Author Tells How She Juggles Kids, Writing Career

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK (April 4, 2003) - Rene Gutteridge of Westmoore Community Covenant Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, has had her second book, Troubled Waters, released by Bethany House Publishers.

Gutteridge, whose husband, Sean, is worship minister at the church, published a fiction work called Ghost Writer in 2000. A third novel, Boo, will also be published in the coming months. Gutteridge earned a Mass Communications degree from Oklahoma City University, graduating magna cum laude. She served as the full-time director of drama at First United Methodist Church in Oklahoma City for five years, publishing more than 20 pieces as a playwright and creating and directing 500 pre-sermon sketches that were performed for church worship. Besides writing and caring for her two children, Gutteridge is an occasional instructor at writer conferences and college writing courses.

Following is a portion of a recent interview with Gutteridge, covering her new career and her ongoing juggling act of raising children and writing books.

Pinley: How did you get started writing in the first place?

Gutteridge: I've been writing since I was a kid. I always loved being creative and when my parents bought me my first Apple computer, it really took off. I wrote all kinds of stories. In high school I began researching how to write screenplays and then went to college and studied screenwriting. It was there that my professor suggested I try writing a novel. I wasn't that interested at first, but once I did it I really enjoyed it.

Pinley: What were the circumstances surrounding the publishing of your first book?

Gutteridge: God works in mysterious ways! I remember being pregnant with John, my first child, and praying that the Lord would direct me. I wasn't published yet, and it didn't seem like I ever would be. There were rejections and semi-rejections and people saying, "this is a great story," but for one reason or another not offering a contract. I felt like I was at a dead end. One night, very late, I got out of bed and just prayed to the Lord that His will would be done. If he wanted me to be a mom and writer, I'd love that, but if he just wanted me to be a mom, I would accept that, too. I gave it over to Him and felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders.

My son was five weeks old when I received the call every writer dreams of. It was an editor from Bethany House who was calling to say they wanted to offer me a contract on Ghost Writer. I was so excited and so scared! I was a new mom, sleep deprived, a nervous wreck, AND I hadn't written the story yet! I'd just given them a proposal of what the story would be. I had seven months to write the book and by God's grace and with a lot of help from my family, I did it. It was crazy, but I met my deadline.

Pinley: How did your most recent book get started?

Gutteridge: Troubled Waters was an idea I had in college. I wrote the entire manuscript for my final project. The church I worked for, First United Methodist, sat next door to the Alfred P. Murrah building in downtown Oklahoma City. When the bombing happened, I lost the disk that it was on. Luckily I had a hard copy to turn in, but the disk disappeared in all the chaos of the bombing and I never found it. It was in my office with all my other things, but the FBI seized the building as a crime scene and somewhere in the shuffle, things went missing. Several years later, I pitched the idea to Bethany House and with a little revision and updating, they offered a contract for it.

Pinley: What is the "method to the madness" in juggling writing and parenting?

Gutteridge: As I've grown more confident as a mother, I'm able to write a lot more consistently. I mostly write during nap time (for the two children) or on the weekends when my husband is home. Sometimes I'll hire a babysitter for the day if I'm close to a deadline. I try not to get too attached to a schedule, because I'd go crazy trying to keep it. Kids are really unpredictable, and so I just try to go with the flow and pray that I meet all my deadlines. So far I haven't missed one. Probably the biggest thing that has changed is that I've learned to be creative whenever I need to, instead of writing when I feel inspired. Before children, I'd feel creative here and there and write, and then back off when I wasn't feeling creative. I don't have the luxury any more, so I've just trained myself to write and be creative when necessary.

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