I Had Become an Author

Books and moments from Steve R. Hartwig’s unexpected journey from writing his first story to becoming an author in Nicaragua.

And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it. — Psalm 90:17 (KJV)

For a long time, I thought of writing as something that had simply happened to me.

It certainly wasn't planned.

Brandy didn't give me an idea for a book.

She caused me to break my leg.

And somehow, from the weeks that followed, The Little Chef was born.

At first, that was enough.

I had written a book.

Then came The Challenge of the Heart.

And eventually, I began looking at the young people, friendships, and experiences around me differently.

I realized there was another story waiting to be told.

That story became Ride the Fire.

Three books.

I had never planned any of them.

But somewhere along the way, something had changed.

I had become an author.

That realization didn't arrive with a ceremony or a particular moment.

There was no day when I sat down and decided, From now on, I am an author.

It happened gradually.

Writing had begun to change the way I looked at the world around me.

A conversation could become the beginning of a scene.

A friendship could reveal something about a character.

A place I had passed many times could suddenly become a setting.

An ordinary moment could make me wonder:

Is there a story here?

That may have been the biggest change of all.

The world around me hadn't changed.

The way I looked at it had.

I began paying more attention.

I listened more closely to conversations.

I noticed the little things people did.

I thought about why someone reacted one way instead of another.

I began to understand that stories aren't always waiting somewhere far away.

Sometimes they are sitting beside us.

Sometimes they are found in people we already know.

Sometimes they are hidden in experiences we have already lived.

And sometimes we don't recognize them until we learn how to look.

Perhaps that is part of what becoming an author meant for me.

It wasn't simply learning how to put words on a page.

It was learning to see.

Looking back, the words of Psalm 90:17 seem especially meaningful:

“Establish thou the work of our hands.”

I hadn't asked God to make me an author.

I hadn't mapped out a writing career.

I certainly hadn't imagined that a broken leg would have anything to do with it.

I simply took one step.

Then another.

One book became two.

Two became three.

And somewhere along that unexpected road, what had begun as something to do while I recovered had become something much more.

There were still stories I hadn't discovered.

Characters I hadn't met.

Places I hadn't imagined.

I didn't know what the next story would be.

But for the first time, I knew something else.

I would be looking for it.