Marcia Lee Haycock on writing devotionals, memoirs and fiction.
In a marketplace overflowing with devotional books, where do yours fit?
My devotionals, especially Spur of the Moment, Celebrate This Day and A Traveler’s Advisory, fit with books that deal with how the spiritual intersects with ordinary life. I love the quote from Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “Every common bush is afire with God.” My goal is to point out those common bushes.
Your newest is a memoir. Why?
After an interviewer asked me how God has orchestrated my writing life, my publisher asked me to write a full memoir on that topic. Pond’rings is the result. It was a humbling experience to look back over 30+ years and see how God has blessed me and my readers through my writing.
What’s the difference between writing fiction and nonfiction?
Nonfiction is a different thought process, more introspective. Fiction takes a lot of thought too, but it’s more in the category of fun – especially with the fantasy where anything goes. Both require time to get to the heart of what I want to say, but one road is fairly straight, the other winds through an imaginative landscape.
Marcia Lee Laycock of High River, Alta., is an award-winning author and public speaker. Learn about her novels, middle-grade fantasies, devotionals, newsletter and more at MarciaLeeLaycock.com. Photo courtesy of Marcia Lee Laycock.