How to Write with Joy in Hard Times with Mary DeMuth

Writing is hard. Writing during difficult seasons is even harder. Yet persistence separates successful authors from those who never break through.

How do you keep writing when the going gets tough, and just as importantly, how do you do it with joy?

I asked Mary Demuth. She is a podcaster, novelist, and nonfiction author of more than 40 books, and she is passionate about helping people re-story their lives.

How did you get started writing?

Thomas: How did you get started writing?

Mary: I have been a writer from a young age. Many readers know I had a traumatic childhood. I experienced sexual abuse at age five. My father was enigmatic and predatory. My mom went through three divorces. By sixth and seventh grade, I began thinking about taking my own life because I felt I existed only to be harmed.

A few things saved me. I did not know Jesus yet, but in second grade a teacher pulled me aside and said, “You’re a good writer.” She even told my mom. That affirmation lodged in my mind. I thought, maybe I have some worth in this world because of this small talent.

Later, when I felt I had nothing to live for, I wrote poetry and journaled. I also grew up with a narcissistic parent who gaslighted me. One day something would be said, and the next day the opposite. Writing became my way of validating my sanity. I would write things down so I would know I was not crazy. I did not confront anyone with it. I just needed to know the truth for myself.

By junior high, I was deeply depressed, like many kids that age. Thankfully, a counselor helped me. In ninth grade, I started attending Young Life, and in tenth grade, at a Young Life camp, I met Jesus. That was when I gained the courage to begin telling my story. God gave me an inner knowing that if I told it, I would begin to heal.

I went on to college and graduated with an English major, though I started as a math major. I have a creative side and a very systematic side, which is why I write both fiction and nonfiction. I taught junior high English for a couple of years.

Later, when I became a stay-at-home mom, I felt compelled to write a book. I cannot explain it. I had a baby and thought, I need to write a book.

That was the early 1990s. I spent that decade practicing what Malcolm Gladwell would call the 10,000 hours. I wrote constantly throughout the 1990s. It was not until the mid-2000s that I secured an agent and began publishing. I was first published in 2004. That is the short version of a very long story.

What did it take to move from practice to publication?

Thomas: How many books would you say you wrote during that 1990s practice season?

Mary: I wrote one novel, but I produced millions of words. I wrote articles and fragments of books. I estimate about a million words during that time, none of which were evaluated.

This was before the internet became interactive, so I was not engaging with other writers, and I did not know how publishing worked. It was not until I entered environments with other writers that I began to understand the process.

Thomas: You spent ten years building your writing muscles. What did the process of pitching and getting your first contract look like?

Mary: By then, I had written a novel. To back up a bit, we moved from Seattle to East Texas in 1998, our first cross-cultural move. In 2000, we moved to the Dallas–Fort Worth area so my husband could attend Dallas Theological Seminary.

At a church potluck, I sat next to a woman who asked, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” I was afraid to say it out loud, but I finally said, “I want to be a writer.” She replied, “One of my passions is mentoring new writers.” She turned out to be a media arts professor at Dallas Theological Seminary.

She helped me write my first real query letter to a magazine and encouraged me to attend writers groups. I joined two and could not get enough. I also attended small, local conferences.

In 2003, I went to my first Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference. That is where I met my first agent and began my publishing journey. By then, I had been in countless writers groups, received extensive critique, and logged those 10,000 hours. I became an “overnight success” which took about 12 years.

What was the first book you pitched?

Mary: It was a novel, not a proposal. I thought I would only ever be a novelist, even though I had written nonfiction articles. The book was about my great-grandmother during the Great Depression, raising seven children after her husband died in a rock quarry accident.

I had written the entire novel, so I submitted the first fifteen to twenty pages. Several publishers and agents showed interest. Those pages had been reviewed many times before the conference.

That novel was never published. I am still grateful for it because I needed to write a novel to learn how to write a novel. I made all the mistakes that first novels usually contain. It was necessary work.

Thomas: You wrote for years, completed your first book, and it still was not the book you published. That is why I often tell writers, “Do not publish your first book first.” It matters for your growth, not necessarily for publication.

How did your first book deal come together?

Mary: I had a lot of moxie back then. I walked into The Rowlett Lakeshore Times and said, “You need a columnist.” They hired me. I became a weekly columnist and sent my column to friends and my agent every week.

