Last night I put the pen away (figuratively) and made the decision to be finished on the final draft of this first book. Revisions could go on forever but at some point I needed to call it done as good as I can get it.
I've never cared before now to published.
The calling on my life for many years has been to love, support, encourage and love young people and God has used me to do that in many forms...youth sponsor, drama, camp, mission trips, mentoring, speaking, teaching, writing devotions, prayer counselling...and in a hundred other little ways.
But nearly two years ago I began to feel God's niggling at my heart again that things were about to change. Not my calling, just the method of delivery.
He told me to write a book...well, eight of them actually...why would it be just one? He wanted me to concentrate my efforts on a story that He laid in my lap...fantastical, allegorical, in a Kingdom that mirrors His own.
I resisted because, like most of His nigglings for me, this frightened me...I would have to stretch myself to His will again...and that's often painful. And it has been...I've learned much, again. I was to step aside from nearly every ministry...and those were considerable. All of the things listed above gave me great joy...they were hard work, but I found value and purpose in what I was doing. I knew I was in the sweet spot of where God wanted me to be.
But instead He led me to believe that I was sit in a room and start from little more than a fuzzy idea to build not just a story but a world. I'm a very relational person and so to spend hours in solitary (confinement?) writing for no-one but myself (initially) was not on a high list of my priorities...but it became one.
I spent 40 weeks just planning...eight books, chapter by chapter plotting, character sketches, setting descriptions and research. I built a fantasy kingdom in my head so vivid I could (can) see it in startling detail with characters so animated they became (are) real to me, my friends and enemies, loving and hating them. All this before I ever wrote a word!
Last April (2013) after all that work, I sat down to start the writing part and I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to do it. I was pretty sure I couldn't and I had balked and stalled on God. I had resisted and only half obeyed Him.. I had kept my favourite ministries, the ones that fed me, and gave what time was left to the writing. But God had other plans. While some ministries He ripped from my (death gripped) hands, others He allowed me, but EVERYTHING in that year in ministry was so difficult...obstacles, resistance, complications...it was like slogging through quicksand. I got the point, painfully, tearfully, but it took until August to complete my commitments.
But when you finally come to obedience to God's will, things fall into place. From April to August while still embroiled in ministry I should have put aside, I wrote 20,000 words...when I was fully obedient from the end of August to the middle of October, I wrote 60, 000. The first 20,000 were disjointed and messy and required ten times more editing (no exaggeration) than the last 60,000. The last four months, I've done four full edits/revisions and added 13,000 words after cutting 3000, fed the book through a dozen beta readers, reviewed their evaluations and put in another few revisions and applied the final spit and polish line/copy edit (which is the devil's work for sure, ugh) in the last six days.
While said novel was still in first draft, I went to a writers' conference where I was offered an open invitation (through a verbal pitch to an editor who doesn't even look at young adult fiction) to submit a full manuscript (when polished, however long it took) to her (she's the commissioning editor for commercial fiction for a MAJOR publisher) for her to forward it with a personal note to their YA editor, who she thought I'd get along fabulously with. This NEVER happens. Publishers of this size rarely take un-agented manuscripts never mind in genres not their own.
And that's where the manuscript is right now. I sent that email today.
I have fallen in love with His will for me again. This was what I was supposed to do. Whether this publisher makes an offer for the book or not, whether I get a few dozen rejections from agents, I feel certain He will eventually lead me to submit the work to where He wants it and where it will get the attention it needs. I feel God's promises in this, not just for the book, but for me as well in the heart of His calling to me. This book will give me an opportunity to speak about Him to a broader audience of the young people He continue to draws me too. Any doubt I encounter (sometimes on a daily basis) is washed away in remembrance of the bazillion times He has proven Himself to me...over and over and over. So where You lead I will follow.
I'll let you know how it goes.
In the meanwhile you could pray (if you do that sort of thing) for His will over this work of fiction. I'd be most appreciative.
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