Life is so wonderfully serendipitous. We have experiences and meet people that can hugely affect the direction of our lives. We just never know when it is going to happen. Life is also built on our own personal missions. It has been my experience that we can, and most likely do, have more than one. Remember, to everything there is a season.
Recently, I met Norma Jean Lutz, a children’s writer. She has written over fifty books and is re-releasing some of her best known titles for teens. These are clean reads and parents and homeschoolers love them. I want to introduce you to NormaJean and her books. I also want to introduce you to her philosophy on life and one of her missions:
- I believe God creates each one of us with certain gifts and talents that lie resident within us. It is up to us to learn what those talents are and use them to the best of our abilities.
- Succinctly expressed desires, which are held close, come to pass.
- To everything there is a season and if we respect each season we will accomplish all we are here to do.
- I didn’t get in to get out; I got in to stay! To quit and give up is not an option.
- God’s fingerprints are in each and every mile of our lives.
- If I don’t write them, who will.
Win One of NormaJean’s Books
I think you will enjoy getting to know NormaJean and her books. : ) I also think you will enjoy the opportunity to win an autographed copy one of her books. We will be having a drawing for each of the three books shown below, one each week, beginning today. Just make a comment below, tell us your favorite book and then share on Facebook or Twitter.
One Writer’s Journey – Part I
I’m a firm believer that God doesn’t make mistakes when He creates us. I believe God creates each one of us with certain gifts and talents that lie resident within us. It is up to us to learn what those talents are and use them to the best of our abilities.
My journey as a writer can be summed up by saying that I’m walking out my destiny in obedience to the One who gave me the gift in the first place. That said I’d like to share the color, the tone, the shadings of both dark days and bright days of this journey God had led me on, and continues to lead me on day by day.
I’m the second in a family of four. My older sister, Carolyn, and I are two years apart, other two much younger. I grew up in a small rural Kansas town surrounded by farms and farmers. I’m Midwestern to the core.
Carolyn still remembers how – when we were still very young – she would ask me to tell her stories before we went to sleep at night. Even though she was the elder, I was the designated storyteller.
Sadly, ours was a home of few books. My parents were not readers, other than the newspaper and various magazines. But I loved books. So God saw to it that all of my first six teachers in elementary school read to us children every morning before our class work began. This was a marvelous adventure for me.
I was introduced to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series, The Secret Garden, Betsy-Tacy, Uncle Wiggly, Mary Poppins, and the list goes on. The Secret Garden was especially moving to me. The idea that words on paper could transport me to a mysterious walled garden in England and allow me to see it in my mind’s eye forever affected me.
My first published work appeared in the spring of my 7th grade year. I submitted a short story to the children’s page of the local newspaper and it was published in the Easter Sunday edition. I was now smitten!
My high school English teacher commented that he felt I had writing talent and suggested that he could help me get published. However, he never mentioned it again and I was too shy and doubt-filled to pursue the matter. I did write, however, by keeping journals. I still have in my possession journals from my junior and senior years of high school. (And to this day, I still keep journals.)
In a composition course in college, I wrote a piece that sounded like a gut-wrenching cry entitled, “I Want to Write.” That paper remained buried until many years later – after I had been published many times – and when I re-discovered it, I marveled at how succinctly I expressed that desire, that deep longing of the soul.
*~*~*~*~
Stay tuned for Part II of my story to learn how God blessed my writing career beyond my wildest dreams.
NormaJean Lutz
Oklahoma author, Norma Jean Lutz, is author of over 50 published books, plus hundreds of articles and short stories. As a popular workshop speaker and writing instructor, her expertise in novel writing is stellar. Not only does she enjoy writing, she also enjoys extending a helping hand to up-and-coming novelists. Learn more at her sites: www.NormaJeanLutz.com and www.BeANovelist.com and https://www.facebook.com/BeANovelist
First Title in the Norma Jean Lutz Classic Collection 
Flower in the Hills Available on Amazon Kindle or Paperback Edition
Second Title in the Norma Jean Lutz Classic Collection
Tiger Beetle at Kendallwood Available on Amazon Kindle or Paperback Edition 
Third Title in the Norma Jean Lutz Classic Collection
Rockin’ into Romance Available on Amazon Kindle or Paperback Edition
Part II posts this Thursday. Come back and enter again!
Possibly Related Posts:
- Why take Your Kids Camping?
- Top 10 Educational Apps for Kids
- Homeschooling Students With Dyslexia
- FOUR Outdoor Science Lessons for Warmer Weather
- 5 Creative Writing Exercises for Kids of All Ages
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
my favorite book is The Giver!
Laura Ingalls Wilder was the first author I truly loved. I was so thankful to my parents for her books and thrilled to introduce them to my own children. Now, the books I love are many, but I always go back to her in my heart.
I love Sense and Sensiblity, Jane Eyre, Robinson Crusoe, and anything by Edith Nesbit! Yes, I know it’s more than one, but who can choose one book? It’s hard finding clean books for my teen and she LOVES to read and write. She wants to open a publishing company just for kids to publish their “clean” books. I’m looking forward to the next posts.
I honestly don’t know that I could narrow it down to a favorite book. There are just way too many good ones!
My three year olds current favorite though is “Good Night! Good Night, Construction Site!”
so I end up reading that one often!
Relating to “If I don’t write them, who will?” I just read “The Hiding Place” by Corrie ten Boom. Her story has deeply touched me on so many levels and I think to myself if she hadn’t written down her experiences and the growth that came from them I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to grow from them either. I believe keeping a journal is just such a way that we can pass on to our children the things we’ve experienced and how we learned and grew from those experiences. Please write them down!
One of the first books I fell in love with was the Hobbit. I was so amazed by the world that Tolkien created, and the worlds he took Bilbo to on this adventure. It made me want to discover new worlds and have adventures of my own!
My current favorite book is Little Lord Fauntleroy. I didn’t discover Francis Hodgson Burnett until I was an adult. But I love her–everything she has written!
In a given day I read anything from a basic board book with my littlest guy, to picture books at nap time, to early readers with those learning to read, simple chapter books and the Christian life series (love that!) with my emergent readers, to wonderful classics with the family at lunch time. Along with wonderful history, science and the such as a family! So to pick one, doesn’t seem fair!
I will say that I love books that speak to a child. I hate books that are all fluff! When I say speak to a child, I mean not only catch their imagination, and interest, but teach them character, lead them to think, investigate, and imagine!
One book, maybe more uncommon, that I loved was; Edenbrooke
Book by Julianne Donaldson
Oh and another book we recently discovered,
Charlie’s monument, by Blain M Yorgason!