Darling Magazine

A Letter to My Younger Self: Your Body is a Miracle

October 24, 2019 by Ann Leave a Comment

This is the start of my newest piece for Darling Magazine. You can read the entire article here.

You don’t realize this now, but you spend a lot of time, too much time, worrying about your body. Every day you look at yourself in the mirror and concern yourself with the current size of your body—the shape of it, the weight of it, how it fits (or doesn’t fit) into your skinny pair of jeans.

I know it’s exhausting. I know it’s hard. I know when your pant size moves up, you do everything you can to move it back down. I know you feel like your body isn’t quite good enough and like you always need to be working on it somehow— to change it, to make it better.

But I want you to know that a decade from now, you won’t worry about your body every day. A decade from now, you will have experienced the merciful grace of living through intense sickness and emotional pain with a body that made it through both. Your own feet will have carried you thousands of miles across your own city and across the world, without breaking down or failing you. You will have lived through the beautiful, painful gift of carrying and birthing two children, and then feeding those children from your own body. You will be amazed at what your body has done.

A decade from now, you will be at a comfortable peace with the body that you have been given. It is all you have. It is yours. It is a wonder.

Read the whole article here, at Darling Magazine!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: body image issues, body insecurity, Christian body image, Darling Magazine, guest writer for Darling magazine, how do I find peace with my body, how do I write for Darling Magazine, why do I hate my body, why do I struggle with my body, worried about my weight

Do you have a book inside of you?

February 5, 2018 by Ann 1 Comment

Do you have a book inside of you?
Or do you have an article you want to get published?
How about a blog that you want to write for and grow?
Or maybe you love to write and want to get better at your passion?

But where do you start?

How do you go from having writing dreams to making them a reality?
How do you move from wanting to be a writer to fully owning your calling as a writer?

I know how: you have to take the risk to invest in yourself and your desire to write. I did this when I decided to pursue my MFA in Creative Writing nearly a decade ago–and I gave years of my life to studying the craft of writing and immersing myself in the world of literature and critical feedback.

But most of us can’t drop everything and give years of our lives to solely focusing on writing, and that’s why I started Writing with Grace back in 2015. I knew that there were writers who wanted to grow and pursue their calling as Christ-centered word-wielders, but they didn’t have the time or finances to go back to school.

So, after teaching college-level writing courses for half a decade, I decided to offer the best of that material in an online format. I teach the classes live, and you can re-watch them later when you have time. This is the cream of what I taught in 300 and 400 level writing courses, distilled into a six-week course and offered at a fraction of the cost of traditional university education.

I want you to have access to the best writing instruction in a format that works with your current life.

Registration is open now, and you can use the code GRACE to save 10% on the cost of the course. We’re going to have an amazing time together starting at the end of this month, and I want YOU to be there with us.

So, do you have a book inside of you? An article (or ten?) A writing dream?
If you do, this is your next step.

Come join me over at Writing with Grace for all the details–I can’t wait to see you there!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Ann Swindell, Christian, Christian writing class, Christian writing course, Christianity, Darling Magazine, God, Jesus, RELEVANT, Writer, Writing, writing course, Writing with grace

Yes, the World Needs Your Story

October 3, 2016 by Ann 1 Comment

This is the start of my newest piece for Darling Magazine.
You can read the whole article here!

For those of us who find ourselves drawn to the written word, the pull toward pen and paper is more than just a hobby. It’s a lifeline. Many of us flourish when there are words flowing from our soul onto the page — we’re able to make sense of things better when we’re writing, and we think our thoughts most clearly when we write them down on paper.

For those of us drawn to the written word, writing is more than a hobby--it's a lifeline. #amwriting Share on X

As unique as the personal writing experience is for each of us, research is starting to reveal a universal reality that many of us have inherently known for a long time: writing about our lives is healing. Several studies point to the fact that when we honestly write about our own lives, working through our questions and challenges on the page, we can experience emotional breakthrough. That’s because when we take time to write about what’s bothering us, the act of writing enables us to see our lives in a new way and release past burdens. Writing can help us reframe our experiences and see ourselves as active participants in our lives, rather than as victims or observers.

Additional research has found that people who take time to intentionally write about their emotional state “were able to create the distance between the thinker and the thought, the feeler and the feeling, that allowed them to gain a new perspective, unhook, and move forward.” When we write about what’s happening internally, it enables us to parse experience from emotion — and then decide how to change.

Writing is a powerful tool.

If you’ve never taken the time to write your story down, maybe this is the nudge that you need. While writing about our journey and the emotions that we’ve experienced may feel initially overwhelming, the work that it can do in our hearts and our minds might actually change the course of our lives. It can help us to really see how we’ve been living and what it might look like to flip the script in our current story.

