Author Arlyn Lawrence: 'Encounters at the Well'
Updated: Sep 12
An avid reader, a lover of the written word, this is the unlikely story of Arlyn Lawrence’s God inspired path from newspaper writer to magazine columnist to successful book editor, consultant and author. Her company Inspira Literary Solutions has been instrumental in the publishing of literally hundreds of books. Her company’s mission is to help writers; “ From idea in head, to book in hand”.
Listen right here:
Watch right here:
She’ll share how her life long Christian journey became her own, half way around the world with the help of (you guessed it) a book. And it was in the middle of a writers conference that she heard God’s call to take a different and unique path. She responded and with God as her promoter her career path launched in a non traditional way.
In this Amazing Greats episode Arlyn Lawrence sheds light on her thoughts about prayer, women’s groups, and listening for and responding to God’s direction.
Her newly published book “Encounters at the well: A journey to Joy and Freedom” is the first of a three book series and you’ll get a great glimpse at what to expect and how to use this devotional/study guide to get to the heart of the Bible story and its powerful message to women (and men).
Sit back and enjoy a few minutes with this amazing woman and her inspiring journey.
Other books mentioned:
ARLYN LAWRENCE AT A GLANCE
Author • Developmental Editor • Founder of Inspira Literary Solutions • Speaker • Christian Bible Study Writer
Topics
Prayer • Hearing God • Calling • Christian faith • Writing • Book editing • Publishing • Encounters at the Well • Identity • Seahawks
Her Faith Journey
Christian upbringing → Questioning her faith → Personal commitment to Jesus → Mere Christianity → Discipleship and mentoring → Learning to recognize God's leading → Following God's calling into writing and editing
This Episode Explores
Arlyn's journey from homeschooling mom to professional editor and author
How God opened unexpected doors in her writing career
Learning to recognize God's voice
A remarkable prayer connected to a four-year-old boy lost on Mount Rainier
How to pray using Scripture
What happens when prayers aren't answered as expected
The message behind Encounters at the Well
Shame, rejection, comparison and finding freedom in Jesus
Her work with Jeff Kemp and Clint Gresham
What developmental editing actually means
Trusting God instead of building your own career
Questions Answered
Who is Arlyn Lawrence?
What is a developmental editor?
How did Arlyn Lawrence become an editor and author?
What is Inspira Literary Solutions?
How can you tell when God is speaking to you?
What does Arlyn Lawrence teach about prayer?
What happened to the four-year-old boy lost on Mount Rainier?
How can praying Scripture strengthen your prayer life?
What is Encounters at the Well about?
Who is Encounters at the Well written for?
How did Arlyn Lawrence work with Jeff Kemp and Clint Gresham?
What does it mean to let God direct your career?
Podcast Transcript: Arlyn Lawrence on Prayer, Calling, Books & Listening to God
Amazing Greats with Ric Hansen
Introduction
Ric Hansen: Welcome to Amazing Greats with me, Ric Hansen. Today we're talking with Arlyn Lawrence, a self-confessed book nerd, author, and developmental editor. If you're not sure what a developmental editor is, you'll find out on this episode.
We'll also talk about how to know if it is God talking, the power of prayer, and the amazing rescue of a four-year-old boy on Mount Rainier.
Arlyn has also just authored a new book, a devotional Bible study primarily for women called Encounters at the Well, with two more books coming. Let's get rolling with Arlyn Lawrence.
We have the distinct pleasure today of talking to Arlyn Lawrence. Her credentials are spectacular in terms of authorship and editing, so let me run through a few of those embarrassing things I'm going to bring out about you. And they're embarrassing only because they're flattering.
First of all, you're a developmental editor, which I want to know a little more about what that means. You're a speaker, founder, and president of Inspira Literary Solutions. You've been the editor and co-author of numerous books and curriculum resources published and distributed around the world. You've had Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestsellers.
And not only that, you live on an island in the middle of Puget Sound in Washington State that we both happen to call paradise, even though it's actually Fox Island.
Arlyn Lawrence: It is a little bit of paradise. It's our bit of paradise.
Ric Hansen: It is. It is.
Now, I originally learned about you from Jeff Kemp, a quarterback for the Seahawks, who wrote a book called Facing the Blitz. You were instrumental in helping him edit that and doing all the preparation and behind-the-scenes work with Jeff. He mentioned your name to me because he knew I was around Gig Harbor and thought you were as well.
