Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

writing

The one where I tell you I wrote a book

I don’t know how to tell you I wrote a book.

So here it goes.

I wrote a book!

Those words shouldn’t be hard to say or write, but they are surprisingly more difficult to proclaim than I ever imagined.

For the last year-plus, I’ve been working with a client who is also a friend to tell her story, and while I did technically write the words, the story is hers. Maybe telling you I wrote a book would feel different if the story was mine alone.

That’s not to say that I’m not proud of the work or ridiculously excited to see my name on the cover of a product that looks, amazingly, like a real book. It’s a step I’ve needed and wanted to take in my writing career for some time, and a long recovery from the disappointment of it not happening with a client more than two years ago.

As it stands now, I have written a book and you can buy it on Amazon in both print and Kindle formats and I have another client on deck. What is my life? For years, I worked from home and dreamed of doing this kind of work and now that I have a part-time job and fewer hours in the day (so it seems), I have good writing work to do.

Honestly, one of the best things I ever did for my writing was to get a job that had nothing to do with writing but everything to do with giving me life and purpose. My writing is better because of my job, even on the hard days. And there are plenty of those.

But back to the book. 

Another reason it’s hard to tell you about this book is because it’s so important that you read it. Not because it will make me rich or famous. (I will never be either of those things, thank you very much.) You must read this book because the story is courageous. Here’s the back cover copy:

January 29, 2015.

In a small central Pennsylvania town, Deb Gruel awoke to early morning knocking on her front door. A small band of police officers entered her home, searched it and questioned her husband, Dave, while her sons slept upstairs. Two days later, Dave was charged with multiple felony counts related to child pornography.

The next 18 months would become a nightmare for Deb and her family as they weathered attacks on their character, social standing, finances and mental health. Raised to believe in the power of God to overcome, Deb wondered: Could anything good come from this?

God answered in a surprising way.

Instead of hiding and pitying her life, Deb is determined to tell you how it is to be the wife of a man convicted of a crime most of us would rather not even talk about. She wants you to know how hard it has been to keep her family together and how much hope she has found clinging to Christ.

Arrest stories, especially ones relating to sexual crimes, get a lot of attention when they happen but rarely is there follow-up. What happened to the person arrested? How did their family react and survive? Prisoners are a forgotten population in our society, and I’m so grateful for Deb and her husband Dave being willing to share a little bit of what they’ve gone through.

Whatever the issue, if we can put a name and a face to it, if we can personalize the story, we’re more likely to have compassion and sympathy and maybe even a change of heart. This has been my experience, anyway.

It’s my hope that it’s yours when you read this book.

The book includes letters written by Dave from prison to his wife, another area in which Deb showed complete transparency. She gave me access to all the letters and told me to use whatever I wanted. What I’ve included helps paint the picture of life in prison when a family waits on the outside.

So I wrote a book. My first. And yes it has someone else’s name on it, too but it won’t be the last book I write.

One final request: If you read it, would you leave a couple of sentences on Amazon as a review? If we’re friends or related, don’t mention that because they might take the review down, but letting others know what you thought of the book makes readers more likely to make a decision.

To all of you who have been on this journey with me for years, I thank you. And I encourage you to hang in there a little bit longer.

There’s more to come.

Why I Run in the Rain

It was a mild week in February when I started running again.

Well, let’s be honest, it’s more like walking and slightly faster walking. The fitness app on my phone registers it as walking, which is always slightly depressing because I’m definitely NOT WALKING when I’m out there, but whatever.

The first week is often the hardest, so I was lucky that I started my workouts on unseasonably warm days. By the second week though I was bundled up and running in biting winds. By week three, I was running through snow. I am now at 13 workouts (beginning of week five) of an eight-week program with the goal of running a 5K, and it’s no exaggeration to say more than half have been in some kind of rain, snow or cold weather. My most recent workout was in a cold spring downpour.

My shirt says “Chase Your Dreams.” I wish my dreams would pick some better weather.

