If writing is a calling, similar as how we think of the ministry as a calling, then the writer must somehow recognize the calling. I’ve been thinking about the same three items that have sometimes been used to describe a minister’s calling: grace, gifts, and usefulness. Today I’ll look at the latter.

Question: How do you know if you have the calling to be a teacher?
Answer: They ask you to teach, and you don’t fall flat on your face doing it.

Question: How do you know if you have the calling to be a lawyer?
Answer: You have the ability to understand the law, and are able to use that ability as an advocate.

Question: How do you know if you are called to be a writer?
Answer: Your writing makes a difference for someone.

That’s what “usefulness” would seem to be to me, in the context of a writer. If you write, and no one ever benefits from it, are you called to be a writer? This may not mean publication (though that is certainly one manifestation of making a difference and hence usefulness). Emily Dickinson had almost nothing published in her lifetime (mainly because she didn’t seek to be published), yet her poetry has influenced millions after her death. For every Stephen King or Jerry Jenkins there are probably thousands of writers who have the calling, yet never achieve acceptance from a major publisher.

So how would I define usefulness, if not acceptance by a major publisher. I think I would define it as, after the writer applies the grace given and the gifts given and enhanced through education and experience, the writer looks at his composition and decides, “Somebody other them me needs to see this.” Now, who that somebody might be, either a loved one, or near a acquaintance, or a critique group, or the people that reads the local newspaper, or an agent, or a publisher, I’m not prepared to narrow that down. It may not even be someone in the present, but someone in a future year, or age.

Of course, in making the decision “Somebody other than me needs to see this,” the writer should not be fooled or limited by his own experience. Such a claim should be made in the full knowledge of what good writing consists of, and a judgment by the writer and others that this indeed should be read by others. This has been the toughest part for me, finding others who know good writing, and who are not my relatives or close associates to look at my work and say whether it measures up.

Usefulness. The third yardstick I need to use, alongside grace and gifts, to know whether I have a calling to be a writer. I’m starting to acquire enough independent reviews to believe that I have the call to be a writer. The next step: submit those three proposals and series sell sheet, and see what some decision makers in the publishing world think. Stay tuned.