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| Karen Hancock |
Some authors seem to hit it just right—the right book at the
right time with the right publisher. When things don’t go as smoothly for the
rest of us, we can sometimes feel discouraged—even though we know God’s timing
is always best. Author Karen Hancock
shares her personal journey to publication and how after many years of “hanging
in there,” God rewarded her faithfulness.
~ Dawn
He
Will Bring it to Pass
The preparation for my 26 year journey to publication began in childhood, when my nose was always in a book. As a teen I began writing my own stories and even completed a western romance novel about a female gunslinger (?!) which I sent to Doubleday the summer before I entered college. When I returned home for Christmas break, the rejected manuscript awaited. Mortified to discover how bad it was, I threw it away, thinking that was that.
After graduating from college, I got married and moved to a
tiny northern Arizona town. There, while house-sitting for vacationing friends,
I complained one day to my husband about a best-selling novel I was reading and
he suggested I write my own. With no car, no job, no phone, no TV, (no
Internet!) and few friends nearby, I certainly had the time. And a typewriter.
The next day I happened upon a copy of The Writer’s Market on the bottom shelf of a nightstand. It
included an article called “How to Know if You are a Writer.” I fit all the
parameters. Was God trying to tell me something? I thought so.
I began a Christian romance, but ditched it six months later
when after I saw the first Star Wars
film and that, combined with the Bible study I was doing on the armor of God,
sent me in a new direction. Using Christian equivalents, I proposed to write a
fantasy series chronicling a hero’s journey to salvation and on to spiritual
maturity.
With help from a snail-mail critique group of aspiring SF/F
writers I’d joined, I completed Book 1, The
Shadow of Ghel, got an agent and began Book 2 of my series. By the time I
finished the latter, several years later, Ghel
had been rejected by every major fantasy publisher in the business. My
agent and I parted ways and I, having learned much about writing during this
process, completely rewrote Ghel
under a new title: The Star of Life.
Once finished, I acquired a second agent and began rewriting
Book 2. Alas, within the year the new agent dropped out of agenting, so I
queried a third, who said the market for that kind of fantasy had dried up.
Alternate world stories were hot at the time, so he suggested I try that.
I spent five years writing Arena, an alternate world, science fiction allegory. By then the
market had moved on and I was tired of hiding the Christian elements in my
stories. While I shopped Arena around
to various publishers, secular and Christian,
I rewrote Book 1 of my fantasy series for a third
time under its final title, The Light of
Eidon.
Not long after that, I met Steve Laube at the Mt. Hermon Christian Writer’s Conference
in California. Then an editor at Bethany House Publishers, Steve loved speculative
fiction, but told me frankly that “Fantasy” was a “death word” in the Christian
market. Science fiction, though, seemed to be finding an audience, so despite
my nervous face-to-face presentation of Arena,
he asked for the full manuscript.
While I waited, I rewrote book 2 of my fantasy series and
during that year I began to accept with the possibility that God might not
intend my books to be published. As a hobby, I’d hand-bound several copies of Arena to give to friends and family,
which they’d enjoyed immensely. If I only had 20 readers, was that a bad thing?
God’s not into numbers, after all, and if those 20 were blessed by what I’d
done, shouldn’t I be satisfied with that?
For the first time in my life, I found myself genuinely
content to go forward with no more than what He had already provided in terms
of readership. If Bethany House bought Arena,
that would be great. If they didn’t, that would be okay, too.
A few months later, Steve called: Bethany House wanted to
buy Arena.
They were not, however, interested in The Light of Eidon, the book I’d written Arena to gain an opening for, the book I’d rewritten three times,
the book of my heart. Instead, I was
urged to continue with science fiction. Though I subsequently submitted an
informal proposal in that genre, it was rejected.
Then, a month before Arena
was to release, as I was neck-deep in marketing plans, hoping that if it
succeeded someone somewhere might want Eidon,
Steve called again. The reviews and feedback coming in on Arena were so good, he said, the
marketing people wanted something else from me as ASAP.
An editor actually called me up and asked what I had lying
around the house! This, they tell you in all the writing books, NEVER happens!
Well, I told him I had The
Light of Eidon…I told him it was finished…that it was part of a four-book
series, of which the second book was also finished…
He asked me to submit a proposal for the entire tetralogy.
Two weeks later, to my utter joy and astonishment Bethany House signed me to a four-book
contract for Legends of the Guardian King,
with The Light of Eidon, Book 1, due
to release the following summer (2003), the other three in sequence thereafter.
All before Arena even came out and not one of my marketing schemes had been put
into effect.
I love God’s grace and perfect timing. I love His sense of
humor, too!
“Faithful
is He who calls you, and He will bring it to pass.”
1
Thessalonians 5:24
The
Light of Eidon
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| The Light of Eidon |
Abramm has dedicated the last eight years of his life to
becoming worthy to touch and tend the Sacred Flames of Eidon, and he expects to
be blessed for his devotion and sacrifice. But on the eve of taking the vows
that will irrevocably separate him from the life he was born to—as Abramm Kalladorne,
fifth son of the king of Kiriath, he is betrayed by his spiritual mentor and
sold into slavery by his own family.
Swept along by the winds of a new destiny, Abramm is forced
to compete as a gladiator. When the oppressed masses rally around his success,
he discovers his suffering has molded him into something greater than he ever
thought possible—to serve a purpose he never imagined.
Karen Hancock has
won Christy Awards for each of her first four novels – Arena and the first three books in the LEGENDS OF THE GUARDIAN-KING
series, The Light of Eidon, The Shadow Within, and Shadow Over Kiriath. She graduated from
the University of Arizona with bachelor's degrees in Biology and Wildlife
Biology. Along with writing, she enjoys Bible Study, blogging, card-making,
movies and reading, as well as caring for her redbone coonhound. She resides
with her husband in Arizona where she is currently at work on a new fantasy
novel for Bethany House.