My agent kept telling me, “You need to write a parenting book.” At the time, my kids were babies and toddlers. I was studying Scripture about motherhood, but I felt deeply insecure about my parenting. Writing about parenting was at the bottom of my list.

Finally, I emailed him and said, “The only book I will write is for people who do not want to duplicate the homes they were raised in.” There was a pause. He wrote back, “You need to write that book.”

I resisted because I did not feel qualified, and I was terrified of nonfiction proposals. I planned to write novels forever to avoid them. A friend showed me a nonfiction proposal, which gave me the courage to write one. I sold that book.

A week later, my agent emailed and said, “This ministry wants a mom devotional. I need a proposal by Monday.” It was Friday. I said, “Okay,” and wrote it. That book sold too.

My first two books were parenting books, oddly enough.

Thomas: That is remarkable. Your first novel did not sell; you were writing articles, and then suddenly you landed two contracts in one week. It is worth noting that for nonfiction, you sell the proposal before writing the book.

What is it like to suddenly have two books due?

Thomas: So now you have two books you have to write. What was that like?

Mary: It was terrifying. With the devotional, I had already written so many columns that I had plenty of material to mine. But the book that became Building the Christian Family You Never Had terrified me because it asked, “How do you build a family when you have had terrible examples?”

If we are going to talk about writing scared, the first chapter had to be my story. I had never put it in print. I had shared it verbally with audiences. I have been speaking since the early 1990s, so I was not afraid to tell it out loud, but I was terrified to put it on the page.

I carried so much angst and worry that I nearly gave the advance back. Eventually, I made it through. I also had to finish that book while we were living in France. We were missionaries in the south of France for a couple of years, so there was a lot happening at once. It was terrifying.

How do you work through fear when the fear is real?

Thomas: How did you work through that fear? Did it go away, or did you just write scared?

Mary: I cried a lot. I was terrified. One of my parents is deceased, one is not, and I had the voice of my living parent on my shoulder, yelling in my ear. I had to put her away. I could not have her voice in my head while I wrote that book, or I would never have finished it.

I also gave my editor permission to pull me back. I told him, “I’m going to write what I’m going to write, but I don’t want this to be punitive. This is not about pointing fingers at villains. It’s about the redemption of God. You have permission to pull me back, but I need to get it on the page first.”

He was great. Sometimes he would say, “No, that isn’t punitive,” and other times he would say, “You may need to pull back here.” I was grateful for that.

He also did not want my parent to know about the book until it was complete because I needed to go through the whole process. But once we were in France and the manuscript was done, he emailed me and said, “Now she needs to see it.” I was petrified.

I sent it, and I told myself two things might happen. Either she would say I lied and none of it was true, or she would withdraw her love from me. I waited for weeks before she responded. I tried to reassure myself. I thought, maybe I was being dramatic. Those were the worst-case scenarios.

Then the email came. She questioned everything I had written, said I was lying, and withdrew her love. The very worst thing I could imagine happened.

But it was like that scene in The Wizard of Oz when Toto pulls back the curtain and the wizard is just a man pulling levers. I had been terrified of what my family thought. This person felt like the embodiment of my whole family, towering over me. But once the worst happened, I was still standing.

For anyone who is scared to write tender things, you must go to the Lord first. You must hear from Him first. He told me to do it. He is not telling everyone to do this. It is a sacrifice. It is rough. You will lose some things if you do it.

What the Lord said to me personally, and I am not saying this to all of you, was, “If we all waited for our parents to die to write about the redemption of God from a painful family story, there would be no mentors for the next generation.”

So, I said, “I’ll take one for the team, and come what may.” And “come what may” happened, and I am still here. God is bigger than your fear of your parents, bigger than your fear of what people think, bigger than your fear of what readers will think. He is bigger than all of it.

What is the difference between courage and boldness?

Thomas: Your fear wasn’t unfounded, and it never went away. But you wrote anyway. That is the difference between courage and boldness. Boldness is not the absence of fear. Sometimes the Spirit of the Lord comes on you, the fear leaves, and you act boldly.

But often the fear does not leave, and you have to act courageously. There is a real difference, and there is righteousness in both. In some ways, there is a greater righteousness in courage.

It is easy to do something powerful when the Spirit of the Lord comes upon you. Even King Saul had moments like that. But doing something with courage requires more.