So you've just released this brand-new book two days ago, right? On Valentine's Day of 2024?
Arlyn Lawrence: Yes.
Ric Hansen: And that is called Encounters at the Well. We're going to talk about that in just a little bit.
One of the amazing things about you is this amazing family you've raised. Five kids. Tell us how that was.
Raising Five Children
Arlyn Lawrence: They're my trophies.
Oh, you want to know how that was? That was pretty crazy raising five kids.
My husband and I have five grown kids between 26 and 37, which I can't even believe. The oldest four are married, the youngest one lives on Fox Island. The oldest four are married and have children, so we have 11 grandchildren, going to be 12 in May.
Ric Hansen: Oh my gosh.
Arlyn Lawrence: There's two sets of twins in there. Our oldest son had twins, and then nine months later our daughter had twins.
But growing up, it was crazy. I homeschooled for 14 years, and we did all of the things that homeschool families did. We had basketball and dance lessons and horseback riding lessons and basketball.
It was insane having three kids on three different baseball teams, and my husband was coaching two of them.
I sometimes feel like I had a dream about this woman who had five kids. It was like it happened to somebody else. But no, no, it happened to me.
And our kids are our best friends. It's amazing having a family like that. Crazy, but so amazing.
Ric Hansen: I can imagine. I have one son who's now 28, and times five. That sounds crazy.
Arlyn Lawrence: So that's—if you have a son that's 28, our kids probably went to school together.
Ric Hansen: You know, I bet. Gig Harbor High School and all of that, probably.
Very cool.
Growing Up in Canada and Finding Jesus
So that was your family. But let's go into the Wayback Machine and find out about your upbringing. Originally from Canada, is that right?
Arlyn Lawrence: I am. I am Canadian, yes. Originally Canadian. I am a dual citizen now, but yeah, originally Canadian.
I was born in Winnipeg, sometimes called Winterpeg. Very cold.
Ric Hansen: Yeah.
Arlyn Lawrence: When I was 11, my parents moved out to the West Coast, which I'm so grateful for because, in God's timing and perfect plan, that's where I met my husband—the church that our family started attending. My late father-in-law was the pastor.
So my husband and I met in Sunday school in the sixth grade. That's our exciting meeting story.
And yeah, I grew up in a Christian home and am really, really grateful for that.
Ric Hansen: Okay, so everybody's got their own Christian story. That's what we love to hear: what brought you to Jesus?
Obviously, you were introduced early on, but was there a time, a pivotal moment, where He became real and there was a relationship with Jesus? Some people, it's kind of a growing thing. Other people, it happens in a flash. What was your story there?
Arlyn Lawrence: As a teenager, I kind of dabbled with the dark side a little bit. Just, "Is this real? Is my parents' religion my religion? Is my parents' faith my faith?"
I was married very young. I got married four days before my 19th birthday.
When I was 18, just prior to getting married, I really did have a revelation that, you know what, what little at that age I had dipped my toes in the water enough to know that this was not the direction that I wanted my life to go.
And very quickly, I came back in line myself with God's love for me—not because my parents had raised me that way.
As God's timing and plan would have it, my husband, even though he grew up in Canada, had moved back down to the States after high school and joined the Marine Corps. His first duty station was Okinawa, Japan.
So our first two years of marriage, we were on the other side of the ocean. This is back when we didn't have cell phones, we didn't have FaceTime, we didn't have computers. Phone calling was very expensive, so we hardly talked to our family.
It was just the two of us and God.
During that time, I read C.S. Lewis's book Mere Christianity, and it really did something to me.
If you've ever read that book, he starts with, "This is a rock," and proves the existence of God, the existence of a moral God, the existence of a moral obligation to God, His mercy. It just kind of put everything into place.
From then on, God just put amazing disciplers and mentors in my life, and I grew. I haven't looked back. I've lived 40 years since then walking with the Lord, and I'm so grateful for that.
Ric Hansen: Yeah. Mere Christianity is a great, great book. A great introduction to C.S. Lewis himself. He's very clear on his evolution as a Christian.
It's one of those books that, if you're a Christian, you should read for sure.
Arlyn Lawrence: And if you're not, it's a good book to read because it really just lays it out there.
