Authors of When God Writes Your Love Story and When Dreams Come True
by Trisha Bleau Smith
T4JYM: How do you decide on a subject for a book and how much research goes in to preparing for writing?
E&LL: The message of When God Writes Your Love Story and When Dreams Come True came out of our own personal journey in the area of romance and relationships. As young adults, before meeting each other, we both followed the typical pattern of the culture when it came to guy/girl relationships – and experienced emptiness and heartache as a result. Later, we both made decisions to take a totally different approach – to set our lives completely aside for our future spouse, and to allow God to write our future love story from start to finish. Because of those decisions, we discovered true, God-centered, successful romance. He was so faithful to script every detail of our love story.
After our wedding, word began to spread about our “unusual” love story, and people began inviting us to speak on relationship issues. As we traveled and interacted with young adults around the country, we became acutely aware of our generation’s overwhelming need for a vision of “something better” in the area of relationships. That is what motivated us to write our first two books. Our “research” happened mostly in the form of interacting with young people firsthand – listening to their struggles, fears, and desires. Since our writing style is very down-to-earth and casual, it worked well to use our own story and the stories of other young adults as the core material for our books.
T4JYM: How do you decide who writes what? What is the process for writing a book with another person? What is it like writing with your spouse?
E&LL: When we were first married someone told us, “If you want to put your marriage to the test, wallpaper together.” We haven’t yet wallpapered together, but writing together can definitely have a similar effect! Our first book together was by far the biggest challenge – learning to work as a team took a lot of focused effort. Now, after writing five books together, there is nothing we’d rather do than collaborate on a creative project. We’ve learned how to bring out each other’s strengths and encourage each other along the way. Before writing a book, we spend several weeks visiting coffee shops around town, creating the outline, mapping out each chapter and discussing who will write what section. For books that we co-author, we try to offer an equal amount of “guy perspective” and “girl perspective,” so the writing is divided in half between us. For a book that one of us is writing individually, the other person serves as a researcher, creative developer, and editor along the way.
T4JYM: How much editing is involved? Did you do it all alone or did you send it to people to edit? Do you edit one another’s works?
E&LL: By the time we send a manuscript to the publisher, we have edited the whole thing between eight and ten times, and then it also goes through another editorial process at the publishing house. Not all authors edit their own work so intensely, but we are both perfectionists and want it to be as polished as possible before anyone else sees it. It is amazing how easily mistakes can be missed unless you read the manuscript over and over and over again! We are typically quite sick of our own book by time we send it in, since we have read and re-read it so many times! But a few months later when the book is released, we re-gain our excitement for it. It is so fulfilling to see the book in its finished form – it makes all the hard work seem worth it.
T4JYM: Have you written any other books? Do you have any ideas for books you would like to write?
E&LL: Right now we have two books in print: When God Writes Your Love Story and When Dreams Come True – both on guy/girl relationships. When God Writes Your Love Story offers “four secrets to an amazing love story” and goes through practical things young people can do to lay the foundation even now for a marriage that will go the distance. When Dreams Come True is a novel-style book about our love story – very romantic! (We have two earlier books on relationships as well, but they are out of print.) Leslie’s new book for girls, called Authentic Beauty – the shaping of a set-apart young woman, will be released in July. Eric is currently working on a book for guys.
T4JYM: When did you start writing? What kind of writing did you begin with? Do you do any other writing for fun, like journaling, poetry, etc.?
E&LL: Leslie has always been a songwriter. From the age of six or seven, she would “perform” her songs for her family, friends or church groups – whether they wanted to hear them or not! She continued writing music into her young adult years and still loves writing music today. Eric wrote a couple of memorable songs when he was young, but began writing more “serious” music in college. We sometimes say that we fell in love “around a piano” because when we first met, we spent a lot of time singing and writing songs together around Eric’s family’s baby grand piano. That same piano is now in our living room, and we still write songs together around it!
Both us also have kept journals from the time we were in our late teen years. Journaling has been a wonderful way to keep track of what God is doing in our hearts and lives, and reading back through journals from years past is always fun, and sometimes embarrassing! Songwriting and journaling have been great tools that have helped develop and improve our writing skills over the years.
T4JYM: Who are some of the authors you like to read?
E&LL: We love older Christian books. Some of our favorites are The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers, The Pursuit of God/The Divine Conquest by A.W. Tozer, and Gold Cord by Amy Carmichael. We also love classic literature. Henryk Sienkiewicz was a Polish author who wrote the With Fire and Sword trilogy and Quo Vadis. He is the most amazing writer we’ve ever read.
T4JYM: What advice would you give to someone who wants to pursue a career in writing?
E&LL: It is difficult for us to offer a formula for success in launching a writing career, since our own writing career formed in a very non-conventional way. We didn’t plan on becoming writers, it was just a matter of God opening doors for us and pushing us through them. We do work hard to keep strengthening our writing skills, and that is of course a wonderful place for anyone to begin. Learning to press ahead even through “writer’s block”; forcing yourself to sit at your computer, polishing and re-wording until your eyes are burning and your back hurts; and understanding how to let criticism shape you into a better writer are all important disciplines to practice if you are considering a career in writing! Reading well-written books, especially classic literature, can also help strengthen your writing abilities. To learn more about writing career opportunities, there are often writers’ conferences held around the country, both Christian and secular. These conferences can be a helpful tool to learn more about how the publishing industry works. The best advice we can give is to diligently seek God, asking Him to open doors in His own perfect time and way. He is the best career Counselor there is!
Be the first to comment