Author Interview – Darlene Larson

Kathleen:

Hi. Welcome to the podcast. I’m your host, Kathleen Guire. And this week we have an author guest. I’m so excited about offering this to you, being able to speak to authors, because if you’re that person who has the desire to write a book.  You have had a transformation. You’ve gone through trauma, and you want to share that with others, it’s so good to hear other people’s stories. 

So I’m going to introduce to you, Darlene A. Larson. She’s a passionate life-purpose coach of 14 years. And she helps struggling women convert pain to purpose. I love that. Or doubting God. Women doubt God to determine what they should do with their life. Right. She helps them. You help them live out their destiny, which I love that. And here’s my favorite part. Once upon a time, Darlene was a reluctant writer, and I’m going to let her talk about that a little bit. But now she has four books out, two pending and another in the process. But God. So tell us a little bit about when you first had that desire to write a book.

Darlene:  Good question, Kathleen. When I’m guessing I’m just going to say probably late 30s, early 40s, when I sensed that there was a book. Well, I really should say probably in my 20s, I just sensed a book, but it was never for me, Kathleen, a desire to see my name on a book that wasn’t mine at all. My passion and gifting is teaching. And so I saw the teaching in me. But my writing got really hard in a very abusive, toxic marriage of over a quarter of a century. And so I believe in my 20s and 30s and into my early 40s that I couldn’t write. 

Kathleen: Oh, yeah. I think that’s a very common theme that I hear from the reluctant writer or someone that God has given them that desire to write. But they’re not sure what to do with that. I had that myself. I’m from a family of educators, writers, and engineers. Weird combination, but that’s the way it is. And my mom and dad were both very eloquent, educated, intelligent writers. But I just felt like I couldn’t do that. That wasn’t me. I wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t put words to paper that really met their standards, and their standards were only for my good. But I didn’t know that because I was just a very sensitive person. So did you feel like your words weren’t good enough? 

Darlene: Well, I was told that in my early 20s, shortly after marriage, I was told – you need to change the way you write.  You write too personal and too detailed. And so I began to question my writing gift or writing skills, period, at that time. And Kathleen, at that time, my that’s how my story goes. Also, the computers were coming off the belt, so that dates me. But I wasn’t the fastest typer. And then to switch over to computers, it was a change for those of us that were straddling two different worlds, no computers to all of a sudden, computers in your home. 

Even when I taught children in a Christian school, I was scared to death that a parent was going to say, you can’t write. I was scared to death. I started going undercover. And part of my story is, too, is that we had adopted some children -my precious daughters, I should say. And through their open adoption, we submitted letters every year to the birth mom. And it was up to her choice if she received them. But Kathleen, when I wrote those letters, of course, he read them and they got ripped apart every year. So I just believed through my 30 s and 40s that I couldn’t write. 

Kathleen: Wow. Yeah, that’s sad. For an educator, that is sad. And we have that in common. I have a teaching degree, and I actually taught writing also. But I also had that similar experience of writing teachers and mentors telling me that I wasn’t cohesive enough, that my sentences were too long. But the most disheartening thing was when writing teachers and mentors told me to change my content, like, you can’t write about that. You can’t write about it. You have this vision to help all these orphans all over the world. You sound unhinged. I had a memoir writing teacher tell me that.  I think that we all have these voices in our head-  criticism from our past where we’ve been shredded and ripped apart. And as a listener, I would say to you, if that’s you, if you’re listening to our stories and saying, you know what, that’s me.  In fifth grade, this one teacher really ripped up my paper, and I never wrote a paper again. Don’t let that voice stop you from writing because you have a story to tell. You have something you have overcome, that you have lived through, a transformation that somebody else needs to hear about. And I think that’s so important that we cannot let those limiting things that have happened to us limit us. They limit what God can do through us because God cannot use us. Yeah. If we’re sitting on the sideline saying, well, if only I’d get some positive feedback once in a while, I would do it. It doesn’t really work that way. So let me ask you because you have more than one book. Correct? So tell us about the theme of at least one of your books, or maybe you have a common theme.

Darlene:  Well, they are because they are a devotional series for women. And what they are, they’re coaching devotionals. And this is how I began to write, Kathleen. My story is pretty heavy, hard and long, and messy. My big story. And so in order for me to start writing, a dear friend came over – darling, just start on small bites of your story, just small pieces, small situation, small. And it was like, okay, I can do that. I can do that. I can start really small. And so I sense that I was to write teaching women how to shift from the lies to the truth. And that’s how I stayed alive all those years. I’m a woman of the Word. So I would ask God a question and he’d say, yes, Darlene, I see you. Okay. So God sees me. So I’m going to trust he sees me, and we’re going to work out my story. And so I write by sharing a woman’s story or a slice of mine. And then I teach them how to shift with the verse. And that’s what I did with this series of coaching devotionals. Kathleen, they’re called Enable Me Lord to Shift. Are you stuck in Idle? Learn how to shift into the truth and live.  I took women’s domains because we do life out of every domain all day long. When I talk about domains, think of our pie of life, and we think, okay, I’m going to have my time with the Lord. While the big key here is the Lord wants our spiritual domain. He wants into every domain of our life. He wants into our mental, our thought domain. That’s my second book is Thoughts versus Spiritual mental. And then he wants over into our feelings, those emotions that trip everybody up. Then he wants dominion over those emotions. And then he wants dominion over our relationships. He wants dominion over our finances. He wants dominion over our calling, career, and life purpose. And he wants dominion over our physical, our body, and how we take care of stuff. And so what I’ve done is I’ve written those in domains. So the first four out.  

