This past year to year and a half have been filled with many rejections of my writing and in my career. Many of those rejections have been glowing and positive. But they’re rejections all the same.
Earlier this year I contacted a friend of mine, Janeen Ippolito, who helps writers ‘level up their business’ with strategies and help them not to get burned out. I was already burned out and ready to quit, so I begged Janeen to talk me off the ledged. She helped me form a plan that would utilize what I already had in place to get me to the next level. If I haven’t already gushed enough about Janeen, she edited my YA fantasy book, and helped me polish my pitch for the next conference I was attending. She’s an all around writing guru. When she told me to get ready, I’d be hearing back from someone soon, I did so, but tentatively. After so many rejections, you tend to not get too excited just to ease the blow before it happens.
I admit that I did hear back from someone at the conference, in the form of another rejection. Sigh.
Many good things were happening to people around me–family and friends. I was happy for them, but also so very frustrated it hadn’t happened to me yet. Pathetic, I know. But real and raw. So, one day after meeting with some friends, I prayed. Now, I’ve prayed before, many times. But, I prayed again just for God to bless the work He’d been doing in me for so long that didn’t seem to be going anywhere. It’s not anything I hadn’t prayed before. But, my heart was hurting and I felt a bit lost.
It’s always at these moments when disillusionment strikes me down that God steps in and brings me a sign. And this time he did it again in a big way. He didn’t just open the door-he blasted it wide open.
I saw on a FB writer’s consortium that a particular publisher was accepting unagented speculative proposals. I had my YA fantasy ready to go, so I sent it off that night to this publisher: Scrivenings Press. I’m familiar with them through contacts I’ve built up over the years, but once again, I didn’t let myself get too excited about it.
The next day Scrivenings Press contacted me for the full, which in the publishing industry is a pretty big deal. By that weekend we were discussing contracts. By the next week, we’d come to a mutual agreement and as of today I have signed with Scrivenings Press’s Expanse (speculative) line for a three-book series involving my YA fantasy–the same one I won the ACFW Genesis award a few years ago. Also the same one Janeen helped me to hone and get right over a year ago.
I know God had everything to do with this, but I’m not sure if it was that prayer or if it was just the right time and I was getting ahead of myself. Whatever it was, I’m absolutely over the moon! Becoming traditionally published has been a dream of mine and it’s coming true.
I know sometimes we have to wait longer than we expect for the good news to happen. I’m so glad I didn’t give up when it got tough.
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