Suffering can be powerful. The ancient ascetic monks understood this. Asceticism is not popular anymore, but 1700 years ago it was a common path for serious Christians. These men and women suffered, often intentionally, trying to become holier. They fasted constantly, wore simple clothes, and avoided comforts. Some even took on extreme disciplines. There was one man who lived on top of a pillar for decades, praying for the people in the town.

One thing they realized was that there was nothing the emperor could do to them. You could not torture them because they were already suffering. You could not kill them because they would become martyrs. Sometimes the emperor would come to the bottom of the pillar to seek counsel because the ascetic had the ear of the people. The power dynamic flipped.

I am not saying suffering is good or that you should go seek it, but if God brings you into a season of suffering, there may be a use for it. It may not be suffering for suffering’s sake.

Mary: I agree. Those are the consistent words I hear when I ask readers, “What do you get from me? What do you see when you see me? How do my books help you?” They say, “You give reality, authenticity, and empathy.”

I tell stories that so many people have lived. Because I went through that kind of hell, I am not afraid in the same ways anymore. There are still things I fear, but many of those early fears are gone because I walked through them. It brings validity to my story because I was willing to say it plainly.

What happens when the worst-case scenario comes true?

Thomas: There’s a concept that says, “They’ve already shot the hostages.” Once the worst has happened, there’s nothing left to leverage. In your situation, once she withholds her love, she can’t do it again. She can threaten it over and over, but once she actually does it, and you realize you can live without your mother’s love, you’re suddenly free from the power she had over you.

What happened after that book was published?

Mary: Many people say they want to be writers, but a lot of them don’t really want to be writers; they just want to be published. They want to be known for being published. I tell them, “You have to settle your worth now because publishing will not validate you. In fact, it will take from you.”

The publishing journey has been one of the hardest sanctification journeys of my adult life. It is difficult. If you think getting rejected early is hard, wait until you are established and you get rejected. It feels more personal. It is deeper and more painful. I have shed more tears later in my career than I did early on.

I’m on this journey because Jesus keeps asking me to keep writing, so I do. There have been times when I have thought, “I’m done. I’m going to get a job.” Then, I will apply for the perfect job with every box checked. I will even be interviewed. They’ll say, “You’re overqualified,” or “We think you’re amazing,” and then they don’t offer me the job. And I think the Lord wants me to keep writing.

It doesn’t always make sense, but as long as I have words in my head, I’ll keep putting them on the page.

Thomas: I can confirm I have seen Mary quit multiple times.

And then a week later she’s like, “Oh, I got another book deal.” And I’m like, “I thought you quit.” And she’s like, “Well, somebody got back to me from two years ago.”

Where does joy come from when the work is hard?

Thomas: How do you walk this path with joy? We don’t want to pretend it’s roses and butterflies because it isn’t. But we also don’t want to make it sound entirely miserable. There is joy in suffering and in obedience.

Mary: I agree. For me, joy comes from obeying and knowing God has called me to this, and I’m doing it. I think of the parable of the talents. I want to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I want to spend myself on the battlefield, crawling toward the enemy lines with the last dagger in my hand. That brings me joy.

But I want to encourage listeners who don’t have a published book that simply publishing isn’t the point.

Yesterday I got an email from a young Hispanic woman. Last year I wrote We Too: How the Church Can Respond Redemptively to the Sexual Abuse Crisis. At wetoo.org there is a free 21-day email sequence. For 21 days, I send emails about healing from the past, especially sexual abuse.

She wrote to tell me it had been impactful. She said, “I am translating each letter into Spanish and sharing it with people in my circle who are suffering.” That brings me so much joy. God has used my suffering to create something tangible and helpful. Now, someone else can take it and pass it on, literally translating it into another language.

That was just a 21-day email sequence. It wasn’t a book. And it brought as much joy as someone emailing to say, “Your book is amazing.”

So be careful about believing that you will only be validated when you hold a physical book in your hands.

How do you know when a book is the right vehicle for the message?

Thomas: Be careful thinking the only way you can serve God with your story is by putting it in a book. For many people, the book feels like the only option. But in my experience, I’ve had a much greater impact through my blog and podcasts than through my books.

I know you’ve seen the same. You have over a million downloads of your podcast, Pray Every Day. You’ve turned it into books, but it didn’t start that way. So how do you know when a book is the right solution, and when you should think outside the box in terms of being obedient with the message God has put on your heart?

Mary: The simple answer is, “When someone offers me a contract.” I typically go the traditional route. There have been rare occasions when I’ve self-published, and you helped me with one of those, the Not Marked sexual abuse recovery book, which is its own story.

