Today's guest, Patricia Lee, has an interesting experience to share about how God surprised her with His timing. Enjoy! ~ Annette
Ten years ago, when I was yet an unpublished wannabe, a writers’ conference speaker challenged those in the audience who hadn’t found a publishing home to write something totally different. Shake up our writing. See what other voice we could find.
I took the challenge to heart and wrote a tongue-in-cheek story filled with the clumsy awkwardness of falling in love. Only I chose a widow and a widower and a divorcée. I wrote to make people laugh. I wanted readers to love the characters.
The story had some immediate success. It semi-finaled in the American Christian Fiction Writers Genesis Contest. It won its category in the Phoenix Rattlers contest, a division of ACFW. At a conference that next year it caught the attention of an editor and an agent. The editor was looking for a light-hearted story to publish in a new line her company planned to expand. The agent liked the possibility of a story already getting inquiries.
I had arrived!
However, my castle built of dreams soon crumbled. The editor lost her job when a larger publisher swallowed her company in a merger. Her offer to publish vaporized. The agent found a better position at a different venue. Finally the story received a slam dunk when a second editor presented it to her publishing board. They rejected it with a finality that meant sudden death. “Sorry,” they said, “the characters seem too old.”
Too old? Seriously?
Never in all its travels had anyone said the characters seemed old. Not once.
Rewriting was not an option. All the characters would have to have age changes—right down to the little kids who, if they were made any younger, would dissolve into nothingness. I couldn’t do it. I stuck the story in a safe place in my cyber files. I chalked up the incident as experience and forgot it. It had no future.
But God had a better idea.
Leap ahead to 2019. With three books now in print, I noticed that my publisher had added a fourth story to another author’s series. I asked if that addition had been part of the original contract. She said no, the new title came out of the success of the first three. On a whim I asked her if she’d be interested in adding a fourth book to my series. The characters were part of the other three books—in fact the first three were spin-offs of that original story. I recounted the journey the book had taken and explained why I had never mentioned it. All the gritty details.
She loved it.
Suddenly the story destined to die in the recesses of my computer was resurrected. It had a publishing date, a new title, and hope for a future.
Now, in the middle of 2020, a difficult year all of us have endured, comes a story filled with lots of laughs and a good dose of silly. But I think God knew we’d need a story like that at this time in our lives. All of us need to be cheered. Encouraged. Renewed. We’d need a story of hope.
God’s timing wasn’t mine, but His proved to be perfect. I’m grateful.
If you get a chance to read it, I hope you enjoy the story.
Your turn. When has God's timing surprised you in your writing life?
Suddenly the story destined to die in the recesses of my computer was resurrected. @lee_patricia__
~~~~~
All Eily McKintrick needed was an onion.
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| Love's Autumn Harvest |
Marshall would be only too happy to gift the widow with an onion, if it weren’t for her choice of friends. She spends time with Hillary Shepherd, a determined divorcée with her sights set on him. After his wife died, he retired early as a high school principal to live a contented, solitary life growing vegetables for the local food banks. But when he finds Eily on her knees in his garden, the ensuing adventure is more trouble than either are prepared to handle.
Will Eily and Marshall find love for a second time? And what will Hillary do?
~~~~~
Patricia “Pat” Lee has had a fascination with words and what they can do since she wrote her first short paragraph at the age of six. She doesn’t remember the content of her story, but her teacher became excited at what she’d done. “Obviously,” Pat says, “words made people happy.” Pat worked as a stringer for a local newspaper during her middle and high school years representing the school's news to the community. She received her B.A. in Journalism from the University of Oregon, then went on to work as a tabloid newspaper editor at her local church. After she married, she began her freelancing career and sold to various publications and anthologies. An Anchor on Her Heart, her debut novel, released in July 2017. Two sequels followed, Love Calls Her Home and A Kite on the Wind. She lives were her husband and a handful of furry friends in the Pacific Northwest. They have two grown children.
Connect with Pat here:
Facebook: @patricialeebooks
Twitter: @lee_patricia__
Linked In: Patricia Lee
Website: https://www.authorpatricialee.net