Read the rest of the article here, at Darling Magazine!

And if you want to write your story, check out my online writing course, Writing with Grace: Memoir. Registration is open until October 6^th, and I’m offering a discount to blog readers: save 10% with the code: MEMOIR10. I can’t wait to join you there!

Image via Maddie Greer

Filed Under: Guest Post, Life, Writing Tagged With: Ann Swindell, can writing help me, Christian writer, Christian writing class, Darling Magazine, faith, memoir, write your story, Writing, writing for Darling Magazine, writing is healing, your story matters

Three Ways Counseling is a Gift You Give Yourself

July 11, 2016 by Ann 2 Comments

As someone who has benefited immensely from Christian counseling, I was thankful to get to write a piece about the gifts counseling offers us for
Darling Magazine.

We’re still settling into the rhythms of life in our new city, and last week we had dinner with a family that we’re trying to build a relationship with; we go to church with them and our kids are about the same age, so it’s an easy connect.

As our kids ran around one another, I talked with Lesley about life in the last year and a half — all of the transitions that have taken place as we’ve moved cities, changed jobs, and essentially started over in our adult lives. I mentioned that professional counseling has been a game-changer for me in the last season of life, and Lesley paused to ask me more. She had recently been considering counseling but wasn’t sure if she should pursue it, or if it would be a good fit for her. Here’s what I shared with Lesley that night — the three ways that counseling was one of the best gifts I’ve ever given myself:

1. Counseling helps us to walk the journey of health and wholeness intentionally.

Most of us long to live in healthy, empowering ways in our daily lives; we want to respond to ourselves and others with kindness, and we want to live from a place of love rather than fear. But there are very few practical ways to determine if we are actually growing in wholeness and personal wellbeing. There’s not a to-do list that we can check off at the end of every day. Rather, the journey to healing and health is one that will take a lifetime of intentionality. Committing to counseling sets at least one clear step before us on the path to wholeness, and it offers us tools for not only coping with, but thriving in our daily lives.

The journey to healing and health is one that will take a lifetime of intentionality. Share on X

2. Counseling helps us to own our brokenness and our glory.

A good counselor — one who is seeking to help us rather than trying to appease us — is a person who will speak truth. And when that truth is about our brokenness and the ways we have failed, it can be hard to hear. But it is necessary for us to come to terms with the brokenness that we carry so that we can better understand how we respond when confronted with pain and anger and fear. We need to hear the hard truth so that we can forgive and change and grow. And the good news is that as we better understand our brokenness, we can better understand our glory, too. For we are not solely broken; we are those who are choosing to try again, to ask for forgiveness again, to show up again. We have more strength than we know, and more resilience than we might have imagined. These are gifts that a good counselor helps us to see in ourselves.

We have more strength than we know, and more resilience than we might have imagined. Share on X

Read the rest of the article here, at Darling Magazine!

Filed Under: Guest Post, Life, Parenting Tagged With: Christian counseling, Christian writer, counseling, counseling is a gift, Darling Magazine, how to write for Darling Magazine, should I go to counseling, the gift of counseling

Pursuing Your Passion in the Margins

April 11, 2016 by Ann 2 Comments

This is the start of my newest article for Darling Magazine.
You can read the full article here!

While we wish it were otherwise, most of us don’t have the luxury of pursuing our creative passions as a full-time job. Whether we love painting or pouring candles, writing or dancing, event planning or photography, the truth is that we don’t often make a living from those passions. Instead, we find pockets of time to shadow those desires on the weekends, the evenings, and, often, when we could be sleeping. We read articles and books about our hobbies, and spend our money on the passion we love so dearly. But we aren’t waking up every morning to head to a studio or the craft room or the keyboard. Instead, we get up and work at jobs that don’t set our hearts aflame.

Those hours in the margins are often charged with the electricity of a soul on fire. Share on X

There were a lot of years where I bemoaned my lack of time to pursue my passion. I’m a writer at heart, a woman who comes alive with the tap of keys on the keyboard, a woman who could spend hours each day whittling down a paragraph until it sings with the vibrancy of power and precision. But for most of my adult life, I’ve been a writer in the margins, pulling out my laptop in the evenings or on the weekends, taking twenty minutes over lunch or an hour after work to finish an article or pen a chapter.

And for a while, I thought I was missing out. I spent my best hours, I believed, working as an administrative assistant, and later as a teacher — for ten years. I gave those “normal” work hours to jobs that I deeply valued but that didn’t necessarily hit the sweet spot of all of my dreams and passions. I supposed that because I wasn’t a full time writer — a full time creative — I wasn’t doing the beautiful, meaningful work that I could be doing if only I had the time.

I was wrong.

