• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
  • My Books
    • True You
    • Katharina and Martin Luther
    • 50 Women Every Christian Should Know
    • Spiritual Misfit
  • Blog
  • On My Bookshelves
  • Contact
  • Privacy & Disclosure Policy

Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

publishing

Why It’s Critical to Separate Who You Are from What You Do

November 27, 2018 By Michelle

There’s a tree in my neighborhood I pass nearly every day on my afternoon dog walk. It grows a few feet from the curb, and it’s beautiful – tall and stately, lush and vibrant with dark green leaves, even at this time of year, and a smattering of tiny orange berries dotting the greenery.

I’ve passed this tree hundreds of times in the last several years, but it wasn’t until recently that I saw something I’d never noticed before. The leaves and berries I’d long admired weren’t actually part of the tree itself. Rather, they were part of a large and intrusive vine which, over time, had snaked its way up the trunk and out along the tree’s limbs and branches.

What at first glance looked to be a beautiful and healthy tree was, in fact, an illusion. Not only was the vine obscuring the real tree that lay underneath, it was also, apparently, slowly draining the real tree of life. 

I stood in the street and stared up at the pine and the vine for a long time that day as Josie impatiently tugged at the leash. I noted the tree’s brown, brittle needles beneath the vine’s green leaves. I saw the way the vine’s heavy root had embedded itself into the tree’s bark — so much so that I could hardly discern one from the other.

: :

“Are you prepared to be other than your image of your false self?” Richard Rohr asks. “If not, you will live in bondage to your false self.”

Turns out, the pine and the vine hit awfully close to home. The hard, uncomfortable truth is that my identity is entwined with my vocation and profession as a published author.

There is a certain prestige that goes hand-in-hand with my job. And if I am brutally honest with myself, and with you, I can admit that I like this prestige. I like the approval, admiration, recognition and respect being an author automatically earns me.

And yet, I also know that what I do is not who I am. This identity of “author” is not my true identity. Being a “published author” is not my true self. It’s not the me God created when he wrote my name on the palms of his hands. Rather, as Rohr says, being a “published author” is part of my image of my false self.

“Basing identity on an illusion has profound consequences,” observes David Benning in his book The Gift of Being Yourself. “Sensing its fundamental unreality, the false self wraps itself in experience – experiences of power, pleasure and honor. Thomas Merton describes this as ‘winding experiences around myself…in order to make myself perceptible to myself and to the world, as if I were an invisible body that could only become visible when something visible covered its surface.”

There is nothing inherently wrong with being an author. It’s as good a vocation as any, and believe me when I say I am grateful for the opportunities writing and publishing books has afforded me. There have been many beautiful, life-giving parts of this journey — not the least of which is how writing has helped me grow in my faith — and I appreciate every single one.

But I also know that if I am honest with myself, being an author is also sometimes detrimental to my emotional and spiritual wholeness. I put a lot of stake – too much stake – in achievement, recognition and success. Over time, who I am has become wrapped up not only in what I do but also in how well I do it.

I have wrapped not only the experience, as Merton would say, but also the identity of “author” around myself, like a vine wrapped around the trunk of a tree. And at times, rather than sustaining me and giving me life, my vocation has held me in bondage, ensnaring me with its tendrils of “bigger,” “better” and “more.”

As David Benning acknowledges, “Anything that is grasped is afforded value beyond actual worth, value that is ultimately stolen from God.”

Have you ever seen the way a vine grasps, unfurling to latch onto and wrap itself around whatever it can? The strength of its clutch, even in something as small and tender as a zucchini vine, is astonishing.

I grasp at achievement, recognition and success, particularly achievement, recognition and success as a published author. And that is something I need to reckon with. Benning defines calling as “a way of being that is both best for us and best for the world.” The question I’m asking myself these days is whether my vocation as an author is really best for me.

I’m not making any radical decisions just yet. Right now it seems I am in a season of discernment. And the truth is, writing True You was the genesis of this journey toward uncovering my true self, a journey that in some ways has only unearthed more questions than answers. This question, in particular, begs to be asked: would I even be asking these questions about vocation and identity had I not written this book?

On the other hand, every time I walk by that pine tree in my neighborhood, the one wound round and round with the ever-expanding vine, I can’t help but notice something that seems important, which is this: while the vine is clearly flourishing, spreading its tendrils, reaching higher and higher, clutching and grasping, the tree beneath it is slowly dying, being overcome by the invasive vine a little more each day.

