In How to Become a Heroic Catholic, I remind people that we are all called to spread the word of Christ and the Faith which He established here on earth. It’s a universal call we all share. I encourage all my readers to be bold and unafraid when spreading their Faith!

That’s something that is easy to ask others to do. Doing it myself? That’s a bit trickier. I’ll admit – it’s far easier to talk the talk than to walk the walk. Today I had to go far out of my comfort zone and talk in front of – not a huge crowd, not a full Church of eyes staring at me, nothing like that – but an even harder audience: my fellow teenagers. Now, I know, you might be tempted to think that it’d be easier. For some people that may be true. For me it’s not. But when you’re trying to do as God is calling you will have to do things that might push what you’re comfortable doing. He’ll always give you the strength you need to do His will though. That’s something I’ve learned.

Anyway, let me tell you a bit more about the talk I gave today and the experience it was. It was amazing.

I walk up to the school and see this on windows:

That’s me. And my book. ON A POSTER. Like – that has to be one of the coolest things I’ve seen. They gave me one of them ^_^ it’s going in my scrapbook.

Seriously though, it was just a “WOW” moment. These people were putting up signs, getting students excited, about me coming talk to them. How humbling is that, to realize how much people are looking up to you, how much they are wanting to share in the message of Christ…just awesome. I don’ t know that I can describe how it makes me feel. It’s a terrific feeling, I think. What I guess I mean is that this is beyond what I could have imagined back in 2013 when I began writing this book. Had I known that God would call me to start speaking and getting in front of groups to promote and share the book, there is a good chance it never would have made it past the rough draft.  So God was patient with me, He slowly is revealing all He is calling me to be and do. And I’m okay with that. Taking it one step at a time.

I tried to tell the students (all highschool, by the way) about my writing process and how much work goes into books. I certainly got a reaction from them after showing them how many different drafts of Heroic Catholic it took before the final draft was done:

(That’s one 3″ binder stuffed full, and three 1″ binders stuffed full. 11 drafts in all shown right there.)

And how even after that, you still find errors in your proof copy:

It was neat to be able to tell them and have them truly appreciate all the work that goes into writing. Some of them were writers – so I made sure to tell them that it’s all worth it. Because it truly is. It may not have been fun to sit there and edit through all that, having people point out every little thing that is wrong, but it was worth it. So that I could put out the best book of my ability.

The highschoolers asked a lot of questions. Which was nice – I was scared I’d be standing up in the front in awkward silence. Instead, they asked me questions like “How long did writing take?” (rough draft took ~3 months). And “What’s your writing process like?”

To explain the answer to that one, I pointed to my nice board:

That board has my plot and outline for the pro-life book I’m working on.  I used a similar process when planning out Heroic Catholic. (Except I hadn’t upgraded to post-it notes yet. I was using index cards and tape for Heroic Catholic).

I had a great time talking to the students at St. Michael’s. They were amazing. I look forward to the next time I get to talk to my fellow highschool students, the concept is slowly losing its terror.

~

Catherine