I almost never want to leave the porch when I face the weather. I whimper. I groan.

And then I think about how far I’ve come and I go for it.

—

I’ve been a little stuck with the writing lately. There’s always something else, it seems, to distract me. Some of it is necessary. Some of it is not. This is part of what I feared when I started working part time in January. Before that, I had what I thought was an ideal schedule for writing, meaning my days were mostly free and I could spend them how I wanted.

Conditions, it would seem, were perfect for writing.

Except they weren’t really.

Sure, I churned out a lot of words in those days. I blogged regularly. I submitted a couple of pieces to other publications. I wrote a short story to give away to blog subscribers.

But I still found a lot of other things to do. Netflix. Coffee dates. Volunteer work. Hardly ever did I devote the kind of time to writing that I imagined I could.

So, it’s odd that now, when I have less hours in the day to write, I still have time for it. I may not be blogging every idea that comes into my head (that’s definitely true) or writing a ton of articles but I’m still writing.

Even though conditions are not perfect.

—

Sometimes I think about where I would be if I had waited for the weather to be perfect before I started working out again. I don’t have to think too hard. I would be stuck somewhere in week 2 slogging along trying to train for a 5K in May and running out of weeks to get it done.

Instead, I’m more than six weeks away from race day with less than half of the program to finish. I could skip a workout when the weather gets rough but I’ve built up some momentum and I want to keep it. The workouts are getting harder, but I don’t want to give up all the progress. The same is true with writing. I have a lot of words in a lot of different forms in my computer files. Too much to give up.

—

I’m easily discouraged, though.

I see other runners out on the sidewalks or hear casual talk of regular 3- and 4-mile runs. I think about how I shuffle through my workout with sweat, tears and aching muscles and wonder why I’m even out there doing this running thing. I don’t want to be a marathoner. I’m not aiming for the Olympics. I kind of sort of like running and I want to be healthier. But I’m not sure I’ll ever be trim or fast.

It’s not hard to criticize myself before I actually get out there and run. When my feet are pounding the pavement and I’m cresting small hills, when the number of consecutive minutes of running increases and I’m doing it without walking–those are the times I feel like I’m a runner, like I belong out there.

And writing is not much different. When I’m not writing, I’m jealous of all the other writers I know and the words they’re putting on pages. I’m convinced they have the perfect conditions for writing, so of course they can do that work. I look at my measly offerings of words and wonder if I will ever have what it takes to join the ranks. (Of what, I’m not even sure anymore.)

But when I’m writing, most of those doubts fade. The words connect with each other and sometimes readers and it suddenly doesn’t matter how much I’m writing or how fast. Regularly doing the writing is all that matters, and it doesn’t make a difference if my words are banged out in an hour after work or over half a Saturday or at 5 a.m.

Just doing it is what matters.

—

There is no such thing as the perfect time or the perfect conditions.

What a revelation, right? I feel like this is an obvious conclusion, but it’s taken me some time to see it.

Whether it’s running or writing or something else entirely, I can’t always wait for the perfect time or the perfect conditions. Sometimes it’s going to be sunny and mild. Other times I’ll be cursing the wind for daring to gust so much my cheeks turn pink. Sometimes I’ll start with sunshine and end in a downpour.

It’s cold but I’ve got goals!!! Week 2, day 1 of #c25k is calling my name.

A post shared by Lisa Bartelt (@lmbartelt) on

But every time, I just have to do it. Whatever it is.

Because if I wait until everything is perfect, it won’t happen.

—

 

There’s a big difference between the perfect time and the right time, and this theory does not apply to every thing in every season. The time for me to go back to work was neither perfect nor right when my kids were less than school age, and the time for running was neither right nor perfect when my back was spasming. Do not let this post be your ticket to a guilt trip. You do what you need to do.

But let it be a question you consider: Am I waiting for the perfect time to do something that only requires the right time? And is now the right time?

I cannot answer that for you. And if you want to share your answer in the comments below, I would love to encourage you at whatever time it is, for whatever goal you have.

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