•  With God, 
• Your thoughts,
• Your feelings
• Relationships. 

I’m working on a life-purpose career-calling book right now, and that will be out by this summer.

Kathleen:  Wow. And I downloaded your first book, right? That’s the one that was free. Yes. And I’m just telling you, ladies, this is good because you have homework to do. And I appreciate that because you really don’t get any life change without putting some work into journaling and figuring out what kind of things am I believing? And do they line up with the truth? Do they line up with scripture? And I really appreciate that, the way that you present your material because just reading something, we don’t often get the transformation that we need to get. And that’s why in the Roadmap Kit that you can download for free on my website, there are journaling exercises that go along with it. I think that’s so important. That’s such an important part of what you do.

Darlene:  Well, thank you. And you are correct. Journaling and writing. And I heard you speak this morning about how if you want to become an author, you have to write. You have to write. And that’s where I had to embrace exactly what you said, Kathleen. I had to believe God was calling me to coach, speak, teaching. Right. On behalf of the needs of hurting, haired, hungry women. But I had to pick up that time and sit down with the paper. And that’s what I had to do  -start fighting. 

Kathleen: Right. And that’s such good advice for our listeners. Just pick up your pen and write.  

I want to go back to something else. You said you don’t have to tell it all at once. That is so important. You’re going to share. It’s kind of like you’re building a patchwork quilt. You’re going to do one little square at a time. You’re not going to tell everything. But like I started to say, I had a lady reach out to me and she was telling me about this trauma she had been through. I’ll just be very general about it because it’s her story and she wanted to start a website and start helping other women. And she was going to write about it. And I kind of coached her through that. She got her website set up and then she emailed me and said, okay, I’m done. Can you read it? It was a 4000-word post on just pretty much everything that had ever happened to her. It wasn’t really any transformation in the post. It was just her story. And the sad thing is she never wrote anything else again. And we don’t want to do that. You know what? If you sit down and try to tell your whole story to a website audience or in a podcast or any form in a book, there’s got to be a transformation. And first of all, you’re going to tell one little bit at a time because not only is it overwhelming for us, but it’s overwhelming for the reader. We want to empathize with them and not send them down a dark path -these are all the terrible things that happened to me because that’s overwhelming. So you already kind of answered this question. Who are your books for? But I’ll let you say it again because it’s important.

Darlene:  Well, they’re for hurting, harried, and hungry women. Hungry in the sense you want more, you’re stuck, and you want God to change your life because he can. But you have to work with him in that transformation process. So, you know, what I share with women is my books are very simple written, Kathleen. They’re written because if we choose to believe the Word, the Word will transform our life. Right. But what I discovered over the years is women would go in and out of Bible studies, but they weren’t changing their life. And it’s just taking one verse at a time and working it and walking it out into your life. And so I’m all about women growing as a lifelong coach. It’s like, I want you to grow. I mean, that’s my passion. I love seeing women grow. And so the way I’ve written them is what I saw my father do all the years growing up on a farm. He sowed one seat at a time. And my desire is women to take one verse at a time, settle it into their lives and grow. 

Kathleen: Yes, that’s so important. I love that.  I love the way that you explain the domains and that you focus on those because women are told that we’re supposed to do it all and we’re supposed to be at all. And I’ve had the same issue – you go to the Bible study, and I’ve seen women, other women friends of mine do the same thing and not really have the transformation. But they’re going to the Bible study because it’s expected, not because they’re really having to dig in deep themselves. And sometimes the Bible study isn’t even one they need to be doing at that time in their life.

Darlene:  Good point. 

Kathleen: It needs to be about what our struggles are. We know where our pain points are. We need to pick something like you said, a verse that focuses on those, and hone in on it. Memorize it, and write about it. Use the Soap method where you write down the scripture, your observation, then your application, and then a prayer. We have to dig deep. And we’re not in our age and society. We’re taught instant. Like, just get on Instagram and you read a post and you’re better- no. In fact, that’s what I get from a lot of aspiring authors. They’ll reach out to me, I’ll talk to them, maybe even do a Zoom meeting. And the next thing you know, all they’re doing is sending me Instagram posts about other people and writing advice. That’s not the way we should treat ourselves and what we want to do should be important enough that we invest in it. I went off on a tangent there. Our growth is huge. It’s very important. And the thing is, we can only choose to change ourselves with the Lord. Exactly. When we try to change ourselves, ourselves, self-sufficiency, anyone. We fall flat on our faces over and over again. And I have done that at least once a day, maybe twice. Okay, so where can people find your books? 

