It’s Been Awhile…
Though it’s been awhile since I’ve posted on here, my writing has not been on the wayside. In fact, I’d say this past year has been one of my most productive in a long time! It’s just been more productive in a editing vs. writing way.
A week ago I found myself sitting in a hotel room by myself pouring my heart out to God and feeling His presence and love.
There’s a Christian writer’s conference called Realm Makers that my husband and I attended online a couple times. We greatly enjoyed the talks and speakers, but there was definitely the “people” aspect that we were missing out on. This year a friend of mine wanted to go in-person and asked if I’d come along. After talking it over with my husband and working out childcare I found myself on a 17+ hour road trip to St. Louis, Missouri!
We stopped at this beautiful hotel in Ohio along the way:
And visited the Ark Encounter:
Until we ended up in Missouri looking like this:
Well, we didn’t look like that when we arrived, but sometime afterwards we did when we attended the Realm Awards.
The missing element of “people” was definitely filled when I found myself surrounded by unapologetically Christian writers and creators. In the elevators, at tables, in the vendor hall; everyone was eager to talk “shop,” encourage, and pray.
There I was, standing in a crowd with a book I’ve poured so much of my time and self into. A book I’ve spent a year editing to pieces, pieces that hopefully fit back together into a coherent, thought-provoking story. And… I was undecided.
Is my book good enough to publish? Is it an accurate representation of my craft when I wrote it at such a young age and long ago? Should I shelf it sadly as the beginning but not the end of my writing career? As a learning experience I, hopefully, learned from?
Or… is it a story that someone will enjoy as much as I did? Is it a story that glorifies my God and He inspired me to write? Is it a story He wants me to publish?
So I prayed two things:
- He would make me brave
- He’d make it clear what I should do with my manuscript
And He did.
What started out as me reluctantly agreeing to pitch my book to one publisher turned into five pitches and requests from them for chapters and, in some cases, full manuscripts.
I went to my hotel room and cried. Being a writer is tied up in my personality because the desire to tell stories began as I was forming an opinion of myself, my world, and my God at only twelve years old.
I’ve asked God so many times:
“Why have you burdened and gifted me with a desire to tell stories if You don’t want me to use it?”
In that moment, in a hotel room alone with my Creator, through the positive reception by editors and publishers, I felt Him acknowledge my longing. He formed my brain and poured curiosity, wonder, and desire for “other” into it. I can only prosper if I let go of myself and trust who He made me to be. I’m not sure what He’s planning to use my brain and stories for yet, but I do know that God answers prayer:
- He made me brave
- He told me I shouldn’t give up on “Silver Blood.”
God knows the fragile state of my heart and didn’t crush it.
I want to urge you to take your wants, desires, and longings and place them into the hands of the God who loves you.
Your new website looks so lovely! I am thrilled to see it revived. 🙂
Thank you for sharing about your trip to Realm Makers and to Ark Encounter, and for sharing your heart for writing and your journey for figuring out what God wants for your stories.
I for one think it’s awesome that Silver Blood is still a thing, and that you’ve taken a story you wrote as a twelve year old and fixed it up and made it into something I’m sure is publication worthy! I struggle to imagine ANYTHING I wrote before the age of maybe 25 being salvageable, so it’s quite an achievement, lol. I will totally buy a copy if/when it finds a home and makes it into full bookish form! 😀
Thank you! Stuart set the website up for me with his mad-skills. (He’s doing web development almost full-time now).
I started “Silver Blood” at twelve but I did finish it when I was fifteen and the story changed a lot in those three years. I can’t even count the number of edits I’ve done since it was finished 5? 6? Thank you for your confidence in my editing abilities 😉
I’m editing another manuscript I wrote in my late teens and it’s definitely less work, proof that re-writing and editing “Silver Blood” was good for my writing skills.
Btw, I am very impressed with how quickly you published your series. Did you write them mostly ahead of time or did you write them in a short period of time?
I wondered if he had a hand in creating the site, haha! That’s awesome he’s been able to do it as a job. 😀
5-6 edits! That’s impressive. I do wonder how some of my earlier projects could have turned out had I had that sort of patience. These days I do a LOT of outlining mostly because it makes the editing stage easier. Lol. Clearly not my favorite area of writing work, but it has its good points, I suppose.
I feel like every book I write / edit has taught me so much, to the point where I now look at my first published book and think how much better the last few in the series are compared to it! Though I know that’s probably true for every writer, and all any of us can do is our best at the time. 😛
I started outlining the first book of my series in Jan 2022, I believe, so I’ve kind of just been powering through them since then! I am currently working on a Christian romantic suspense series for my soon-to-properly-exist pen name that I will try and “rapid release”, though, so we shall see how that goes. I HOPE to have 3 books ahead of time before I start actually publishing those. It may be less chaotic than just writing “deadline to deadline” like I have been currently, haha. I hope, anyways. 🙂