From Book Nerd to Author and Editor
Ric Hansen: So you were always a reader. You were always a book person and loved the written word. And that's kind of what launched you into this whole area of authorship and editing and all of those things you're doing.
Tell us about how all that happened—and God's goodness in all of it.
Arlyn Lawrence: Sovereignty and goodness, yes—and probably a sense of humor, too.
So I was always a book nerd, always loved books. My dream when I was a kid, I thought I wanted to be an English professor. That was kind of the direction I was headed.
We moved back from California and I was about to go back to school and go on that road, and we discovered we were expecting our first child, which completely changed everything.
I was committed to being home with our kids, and I was, and we ended up homeschooling. I was a full-time mom.
So any kind of thought of a career in that direction was put on the back burner.
Writing is how I express myself. I love to write, and I started writing curriculum for our church and working with our pastors and our leadership team—doing children's curriculum, adult small-group curriculum. Loved it.
I was starting to dip my toe in the water of going to writers' conferences, thinking, "Well, maybe I want to write for a career."
I remember being at a writers' conference up at Seattle Pacific University. They did fabulous writers' conferences, and you go and meet with editors and pitch your ideas. People were building their platforms and promoting themselves as speakers.
I was getting all caught up in this realm, in this world.
I was sitting in the main plenary session, and I don't know if you remember Gordon McDonald, who wrote Ordering Your Private World. He was the speaker.
I don't even remember exactly what he was teaching on, but it was just one of those moments where you feel like God is speaking to you.
I felt like He was saying, "I'm not doing it for you like this."
Whatever all this was, I felt like God was saying, "I'm not going to do it like this for you."
It was just kind of crazy.
It wasn't long after that that I never went back to a writers' conference.
But out of the blue, I got a call from someone who knew someone who heard of me and knew that I wanted to write—someone who was an editor at the Tacoma News Tribune.
She said, "So-and-so, who was the page designer for the newspaper, gave me your name. I just had a freelancer quit on me. I need this story on Lakewold Gardens by Monday. I'll send you out with a photographer. Would you go out and interview the director?"
It was the front page of the South Sound section.
And I was like, "I've never done anything like that in my life."
And I did it.
It was amazing. And then she ended up giving me the job.
From then on, I did a lot of freelancing for them.
But all that being said, I ended up just word of mouth working for Navigators in Colorado Springs.
Someone handed me a magazine on a beach and said, "You, Arlyn, you like to pray," which I do. It was a magazine called Pray.
I looked at it and thought, "Well, some of the stuff I'd done for church, they would like this."
So I sent it in, and they bought it. They bought everything I sent them and asked if I would come on staff as a columnist.
I ended up writing a monthly column for them on prayer.
Then they asked if I would write a couple of books for them, which I did—on prayer and kids' ministry.
When that periodical folded, some of the authors I'd worked with came to me and said, "Well, the magazine's folded. Would you work with us on our books?"
And so I did.
Word of mouth again. Putting myself out there. No striving, no trying to beef up my accolades or thinking, "I should be working at this. I should be building this. I should be putting myself out there."
I just felt like the Lord said, "No. I've got this. I'm your promoter."
That was 10 years ago.
I've had Inspira Literary Solutions for the last 10 years. Now I've got three editors working for me, three designers, a marketing specialist, and an amazing project manager that keeps my head on straight.
We've done over a hundred books.
And that's not because of me. I don't say that because, "Yay, me."
But to look back and see how God completely orchestrated and arranged every step of the way has been such a lesson in, "Jesus, take the wheel."
Learning to Listen for God's Voice
Ric Hansen: That is so great to hear you.
Sometimes we want to create our own path, right? We think we've got this.
A lot of times, listening is the key—being able to understand, "Oh, I'm being called to this."
That was an amazing thing for you.
Is there something that you would recommend to others about listening?
Arlyn Lawrence: Listening or obeying or responding. Maybe obeying is the wrong word.
I think I have a very interactive relationship with the Lord, and that's come over time.
You think you hear something or you think you're sensing something. You'll hear people say, "Oh, God's leading me to do such and such."
Well, I don't think you know for sure until you move out in faith on what you think you're hearing.
It's really like any relationship.
When you meet someone for the first time and they're unfamiliar, you don't know their motives, you don't know what their voice sounds like, you don't know all the nuances of their personality.
