by Beth K. Vogt, @bethvogt

“To survive, you must tell stories.”

Umberto Eco (1932-2016), Italian novelist

Each of us has a story. We tell our story and people understand who we are. Where we came from. Why we do what we do – pursue our careers. Our vocations. Why we interact with people the way we do. Why we have certain values. Why we celebrate holidays certain ways – or why we don’t celebrate them at all.  

Our stories connect us to other people. Our families. Our friends. Our coworkers. Other writers – “our people.“

Pause and think for a moment about how a friendship begins.

“Hi, my name is Beth.”

“Hi, my name is Tari.”

A simple introduction leads to sharing our stories with one another. What we like and don’t like. Our “and then this happened” moments. Our dreams. Our disappointments. We decide how much we want to share. Do we remain acquaintances or become best friends?

Telling our stories helps us survive. Our stories thrive when we meet someone who laughs at our jokes, someone who listens without judging, who comforts us when pain overwhelms, who believes when we doubt, who helps us be brave when our courage fails us.

And our story intertwines with theirs, even as their story becomes part of ours – and this is another way that stories survive.

Our life stories also influence our writing lives. It’s often the fabric of our real lives – the “can’t- forget-them-even-if-I-wanted-to moments – that prompt us to craft fictional characters. To tell their imaginary stories, which are often reflections of our own so-true-it-hurts stories.

But doing the work of writing until “drops of blood form on your forehead” – thank you, journalist Gene Fowler for this imagery – is how we work our way through the memories, through the pain … and turn the all and the “is that all there is?” of our lives into gold.

Into stories.

And we survive.   

More than that, we conquer our fears. We conquer heartbreak. We conquer failure.

Oh, sure, we write all of this into our stories – but we also discover we are facing our real-life fears, page by page, pitch by pitch, submission by submission.

Our broken hearts are mending as we pursue new dreams.

Our fear of failure? Not so overwhelming because we’ve learned failure isn’t permanent and it doesn’t determine our worth.

We tell our stories … and we survive.

And by sharing our stories, we offer hope to others – to our readers – that they can survive and share their stories, too.

Things I Never Told You by Beth K. Vogt

It’s been ten years since Payton Thatcher’s twin sister died in an accident, leaving the entire family to cope in whatever ways they could. No longer half of a pair, Payton reinvents herself as a partner in a successful party-planning business and is doing just fine—as long as she manages to hold her memories and her family at arm’s length.

But with her middle sister Jillian’s engagement, Payton’s party-planning skills are called into action. Which means working alongside her opinionated oldest sister, Johanna, who always seems ready for a fight. They can only hope that a wedding might be just the occasion to heal the resentment and jealousy that divides them . . . until a frightening diagnosis threatens Jillian’s plans and her future. As old wounds are reopened and the family faces the possibility of another tragedy, the Thatchers must decide if they will pull together or be driven further apart.

Includes discussion questions.

Beth K. Vogt is a non-fiction author and editor who said she’d never write fiction. She’s the wife of an Air Force family physician (now in solo practice) who said she’d never marry a doctor—or anyone in the military. She’s a mom of four who said she’d never have kids. Now Beth believes God’s best often waits behind the doors marked “Never.” Beth’s first women’s fiction novel for Tyndale House Publishers, Things I Never Told You, releases May 2018. Beth is a 2016 Christy Award winner, a 2016 ACFW Carol Award winner, and a 2015 RITA® finalist. Her 2014 novel, Somebody Like You, was one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Best Books of 2014. A November Bride was part of the Year of Wedding Series by Zondervan. Having authored nine contemporary romance novels or novellas, Beth believes there’s more to happily-ever-after than the fairy tales tell us. An established magazine writer and former editor of the leadership magazine for MOPS International, Beth blogs for Novel Rocket and The Write Conversation and also enjoys speaking to writers group and mentoring other writers. She lives in Colorado with her husband Rob, who has adjusted to discussing the lives of imaginary people, and their youngest daughter, Christa, who loves to play volleyball and enjoys writing her own stories. Connect with Beth at bethvogt.com.