You can write devotionals!

Writing devotionals to uplift your readers can uplift your faith too!

Devote yourself! Begin with a commitment to devote quiet time each day to praying, Bible reading, and meditating on what God says to you and wants you to say to others.

Take note! Keep a notebook nearby to write down each inspired thought God puts on your mind. Also, a sturdy wide-margin Bible in your favorite translation will encourage you to interact with Holy Scripture and respond to the Holy Spirit as you pencil notes in the margins. Later, those notes can be developed into a devotional poem or article shaped to fit this typical pattern:

Title – For individual articles you plan to send to a devotional magazine, the title will usually be a short phrase or single key word. For a full-length, one-year book of devotionals, your title needs to reflect your 365-day theme and purpose such as Devoted to Marriage: Devoted to God. Each devotional would then use that day's date as the title.

Bible verse – After the title comes a Bible verse from which the entire devotional flows. If you’re writing for Catholic readers, the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE) makes your best choice for quotes, but the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) and The Message, Catholic Edition can work too. For evangelical Christian readers, the main choices will likely be the New American Standard Bible (NASB), New International Version (NIV), English Standard Version (ESV), or New King James Version (NKJV.)

For interdenominational or ecumenical choices, consider the New Revised Standard Version, (NRSV) Common English Bible, or King James Version (KJV.) Since the KJV lives on and on in the public domain, you don't have to get a publisher's permission to quote large portions of that Bible. However, most translations let you use 250 verses without having to get permission from the publisher, and some permit up to 500 verses or more. To find out, look in the front matter of the edition you choose.

Text – With God and a biblical passage or verse to guide your writing, the main body of your devotional might be a poetic insight, a prayer, or a reflection on God's word. To help your readers fully enter that experience, avoid abstracts. Use active verbs and concrete nouns as you recall a true-to-life event in around 300 words that illustrate your chosen scripture. A “take-away” will also occur if your words, thoughts, and comparisons show your readers how to apply the Bible to their lives.

Prayer – In one or two sentences, a prayer ties together all of the above and helps your readers to seek God’s guidance as you've surely done!

Editorial guidance helps, too, as you follow a publisher's guidelines. If you know which publishing company you hope will accept your work, find their website and follow their writers’ guidelines. If you don’t know where to start, ask friends to save publications that use devotionals. Also, study the periodicals, books, and writers’ guidelines produced or sponsored by your church’s denominational headquarters.


©2015, Mary Harwell Sayler

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How to deal with writer’s block

If you’re staring at your keyboard and would rather wipe it than type on it, this could be a sign of writer’s block. Will it last forever? No. Is there anything you can do about it? Sure.

It’s like being boxed between cars in a parallel parking space. Tight, but you have choices: You can wait until the owner of the other car comes along to free you. Or you can inch your vehicle by increments until you wiggle out.

Trying to think of something new to do might sound like an experiment in frustration when your thoughts already seem blah or singularly uninspired, but don't fret. Remember: Wiggle.

Do something different. If you can’t go anywhere, stand on a chair or stretch out on the floor, but get a fresh perspective. Look up and notice the texture of the ceiling. Look down. Describe your feet. Look around and notice the sound, smell, sight, taste, or feel of objects surrounding you every day. Munch your salad slowly and identify the flavors and textures. Compare. Listen to the hum of a washing machine, a fan, a furnace, an air conditioner, then fill in words that fit the beat.

Take a mini-vacation. Getting away from normal surroundings can help you to chip big chunks from a writer’s block even if just for an afternoon of vacating your premises. (Pun intended.) Use your writer’s block as the impetus for touring that museum in town you keep meaning to visit. Or go to a movie with sub-titles. Check out a library book of poems totally unlike anything you usually read or write. Pick up a travel magazine, and look at photographs of enticing places. Search for a video of a country you hope to visit or, better yet, one you would never dare to set a sandal inside.

Consider your interests and available options. Writer’s block is like a box every poet or writer steps into occasionally, but you don’t have to stay there. Even if you’re really boxed in, you have choices. Jump out. Find a different perspective on whatever is familiar, safe, or boring!

Mingle! Get around people. Go to a mall. Help out at a Christian service center. Attend a Bible study. Worship with a church you have never visited.

Take care of yourself. If none of the above appeals to you, lounge on the deck. Rock out on the porch. Pray for the Lord to speak to you even as you sleep. Take a nap.


[The original version of this article appeared here on March 5, 2010, entitled “Writer’s Block In A Box.”]

©2015, Mary Harwell Sayler, poet-author, is on a mission to help other Christian Poets & Writers through blogs, writing resources, and e-books such as the Christian Writer’s Guide and Christian Poet's Guide to Writing Poetry.

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