But as you get to know them, if you hear your spouse speaking in the next room, you recognize her voice because you know her.
I think the same is true with God.
The longer we get to know Him, if we cultivate that relationship, we know when it's Him speaking to us—when it's the Spirit of God speaking to us.
And then the more that you move out in faith and see blessing, the easier it is to respond the next time.
Or if I miss it, I can see, "Oh, I missed it." It makes me quicker to respond the next time.
Ric Hansen: That makes so much sense.
As you're talking, I'm nodding and nodding because that's kind of been my experience, too.
At first you're saying, "Is that just me talking? Or am I being directed?"
You don't trust it right away.
But then as time goes on, like you say, it's a growing process. You say, "Oh, that is."
I feel much more comfortable today than I did five years ago or 10 years ago recognizing the voice, if you will.
And it's not a voice. It's a feeling, I guess, for me anyway.
Very cool.
Arlyn Lawrence: This is most often a feeling.
Once in a while, it's almost like there's words inside of my brain.
I'm such a word person. God must think that about me.
It's almost like across the inside of my brain: "Do this," or "Don't do this."
Ric Hansen: Yeah, He knows your love for reading, so He takes advantage of that for sure.
The Four-Year-Old Boy on Mount Rainier
So cool.
As a Christian along the path, there have probably been some joyous, real obvious moments where you say, "Wow, that's huge, and that's from God."
Are there any other situations where you say, "Oh, wow, that's huge, and that's from God?"
Arlyn Lawrence: I'll tell you something that convinced me of the power of prayer.
It was a really, really crazy thing that happened, and this was probably 25 years ago.
I was a young mom, and we had the news on. There was a story on the news about a four-year-old child who had been lost on Mount Rainier, and they couldn't find him.
Of course, that just struck my mama's heart.
I wept for this little toddler, this four-year-old who was out on Mount Rainier. It was cold, and the parents would be looking for him.
I just was compelled to pray.
I started praying and crying out for safety for this little boy.
For some reason—and I pray outside, I pray out loud a lot—the words just came out of my mouth.
I said, "God, if that little boy, if he's alive, would You just give him the sense to cover himself up with leaves or anything that he can find, just to keep himself warm until somebody can get to him?"
And I thought, "Why would I pray that?"
It just flew out of my mouth.
The next day I was watching the news again, and they had the report.
My head snapped up and I went, "What?"
They said this child had been found and he'd stayed alive on the mountain overnight—and that he'd had the sense to cover himself up with leaves and keep warm during the night.
I about dropped through the floor. My chin was on the floor.
I just went, "What? How? Why did I think about that? Why did God put that in my heart to pray that? How did that even happen?"
It's one of those things where I just went, "Okay, well, I don't know how that works, but I'm going to pray more because clearly something's going on here."
Ric Hansen: Wow.
Was that all prior to your writing about prayer in the column?
Arlyn Lawrence: It was probably about the time. I'm thinking this probably happened around 2004, in the early 2000s. I went to work for Pray magazine in 2005.
So yeah, it was just kind of leading up to that and really building in me a real belief in the power of prayer.
How to Pray More Effectively
Ric Hansen: You wrote a column on prayer for multiple years.
If I were to ask you for someone struggling with prayer, what might they do—in a capsule form, just a life hack, if you will, to better feel prayer and pray?
Arlyn Lawrence: Yes. Two things.
You know the Lord's Prayer, right? It's in Luke chapter 11. The disciples went to Jesus and said, "Teach us to pray."
Jesus does two things in that prayer.
It's funny because we memorize that prayer, but sometimes things are so familiar that you kind of lose sight of the forest for the trees.
If you step back, Jesus teaches them to consider God in two ways: realize that who you're talking to is your Father, and He's your friend.
How would you speak to your father? And how would you speak to your friend?
Just relax and don't feel like you're being too formal.
The other thing is, in 1 John, it says if we pray according to His will, we know that He's heard us and we have the thing that we've asked of Him.
How else do we know we're praying God's will but if we're praying Scripture?
When I first started really praying more, I would take Bible verses and put the name or the situation in that verse. I would literally read it.
There was someone I was praying about who was not in a great place in her life.
I found Ephesians chapter one, where it talks about praying that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened and that you would know the hope of His calling.
