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| Jeanette Windle |
~ Dawn
“But
God . . .”
by
Jeanette Windle
Like much in my writing career, little in my odyssey to
publication as a Christian suspense novelist fits into any how-to manual or
industry norm (so take heart if you've felt the same!). I wrote my first book literally out of
boredom. My husband and I were the only North American expatriates at the time
in a southern Bolivia city where we served with an international Christian
missions organization. With my husband often gone traveling through jungle and
Andes mountains for a week or two at a time, I was left housebound with three
preschoolers, no car, TV, radio. Once I'd put my babies to bed, I had only the
handful of English-language books I’d read dozens of times. Already involved in
non-fiction missions journalism, I decided one lonely evening, rather than
reading my few books one more time, to write one instead. That became Kathy and the Redhead, a
children’s novel based on my own experiences growing up at a missionary kids
boarding school on the Colombia/Venezuela border.
Published by that school's owner organization, the novel rekindled
in me a love of creative writing I'd laid aside for motherhood and ministry. I
began a juvenile international mystery series. With naive confidence I obtained
the latest Christian Writers Market Guide
and began working my way through publishers (no email submissions then; hard
copy sent to the U.S. with travelers), starting with the largest. I did receive
some encouragement, but far more rejections. By the time we flew north for a
three month ministry trip, I'd made my way through the smallest publishers and
was ready to give up. I remembering praying fervently for God to either open a
door or close it completely if my writing was not His will so I would not waste
more time that could go into other ministry.
Shortly before heading back to Bolivia, we were at a
missions conference in Wenatchee, WA, when the church office informed me I had
a call. Who could possibly know where I was to call me there? To my
astonishment, the voice on the line announced himself as editor of a new
juvenile department for Multnomah (then Questar) Press. Multnomah had already
informed me they didn't publish juvenile, though would be interested if I ever
wrote for teens (which birthed my single teen novel, Jana's Journal). During Questar's recent merger with Multnomah,
they'd found some exciting juvenile mystery chapters tucked in a drawer. How
had they tracked me down? A phone number on the discarded proposal belonged to
my in-laws, who'd passed on our current location. Would I possibly still have
available the proposed mystery series?
Would I! The manuscript was mailed off the next day. A
contract arrived just as we headed back to Bolivia, the first of six Parker
Twins mysteries and beginning of my CBA career.
That treasure trove of discarded pages in an abandoned desk
and out-of-the-blue phone call would be far too improbable for fiction. Which
simply goes to show that one can follow every guideline, jump through every
hoop, do all the right things—sometimes to no avail. But not to despair!
Because in the end, delightfully, unexpectedly, completely out-of-the-box,
there's always what I call the "But God" Factor that turns all our
own plans and efforts on end according to His own perfect will.
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As daughter of missionary parents, award-winning author and
journalist Jeanette Windle grew up
in the rural villages, jungles, and mountains of Colombia, now guerrilla hot
zones. Her detailed research and writing is so realistic that it has prompted
government agencies to question her to determine if she has received classified
information. Currently based in Lancaster, PA, Jeanette has lived in six
countries and traveled in more than thirty on five continents. Those
experiences have birthed 16 international intrigue titles, including
bestselling Tyndale House Publishers release Veiled Freedom, a 2010 ECPA Christian Book Award and Christy Award
finalist and sequel Freedom's Stand,
a 2012 ECPA Christian Book Award and Carol Award finalist and 2011 Golden
Scroll Novel of the Year finalist. Jeanette mentors Christian writers in both English
and Spanish on all five continents.
You can learn more about Jeannette and her work by visiting www.jeanettewindle.com
