Chatting to Yvonne Tippins, Author of Life is Good

Can you believe it’s Friday again!

Time to meet up with one of our eleven authors once more. Together we have brought out a 13-book boxed set of devotional writings, with each book covering seven days of devotions, and based in Africa.

Every one of these books has a totally different theme, each chosen by the authors, and yet wow! They all gel together so beautifully.

Today, we’re chatting to Yvonne Tippins, author of Life is Good.

Yvonne lives in Vereeneging with her husband Mark. They have a daughter, Laura, who is also a writer.

Today we're chatting to Yvonne Tippins, author of Life is Good - one of 13 e-books available in In All Things - available now on Amazon. https://books2read.com/InAllThings Click To Tweet

Hello Yvonne! 

Shirley:  Great to chat with you today even though we live many miles apart in our beautiful turbulent land! I am so glad you volunteered to be part of our boxed set of devotional books based on Africa. Tell me, what motivated you to choose the theme, Life is Good – 7 days of appreciating Life’s Gifts – especially in the middle of lockdown for the dreadful pandemic that was (is) sweeping the world?

Yvonne: I chose gratitude and appreciation (7 GIFTS) as a theme because I had done a few workshops on gratitude and specifically gratitude journaling. I had therefore already done a bit of research on the subject. I believe that gratitude plays a very important role in our lives, not only as Christians, but also from a psychological well-being perspective.

The best parts

Shirley:  Yvonne, what would you say was the best part for you about the whole process of writing your part? How did you enjoy seeing the book come together?

Yvonne:  I came into the whole process as a novice at writing and I learned so much. It feels really good to finally confidently be able to say, “I am a writer.” I hope that it will be the start of something new and fulfilling in my life and that people will be blessed through it.

Shirley:  I’m sure they will. I found your devotions refreshing and well thought out. Did you feel you grew at all spiritually (or in any other way) while you were writing these chapters? If so, in what way?

Yvonne: Oh yes, while writing I explored the concept of gratitude from a biblical perspective and asked the Lord to guide my writing. Looking back, I can’t believe that I actually wrote these words. I learned so much about what God’s word tells us about appreciating life and all its goodness.

As you mentioned, this writing also came at a time of COVID. The pandemic and subsequent lockdown resulted in my small business in HR Consulting coming to an abrupt halt. So I was experiencing a lot of anxiety and a sense of loss. Putting my thoughts, reinforced by God’s promises in His word, down on paper helped me to negotiate a very difficult time in my own life. It helped me to regain my perspective and see life as a challenging and exciting journey.

It also helped me to regain a little bit of the confidence that I have lost along the way and to see that there are other avenues that I can explore to be a blessing to others and to make the most of the life God has given to me. I would say there was definitely both spiritual and emotional growth in the process and I have definitely also learned a lot about writing, publishing, and marketing.

Shirley:  I’m so glad to hear this. The book was short. Deliberately so, as I wanted to involve a group of writers. How long would you say it took you to write the first draft? And from start to completely done?

Yvonne:  I tried to focus on writing a devotion a day, but I did spend a lot of time thinking about it between the writing, so I didn’t actually write every day. The first draft probably took me about a month in total to complete. The whole process from starting to write up to the launch took about 4 months.

Team work

Shirley: It was interesting working with eleven of us altogether. How did you find that experience? You weren’t working on your own but alongside the other ten writers.

Yvonne:  I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to work with this amazing team of experienced writers and I am actually humbled by the fact that my name is included among them. I didn’t have much interaction with the other writers, except you, Shirley. I found you were an incredible support through the process, and of course I worked closely with Dianne nearer the end, as she was my “buddy” for the launch party. However, I did get to know the others to some extent via the CWOSA Devotions Facebook group.

Since the launch, I have been reading through the devotions and am blown away by the incredible talents of all of these special ladies. This is truly an extraordinary collaboration and it amazes me that even though we didn’t interact much at the start, the devotions all seem to connect with and speak to each other so well.

Shirley:  Yes, I am delighted with the way it came out after a multitude of learning curves and grey hairs! And now over to the readers:

What one thing are you grateful for that has occurred in your life during 2020?

Please put your answer in a comment box.

We’re going to end off listening to you read a short excerpt from your book. Thank you for your participation as well as your obliging spirit you showed all the way through.

Other authors in the set already interviewed:

Shirley Corder – 7 African Animals

Sunrise to Sunset- – Deryn van der Tang

What God Wants – Ashley Winter

Inspired to Worship – Ann Goodfellow

Steps of Faith – Crystal Warren

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