I put her name in the margin and would go back to my Bible and pray for her. I just kept praying Bible verses over her.
I watched her life completely turn around.
Now, I'm not saying it was only my prayers that did that.
But that's the cool thing about prayer. It's how God lets us partner with what He's doing by bringing us into the process—and He's bringing other people into the process, too.
I think when we get to heaven, He's going to turn the tapestry over and let us see all the workings at the back and how everything came together.
We're going to find out that our prayers did something in the lives of the people around us.
So that's my encouragement.
He's your Father. He's your friend.
If you don't have the words, just pray Bible verses because that's His will. You know He's going to do it.
Ric Hansen: Perfect. So good. Thank you so much.
When Prayer Doesn't Get the Answer We Want
So now I've got to flip the script just a bit.
Were there times in your life when you said, "Yikes, where was God there?"
You were praying for this thing and it didn't happen. What about those challenges?
Arlyn Lawrence: I think, like most people, that happens when people die.
You're praying for healing and they're a really amazing person, and you feel like their life should not be over.
It's just so hard to fathom why they're not healed.
I think that's probably the place that I've questioned the most.
Encounters at the Well
Ric Hansen: Okay, let's talk about the book.
The book just released. I'm told that since you're a mother of five, releasing a book is like giving another birth. Is that true?
Arlyn Lawrence: Have you written a book?
Ric Hansen: No.
Arlyn Lawrence: We need to talk because that's what I do, because I help people write books.
I compare myself all the time to a midwife. That's the analogy I use.
That's what it feels like.
People come to me pregnant with an idea, and myself with my own books too—pregnant with an idea.
Then I walk with them through the carrying of this child and then birthing them into the world, and then I just see them go so many amazing places with their books.
So yes, that's such a great analogy.
Ric Hansen: Yeah.
Encounters at the Well is the new book. That's the title of the new book.
It's available on Amazon. We're going to put how to get right to it in the show notes here.
But tell us where that idea came from and a little bit about the book itself.
Arlyn Lawrence: It's actually the first of three. There are two more coming out on the heels of it.
The original material I started creating and working with and writing back in 2007.
So it's material that I have taught to women's groups at retreats and conferences, and I've used it. I've interacted with it.
It's been a very long gestation.
This one is loosely based on the woman at the well. It's nine sessions. Eight of them are interactive sessions. The first one's kind of an introductory session that helps women go to the heart issue of the things that are holding them back from really experiencing the abundant life that Jesus promised.
In that story in John chapter 4, if you're not familiar with it, go back and read it.
Jesus encounters this woman at the well, and it's not a normal time of day when the women would be there.
He interacts with her, engages her, and asks her for some water.
It's funny because she tries to make it about religion when she realizes He's Jewish and she's a Samaritan.
She immediately defaults to, "Well, your Jewish theologians say we're supposed to worship this way, and we say this."
And He just sweeps that away.
He says, "This is not about religion. This is about your heart."
He goes straight to her heart, and she receives that.
When He tells her that He has living water for her that will never run dry and forgives her and accepts her for these dark places she's been in her life, she runs into the city and says, "You're never going to believe this. I met this man who told me everything about my life."
Most of us, would we want someone telling us everything about our life? That would not be a happy thing.
But when Jesus does it, He does it without condemnation. He does it without judgment. He does it in such a way that He's bringing it out of the darkness into the light so that He can cleanse it and wash it away with that living water.
And I think we all need that.
This book is for women, but really, we all need that.
We all need those places of our heart exposed because we're always walking around with regret. We're always walking around with shame, with comparison and competition and rejection.
That's what this book is about.
It's like, "Okay, let's just stop stuffing those things down further and hoping nobody's going to notice, and go to the well at the other time of day when nobody's there and nobody's going to notice me."
Instead, we're going to do the hard thing and expose it to Jesus and let Him heal it.
So, really, what the book does is replace the lies with God's truth about who He says we are, especially in those particular areas of our life.
It has little checklists that you go through and kind of go, "Is this part of my game? Am I dealing with rejection? Am I dealing with shame? Am I dealing with comparison and competition?"
And then, if I am, just calling a spade a spade and repenting.
There's a Scripture in Acts 3 that says, "Repent that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord."
I've learned that repentance is this awesome thing.
