According to herself, author and speaker Jane Wyatt Walters (also published as Jane Clamp) has a low threshold for boredom. It comes as no surprise that she keeps herself busy! Jane enjoys writing blogs for various Christian publications, producing devotionals and commentaries, working on a few novels, and serving as the Vice Chair for the Association of Christian Writers (ACW).

I first met Jane in fall 2020, through a monthly writing group she led as part of the ACW. Each month, five or six of us gathered on Zoom to share our writing, complete some fun writing prompts (her favorites challenge us to write using the senses, like smell or touch), and engage in compelling discussions. I was struck by the beautiful intertwining of our shared faith in Jesus and our creative practice, whether writing was something we did for personal well-being, as a full-time career or something in between.

I caught up with Jane in the midst of August holiday madness, Zooming into her recently-renovated home in Attleborough from my tiny flat in Diss not far away.

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You would say you’re relatively new to the writing scene. Where did your journey as a writer start?

Back in school, I loved words. The greatest thing my education gave me was that I went to the kind of school where we did Latin. I absolutely loved Latin. It made sense. There was a kind of geometry, lining up with certain things in someone’s brain. For me, words do something in my head to make everything settle. I love it even now when you get one of those lovely English words that’s full of nice vowels. I always love to find words’ roots and they’re often in Latin!

So there was a backdrop of fascination with words; not so much the writing but the words. Because I’m a musician, I also used to do a lot of songwriting. You could argue it was poetry though I’d be the first to say I’m no poet. I would songwrite for family occasions; I did this great sort of epic poem when my parents had their fortieth wedding anniversary. I remember sitting and thinking, “Oh it’s their party tomorrow, let me write a poem.” And it was lovely, actually, everyone really appreciated it. 

Even though I was doing that sort of stuff, I wouldn’t have said at all that I was a writer. A voracious reader, most definitely, but not a writer.

What changed?

Have you struggled with that creative identity since receiving that challenge from God?

There’s an embarrassment about admitting you’re a writer. When you introduce yourself to someone at a party, and they ask, “Oh what do you do?” those of us who write tend to go kind of behind our hand, “Oh I do a bit of writing.” Because when we think of writers, we think of the greats. I think of really good books that I’ve read and the author tends to have a pretty high profile. People have heard of John Grisham. It’s not just that he’s prolific in his output, it’s that there’s a significance to his writing. He wouldn’t be ashamed to call himself a writer. But when we’re first starting out, the thought that we have the audacity of trying to make out that we’re the next Dickens or Shakespeare… there’s a kind of self-deprecation that comes with it.

For me, I have to remember that it was God saying to me, “Look, writing isn’t just something that you do, it’s who you are.” I find—and I know I’m not unique in this—I’m not just writing, I’m thinking. I’m currently doing a chapter in a book I would never have put into the original one. I’m daring to comment on some very well known Bible stories that demonstrate how God connected with people. Great commentators have given their perspective on these stories and here I am, sitting in my workroom, giving my thoughts for what they’re worth. But the point is that they are worth something. 

Why planet earth isn’t dragging itself down into the solar system under the weight of the books on it, I don’t know. There are so many people who have written, so many titles that are out there already. Why another one? I can’t answer that, except that God is saying of me and I’m saying of myself harnessed with Him, “I’m a writer.” Behind that, I’m a thinker. Behind that I’m a believer and I think the world needs to hear some stuff. I don’t write to be on a crusade, but I do feel there’s got to be a way to make connections with people to help them see the things of God. I think writers do that really well.

There’s a certain uniqueness to writing where people can engage with it at their leisure. I read Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis all the way through without putting it down, and then again and then my favorite chapters again. When my husband read it, he would read one paragraph and then set the book down to think it over before moving on. He hasn’t finished it yet! That’s the neat thing about writing as a medium: it allows different brains to engage with the same material in different ways.

It’s so clever, isn’t it!

You’re right in that it takes a lot of audacity to think you have something to say that someone wants or needs to hear. You have to believe you’re bringing something different to the table, even if what you’re saying has been said before.

That’s what I’ve been wrestling with. Every time another great book comes out I’m thinking, “What do I think I can add to the pile?” But the whole thing with saying that God is behind it is that frankly, if He’s commissioned me to do this, He wants me to do it. So I will.

I write a monthly blog for the Association of Christian Writers (ACW). I’d written quite an honest blog in July about being in the desert when it came to writing, and a friend commented saying she found it helpful. Then, almost as a throwaway line, she put, “The world needs your writing, missus.” It made me smile. I don’t know what she was thinking when she wrote that but I took it and thought—not arrogantly—all of us writers should be thinking the world needs our writing. If only one person in the world reads what I write and it makes a difference in their life, that’s enough. In some ways, it comes with a heavy responsibility.

