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| Melinda Viergever Inman |
Who’s
in Charge of Your Writing Journey?
Today I offer words of encouragement, but let me begin with a
story. I started my first real novel in 1988, abandoned it quickly, and picked
it back up to finish in 2009. That’s a long time to let a novel languish!
I chose to stop work, because my life’s focus turned toward a
task I found more important, more pressing, and completely in line with my
heart’s desire. I couldn’t write fiction and educate a houseful of rambunctious
children simultaneously. Maybe you can, but I couldn’t. I set the manuscript and
fiction writing aside for another season.
About twenty years later, I began writing fiction again. Four
other manuscripts had crowded their way in front of the first. Because I had
pent-up creativity, these novels burst forth like a geyser. Each draft took
about a month to complete, and I had a series in the making. After extensive
editing, the first made it into the hands of a couple of Christian publishers.
Then the publishing world collapsed, and the market changed.
So, I pulled out my original idea from 1988, and I spent six
weeks hammering out a complete draft. Finally, the story had a home someplace
other than in my head. That was more than twenty years after my original
attempt.
I polished and honed. It ended up in the hands of an agent.
But the publishing world was still mid-collapse. Christian publishing houses
closed one after another, and the market veered again, bringing those
first-drafted manuscripts back into play.
As the first was in production with a publisher, I became
chronically ill. Number one and number two were published in 2014 and 2015 - I
worked from bed. The novels did well. Then the careening market brought the
original story back onto the editing table. By then, I had gone indie.
Notice how long each project took to write, to edit, and to
move through production to publication. The first two published novels took six
years to polish and ready for the marketplace. The third required twenty-two
years to finally exist in draft form and then six years more to publish. I’m
drafting its sequel now. Because I have a chronic illness, and I also relocated
across the country this year, the draft of this sequel has been in the works
for an entire year. I have about fifty pages left, and I hope to finish soon.
Why all this manuscript history? Because I want you to know
that this writing journey may not go as you suppose. My story is pretty
typical.
This writing life will probably break your heart countless
times. It will be harder than you ever dreamed. It will take you places you
didn’t intend to go. The path will have curves and meanderings that you never
saw coming.
That’s because you are not in control. God is.
If the Lord gives you stories to tell, waking you in the
night, laying scenes and heroes and villains on your mind and bringing them
into your very dreams, he will guide the journey. If he is using you to tell
stories to people who need to see the redemptive love of God illustrated, then
he knows exactly when they need your
story.
He will work your journey together for good to accomplish
those purposes and for the good of
your life as his child. “We boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so,
but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces
perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not
put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through
the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Romans 5:2-5 NIV).
This is what God will do for you as you write. Not only will
your readers grow, but so will you, in perseverance, character, and hope. So,
follow the Spirit’s leading wherever it takes you. Have hope. Trust him.
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| Melinda V Inman, Author of: Refuge, Fallen, and No Longer Alone |
Raised on the Oklahoma plains in a storytelling family,
Melinda Viergever Inman now spins tales from her writer’s cave in the Midwest.
Her faith-filled fiction illustrates our human story, wrestling with our
brokenness and the storms that wreak havoc in our lives. Find her weekly at http://MelindaInman.com/blog/. To find
her work and to be notified of future published novels, follow her at http://bit.ly/MelindasBooks/.
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