When something comes to my mind where I see I'm out of alignment with where I know God wants me to be, I want to run into that. I don't want to run away from that.
I want to run into that because I want that refreshing.
It's kind of like learning to pray and seeing Him answer prayer. It's like learning to run into repentance and seeing Him bring the refreshment and the forgiveness and the freedom.
Now I want to do that.
So, anyway, that's a long answer to a short question.
But that's what this Bible study and the next two that are following on its heels help us do.
Two More Books Are Coming
Ric Hansen: Can you reveal what the other two stories are centered around?
Arlyn Lawrence: I can.
The second one is loosely based around Mary Magdalene. My working title for that one is A Heart Restored.
The first one is the encounter with the woman at the well.
The second one is the encounter of Mary Magdalene with Jesus at the home of Simon the Pharisee, when Simon doesn't even wash Jesus' feet or greet Him in any of the normal ways of polite society.
And Mary comes in and just breaks her alabaster jar at His feet and is broken.
It's about the healing and restoration that she experiences.
And then the third one I'm especially excited about.
It's loosely based on Joanna, who hardly anybody knows about, but you find her in Luke chapter 8, where there's a group of women that travel with the disciples.
It's just this little obscure verse, and there are these women that travel with Jesus and support Him out of their own finances.
One of them is Joanna, the wife of Chuza, a servant of Herod.
I've done a little bit of research into who historians think she became, and it's really exciting.
I'm super excited about that one.
And each one will unpack various heart issues and circumstances that we all face.
How to Use the Bible Study
Ric Hansen: It sounds kind of like a devotional. What's the best use of the book? Is it in group get-togethers, small groups and that kind of thing?
Arlyn Lawrence: It's totally something someone can go through just by themselves.
I like to have a quiet time in the morning where I kind of just get my heart right before the day starts. If you do that or something like that, it's perfect for that kind of thing.
Or one-on-one, if you're getting together with a friend or a neighbor and you're kind of in a mentoring relationship or discipling or peer-to-peer.
But it's also great for women's groups, women's Bible studies, churches, organizations.
Ric Hansen: Arlyn Lawrence shares her life story and her Jesus journey on Amazing Greats.
Have you been, or are you in, a women's group or small group like that, with personal experience in those kinds of get-togethers?
Arlyn Lawrence: Yes.
I'm not currently right this second because I have so much else going on. So I always try to be, but I have been in the past the director of women's ministry at my church.
So organizing ministry for women and leading Bible studies and doing a lot of teaching.
This is actually the first year that I haven't been involved. I'm taking classes at seminary. Actually, I'm going for a master's in theological studies.
So I haven't shared that with a lot of people. So this is going to get posted. Now people are going to know.
But I've had to pull back on some other things to be paying attention to that.
But normally, yes, I am.
How to Start a Women's Small Group
Ric Hansen: And so the next follow-up question is, do you have any suggestions on pulling together a group of women?
Is there a technique? Are there characteristics of women that work, or is there a size of a women's group that's good or bad?
Arlyn Lawrence: Any size is good.
Sometimes getting one or two people together—good friends who are interested in these kinds of things and want to know more—is a safe place to start.
It's a very intimate study, and it's divided into three sections.
The first part of the chapter is a teaching part.
The second part is the heart check. It's just you and God, with a kind of checklist and some sample prayers.
The third part is called a "Circle of Sisters," and there are discussion questions where you talk about these things with other people.
It probably depends on your comfort level.
In the past, when I've done this, I've pulled together neighbors to do things like this. I've pulled together women who were already at my church, or women I've met out in the community through work connections.
I've done it with women meeting up at Starbucks every week, just grabbing a table over in the corner and going through it together.
Other things I've been involved with, like this, an actual church will put it on and you'll have a group coming together, and then you divide up into small groups.
I specifically wrote it so it could be used in all of those venues.
Jeff Kemp, Clint Gresham and the Seahawks Connection
Ric Hansen: Part of the reason why I asked that is because I know you helped out Jeff Kemp in his book.
Jeff Kemp's mission really is to help men get together on the men's side and give some interesting and helpful tips on how you can make that actually happen.
I've been very impressed, and he does a monthly get-together online as well, which is very cool.
Arlyn Lawrence: I get his newsletters. I get all about his huddles and stuff, and he's very good at that.
Ric Hansen: Yeah.
