Have you ever hiked up a steep trail, and then stopped at the top to look back and see how high you’d climbed?
How about finished a good book? You read the last page, and then you flipped to the beginning chapters and marvelled at how the characters changed, in a subtle yet startling way.
Or reflected on your walk with God? The start of a new year often causes people to turn, to look back to who they were a year ago with wonder and gratefulness.
It makes me think of these lines from a song:
Don’t give up. Don’t give in.
Give it all to Him.
‘Cause He cares so much more than you know
When it seems who you really want to be
Is someone you’ll never become,
Just look how far you’ve come.1
This is on my mind because I realised that 2025 marks ten years since I really started writing.
It began with a short story project my three sisters and I decided to do together. I would write a story and my oldest sister would illustrate it, and the other two would do the same.
I had started a number of stories over the years … but this was the first one I finished.
My illustrator greatly helped me with outlining.
Simple, right?
I cranked out that +2700–word story, and I was so pleased with it, I read it aloud to my sisters. (That was the last time I willingly read any of my projects aloud—but NOT because of their reactions.) They liked it. A lot. And the illustrations added such a nice touch!
The illustrations far outdid the story. With risk to my writing reputation, here’s the first page in all its glory:
Page turning, isn’t it?
I will say, though most of the characters—and the story—fell flat, it had some interesting villains. Yes, that’s them in the picture a little ways up. They don’t look particularly villainous, but I don’t think you’d want to meet up with them.
I named one of them Plimmy at a sibling’s suggestion, and found out later that the archaic word ‘plim’ means ‘to swell’. That suited perfectly, because young Karlos (facing the artist) was always punching him.
Here’s a snippet about them:
Poor Plimmy. I don’t think he had a very enjoyable life.
Well, we put it together like a real book, complete with cover …
… title page …
… and an excerpt on the back.
And if it would be fun to print it like a book, it would be even more fun to ‘publish’ it, right? That’s what we thought. One of my sisters decided to be the publisher and she designed the copyright page.
(Please note: I don’t recommend inventing an ISBN—I don’t think it’s legal. But the standard ISBN has thirteen digits, and we did ours with fourteen, so I don’t think we stole from anyone.)
I was so, so pleased. I let friends and family read it, excited to share what I had done.
(Oh, to have the unselfconsciousness of childhood again!)
To everyone’s credit, they gave me great feedback. Thank you, readers! Without it, I might not have journeyed down this path.
Around six months after that debut project, I started the ‘short story’ that has now become Voice of the Ashes, which, incredibly, is releasing later this year.
God leads us ever onward, friends, though sometimes we want to quit, to ditch our projects and try something easier, to stick what we’ve made into a locked drawer where no one will see it.
Perhaps Rhianne’s Quest sounds like a done deal, a thing of the past. The good news is that it isn’t! I will always treasure the original copy, with all its flaws and melodrama. I’ll still pull it out here and there so my sisters and I can laugh at it.
But I’ve slowly been giving flesh and lifeblood to its dry bones. When I’m stuck on my bigger projects, I write a few paragraphs or pages in it. I don’t know when I’ll finish it or how I’ll end up sharing it with the world, but I think there’s hope for it yet.
What? You want a sneak-peek of the new version, now?
Oh, sure. Here you go.
Looking back can be fun, encouraging, and important.
But let’s also remember to look ahead. Where might we be ten years from now? Are we focusing on things here and now that will bear good fruit then? Are we going to look back and groan at all the time we wasted in trifling activities?
May we all be able to look back, laugh a little at where we were, and rejoice at how far we’ve come.
Blessings on the path ahead!
TRQT
- Look How Far You’ve Come by Chris Christian ↩︎
