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Clarifying Our Callings
Concentrating on the fundamentals of our work roles can help us slow down and engage more contemplative ways of life. If we’re giving our attention to fewer work tasks and goals, we have more time to rest, recover from our work, and allocate energy to relationships, art, nature, and other things that deepen our belongings with ourselves, others, God, and the world.

When I took some time to think about my core vocational goals, here’s what I came up with: I’m a writer and a spiritual director, so I want to give a good chunk of my vocational attention to being a writer and a spiritual director.

That’s pretty simple, right? I wish it was easy to let go of all of the other vocational things that actually have very little to do with my writing and spiritual direction goals. But I’m trying.

One way I’m moving in this direction is merging my two roles into a spiritual direction practice for writers. I’m happy to meet with people who aren’t writers, but Writing Life Spiritual Direction is the foundation of my spiritual direction practice.

The writers I’ve been meeting with for the past month or so have given me fantastic feedback about our sessions and how they are noticing God’s presence in their creative work. I wasn’t sure how this new short-term format focusing on a specific topic would go over, but it’s a keeper! You can read more about my current four-week package of spiritual direction for writers and other standalone spiritual formation offerings here.

I’m absolutely thrilled to be meeting with spiritual direction clients again. When I meet with my clients, I feel like more of who I was made to be.

Draw a Picture
Here’s a visual for how I’m thinking about my roles as a writer and a spiritual director. You can see how there is some crossover with regard to my intake and output. “Intake” and “output” may not be the best/only terms for all of this, but that concept is helpful for me right now. Also, this image doesn’t capture every aspect of these two roles, but it’s doing the job I need it to do right now.

You can also see that I’m officially focusing my creative writing efforts on fiction right now. I have an idea for a novel (with a diary component hence the input of reading diaries), so I’m forging ahead even though I’ve never written fiction.

I love writing creative nonfiction, but I feel kind of homeless from a creative nonfiction standpoint (you can read a bit about that here), and I’m having a blast exploring fiction. So, I recently (like yesterday) decided to take a break from nonfiction writing until January.

I’m also doing some copywriting for a couple of clients. I thought about moving away from copywriting (again), but I’m sticking with it on a small scale. I have more thoughts on why copywriting is good for creative writers, but I’ll save those for another time.

If you decide to create a similar diagram and clarify your calling(s), I’d love to see what you come up with! Feel free to email me or describe the process in the comments on this Substack post at charlottedonlon.substack.com.

Create a Writing Corner
It’s so interesting how the spaces in which we write and work affect our practices of writing and working.

A few months ago we moved to an apartment in a suburb just minutes away from where we used to live so our son can play basketball at the high school with the best basketball program in the state. This move required a good amount of downsizing, so I’m currently without my own office. But I do have my own writing space in the corner in our bedroom by my side of the bed.

A few items that help make this work for me are:

a small drop leaf pedestal table
a rolling storage cart
magazine/file holders
fabric storage cubes

Below are some links to the items (or similar items) in my writing corner in case you want to create your own small space.

I bought this drop leaf table in black from World Market about five years ago. They don’t sell it in black anymore but I love this washed gray color.

This rolling storage cart is a game changer. It gives me easy access to anything I need, and if I want to work at our dining table I can just roll it on over. It’s kind of pricey but it’s foldable and super sturdy. It’s not going to fall apart on me.

Here’s a bonus photo of our dining table. I can work here if I need a change of scenery or need more space to spread out.

I also use a couple of magazine holders that are similar to these on top of the table. They’re great for journals, notebooks, files, and anything else that’s around that same size.

And these aren’t pictured in the photo of my writing corner above, but I have several fabric storage cubes under the bed and on the bookshelves in our bedroom that hold old journals and writing notebooks and years of notes for various projects that I can’t seem to part with.

Praise God for fabric storage cubes. I use them all over the apartment. It’s kind of crazy how much space you can save when you put a bunch of stuff in fabric storage cubes.

So, there you go. If you want to create a writing corner of your own, maybe this will help.

(I’m like the opposite of a lifestyle blogger, but that’s pretty much what I just did there. That’s hilarious.)

Help!
Before I wrap this up, I have one request. If you’re on Twitter or Instagram, please connect with me over there! I hope to query literary agents in six months or so because I want to write more books and I think it’s time for me to try to get an agent.

Agents like it when writers have meaningful social media engagement and I’d love to meaningfully engage with you on social media, so let’s follow each other. (If you want. No pressure.) And if we engage with each other, Instagram will show me your posts, too. Hopefully.

Also, if you appreciate something I post on Twitter or Instagram, please share it with your followers! (If you want. No pressure.) When my posts are shared, it increases the chances of me connecting with more people who might like having meaningful engagements with me.

Okay. Thank you for letting me beg you to connect with me on Twitter and Instagram. Here are the links to those accounts if you’re game:

Charlotte on Twitter
Charlotte on Instagram

Thanks so much for subscribing and/or reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts and any responses you have. You can email me or comment on this post on Substack.

In the coming days, I hope you notice some ways art helps you belong to yourself, others, God, and the world. Keep putting yourself in the way of art and beauty.

Charlotte Donlon is a writer, a spiritual director for writers, and the founder and host of the Our Faith in Writing podcast and website. Charlotte’s writing and work are rooted in noticing how art helps us belong to ourselves, others, God, and the world. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. Her first book is The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other. You can subscribe to her newsletter and connect with her onTwitter and Instagram.