Tumoulin Girl

So this is what uni is like...

In case any of you have the boredom and patience to read one thousand, one hundred and sixty-six words, this is my first assignment.

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1) Write a letter of no more than 500 words introducing yourself to your mentor. Include such information as your stage of life, employment or family situation, educational background, and church and ministry involvement. Also, let your mentor know if you’ve had any preparation or experience as a writer.

Dear Christy,

Hi, please allow me to introduce myself. I’m Lydia, one of your new students (obviously!). I’ve been dreaming about signing up for this course since I was about fifteen and now that my life has finally hit the stage that I am here, graduated from school and ready for something more, I’m excited to be finally doing it!

I recently turned eighteen, I’m a helpless bookworm, and the third oldest of seven kids. I grew up on a remote sheep station in outback Australia but just of three months ago my family shifted and I’m now cooling my toes off in tropical north Queensland. I don’t have a job yet but on top of this course I’d like to become a part-time secretary or tutor.

Writing wise I’ve done a few things here and there. In high school I won a state writing competition that entitled me to an all expenses paid week long young writers conference. There were about twelve other kids at the conference and the teachers, all published authors, covered all the different perspectives of writing from short story to poetry. That was when I was fourteen. When I was sixteen, my older brother went to Africa on mission work and I spent the year writing and editing his newsletters. I was sending out on average one to two newsletters a month, hard work at the time, but I’m so thankful for the things I learned that year about taking down stories from dictation, writing concisely, and sticking to a set writing schedule (all things I’m terrible at!). I’ve also kept a regular journal since I was about twelve; kept an online Blog for two years; and just last year I wrote my first novel under the National Novel Writing Month Competition.

In unimportant information: I love to travel, I’m besotted with the Spanish language, and my all time favourite authors are Robins Jones Gunn and Bodie Thoene.

I really look forward to working with you.

God bless,
Lydia


2) In no more than two sentences, write your purpose and goal for wanting to become a trained Christian writer.

To encourage and challenge young teenage girls.


3) In fewer than 300 words, describe your spiritual journey to faith in Christ—or, if you came to faith as a child, the key events of your walk with Christ. This will likely take serious cutting and revision.

All the key events of my life seem to occur during the hot heat of summer (maybe living in the middle of the desert had something to do with this?) and the day of my salvation was just one of those events. Technically I became a Christian when I was about five, but I can barely remember it and I’m not sure I knew just what salvation was about. My faith was mostly my parents and I was good just because I couldn’t imagine ever disobeying my parents. Things began to change when I was around eight and my family shifted. I struggled to make friends and I felt alienated and unsure of who I really was. I started getting really scared and I couldn’t figure out if I was truly saved or not. I kept asking God to come into my heart but I couldn’t feel anything and I was afraid He hadn’t heard me. Whenever there was an altar call thing at Sunday school or at church I’d say the prayer in my heart.

I must have done that five or more times until one night I remember lying on my bed. It was a hot summer night, my window was open and there was huge swarms of mosquitoes all around my head. My Dad had just prayed with me. My Dad was a shearer but because he had to be away for days on end he wanted to get a different job. Always my Dad had wanted to have his own sheep station but we didn’t have enough money to buy a farm so he was praying about finding a job as a manager. This was a hard time for my family and that night I must have asked my Dad what was happening because he said he didn’t know but that he wanted things to change and then, right there and then, for the first time, he invited me to pray with him about it. At the end of his prayer he said, “And we trust that you’ll provide what is best for our family. Amen.”

Lying there in the dark, watching the mosquitoes, I thought about what my Dad said. The mosquitoes swarmed up toward the ceiling and then turned and dive bombed straight at my face. What if they could kill me? I suddenly thought. Would I go to heaven or hell? I swatted the mosquitoes away but really I wanted to pull the blanket over my head and hide forever.

Then the words my Dad said repeated themselves in my head: “And we trust you…” What if I said that to God about Heaven? I wondered. Would it mean it could really happen? How did I know for sure He hadn’t saved me? People always said you could tell if someone was really a Christian because they changed. Well, I didn’t feel any different and I wasn’t sure just what I needed to change. But what if I just believed it---what if I just believed he had saved me and then lived as if He did? Maybe then I’d know for sure if He’d saved me. I figured that if I wasn’t saved I wouldn’t be able to change and if I had been saved then I would.

I tried it, I changed, and I’ve never felt the need to say the salvation prayer again.

4) Check your local newspaper or your favourite magazines for an example of persuasive writing. Write one paragraph telling why you found it so.

I found it persuasive because the author used quotes, scripture, and examples of real life people (one from the Bible and others from her own life) to back up what she was saying. I also found it persuasive how she shared her own experience and how it had helped her.

5) List five publications in which you would like your writing published.

Brio/Brio & Beyond, Young Ladies Christian Fellowship Journal, Clubhouse/Clubhouse Jr., Underground Newsletter, National Geographic

6) Write, E-mail, or call those publications for samples and writers guidelines. Begin building a file folder of such material. In a Word document or a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel, record: name of publication, frequency of publication, name of editor, addresses (including E-mail), and telephone number(s).

I’ve attached said document with this one.

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posted by Lydia @ 11:31 am