I don’t have a sermon for you this week because I was at a writing retreat over the weekend. I had never been on a retreat like this before, and I’m so glad I went. I got to meet people in person that I know from the Internet. And I got to meet a whole bunch of folks I didn’t know. We all shared one thing in common. We are writers.

For most of my writing career, I have been entirely solitary. But about two years ago, I accidentally joined a group called the 5am Writers Club. (I say accidentally because I started using the hashtag #5amwritersclub without realizing it was an actual group of people…but they welcomed me in with open arms.) Since joining the club, I’ve participated in regularly scheduled Zoom meetups to talk about the craft and business of writing. I’ve found beta readers and critique partners. And I’ve enjoyed the sense of solidarity knowing that all over the world, other writers are getting up at the same time of as day as I am… simply to write.

The culmination of joining a community of writers happened this weekend. Fourteen of us descended upon a camp in northeastern Pennsylvania. It had no WIFI or cell phone signals. But it did have the paper, pencils, and brains we brought with us, along with our mutual support of one another and our desire to better understand what, how, and why we write.

At the end of the weekend, I told the group this: “Until recently, I never read the author’s acknowledgments in the backs of books. When I did start reading them, I was amazed at how many people they thanked. I couldn’t possibly imagine thanking that many people for their help with my book until coming here to this retreat. Now their are at least thirteen people to put in my acknowledgments.”

Writing seems like a solitary venture. Many things do until you pull back and see all the other people involved in getting you to where you are. Thank you to my fellow writers, and especially to Ralph and Julia for organizing the retreat, for your presence, your enthusiasm, your wisdom, and your humor.

Right now, I’m working on a trilogy of young adult adventure novels that are set in an alternate earth history where both ancient dragons and supersonic jets take to the skies. I am trying to pursue a traditional publishing route with these books, so if you’d like to read any of my other independently published novels, I invite you to check them out on my author’s website: adamthomas.net.

I also write a twice-monthly letter on that site, so if a weekly sermon isn’t enough for you, please consider subscribing to my author’s letter as well. You can find the subscribe button on the front page of the author site. As a free gift for subscribing, you’ll get a PDF copy of my novella Highest Stakes: A Memoir and Manual About My Life as a Vampire Hunter.

I’ll be back with a sermon next week. In the meantime, what is something you do that seems like you do it alone. How are others actually supporting you in that activity and how will you thank them for their support?