Every writer knows the flash — that lightning-bolt moment when truth lands in your soul, and you know you have to get it on the page. But between the flash and the finished piece, something often goes wrong. We reach for the words before we’ve truly beheld the thing itself.

In this video, Cara shares why a writer’s first obligation is to see — and how Augustine’s insight that we can only speak truly of what we have beheld changes the way we approach the page. Then she’ll walk you through five questions you ask every time you write.

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If you want to take the next step in writing truthfully, download the free Writer’s Examination Guide.

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Pity Stays at the Door: How to Write Hard Stories with Compassion and Dignity

A teaching with Ronne Rock on integrity, invitation, and the sacred weight of someone else’s story

Some stories are easy to tell. Your own breakthrough. A season of answered prayer. The lesson that changed everything. But what about the stories that aren’t yours — the ones that involve poverty, trauma, loss, or need? What do you owe the people whose lives you’re borrowing when you put their stories on the page?

Ronne Rock has spent years at the intersection of words and orphan care, writing for and about some of the most vulnerable people on earth. She is an author and nonprofit communications leader in international orphan care — and she has learned, sometimes painfully, what it costs when writers get this wrong.

In this month’s Teaching Archives session, Ronne brings a framework that is as useful for the ministry blogger as it is for the nonprofit communicator, as relevant for the memoirist as it is for the mission trip storyteller. Because any writer who has ever told a story involving real people in hard circumstances needs to hear what Ronne has to say.

She opens with the phrase she returns to again and again in her own work:

“Pity stays at the door. Compassion gets on the floor.”

The difference between pity and compassion is not sentiment — it’s posture. Pity observes from a distance and feels something. Compassion enters the room, sits down, and stays. Ronne watched this distinction play out in vivid relief during a visit to a children’s home in Honduras, where two teams showed up on the same day. One sat with the children, listened, and connected. The other dropped off party supplies, took photographs, and left. Both meant well. Only one practiced compassion. And the stories each team would tell afterward would be entirely different — one honoring dignity, one quietly diminishing it without ever intending to.

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Sacred Space for Sacred Work: Why Ministry Creatives Need Intentional Retreat Time

A conversation with Angie Baughman on rest, renewal, and the obedience of stepping away

What if stepping away is actually part of your calling?

For most writers and ministry creatives, retreat feels like a luxury — something you’ll get to eventually, when the manuscript is done, when the season slows down, when you’ve earned the right to rest. But Angie Baughman has spent decades in ministry watching what happens to women who never step away, and she has a different word for what we call indulgence.

She calls it obedience.

Angie Baughman is a licensed pastor, Bible teacher, author, podcaster, and founder of Steady On Ministries — and the creator of the Step-by-Step Bible Study Method and Study On University. She is not a stranger to the particular exhaustion that comes from pouring yourself out through words, teaching, and ministry leadership over the long haul. And in this month’s gathering, she brings decades of hard-won wisdom about what it actually takes to sustain creative and spiritual faithfulness without burning out quietly along the way.

This is a conversation for every writer who feels stretched thin and hasn’t quite given herself permission to stop.

In the public podcast episode, we discuss:

Why ministry creatives — writers, teachers, content creators, and leaders — need intentional retreat time that is structurally different from vacation or days off. How getting away, even briefly, brings clarity, peace, and a quality of listening to God that busy seasons simply cannot produce. The resistance and guilt most women feel around rest — and the Scripture that reframes retreat as stewardship rather than self-indulgence. The crucial difference between recovery rest and formational rest, and why confusing the two leaves us perpetually depleted even after we’ve technically had a break. The fear of silence that keeps many creative women from ever truly stepping away — and what waits on the other side of that fear. Practical retreat planning from scheduling and location to food prep and budget — because the logistics matter and Angie doesn’t skip them. How to protect rest without guilt in a culture that rewards relentless productivity.

If you serve through writing, teaching, or any form of ministry creativity and you’ve been running on empty longer than you’d like to admit — this conversation will give you both the biblical grounding and the practical permission to step away.

🎧 Listen to the full podcast episode here

What follows is for paid members of the Writers’ Bloc Teaching Archives. Angie goes significantly deeper in her solo teaching — covering the full architecture of a sustainable retreat rhythm, from the first day of arrival to re-entry strategies after spiritual highs.

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From Page to Stage: How to Turn Your Book Message Into a Signature Talk

A conversation with Robyn Dykstra on speaking, visibility, and the writer who’d rather hide behind her laptop

If the idea of stepping onto a stage makes you want to close your laptop and pretend someone else wrote your book, this conversation is for you.

Most writers come to their craft because they love words on a page. The quiet discipline of writing, the solitude of the process, the satisfaction of a sentence that finally says what you meant. Speaking feels like a different animal entirely — louder, more exposed, more vulnerable in ways that writing somehow isn’t. And so many gifted writers stay invisible far longer than they should, convincing themselves that the book should speak for itself.

Robyn Dykstra would gently, firmly tell you otherwise.

Robyn is a national Christian speaker, bestselling author, and speaking coach who has spent years helping writers and communicators take their message from the page to the platform. In this month’s gathering, she brings practical wisdom, genuine warmth, and the kind of clarity that makes you feel like speaking might actually be within reach — even for the writer who has never considered herself a speaker.

