Working Hard, Or. . .
As I've shared before, I started writing Ebenezer; My Stone of Help, back in October 2003, about the fifteenth of that month. It was memorable because that was also just days before I had an appendectomy.
I finished it that year and began sending it out to publishers. One publisher responded—kindly—we no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts, but you can use one of these two services to list your manuscript (if you meet their criteria) and Christian publishers do use these companies sometimes.
Fair enough, so I read the guidelines and sent the required samples. Their response was, "This has a lot of potential, please rewrite and do more showing than telling."
After three years of lots of encouraging from the reviewers it was accepted but it still just sat. In the seventeen years since I have sent it through a critique group, looked for an editor several times and started at least one other novel.
The manuscript itself has undergone many changes, and I thank God for many of the helpers along the way, but I say this because 'Write a book they said, it'll be fun, they said' and writers all laugh.
So, when you write your story you need to start with a story and people you like, in case you end up like I have working on it for seventeen years. It has been real, and some of it has been fun, but I can't say it has always been real fun...
Likewise, we each are writing a story called 'your life'. The Preacher in Ecclesiastes tells young people to enjoy their youth, but also be aware in order to remove sorrow from your path put away evil and walk in the ways of God so your older years won't be filled with sorrow.
But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity. Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity. (Ecclesiastes 11:8-10 KJV)
