the ideas I have floating around in my head, but I feel like I still have a LONG way to go before it’s everything I want it to be! 

In some ways (a lot of ways) it’s really frustrating because my thoughts feel so slippery. I know what I'd like to do, and where I’d like to make changes. In some cases I even know about large scale edits to the structure or setting or plot, but I just can’t get my fingers to type out words that fit the right way. 

Still, I'm finally in a season where I'll have some time to try and that gives me hope that by the end of the summer maybe the project will be molded into something I’m really proud of! 

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Before I start the Next Section

(Read this if it's your first time joining us!)

I struggled for a while, regarding whether or not I should include a section about my Christian walk in my author newsletters. Not only is it deeply personal, but it also might make some people feel that my writing is trying to alienate them. Regarding that concept, I want to say that while I am Christian, I never want my writing to be accessible only to a Christian audience. My faith is deeply important to me, yes, but my writing does not always deal with Christian concepts or theology. In fact, before I begin the next section I actually want to ask your forgiveness. I’m not used to writing about my faith journey and this is mainly because I find it incredibly difficult to do so. To express my thoughts in a succinct way about something that’s so all-encompassing for me and to distill it down so that anyone can read and relate to it is deeply challenging. Many times in the past, I have given up and decided that writing in allegory would be easier. You’ll have to excuse my clumsiness and my selfishness because one main reason why I decided to include these updates is that I simply need the practice. I want to be a writer who can write about their faith (for those who want to know about it) and I have an ever-growing respect for authors like C.S. Lewis and Tolkien and Keller who wrote so eloquently and accessibly about something so complex, personal, and vast. 

That being said, I hope you’ll be patient with me as I give myself the chance to develop this bit of creative nonfiction one small piece at a time. But, I also ask that you would permit me the selfish (perhaps undeserved) chance to show you that my work is for all people and audiences that wish to know it.

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A Note From Someone Who Loves the Lord

This is really personal, but recently I’ve started to realize that I’m a bit of a selfish person when I pray. Most of the time I pray about things in my own life: my future, my relationships, people I know, what I want or need or think I want or need. I pray about things that I think I should pray about like family, or friends, or struggles the whole world is facing. But lately, I’ve been starting to wonder how much I mean it. 

I pray for the things and people around me so that they will be good, not because I want them to be good in a way that’s independent from me, but because when things around me are bad in any way (a friend is going through trouble, family is complicated, there’s war, or suffering, or there’s complicated relationships) it’s uncomfortable. How many times have I prayed for someone, not so that they would be happy, but so that I would feel more comfortable? 

I know I might be being hard on myself in this regard, to some degree everyone is uncomfortable when forced to sit with the dissatisfaction and pain of others, but I feel like it’s important for me as a believer to question whether my heart is really loving the people around me as they are, not just for how they interact with the world in relation to myself.

I think God calls us to love others unconditionally, as He loves us. He calls us to walk with them in community even in the shadows and uncertainties and discomforts. I don’t think this means that EVERYONE’S pain needs to be our pain too, but I think it means we need to consider how our own self-centeredness keeps us from truly knowing and being known by those around us.

Thanks for listening.

Conclusion

Thanks so much for reading, and I hope that you’ll join me again next month for updates on all these wonderful things!

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