In the public podcast episode, we discuss:

Why writers can no longer afford to stay invisible — and what the cost of hiding actually is for the message God has given you. How speaking builds trust with readers faster than almost any other platform strategy. How to stop viewing speaking as performance and start seeing it as an offering — a reframe that changes everything about how you show up. The difference between a signature talk and simply teaching your whole book from a stage. How speakers sell books effectively and relationally without ever feeling salesy or self-promotional.

If you’ve ever felt nervous, unqualified, or quietly intimidated by the idea of public speaking, this conversation will give you courage, clarity, and a practical place to start.

🎧 Listen to the full podcast episode here

What follows is for paid members of the Writers’ Bloc Teaching Archives. Robyn goes deeper in her solo teaching — and the framework she shares for building a signature talk is something you’ll return to again and again.

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What Is Cozy Fantasy — and Why Is It Suddenly Everywhere?

A conversation with Deborah Pettit on imagination, spiritual hunger, and the stories shaping the next generation

If you’ve spent any time in bookstores or literary corners of the internet lately, you’ve probably noticed it — a quieter, gentler kind of fantasy rising to the surface. No dark lords, no apocalyptic stakes, no morally ambiguous magic systems. Just warmth, community, hope, and characters you genuinely want to spend time with.

It’s called cozy fantasy, and it’s not a trend. It’s a response.

In this month’s gathering, I sit down with children’s fantasy author Deborah Pettit — author of the Heroes of Tuduma Forest series — to explore what cozy fantasy actually is, why it’s resonating so deeply right now, and what Christian writers need to understand about the spiritual hunger driving its rise.

Deborah brings something rare to this conversation: a personal story of walking through depression, having her thinking reshaped by Scripture, and discovering how that transformation now lives inside the character-driven stories she writes for young readers. This isn’t an abstract literary conversation. It’s a deeply human one.

In the public podcast episode, we discuss:

What cozy fantasy actually is — and just as importantly, what it isn’t. The difference between epic fantasy and cozy fantasy, and why that distinction matters for writers and parents alike. Why so many modern fantasy books leave Christian parents uneasy — and what a faithful alternative actually looks like. How classic stories like The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, and The Little Prince fit into today’s evolving genre definitions. How to write moral, clean fantasy without relying on occult themes or sacrificing narrative tension. Why character arcs matter more than plot in cozy storytelling — and what that means for how you build your story. The spiritual hunger quietly driving the popularity of this genre.

Whether you’re a fiction writer, a nonfiction writer who loves story, a homeschool parent, or simply someone who cares about the narratives shaping the next generation — this conversation will help you think more carefully about imagination, truth, and the power of what we put on the page.

🎧 Listen to the full podcast episode here

What follows is for paid members of the Writers’ Bloc Teaching Archives. Deborah goes significantly deeper in her solo teaching — and what she uncovers about why this genre matters is worth sitting with.

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In this Writers’ Bloc teaching, Michelle Rahal walks writers through a practical, step-by-step framework for creating meaningful Instagram Reels — even if you’re not an influencer or social media expert.

You’ll learn how to clarify your purpose, structure short-form video content, write scripts that sound natural out loud, and use simple strategies to grow engagement while staying authentic to your message.

Whether you’re building a writing platform, sharing faith-based content, or learning to show up confidently on camera, this session gives you a clear starting point.

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What If the Key to Growing Your Platform Isn’t Striving Harder?

A conversation with Becky Beresford on collaboration, community, and kingdom writing

We’ve all felt it — that low-grade pressure to do more, post more, write more, be more. As if the writing life is a race we’re perpetually behind in. What if that’s exactly the wrong posture? What if the key to growing isn’t striving harder but linking arms with the women writing alongside you?

That’s the heart of this month’s gathering, and it’s one of the most encouraging conversations we’ve had on the podcast.

Becky Beresford is an author and speaker whose writing journey began not in a season of clarity and momentum, but in the trenches of a difficult season of motherhood — where writing became less about platform and more about discipleship. Her own faithful obedience in that quiet season eventually led to something remarkable: the Brave Woman series, a collaborative project that connected nearly 200 women writers and became a living example of what happens when Christian women refuse to compete and choose instead to create together.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

Becky doesn’t traffic in theory. This conversation is grounded, practical, and full of the kind of hard-won wisdom that only comes from actually doing the work. She talks honestly about:

How writing became an act of discipleship before it ever became a platform — and why that ordering matters more than most writers realize.

The origin story of the Brave Woman series and how one faithful idea connected nearly 200 women writers in ways Becky never anticipated or engineered.

Practical, low-pressure ways to begin collaborating with other writers — even if you’re an introvert, even if you’re just starting out, even if your platform is small.

Why the enemy specifically targets writers with isolation — and how community becomes a form of spiritual resistance as much as a professional strategy.

How collaboration, not hustle, helped Becky grow her platform, land a literary agent, and launch her book.

The Line That Stayed With Me

“We don’t have to do it alone. We’re not supposed to.”

Simple. True. And somehow still a revelation for most of us who have internalized the myth that the writing life is a solo endeavor.

🎧 Listen to the full podcast episode here

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