: :

If this post resonated with you, you might be interested in my forthcoming book, True You: Letting Go of Your False Self to Uncover the Person God Created, releasing January 1. In it, I dig more deeply into the themes of vocation and identity.

If you pre-order before January 1, I also have some lovely free gifts that nicely complement the book:

– a companion journal

– a guided audio meditation

– and a series of beautifully designed Scripture cards.

You can find out about where to pre-order True You and how to receive the free gifts over HERE. 

Photo by David Guenther on Unsplash

Filed Under: calling, career, publishing, True You, writing Tagged With: True You, vocation

How to Get Published – You’re Invited to a Conversation with Baker Books Editor Chad R. Allen and Me

November 6, 2014 By Michelle

How to Get Published2

When I first embarked upon this writing/publishing journey I did just about everything backwards, wrong, and upside-down.

For starters, I thought “platform” was the concrete slab a Speedo-clad diver perched upon forty feet in the air.

I didn’t give a hoot about audience or marketing or “meeting a felt need.” The Plan was simply to write a book and get it published. The end.

It probably goes without saying, The Plan was A Dud.

I’ve learned a lot – most of it the hard way – during these last seven years, but what I remember the most from those early days was just how lost, overwhelmed, and underqualified I felt much of time. I yearned for someone to show me the ropes, teach me the business, and encourage me along the way. So now that I have a little more experience under my belt, that’s exactly what I’d like to do for you.

Introducing…

How to Get Published: A Conversation with Chad R. Allen and Michelle DeRusha

Join Chad Allen, Editorial Director of Baker Books (and my editor for 50 Women Every Christian Should Know) and me for How to Get Published, a series of three one-hour teleconferences aimed at helping you navigate the early stages of the publishing process.

We’ll offer you concrete, useful advice and tips on three critical stages of the publishing process: creating a marketable book concept, building a strong platform, and writing a top-notch book proposal. Plus we’ll answer your specific questions during a Q&A time during each session, and offer you encouragement and camaraderie to sustain you along the way.

Session One
How to Create a Strong Book Concept
Monday, November 17
9 p.m. EST (8 CT)
  • What does it mean to find the need and isolate the buying impulse? How do you figure out what will prompt someone to purchase a book?
  • How do you ask the right questions and poll your tribe to figure out a marketable concept? How do you educate yourself on the needs of the market?
  • Why is it important to brainstorm a lot of titles and subtitles?
  • And more!
Session Two
How to Grow Your Platform
Monday, November 24
9 p.m. EST (8 CT)
  • What is a platform anyway, and why is it so important?
  • Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Instagram, YouTube, blogging — how do you choose between so many social media avenues, and do I have to use them all?
  • How big is big enough…and what can I do if I have a small platform (or am I simply out of luck?)?
  • And more!
Session Three
How to Write a Winning Book Proposal
Monday, December 8
9 p.m. EST (8 CT)
  • What is a book proposal, who reads it, and why is it important?
  • The core elements of a book proposal.
  •  How to avoid rookie mistakes.
  • And more!

Chad R. Allen brings more than 16 years of experience as a writer, editor, speaker and creativity coach. He created www.BookProposalAcademy.com and serves as editorial director for Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, where he has worked for the last 13 years. He wrote the manifesto Do Your Art and blogs at www.chadrallen.com. You can also find him on Twitter and Facebook.

Michelle DeRusha has more than 20 years of experience in communications, writing, editing, public relations and marketing. She is the author of two books, Spiritual Misfit: A Memoir of Uneasy Faith (Convergent) and 50 Women Every Christian Should Know: Learning from Heroines of the Faith(Baker Books).

Register for How to Get Published

You have two options: You can register for each session individually ($10/session), or you can go for the package deal and register for all three at once ($25 for three sessions).

BONUS!

All registered participants for any or all of the sessions will receive TWO bonus giveaways [I will email you these documents within 24 hours of your registration]:
1. An actual sample book proposal (the official proposal my agent and I used to pitch Spiritual Misfit to publishers)
2. Chad’s personal Book Proposal Guidelines from his Book Proposal Academy.
PLUS, you’ll receive (via email) a recording of each session you register for, regardless of whether you are able to listen in to the live teleconference in person or not.

