Some who know me might say, “Words focus her life.” I’ve been reading since I was two. When I entered school, the idea of a story problem appealed to me, until I discovered that the expected answer involved numbers.
Spelling and English made much more sense, and I reveled in composing essays that brought the art of description to nearly laughable purple intensity. By the time I reached college, haiku delighted me. I also wrote a series of lengthier poems that won a contest and were published in a magazine.
I entered a period of my life where I wrote little more than grocery lists. As a freelance proofreader for Baker Book House, I got a glimpse inside the process of publishing.
While the work lasted, I found it highly satisfying.
Being a housekeeper was less delightful. An online acquaintance encouraged me to resume writing poetry. During distressing emotional circumstances in 2002, I needed somewhere else for my mind to go.
I escaped by writing a story. The two and a half pages I showed to friends surprisingly drew demands for “More.” It mushroomed to an ungainly raw first draft of nearly 160,000 words. “You should be published,” my friends insisted.
Sample pages submitted to a contest placed miserably. I clung to one judge’s comment: “When you master Point of View technique, this story will sing.” But it wasn’t her job to explain what that meant.
In 2004, I finally found the people who could teach me what I hadn’t understood. I joined American Christian Fiction Writers. They held annual conferences. I couldn’t afford to go. Thank goodness for online critique groups and mentors.
I moved 5 times in four years—four times too many, as far as I was concerned. It took another four years to reach a place and time when my finances allowed me to attend my first conference. God worked there, because I got requests from agents and an editor for the proposal for my novel.
Progress, glorious progress! Not quite. In committee, the publisher’s staff chose another author’s story. I’m not the first author that’s happened to, and I won’t be the last.
My manuscript is now in the marathon-fit 80,000-word range, much more suitable for a debut author. But, publishers don’t purchase any novel, no matter how well crafted, on its own merits. The author must prove sufficient probable interest in their work without using that work. Is this an industry-devised test exposing who will quit? Possibly.
However, God’s gifts and call are irrevocable, so let’s start by seeing what definitions we can find in those six words.
Explore with me for as long as I can make this journey interesting for you, and please drop a comment in the field every now and then.

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