The long way into authorship

What do you do with a Bible degree when you’re not going into ministry? When you’ve performed well in school but have no idea what comes next? When the only thing you’ve ever wanted to do — create stories — feels impossible?

I kept that dream hidden. It seemed too far-fetched. So I did nothing about it except scribble random stories in secret notebooks while dreaming of acting them out on the silver screen.

Chapter one

12 February 1999 · Cedarville, Ohio

The dream wakes up

I began with desire. A real one. A dream of authorship that felt alive enough to organize years around.

But Psalm 37:4 is not a blank check for ambition. The verse begins with delight in the Lord. Over time, that mattered more to me than the dream itself. God was not simply standing beside my plans waiting to bless them. He was teaching me to want Him first, to submit desire, and to let Him correct what I loved, feared, and chased.

The author dream stayed. My understanding of what it was for had to grow up.

I did not know how long the middle would be.

Chapter two · What changed

2 December 2001 · Raleigh, North Carolina

I lost my passion because I succeeded.

I am not short on drive. I have never been short on drive. I was short on a reason that could survive the finish line.

Two things I had to admit. I had been treating achievement as the thing that would finally settle the question of whether I mattered. And I had been running alone, believing I was too odd and insignificant to belong anywhere as a single woman on a random career path.

But fulfillment does not wait at the end of the cycle. It comes from fellowship with God carried through the whole of it. Which means the middle counts. Which means a slow year counts. Which means the marathon I felt nothing at the end of was not a failure of the race. It was a failure of my theory.

So what governs now: faithfulness is fulfillment.

Took me 46 years to understand that sentence.

Chapter three

Cops, robbers…and dragons?

When I finally published my first novel in 2008, it sold approximately 13 copies. So I gave up on novels, started writing short stories, and got a job at Starbucks.

Years later, I was still there: apron on, milk steaming, training baristas while my unfinished manuscripts sat in a drawer at home.

But in the middle of all that noise — espresso machines hissing, one cop pestering me to write a story about cops, another challenging me to write about dragons — a short story called “Cops, Robbers…and Dragons?” took shape in my head.

That story morphed into The Dragon Stalker Bloodlines Saga, the fantasy series I write under the pen name D.K. Drake.

This time, my books sold thousands of copies despite my sporadic writing and almost non-existent marketing efforts.

Before I finished the fourth book in that saga, though, Starbucks and I reached the end of each other. I needed out before the endless mountain of coffee crushed my spirit.

Chapter four

The career I did not choose

I landed in the wonderful world of… car insurance. I never imagined this career as part of the story. But I discovered that I could contribute.

I could solve problems.
Build systems.
Teach.
Lead.
Experiment.
Help people get better.

I could use the same creative and strategic mind I wanted to spend on books and apply it to work that was in front of me.

This dismantled one of my quieter assumptions: that the “real me” only existed inside the dream job.

God had given me a whole life to steward, not one narrow stage on which I was finally allowed to matter.

I’m still here inside this insurance job learning that this detour is not wasted. God is using it to strengthen my character and deepen my understanding of what faithful stewardship looks like when the assignment is not the one I would have chosen.

Chapter five

The Adventurous Author

The phrase The Adventurous Author eventually gave language to what I was already becoming.

Author,: because words and stories are still one of the primary ways I make sense of the world and serve people.
Adventurous,: because I do not want to merely think about life. I want to enter it.

Train for difficult things.

Travel.

Run trails.

Experiment.

Learn new skills.

Ask better questions.

Build useful things.

Take appropriate risks.

Fail without making failure an identity.

Enjoy what God gives.

Keep going.

Because the point is not to collect impressive experiences.

The point is to be fully present and faithful in the life God entrusted to me.

Bonnie Jean Schaefer and her sister after snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef — Great Barrier Reef, with my sister. The coral won.

Love people. Real people. People I can do life with. Because God designed us for relationship and wants us to show up for each other.

Chapter six

What I believe

Underneath every chapter is this conviction:

God exists.
God spoke the world into existence.
He is in charge.
He gets to make the rules.
I am subject to His authority.
And surrendering to His authority brings indescribable joy even in the darkest circumstances.

So my life belongs to God.

He is Creator, King, Judge, Savior, Father, Friend, and Helper.

Holy, good, wise, sovereign, just, merciful, faithful, and true.

Knowing Him, trusting Him, and walking with Him is the greatest adventure available to a human being.

Everything else on this site sits underneath that sentence.

The whole of it is in the manifesto.

Chapter seven

The story turns

I am single,
working full time,
sharing a household with two of my sisters,
and helping raise four adopted kids.

There is almost always a race on the calendar, and I write in the hours that are left.

I keep that visible on purpose. If this only worked for someone with an empty calendar, it would not be worth teaching. Some chapters have looked nothing like I expected. God has been faithful in all of them.

Now I am building what years of scattered lessons have been pointing toward:

Anchored books,
Adventurize Life™,
Dream Doers Publishing™,
Faithful Finisher™,
a trained body,
and a life of growing as an aunt, sister, friend, employee, entrepreneur, author, and disciple.

Nevertheless, not everything deserves to be finished.

Not every dream is from God.

Not every goal will work.

Faithfulness is not stubborn attachment to my preferred outcome.

It is

surrendering the race to God,
discerning what is mine,
doing the work,
adapting when the terrain changes,
loving people along the way,
and releasing the harvest to Him.

Know God. Love people. Finish faithfully. Then keep climbing.

Bonnie Jean Schaefer at Hobbiton in New Zealand — Hobbiton, New Zealand. Wishing this was my everyday office space.

That is where my story stops being only mine.

I can tell you what I am learning, write the books, build the tools, point toward truth, and show you the terrain I have crossed.

But I cannot run your race for you.

You have your own story to live: people to love, gifts to multiply, work to do, and relationship with God to deepen.

The question is not whether your life looks adventurous from the outside.

The question is whether you are awake inside the life God has given you.

Adventurize your life Read the books