Publishing: How Long Does it Take?

There’s a time for every purpose under heaven.

 Ecclesiastes 3:1

“We have an offer on The Shepherd’s Song.”

The email from Greg Johnson came early one morning in November .  Betsy read it first and almost sprained her ankle getting to the phone to call Laurie. Laurie was on a trip with her husband and was bolted awake by the news.

Breathlessly we called family and friends.  After years of writing for children our first adult novel had been accepted for publication.   As we shared the news a question came up:

 How long did it take you?

That’s hard to answer.  We have been around writing and publishing all our lives.  We read manuscripts as children and have both written and published for 25 years. We have had years of life experiences that were important for the writing of the book.  So how long did it take?

There’s a story told about Pablo Picasso.

A woman approached Picasso with a piece of paper and asked him to sketch something on it. He did and as he handed the paper back he said, “That will cost you $10,000.”  The woman was appalled, “You took just five minutes to do the sketch.  Isn’t $10,000 a lot for five minutes of work?” Picasso replied, “The sketch may have taken me five minutes, but the learning took me 30 years.” 

All of us are preparing for the next thing that God has for us whether we realize it or not.  We can often look back with new understanding and see how God has used our experiences, both good and bad, to train us.  We are impatient, but when the time comes we can say, “Ohhhh, now I understand.”

Have you ever looked back and seen God working in your life to prepare you for what was coming?  Did you ever doubt His timing?

Laurie and Betsy

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Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

1 Corinthians 13:12

To Do or Not To Do?

Why do we focus on the “to do” list instead of the “not to do” list?  Everything that I choose not to do gives me more time and energy for the things that are important.

What can you put on your “not to do” list today?

We might end up getting more done.

Happy writing!

Favorite Quotes by Madeleine L’Engle

Madeleine L’Engle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.”

—   Madeleine L’Engle

More favorite quotes by Madeleine L’Engle: 

• Writing With Listening: “A Ha” Moments
• Prayer and the Creative Process
• Reading Madeleine L’Engle

Writing: How to Overcome the Fear of Submission

A United States mailbox. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Submission means to yield to the power or authority of another.

As a writer to submit means the moment of terror that I experience when I drop the envelope into the mail slot or hit send on my computer.  Submission means judgment of my work. I love the story of E.B.White begging the mailman to return his just sent manuscript.  I have felt the same desire to hold on one more day.

Can we write with the spirit of submission to God?  What difference would it make to start with submission, instead ending with submission.  If I can submit the work to God first then the fear of submitting it to man disappears.

Catherine Marshall writes in Adventures in Prayer about this Godly submission during the writing of her first book, A Man Called Peter.

About midway in the manuscript, I received devastating criticism from one whose judgment I trusted.  He told me bluntly, “You haven’t even begun to get inside the man Peter Marshall,” And he was right, that was the sting of it.  The realization of my inadequacy as a writer was not only an intellectual one.  It was also emotional; there were plenty of tears.  But out of the crisis came a major realization.

 In my helplessness, there was no alternative but to put the project into God’s hands.  I prayed that A Man Called Peter be His book, and that the results be all His too. And they were.

The book was published and sold millions of copies all around the world.  My best writing comes when I give up control of the results and begin to see my books as God’s books.

May we write today with submission.

Laurie and Betsy

Submit yourself then to God. . . Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

James 4:7,10

Writing With Rejection: Three Steps to Handling Criticism

God the Father, Cima da Conegliano, Circa 1510-17. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The process of writing and publishing includes rejection as part of the process. God uses rejection to help us clarify and refine the vision of our work. This painful experience and how we handle it can determine the course of our life’s work. God is very interested in our work.

When I handle my rejection as a spiritual matter I bring God in to the solution.

Three steps are presented in Andy Stanley’s excellent book Visioneering, using Nehemiah as a model for handling criticism. We go back to these steps in times of rejection and criticism.

1. Pray

“Criticism strikes an emotional chord in us. The emotion must go somewhere. To reflect it back to critics is to play their game. To bottle it up inside can result in depression or ulcers. Another option is to dump it out on someone completely unrelated to the situation: spouse, friends, employees, your children. That only complicates things. The only healthy and profitable thing to do is to pour out your heart to you heavenly Father.”

2. Remember the Source of the Vision

“As long as you respond to criticism by evaluating your potential, you will be tempted to give up. But when you respond by remembering who it is who has called you…it is a different story.”

3. Revise the Plan

“I have never met anyone or heard of anyone who accomplished anything significant for the kingdom who didn’t have to revise plans multiple times before the vision became a reality.”

One final thought from Visioneering:

“When your vision is on the verge of being snuffed out by the criticism of others, your Father is interested. It concerns him. In this way your response to criticism is a spiritual matter. And your heavenly Father is more than willing to get involved in the conflict.”

That is how to handle criticism.

We needed to remember that today. Anyone else?

Laurie and Betsy