There are so many people who have written, so many titles that are out there already. Why another one? I can’t answer that, except that God is saying of me, and I’m saying of myself harnessed with Him, “I’m a writer.”

What writing do you have going right now?

This morning I was working on a chapter of the latest book I’m writing, which I’m really pleased about. It’s one that’s been rumbling on in the background, a book that I’ve wanted to write for about two years now. It’s about our connection with God, how He connects with us and how we can connect in with Him. When I began writing it in 2020, I knew that I wasn’t really saying what I wanted to say. Having finally given myself a stern talking to, I decided to start this book again, and I’m really getting into it. 

I can see now that in order to write this particular book, I had to have lived it a bit more. The thing with writing is that it’s all-consuming and if we’re not careful, we can almost use it as a way to avoid thinking or dealing with some other stuff. You’re so busy thinking about your characters or your plots, it can be a bit of an escape from reality. This book, on the other hand, is about confronting reality, about how sometimes it’s really hard to connect with God. It comes from a season where I stepped away from writing and was confronted with the question, “When the crutch of writing is taken away, what happens to me?”

This project sounds very personal and anecdotal. That’s a vulnerable undertaking!

You know, it wasn’t going to be, and that’s where I was going wrong. At first, I was doing my, “It’s fine, I know how to connect with God, so I’m going to sit down and tell people how to do it.” And what I was producing wasn’t theologically wrong but it wasn’t exactly gripping. At the end of the day, I’m a relative unknown. Anybody could pick up my book and go, “Well who’s she to tell me how to connect with God or comment on the state of my connection?” That’s where the lived element comes through. 

I have a coach who I meet with online every month and I’ve been moaning to her about this book. During one of our sessions, I finally thought, “When I next have devotional time, instead of just saying it or reading it, I’m going to write it.” I did about four of those in quick succession, where I’m just sitting down like, “Okay, God, You see what’s going on with me at the moment. I’m just turning up and I’m hoping You’re here too.” It’s a bit Psalm-like, though not half as poetic. But you know some psalms start with the woe-be-gones and the, “Oh my goodness, it’s all been so terrible.” Then there’s a bit of anger like, “And why does it even have to be like that, people are stupid, and they get in the way and they make my life worse!” And then you get the, “Okay, it’s out of my system, and I can calm down. God you’re so brilliant and I love you so much.” 

When I was originally writing this book about eighteen months ago, I was saying things like, “Now take a reading such as Deuteronomy such and such, blah blah blah.” And it was so dry. I think we learn from example, we learn by watching people. If I just let people read my diary, they might get it. They may think when they turn up to God and don’t know what to think either, maybe they don’t have to switch off straight away. Maybe they can sit there and be a bit uncomfortable and trust it will come to a better place. That was the challenge. God wanted me to get a bit more personal.

What’s it like to write a novel from start to finish?

Well, last year in lockdown I wrote a novel in its entirety. When I’ve written previous novels—none of which are published, in case people are rushing to Amazon me—they’ve taken about four years to complete. To be the writer I hope to be, I’ve basically got to sit down and get it done. That was my ambition in lockdown. I just thought, “Right, how quickly can I knock out a first draft?” and I did it in six months. 

Following that was having it read by a set of people, not all of whom I knew, so my agent could get some reaction and feedback. Following that feedback, I intensely edited. Not quite a full rewrite, but intense editing for about six weeks. That brings us up to mid-March this year, at which point I decided to have a break and get on with some house renovation. 

It’s amazing what happened in that break. I was very happy with my house but I very quickly lost confidence in my writing. I had to remember to trust that God is directing me, and not just in the everyday life details, but really specifically directing my writing. At the end of the day I can sit writing every hour that I have free, but unless it’s tying in with God’s agenda, it’s a bit of a wasted effort, really.

You do a lot of writing for Christian organizations, and your faith is obviously important to your creative identity. What would you say makes writing Christian? Does it need to have an overt Gospel message to be Christian writing?

That’s a question that rumbles on, especially on the Facebook page of the ACW. There are some Christian writers who would say that our only output should be very overtly Christian. Who are we to waste our words on secular stuff when we’ve got such an important message in Christ? I won’t disagree with that. There are also writers that are Christian writers who don’t need any specifically Christian content in their writing. And I agree with their position as well. 

