Since writing about Bob Hartman’s online event on Children’s Books https://morethanwriters.blogspot.com/2025/05/parked-paul-by-nicky-wilkinson.html , I took his advice and released my mum from being bound to my narrative. Now, she is having so much fun drawing and painting the illustrations, and the book is moving forward in leaps and bounds (the central character is a puppy!) This is great news for me, because I had been bogged down with the text. The challenge has shifted to reworking the text in the light of the illustrations; the drawings have become the story tellers. What joy! I love this companionship in writing; the shared responsibility, the contribution halved, the pace doubled.
Writing has the power to shape people’s thinking. I am currently reading Tom Holland’s Dominion. His premise is an interesting one; the way Christianity has shaped much of the western mindset persists long after the majority have been observant. Specifically, that human beings deserve dignity regardless of: status, wealth, gender, and ability. He argues this ‘love’ that Paul wrote about in I Corinthians, has infused our legal structures as well as our behaviour with or without God. He charts the spread of Christianity through the West, often citing books as key markers in the development of ideas. Down the centuries the ebb and flow of beliefs about God, have handed down both faith and doubt to our present faith-challenged society through writing.
Tolkien is remarkable for his attempt to rekindle faith. He wrote during the destruction and anxiety of World War Two pointing to God. Yet, when Tolkien published ‘The Lord of the Rings’, Holland says, “most reviewers when not bewildered were contemptuous” one critic said, “this is not a work…which many adults will read through more than once”! It takes courage and faith to write in the midst of a world at war, that seemed to be losing its bearings and its compassion. The act of writing is itself a witness, just as what is written can be, if obliquely. It takes perseverance to continue in the face of criticism. Holland observed, Tolkien was not motivated by money or success but his ‘ambition had been…to communicate to those who might not appreciate them the beauties of the Christian religion, and its truth.’
I want my writing to point to God. I want to finish my book because, though it may be small, it is a part of the sea of text and voices calling out across time, declaring the goodness and faithfulness of God; hopefully helping people to lift their heads.
Writing matters, even when it is not on the grand scale of Tolkien. If I had already finished my story about a puppy and how she responds to separation, I could have read it to my grandson the weekend he came to stay. Hopefully others will find it helpful when it’s in print and distributed.
I pray for you today, as you write, that you get inspiration you need to add to that sea of voices.
Nicky Wilkinson enjoys writing blogs, book reviews and opinion pieces. She is a grannie of six, and loves to run, play her sax and guitar and paint oil on big canvases. She has lived back in the UK for the past six years after the fun of teaching History in Zimbabwe and raising her kids there and in Prague, Czech Republic.