Register for One or More Sessions:

 

Session One: How to Create a Strong Book Concept ($10)
Monday, November 17
9 p.m. EST (8 CT)

Buy Now Button

Session Two: How to Grow Your Platform ($10)
Monday, November 24
9 p.m. EST (8 CT)

Buy Now Button

Session Three: How to Write a Winning Book Proposal ($10)
Monday, December 8
9 p.m. EST (8 CT)

Buy Now Button

Package Deal: All 3 Sessions for $25

Buy Now Button

 

 Questions? Confusion? Send me an email {just click on the little envelope under my picture over there in the right sidebar}.

Thanks, friends – I look forward to chatting with you!

 

 

Filed Under: publishing, writing Tagged With: Chad R. Allen, How to Get Published, Teleconferences

Why You Can Believe the Wilderness is a Place of Wild Possibility

October 13, 2014 By Michelle

lichentreewithtext2

A couple of weeks ago the Nebraska Synod bishop preached at my church, and toward the beginning of his sermon on the Book of Numbers, he said something that immediately caught my attention. In fact, one second after he said it, I grabbed a pen and jotted it onto my bulletin, and then I leaned over and whispered to Brad, “That’s good stuff! I’m going to steal that!”

I fully intended to give Bishop Maas credit of course, but I also knew immediately that the words he had spoken were going to make it into a blog post or an article or maybe even a book someday. They were just that good.

“The wilderness,” Bishop Maas said, “is the place God’s people stay and wait while God is up to something His people can’t possibly see or even imagine.”

I know. It’s good, isn’t it?

The thing is, I’ve always heard the wilderness described in negative terms as the place we wander or the place where God feels absent; or the place God sends us to teach us an important but difficult lesson. Never, until that moment, had I heard the wilderness described so hopefully, so positively.

The wilderness is not a place of desolation and futility and hopelessness, but a place brimming with wild possibility. 

I heard Bishop Maas make that statement three times that Sunday. Because I was participating in the liturgy that day, I sat through all three worship services, something I’ve never done before. And every time I heard the bishop make that statement about the wilderness, I nodded my head yes. If I belonged to an Amen-out-loud kind of church, I would have Amen-ed out loud for sure.

That’s good teaching right there, I thought to myself. I couldn’t wait to pass it on to someone else.

Five days later, I found myself right smack in the middle of the wilderness.

ferns

spiderweb

DSC_0182

When the phone rang Friday afternoon I knew within the first three words of our conversation that my agent was calling with bad news. Turns out, my publisher, after weeks of considering it, had turned down the proposal for my next book. It wasn’t the proposal itself that was the problem, my agent and, later, my editor assured me. It was the bottom line. Spiritual Misfit, my first book, has not sold well, not well at all. My publisher simply couldn’t afford to publish another book by me. I was not good for their bottom line.

I told a friend a few days later that being let go by your publisher feels both like being fired and being dumped by your boyfriend – at the same time. Not only had my professional life tanked, I also found myself mourning the loss of a relationship I deeply valued. I had come to know my editor really well in the months we worked together on Spiritual Misfit. I really, really like her, she knows me really, really well (she edited my memoir, after all!) and I was simply devastated that we wouldn’t work together on my next book. If there is a next book.

I grieved hard that first week – the full five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, well, frankly, I’m still working on acceptance. After an initial bout of full-out bawling that Friday afternoon, my eyes leaked tears for 48 hours. It didn’t matter what I was doing — dishes, laundry, playing Uno, picking the kids up from school – I oozed tears.

And then came the anger. I’m not going to lie. I boiled with self-righteous indignation. I blamed everyone I could think of, and when I was done running through the list of humans at fault, I blamed God. I blamed him for leading me down this publishing road, only to bring me to what seemed like a big, fat dead end. I blamed him for failing me, for betraying me, for not keeping his promise.

A few days after The Bad News, Brad and I were chatting in the sun room. I sat in my desk chair, my computer screen blank behind me as I faced my husband.

“You know, I read that verse you have posted over the bathroom sink,” Brad said. “The one about God’s promise.”

I knew the one. I’d read it over and over again since The Bad News, every time I washed my hands, every time I brushed my teeth, every time I touched up my lipstick or applied mascara. I knew the words by heart because I was banking on that promise:

“Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.” (Hebrews 10:23)

“The thing is, hon,” Brad continued gently, “God’s promises don’t necessarily include another book deal.”