I can say that because, in many ways, I’m on the other side of the proverbial fence now; I work as a writer and writing coach. I’m a full-time creative — well, as full-time as I can be while also being a wife and mother, and being primarily at home with my toddler. But I’m making a living as a writer, and when I’m working at my job, it’s (mostly) in my creative sweet spot.

And I have learned that I’m not more creative because I have more time. I’m not even convinced that I’m producing “better” work because I have more hours to work in.

Having to squeeze our passions into the margins of our lives is a good, good thing. Share on X

In fact, what I’m realizing now is that the necessary boundaries that most of us live in — our jobs, our responsibilities, the hours we give to mothering and laundry-folding and meal-making and grocery shopping — those boundaries are actually gifts to us, if we will receive them that way. Having to squeeze our passions into the margins of our lives is a good, good thing.

You can read the rest of the article here, at Darling Magazine!

And if you’re a writer, don’t miss out on this post!

Images via Sé Kipp

Filed Under: Guest Post, Writing Tagged With: Ann Swindell, creative, creativity, Darling Magazine, full time creative, how do I become a writer, passion, passion in the margins, Writer

4 Ways to Grow as a Writer

February 15, 2016 by Ann Leave a Comment

This is the start of my newest piece for Darling Magazine. Read the article here!
Image via Madison Holmlund

For those of us who feel the tug toward words and books, toward verse and ink on the page, writing may feel like second nature, like a gift. For many of us, it even feels like a lifeline—a way to uncoil our thoughts, understand our existence and connect to our truest selves.

But after our years of school end, how do we continue to grow as writers? How do we invest in this passion? Is it even worth it? If we aren’t going to write a best-seller or even make money writing, can we justify giving the craft more time and expense?

Yes. In fact, I believe that we must invest in what brings us fully alive, even—and especially—if it isn’t “profitable” from the world’s perspective. Instead, we must ask ourselves if our souls will prosper from time spent clacking at the keyboard and penning words into journals. If so? Then we have our answer.

We must invest in what brings us fully alive. Share on X

Here are four ways to invest in our desire to grow as writers—as women who live fully alive in our gifts and callings:

1. Take a writing class.

Most of us won’t have time to drive across town to take a traditional college or graduate writing class, but there are other choices are available. Online writing courses, communities and cohorts are wonderful options for writers who need to fit their love for words in the margin of their lives. For example, I teach a live, online writing course.

2. Respond to consistent writing prompts.

The best way to become a better writer? Write! It seems simple, but it can be difficult to actually sit down on a regular basis and write for ten or twenty minutes, especially if you don’t know what to focus on. In order to stretch your writing muscles, aim to respond to three or four prompts a week. You can time yourself—say, five or ten minutes per response—and write in whatever direction the prompt takes you. My guess? You’ll probably be surprised where your words lead! Pick up a book likethis or head to this website for a dose of regular writing prompts.

Read the rest of the article here, at Darling Magazine!

Filed Under: Guest Post, Writing Tagged With: am I called to write, Darling Magazine, grow as a writer, how do I grow as a writer, I want to write better, online writing class, online writing course, Writer, writing class, writing prompts

A Letter to My Younger Self: Your Body is a Miracle

Do you have a book inside of you?

Yes, the World Needs Your Story

And if you want to write your story, check out my online writing course, Writing with Grace: Memoir. Registration is open until October 6^th, and I’m offering a discount to blog readers: save 10% with the code: MEMOIR10. I can’t wait to join you there!

Three Ways Counseling is a Gift You Give Yourself

1. Counseling helps us to walk the journey of health and wholeness intentionally.

2. Counseling helps us to own our brokenness and our glory.

Pursuing Your Passion in the Margins

4 Ways to Grow as a Writer

1. Take a writing class.

2. Respond to consistent writing prompts.

Look Around

Past Posts

A Letter to My Younger Self: Your Body is a Miracle

Do you have a book inside of you?

Yes, the World Needs Your Story

And if you want to write your story, check out my online writing course, Writing with Grace: Memoir. Registration is open until October 6th, and I’m offering a discount to blog readers: save 10% with the code: MEMOIR10. I can’t wait to join you there!

Three Ways Counseling is a Gift You Give Yourself

1. Counseling helps us to walk the journey of health and wholeness intentionally.

2. Counseling helps us to own our brokenness and our glory.

Pursuing Your Passion in the Margins

4 Ways to Grow as a Writer

1. Take a writing class.

2. Respond to consistent writing prompts.

Look Around

Past Posts

And if you want to write your story, check out my online writing course, Writing with Grace: Memoir. Registration is open until October 6^th, and I’m offering a discount to blog readers: save 10% with the code: MEMOIR10. I can’t wait to join you there!