Books are lovely. They’re wonderful to hold in your hands. But even if you’re excited about writing one, you should test your audience to see if the message has merit.

For example, I wrote a post called “The Sexy Wife I Cannot Be.” It ran on Christianity Today and it went viral. That post reached hundreds of thousands, maybe more, and because it resonated, it made me want to write a book about it.

Sometimes we do this backwards. We start with the book. Instead, test ideas with your audience and see what resonates. Sometimes people write a whole book that no one wants to read because there’s no resonance with the topic.

Put short pieces out there, even on Instagram. I’m learning so much from these little micro-blogs about what people respond to and what they don’t. We’re always trying to understand our audience and what connects with them. That’s the pathway toward the book, not the other way around.

Why does listening to your audience matter?

Thomas: Serving your audience means listening to them.

If they’re saying, “We want a podcast,” or “We want to interact with you on Instagram,” then you have to decide whether you’re going to serve them where they are or insist on doing it your own way.

Many authors insist on doing it their way. They write the book, but nobody wants to publish it because it’s their story and they’re not famous. So, they end up saying, “Whatever. I’ll self-publish it.” They self-publish and end up giving away most of the copies.

If you were willing to serve and listen to your audience, you could reach far more people with your story.

Mary: That’s true. I’m always surprised, especially with my novels, when people say things like, “DeMuth obviously used the theme of [whatever] in her book, and I can trace that thread through the story.” And I think to myself, “I didn’t even realize I was doing that.”

It makes me sound less smart, but it’s true. People bring themselves to a book and read into it what they need in that season. I can’t control that.

I could write a paper about all the metaphors and themes in my gritty Southern fiction, but that would be highfalutin. What matters is that someone in a broken marriage reads the book and identifies with the woman in a broken marriage.

Someone else might pick up the same book and resonate with alcoholism because they’re dealing with alcoholism. Someone else might connect with a character’s faith journey because that’s where they are. It’s hard to predict.

What encouragement do writers need during a hard season?

Mary: This year (2020) has not been easy for any of us.

My friend Vonda shared something on Facebook yesterday, and it really ministered to me, so I want to share it. She said, “We’ve allowed the enemy to punch us in the face. Instead of being a boxer who ducks, reassesses, moves, and avoids punches, we’ve just stood there and taken the hits. It’s time to punch back.”

And for writers, punching back means writing every day. Write your thousand words every day. Write what God is telling you to write because this world needs redemptive prose. It needs good storytelling. It needs your perspective.

I had a mastermind call today, and one of the women said, “Everybody’s already written about this.” I call it the bookstore or library effect. You walk into a bookstore or library and think, it’s all been done, so what does it matter?

It does matter because you have a unique perspective. If you let the enemy punch you in the face and you don’t duck, you’re depriving the world of your perspective, of how God redeems a life and how God can redeem your readers’ lives.

So, keep writing and punch Satan in the face. That’s my advice.

Why do we need to keep retelling timeless truths?

Thomas: We really do need people to keep writing the same stories. There’s nothing new under the sun. In the olden days, stories were written on scrolls that would eventually rot, so scribes had to rewrite the story onto a new scroll. That’s how stories were preserved through the centuries.

Sometimes historians still have ancient Persian tax records because they were written on clay tablets. But once those records moved to papyrus, many disappeared. The medium changed, and the preservation changed.

Today, the problem isn’t paper rotting. It’s culture changing. We’ve gone through major cultural shifts. What resonated in 2019 is not necessarily what will resonate in 2021.

You’re rewriting ancient truths onto the parchment of the current culture, the world we’re living in right now, and it keeps changing faster. That means the need for faithful retelling keeps increasing.

Punch Satan in the face. Write in obedience.

Connect with Mary DeMuth

Mary: There are lots of places. marydemuth.com is the hub for everything. wetoo.org is for sexual abuse resources. prayeveryday.show is also linked from marydemuth.com. And I help writers and run writer masterminds at writermastermind.com.

Sponsor: Christian Writers Institute

If you would like to learn more from Mary DeMuth, we have a lot of courses by her in the Christian Writers Institute including Unlock Your Non-Fiction Writing Potential and How to Write a Non-Fiction Book Proposal. As always, use one of the links in the show notes or the coupon code “podcast” to save 10%. You can get it in Print or Online.