My own is that I feel privileged because I really love writing Bible commentaries and devotionals and things that help people in their walk with God. That satisfies my heart quite deeply. When I write novels, they are secular, but I can’t possibly leave my Christianity at the door. I could never do that. God is mentioned in my books; you know there’s a character who’s a Christian or there’s a thought that, I know where it’s come from, but a reader wouldn’t necessarily pick up on it. Yet who knows what God will do through that statement. 

I don’t want to dumb it down but I think it’s enough to be a Christian, trying to walk in integrity, to write a really solid book. It doesn’t have to be overtly Christian, have the Gospel on every page and God between each line. John Grisham, for example, is a Christian. He doesn’t make a big deal of him being a Christian. You know when you pick up a John Grisham book that you’re going to read something really wholesome. By wholesome, I don’t mean absence of swearing and sex, I mean something positive. It comes from a heavenly source, it carries something of the flavor of God even when you’re not mentioning Him directly. 

I’ve read some really good “Christian novels” and I’ve read some pretty poor ones. I don’t think I could write a Christian novel. I would just end up writing just those cheesy ones.

What do you mean by “Christian novel”?

So, Francine Rivers is a major Christian novel writer. She has one set in a difficult church situation; there’s one where she’s reworked a Bible story; there’s one involving a girl who ends up pregnant in college and it’s her wrestling with faith, meeting strangers who turn out to be angels, etc. She does this really really well. There’s nothing heavy handed or slapping someone around with God. She does it really well but I would also say you wouldn’t pick up her novels unless you were a Christian.

How would you categorize your own novels? What kind of people do you hope will pick up your books?

People like me, really. I know that I’m writing contemporary women’s fiction. I’m not saying a bloke wouldn’t read it but I know the kinds of things I read as a woman and I write those sorts of stories. We like to get caught up in people’s lives. We learn a lot about our own life journeys by fictionally working through someone else’s life on the page. 

I had to really wrestle with that question of audience, because I’ve got these two strands of writing. When I’m writing Christian stuff, I’m really caught up in that and it’s all I want to do. When I’m working on a novel, that’s all I want to do. So I’ve got to hold those two things in tension. Keeping things in balance isn’t the easiest for me. 

One of the things I found very difficult was, as a Christian, how could I justify spending vast amounts of my time producing something that was essentially just entertainment? I was trying to make something worthy of the novel. I was thinking this could be a colossal waste of my life if I’m just writing entertainment. 

But then I think of all those times in my life where, say, crisis has hit or something’s difficult or even if you’re not very well, just reading a really good story is so beneficial. I went on holiday recently and read four books in a week and didn’t once feel I was wasting my time. I was spending my leisure time really appropriately. If by writing my novels, I’m enabling someone in the future to have a really nice week’s holiday somewhere… Not that it even needs justification, but if I felt the need to justify, that’s what I would say.

There are moments we struggle and have to remind ourselves of truths like that. What would you say is most daunting about being a writer?

The daunting thing is overwritten, pardon the pun, almost immediately. The fear will always be, “Can I do it again?” Back when I first started writing, I found myself with a regular slot on BBC Radio Norfolk. Once a month on a Sunday morning, I would rework a Bible story, present it on air, and then have a short interview about some elements of it. That was nuts. That was clearly God opening a door. I did the first story—it was a reworking of the parable of the ten virgins and I was really pleased with it. But then of course, I was going to be on the next month and I could remember thinking, “Well I’ve done one, but can I do it again?” The good thing about a deadline is you’ve just got to do it, step up, and meet it. Every month I managed to meet it and I did it for four years. So that’s, what, forty-eight stories, probably. There’s always the fear of “Can I do it again?” And I found the answer is always, “Yes I can.”

What do you find most exciting about being a writer?

Just the sheer doing. I find writing endlessly exciting. When I’m writing, I feel like I’m the best me. It doesn’t matter what I’m writing. There’s just something about engaging with words on the screen, it just does something to my insides. A lot of people go through wondering why they’re on the planet and you know what, since that moment in 2013, I know why I’m on the planet. I write hopefully for God’s glory, by His inspiration and at His calling. It’s no coincidence that as I do that, I feel so fulfilled.

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Follow and support Jane’s artistic journey…

• Learn more on her website
• Keep an eye out for her fiction represented by Intersaga Literary Agency
• Read her blog posts for Network Norfolk and the Association of Christian Writers
• Buy her book Too Soon: A Mother’s Journey Through Miscarriage here
• Follow along on Twitter @jawyawa

Remember, the creative spark you lend to the world is unique and powerful. To all our dear writers out there: the world needs your words, so write!

Tune in next month for another Chat with a Creative! Follow the blog or subscribe to Katie’s newsletter to receive an update as soon as it’s posted.