You also did a book with Clint Gresham, another Seahawks.
Arlyn Lawrence: Another Seahawks.
Ric Hansen: So you got into the Seahawks circle there.
I have not done a podcast with Clint Gresham yet, but I'm hoping you're going to be able to give me some contact information.
Arlyn Lawrence: I don't want to speak for him, but I bet he would do something like that.
Clint is great.
I was working with him on his book when he got cut from the Seahawks. That was a really difficult time.
And he navigated that with such unbelievable grace.
His book is called Becoming, and it was about really coming into his identity outside of being a football player.
It was divine timing that you're writing a book about your identity, and then you get cut from the very thing that you were finding your identity in.
So yeah, that was a great experience.
Ric Hansen: I did read that book, too, and it was very enlightening because I think everybody, no matter what career you choose, ends up identifying that as being their identity.
Whether it's an athlete—and me in radio. I was in radio for 40 years and then I wasn't all of a sudden.
It's like, "Wow, I don't know if I can deal with this new identity—or no identity at that point."
So yeah, absolutely.
Arlyn Lawrence: You know, in retrospect, from looking at how I moved along in my writing and editing career, I have to believe that was a huge part of the reason why that happened for me that way.
So that I couldn't take an identity in it.
There really was nothing of me and my efforts.
It was very clear that God was orchestrating this and pulling the strings and making the connections because He didn't want me to take too much identity in the fact that this was something that I had done.
So that's probably just healthy—God knowing me.
What Does a Developmental Editor Do?
Ric Hansen: Fantastic.
Well, this has been just an incredible period of time to speak with you and to know you're my neighbor and everything, and to find out so many incredible things you've done.
You're taking on new authors and would-be authors at this point in your career as well.
Arlyn Lawrence: Absolutely.
My company does a lot of faith-based books, but not all of our books are faith-based.
We've done a lot of business leadership books. I've done a number of textbooks that are being used at the University of Washington—and I guess "textbook" would be putting it too formally—but books that are being used in academic situations that are not necessarily faith-based books.
I've done coffee-table books, children's books.
My authors range from just about every genre that we've done.
Our tagline is "idea in head to book in hand."
Authors come to us when they haven't even started their book yet, and we walk them through concepting and then go chapter by chapter.
Ric Hansen: You asked me a little bit about what developmental editing is.
That's my next question.
Arlyn Lawrence: Okay, so can I just segue into that?
Ric Hansen: Yeah. So what is that exactly? How would you describe it?
Arlyn Lawrence: Developmental editing is often called structural editing. It's a conceptual process.
A lot of people think editors just fix your grammar or fix your sentences or dot your I's and cross your T's.
But developmental editing is really working with your ideas.
Is this the best way to organize your ideas?
Is this the best way to set up your book?
Is there a logical flow of thought?
Is the reader pulled all the way through?
Are we keeping the reader engaged?
How do we set up our chapters?
What's the structure?
How long are they?
Do they open with an anecdote and then move into teaching?
It's dealing with the concepts as opposed to the mechanics.
When an Editor Has to Say No
Ric Hansen: And then I've got to ask: Is there anybody that's come to you with a manuscript or an idea, and you've said, "Uh, this isn't going to work?"
Arlyn Lawrence: Yes.
That actually happened really, really recently.
It was someone whose spouse had passed, and the spouse had written a book. The widow wanted to honor her husband by publishing his book, and there really was not enough substance in it.
If the author had been alive, I possibly could have worked with him.
But I had to tell her, for what it would have cost her, it wasn't worth it.
Closing
Ric Hansen: Gotcha.
All right.
Well, we have just some great inspirational information from you today, Arlyn.
Thank you so much for taking the time.
I'm going to encourage our audience to support you in any way they can. If they're writing a book, get a hold of you. If they want to read a book, read one of your books.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate your time.
Arlyn Lawrence: Oh, well, it's so good getting to know you, neighbor. Maybe I'll see you around Fox Island.
Ric Hansen: Maybe. That sounds great.
Thanks.
Such a great life story and a reminder that letting God take control is always the best plan.
Thanks for listening and sharing this podcast today.
I highly recommend her awesome book, Encounters at the Well, by Arlyn Lawrence.
And if you're writing a book yourself, she would be the one to contact first.
Have a great day. God bless. See you next time.
Comments