blog – Rachel Yarworth, Writer

I’ve just realised it’s been over six months since I last posted here on my writer website! Ooops.

In truth, I’ve been busy – very busy – writing elsewhere… and slowly reassessing how I connect with people who are interested in my writing.
Conventional advice for writers/ creatives is that in order to engage with an audience, we need to be as present on Social Media as possible, regularly posting photos, videos, newsletters and so on. The days of introverts hiding themselves away, free to create in happy isolation – if those days ever existed – are long gone! Nowadays we often find we have to spend more time on promotion and engagement than actually creating. Can I hear a loud collective UGH?!

Of course, regular readers know that God spoke to me about ‘Project Lampstand‘ last year, and I accepted that while self-promotion is deeply distasteful, I have been commissioned to lift HIS light high, which includes sharing and declaring the light He has given me to reflect in my writing.

But this year, as I tried to log in to Facebook one morning and was met by a barrier of ‘pay or accept our adverts if you want to proceed’, I felt like my spirit rose up inside and said ‘no’. When I first encountered Facebook over 18 years ago (!) it was a brilliant place to keep in touch with friends and family. Nowadays it seems to have become a gauntlet that people need to run, dodging unwanted adverts, rage-inducing clickbait, and promotions from pages we don’t remember signing up to, while barely seeing updates from the people and communities we actually want to hear from! It has come to feel highly toxic, and on top of that, if I am fully honest, I simply do not trust Meta with my personal information.
So since that morning I have not signed in once, and I increasingly believe it’s not a personal knee-jerk reaction, but a divine leading. At least, I am seeking God for wisdom over whether to come off entirely (which will require me to sign back in so I can close my account and all auto-posts that go there). The same goes for Instagram, but as I only properly engaged there after becoming published, it has been emotionally easier to disengage there.

The thing is, I am still writing and publishing, and still want to lift my – or rather Jesus’ – light high. So how do I do that if I am not on Social Media? (not that I ever found FB or Insta that helpful as a writer if I’m honest).
I am writing on a new platform: Substack – am VERY active over there – but God has put me there for a specific ministry space, to help people get to know Him better through daily Gospel-readings, and to grow in confidence at hearing His voice speaking personally to them (link here if you’re interested). So it’s not a space that feels appropriate to start spamming with adverts for my latest book, whenever it comes out (later this year, I hope, if I can get my edits done).

And when I meet beautiful people who I want to stay connected with, as I did this weekend (thank you Kingdom Story Writers for an amazing Connect-in Day!) how do I do that without the convenience – albeit illusory – of FB or Insta?
The only think I have resolved so far is to have a card ready with my details to hand out, directing people here or to Substack. And, having trialled and rejected a newsletter, I am wondering about resurrecting one for anyone who is interested. But the jury is only in very early deliberations over that.

Clearly, I don’t have many answers – but I would genuinely love to hear from any other writers & creatives navigating the seemingly inevitable decline of Social Media – assuming anyone reads this (please let me know?). What are you doing in this season?

Bless you for reading and being interested in this space xxx

A couple of months ago, a lovely friend asked if I could give her some writing feedback. Once I retrieved my mind from its initial imposter-syndrome flight of panic, I replied that I was really happy to do so (and then resumed panicking). Once she sent her work over and I had a look (I really hope she publishes: it was so good!), I surprised myself by realising that imposter or not, I actually did have a couple of structural ideas that might help her. And as I jotted down some notes I realised that over my many years of blogging I have developed a kind of approach to writing blog posts that can be described by analogy. It’s not precise, but I think it holds up as a general approach…

For me, blogging (especially for my In The Secret Place blog) is a bit like inviting my readers to take a journey with me. It’s usually a journey that I have been on myself, from which I have now returned in order to share the highlights with them – minus all the stumbling about, dead-ends and boring bits (the benefits of editing).

So when I write, I have a destination in mind: the main point that I’d like to show them. And while I write, I keep checking my metaphorical compass to make sure I am still heading towards our destination point. I haven’t always been great at this, but I’d like to think I have improved.

The introduction (and often the title) establishes our starting point and reveals (or at least hints at) where we’re going – it whets the appetite and gets the reader on board. I don’t want us to take too long wandering about without a clear direction, otherwise they might lose interest, so I try to introduce the main point/ destination within a paragraph or two.

Once we’re into the main body of the text, I see that as the active walking part of the journey where we cover most ground. It doesn’t have to be dry and linear like walking along a tarmac road – my favourite walks are often meandering cross-country ones with beautiful scenery to look at along the way. So I try to visit the stops that generally lead towards our main destination:
a/ in a logical order that progresses.
b/ enjoying the scenery (illustrations) along the way but not getting so engrossed in detail that we tire and/or fail to reach our destination. Pace is key – we must keep moving.
c/ keeping my compass (main point) to hand so we don’t go too far off on a rabbit trail. Meandering/ digression is fine, as long as we are still generally heading in the right direction and not jolting the reader by realising the destination is now out of sight/ a different way entirely.

And when we arrive at your destination we stop and drink in the view, appreciating where we came from and establishing that we have arrived, for that sense of completion. This is the summing up/ conclusion.

I personally think this analogy works for those writing longer books too – you can just afford longer side-trails etc. Blog posts are like short outings/ day-trips, whereas books are maybe more like walking holidays that give space to explore more widely around the destination, or just to take a slower, more detailed approach to the same destination.

Fellow bloggers, what do you think? Do you have a different approach, or does the journey analogy work for you too?