Bonnie Jean Schaefer · The Adventurous Author
Bonnie Jean Schaefer The Adventurous Author

Bonnie Jean Schaefer · The Adventurous Author

I write from a real life lived with God, not a manufactured persona.

I live the mission. I write what I discover. Then I invite you to join the adventure.

Know God. Love people. Finish faithfully.

Read the story Bring the adventure to your audience
Bonnie Jean Schaefer

Highlights from the trail so far

  • 1999The year the writing dream woke up.
  • 2008The first sports adventure novel met the world. The world did not notice. God did.
  • 5Marathons finished despite my super slow Schaefer speed.
  • 3YA fantasy novels published under a pen name.
  • 40+Hours a week still belong to an employer. Still writing. Still running. Still dreaming.

Updated when it changes. Every figure has a story behind it.

12 February 1999 · Cedarville, Ohio

The dream wakes up

A college classroom. A professor dividing the world into two kinds of people: Dreamers and Doers.

Dreamers had ideas. Doers made things happen.

I sat there aching. I wanted to be a Doer. But I knew exactly which one I was. Dreamer.

I’d spent years chasing excellence in sports, pushing my body to run faster, train harder, compete better. But when it came to writing? I kept that dream hidden.

Then she quoted Psalm 37:4:

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

Know Him. Delight in Him. Desire from there.

That was the day I realized I could do something about my dreams.

I thought that meant I would be an actress or screenwriter. Turns out that’s not quite what God had in mind at the time.

The trail ran through

  • entry-level jobs,
  • nearly a decade at Starbucks,
  • an insurance career I never planned,
  • family responsibilities I could not script,
  • novels that took too long to finish,
  • races that taught me more than expected,
  • and years of asking God what faithfulness looks like in a life I did not picture.

Somewhere in the middle, God challenged me to stop treating my real life as the waiting room for my actual life.

I could know Him here. Train here. Create here. Build here. Finish here.

So I started running the life I had like a grand adventure. Because it was.

I call that adventurizing.

The circumstances do not get the final word on whether my life matters. God does.

Stop waiting on a better life. Enjoy the one you are living.

God is the Author. Jesus is the Hero. We are characters in His story, called to live the plot He writes for us with faithfulness, courage, humility, and joy.

If you have a dream you have started four times, or a race you keep calling someday, or a finish line you crossed that paid you nothing, you are not broken and you are not behind. You are in the middle miles. Everybody is. Now you have language for it.

I write for the ones who intend to follow through and finish.

Bonnie Jean Schaefer

The dreams I’m finishing now

Not a bio. A ledger. If I am going to write about finishing, you should be able to see what I am currently trying to finish.

Writing
Anchored in Truth, book one of the Anchored Vision series
Building
The Adventurize Life League™

The Anchored books are one long prayer-shaped story about the character of God.

Motivational speaking is not my thing

I train people to finish, which means they leave with something to do.

Church, conference, staff team, writers group, podcast interview. Story driven, participatory, and built for your audience rather than recycled from a tour.

Plan a Personalized Start with WHO Session
Bonnie Jean Schaefer

Your adventure begins here. Choose your trailhead.

This site is the person. These are the places the work lives.

  1. 01

    Dream Doers Publishing™

    Go here for the books — prayer-shaped conversations, faithful finishing, and stories that ignite your imagination.

  2. 02

    Adventurize Life™

    Go here for the method — Start with WHO, Live your story, WIN your race.

  3. 03

    The Adventurize Life League

    Go here for practice — a light-content, action-heavy community for people who want teammates on the trail.

  4. 04

    Faithful Finisher™ Podcast

    Go here for the middle miles — short, story-driven episodes about desire, discipline, discouragement, and done.

  5. 05

    Author D.K. Drake

    Go here for the dragons — same convictions, no sermon.

Start with the manifesto

Before you choose a trail, read the map. The manifesto names the convictions underneath it all: God, work, strength, story, and finishing. If we are headed the same direction, you will know by the end.

Free. No sequence, no pitch. Just the clearest place to begin. When I write something new or drop a podcast episode, I’ll tell you.