“Well what does he promise then?” I hissed, “because I can’t seem to recall right now.” My throat clenched and tears pricked my eyes.

I looked at my husband, standing in the doorway of the sun room, and then I turned away and fixed my burning eyes on the blank computer screen.

Brad didn’t answer my angry question. I think he knew I wasn’t quite in the right frame of mind for a theological discussion. But I thought about what he’d said for days afterward. And I knew he was right. Brad is always right about this kind of stuff, even when it’s not what I want to hear.

So here’s the deal, friends. It’s true: God didn’t promise me another book deal. He didn’t promise that I’d get to spend my whole professional career as a book author. He didn’t promise me a particular job, even if it’s a job I love and feel called to.

God doesn’t promise us the job we desire, the spouse we yearn for, the baby we so desperately want, the clean bill of health we are praying for day in and day out. He doesn’t promise us wealth, health, success, an easy road or even happiness.

In fact, God doesn’t promise us most of what we think we want or most of what we think we need.

No. God doesn’t promise us any of those things, and I know, I know it’s hard to hear and accept, especially when you are right smack in the middle of the wilderness, facing the job loss, your spouse’s terminal diagnosis, the infertility, the negative PET scan, the drug addiction. I know it’s hard, because friends, I am here. I am here, in the wilderness, where the path is neither straight nor clear. I am here, asking God, “What’s next? What now?” I am here, asking God for a burning bush, a billboard, something, anything.

Yet even in the midst of the unknowns, here is what I know is true. Here is what I am banking on as I stand in the wilderness with some of you:

God promises to work together all things for the good of those who love him.

God promises to be with us always, to the end of the age – no matter what we are walking through, no matter what burdens we bear. 

That’s it. It’s that simple. God works all things together toward good; God promises to be with us always. These aren’t the only promises God made, but these are the ones I am trusting in today.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that God had me sit through Bishop Maas’s sermon three times in a single Sunday two weeks ago. God knows I am willful and stubborn and spiritually hard of hearing. He knows I need to hear a message more than once for it to stick. God also knew that five days from that Sunday morning I would find myself in the wilderness, needing a message about that very wilderness to reverberate through my heart, mind and soul.

I’m not saying I’ll ever get a clear answer from God on this, even though that’s what I desperately want. I’m not saying I’ll get that burning bush or the billboard. I know God doesn’t always provide answers. He doesn’t package life’s mysteries into a beautiful box and tie it all up with a shiny red bow, ready for me to unwrap when I choose. I may get the answers I’m looking for in heaven, during what I hope will be a long and detailed Q&A period. I may not. All I know for sure is that God is sovereign and he is good.

And so I stay and wait in this wilderness, trusting that God is working out something good, something I can’t possibly see or even imagine right now. I wander through this wilderness confident that it is not a place of desolation and hopelessness and despair, but a place brimming with wild possibility and potential.

A place full of promise and hope.

3 lady slippers

A tiny reminder, friends? I’d love to hear your story of the woman who has most influenced your faith journey. Would you consider blogging about her and entering your story into the #MyFaithHeroine contest? Entries must be submitted by October 22 – details here. 

 Linking this post with Kelli Woodford’s Unforced Rhythms of Grace.

Filed Under: publishing, when God says no, wilderness Tagged With: what does God promise?, when you're in the wilderness

A Divided Loyalty and the Stinging Truth

January 29, 2014 By Michelle

Two weeks ago I watched as the endorsements deadline for my first book came and went. I watched the deadline pass, knowing seven authors hadn’t responded.

Endorsements are the pithy accolades that appear in the opening pages and on the front and back covers of a book. Two months ago I learned from my publisher that it’s the author’s responsibility to ask other writers if they might be willing to take a look at the book and write an endorsement. The emails I dutifully typed to more than a dozen authors were among the most awkward I have ever written, because when it comes right down to it, asking for an endorsement for your book is asking for praise, and asking for praise places you in a position of vulnerability and weakness. Not my favorite place.

I waited. And I cried tears of relief and joy as I read some of the early endorsements that came in. I felt a little like Sally Field at the Oscars. People like my book, they like it, they really like it!

Until, that is, the endorsements stopped coming, and the deadline passed.

…I’m over at Nacole’s place, Six in the Sticks, guest posting for her series on Christian writing and blogging. Join me over there? 