Darlene: Absolutely. They’re more than welcome to come to Heartswithepurpose.com. And you can download the first book – gift from me -@heartsothepurpose.com. You can find my books online at Amazon. All four of them are on Amazon. They are in Barnes and Noble. As far as that right now. The other two books I’m writing right now, are pending agent and publisher handles. And then my fifth book for Enable Me More to Shift will be out. My goal is by the end of August. 

Kathleen: Awesome. That’s awesome. You sound like me. Multi-tasking projects, writing many at the same time.

Darlene:  Yes. You know, that comes with the writing, Kathleen. That comes over time. It came over time. I never was a person that thought I could read five books at once, but that’s just what God’s allowed now in my life. And that I can have that many books open and started.  But I want to finish this very strong. And I know how many books in me that I sense he wants out of me. And so I’m accountable to the Lord with what he’s entrusted me. And I really want to be wise with my time.

Kathleen:  Yeah, 100% feel the same way. And I do the same thing. I have a whole book printed that actually, I printed it out, and I messaged my daughter and said, hey, this novel is 776 pages. Is that too long? She has an English degree, and she’s also a writer. And she’s like, mom, you need to split it. 

Darlene: That’s beautiful. 

Kathleen: Now I have two books out of that book, and I feel the same way. I do not want to waste the time that is given to me. I do not want to be sitting on the sidelines. Oh, my gosh, you’re making me cry. Oh, my gosh. I don’t want to cry. 

Darlene: You have to be intentional with the life God’s given you. That’s what I desire for women as well. I do.

Kathleen:  And so as we’re finishing up, I know I didn’t put this on your list of questions, but I’m sure you can answer this. What advice would you give to a reluctant writer who is in the same place you were when you begin writing?

Darlene: A couple of things. Number one, just write. Start writing, and it doesn’t matter what. Just write. A second would be to go to a writer’s conference and you may feel like you are a fish out of water. And you may feel very uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean you’re not supposed to be there. I remember when an author friend invited me to a writer’s conference. I knew I was to go, Kathleen. I knew I was to be there. Books and I were like buds, best friends. But the material was so new and foreign to me. And listeners expect that because you’re stepping into a new lane – the writing lane where you’re going to learn a lot of new terms. But if it’s your purpose and your passion, and if you can learn, which you can learn, you get through the uncomfortable feeling. And this month I’m speaking at a conference, and tomorrow month I’m speaking at another conference. And now it’s like I can’t wait to get to a writer’s conference. So, Kathleen, that would be that. And also third would be to get into a writer’s group, a safe writer’s group. And the reason I say safe – a believer encourager. I highly recommend Word Weavers. That’s a growing Christian writers group. And the reason I say that, Kathleen, is you need to put people around you when you’re ready for you to put your writing out there and people that are going to encourage you. We writers, we live by a different how can I say- a different beat, different drums. We do a lot of solo work ready for solo sport. But it’s so important you have believing mirrors people that will read your work and say, you go!  Just what you were saying earlier, Kathleen, you go, you can do this. Jane and Susie and Dove and Joe, you can do this. So find a good writer’s, faith-based group that’s positive. And also gives you great feedback. That’s positive. And it’s a healthy environment. 

Kathleen: Yeah, I 100% agree. I have just been finishing up an article where I talk about when you’re looking for that sort of thing, what to look for. And I agree, you need to look for someone who’s not going to tell you to change your content. And as aChristian, we have to be careful about that. Because if somebody says, I don’t even know all the words that people use, you’re not being inclusive enough or you’re not being I don’t want to go down that route. But you know what I mean? We don’t want to change our content that God has laid on our heart, but we also don’t want to be all of the authors that I have ever talked to tend to be very critical of themselves and their own work. So we need to find other people who will encourage us in what we’re doing and say, this is good, you need to do this, or make these corrections and move on. But don’t quit just because you have writer’s weaknesses. Everybody has those. Every single person has those. 

Darlene: Yes. And you know, there’s one other thing, Kathleen, and I see this a lot as a coach, woman, my purpose. And if they sense the writing call is that and I hear this in my writer’s group too. Well, I don’t feel inspired, so therefore I’m not going to write. And that’s not how this works. It works where you show up and I tell them that you show up and you start throwing words around like paint, right. You have to look at it differently as you’re creating, just like you said, the quilt. We use words to paint and they’re painted stories and so the inspiration comes as we’re in it, right? 

Kathleen: Exactly. Do we approach anything else in life that way? I mean, for example, I worked out this morning. Did I feel like doing it before I started? There you go. No, I didn’t. But I’m like, hey, I want to stay healthy so I’m going to work out, hey, I’m a writer so I need to sit down and write whether I feel like it or not. And yeah, that is a myth about writing that you’re supposed to wait for your muse or whatever. No, you’re not. You’re supposed to sit down and write. It’s your job. You’re a writer. We’re going to finish up and I thank you so much for joining us today. I’ll just let you make one last comment – encouragement that you would like to say before we close.

Darlene:  Your book. It’s not going to go away. So if it’s on your heart to write and it hasn’t gone away, jump in and begin to write.

Kathleen:  I agree 100%. Thanks for joining me today and I will see you next week. Bye.