Filed Under: envy, publishing, writing, writing and faith Tagged With: Book of James, Christian writing, the struggle with envy, writing

When You’re Looking for an Endorsement

November 20, 2013 By Michelle

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been emailing Christian authors to ask if they would consider reading an advance copy of Spiritual Misfit to offer a possible endorsement. [endorsements are those snappy statements praising a book, usually on the front and back covers, and usually by other authors and leaders. Truthfully, I think the only people who read endorsements are other writers.]

Can I just tell you how humbling and awkward this feels to me?

Granted, some of the people I’m asking I know well, so that’s all fine and comfortable. But then there are the ones I call the “reach asks.”

These are authors I read and admire but don’t know personally – people who I think might find something that resonates in Spiritual Misfit and therefore be willing to say a kind word about it; people who are a little more well-known than the crowd I typically run with (that crowd being my Moby Dick-loving husband, two boys and a pet lizard). This process is a little like cold-calling in the olden days – except now you do it by email. You craft what you hope is a well-worded compelling email about the book, you shoot it into cyberspace, and then you wait. And sometimes wait and wait and wait.

Awk. Ward.

Some people accept (and you do a cartwheel in your living room). Some people decline graciously (and you understand but somehow still feel snubbed). And some people don’t respond at all. And those are the ones who keep you up at night. Because you wonder. Do they think I’m an annoying schmuck? Do they think my theology is all whacked out? (I don’t have a theology, just in case you’re wondering). Did they peek at my blog and think, ho hum, whatevs, no thanks, I’d rather get a bikini wax than read that?

You can drive yourself crazy with the wondering.

Until you read this:

“Are we like others, who need to bring you letters of recommendation, or who ask you to write such letters on their behalf? Surely not! The only recommendation we need is you yourselves. Your letters are written  in our hearts; everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you. This ‘letter’ is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is not carved on tablets of stone, but on human hearts.” (2 Corinthians 3:-1-3, NLT)

I understand why it’s necessary for me to get endorsers for my book; I get the nature of the process and how publishing works. But I also know these endorsements really don’t matter in the end.

What matters isn’t the pithy praise or awesome accolades someone else might offer about my book, but my life itself – what I say, how I act, how I love, how I encourage, what I do in the name of God. What matters in the end is what my living, breathing, everyday, ordinary life says about God. My own life is the praise. My own life is the accolade.

Because the thing is, friends, your whole life, and mine too, is an endorsement of God’s holy power. Your whole life is an endorsement of God’s love, hope and redemption. You and I are endorsed by God, have been from the get-go, from before the beginning of time. And this endorsement, this “letter” as Paul says, is not written in pen and ink or pixels, but with the Spirit of the living God. It’s not carved on tablets of stone or penned onto fancy embossed paper or shot into cyberspace, but emblazoned on our hearts, on your heart and on mine.

A changed life is the only endorsement we really need, and let me tell you, once and for all, my life has been changed by God. My life is a living endorsement of the power of God to change one lost, wayward, hopeless, desperate soul into a woman on fire for God.

And just the fact that I wrote that sentence and didn’t flinch  is one loud, bold, living testament to the fact that God transforms people in big, bold, beautiful ways.

God transforms us, he endorses us, and we, in turn, with our very own lives, endorse God. Our lives are a testament, an endorsement, of his mighty, mysterious, life-altering, wild power to transform. That’s it, the be-all and end-all of endorsements: the way I live, the way you live.

Let me give you one little piece of advice, because you know I always learn this God-stuff the hard way, right? This is what I learned these last two weeks:

When you go looking for endorsements, look no further than God, your own self and the people around you. Look at what he has done in you, and look at how that has impacted others. And then you’ll know, without any single shred of doubt:

A holy endorsement  is the only one you’ll ever need.

Filed Under: conversion, New Testament, publishing, writing and faith Tagged With: 2 Corinthians, Imperfect Prose, Jennifer Dukes Lee TellHisStory

Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a Triple Type A, “make it happen” (my dad’s favorite mantra) striver and achiever (I’m a 3 on the Enneagram, which tells you everything you need to know), but these days my striving looks more like sitting in silence on a park bench, my dog at my feet, as I slowly learn to let go of the false selves that have formed my identity for decades and lean toward uncovering who God created me to be.

Read Full Bio

Available Now — My New Book!

Blog Post Archives

Footer

Copyright © 2023 Michelle DeRusha · Site by The Willingham Enterprise· Log in