Nearly twenty years ago, I was totally spent as a writer. I’d endured a three-year process of revision and revulsion on one book that had me doubting my ability and drained of all enthusiasm for writing.
I’d had a good run. I’d authored or coauthored numerous articles and books. I’d won awards and appeared on best-seller lists. I didn’t need the stresses of editing and revision, contracts and deadlines.
So I prayed.
I do that when I get desperate–and there’s nothing good on T.V.
And God answered. I decided, before throwing in the towel, to write a proposal for a book that would really float my boat, a project that I would enjoy more than anything I had written to date. I sent it. I never got an offer.
But a couple months later, an editor who had seen my proposal contacted me and asked if I would be interested in an assignment to work on a project called The Prayer Bible. It wasn’t the door I had knocked on, but it was in the same neighborhood.
For the next couple months, I spent my workdays praying through the second half of the Old Testament, praying God’s Word, a process that not only revived me and stoked my prayer life—I believe it saved my writing ministry.
If I had given up then, my novel The Bone Box—a timeslip novel before I knew what timeslip was—would never have been written. My dream of writing a novel based on events in my Amish family’s history would never have become the historical novels (coauthored with a distant cousin), Northkill and The Return. My love for Shakespeare and the Bible would never have resulted in The Bard and the Bible: A Shakespeare Devotional, a labor of love that offers a daily reading based on a short quote from Shakespeare’s works with a corresponding or contrasting verse from the King James Version of the Bible (which was produced in the same era, country, and city, by men who knew each other). My longtime dream of writing children’s books would have died on the vine, long before I got the inspiration for Don’t Close Your Eyes: A Silly Bedtime Book.
And those are just some of the 30+ books I’ve been blessed to write and publish since the day I didn’t give up. Some have made money. Some have won awards. And, more importantly, some have touched lives. Maybe even changed a few.
So don’t give up. No matter where you are in your writing journey, no matter how discouraged you may feel, consider the impact of all the words that remain in your future. The readers you may gain. The articles and books you may have in you. The lives that are waiting to be touched—maybe even changed. It’s going to be worth it. Maybe soon, maybe not. You don’t get to decide the timing.
But you do get to choose to persevere.
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Bob, I really needed this today. I have been on a book idea for 4 years, and last 90 days I found a wonderful printer and editor. The editing process has been hard and although I am almost done, the editing and rewrites keep going. I was reading the Psalms and they really spoke to me. Psalm 41:1″ How blessed is he who considers the helpless; The Lord will deliver him in a day of trouble.” Then I read your post today and I was so encouraged! I knew it was the Lord encouraging me to preservere. You have had all the same feelings and you did not give up. The Lord is saying to me not to either. He gave me the idea for the book and He is blessing it. I know it will be a HUGE blessing. I was delivered today from despair and God used YOU! Thank you so much!
Thank you for your words of encouragement. Both in this blog post and at OCW last summer. Your kindness and your wisdom are both helpful.
Thanks
Timely message I so needed to hear, today. Last night I prayed about this gazillion year effort and wondered, Lord, is this my calling? I was pulled out of one season to another, so believed this was it. I was at a true low last night, thinking I was a Mark Twain’s laugh track as a talentless hack.
So, I can say with confidence… been there, done that, got the tee shirt and the letters. Many letters.
I plan to put this one aside, in prayer, wondering if in the atheist critique group from the US, to a Muslim woman, to the UK (several!), and Canada… was that God’s purpose or should I push on? I looked over Steve’s Market Guide book last night and that’s when I said… I don’t know, I just don’t know.
I have a handful of others, a reinterest in NanoWrimo and may work on one or the other or .. the other… etc. They are all Christian fiction and the main characters have been in a steaming fit, ready to walk off the set.
By the way, I LOVED The Bone Box. Great book! And I am going through the OT again and posting when (almost always) where I see Christ and prophecy. Praying that this too will (first be well-discerned. Just coz I went to Bible school, I still ain’t a theologian) reach the lost and especially those who are Jewish.
Thank you, wonderful post.
Thank you Bob.
Thank you SO much for sharing your journey! It’s a difficult road fraught with obstacles and thoughts of unworthiness but prayer is a big factor in whether we proceed and walk with conviction or whether we wither on the vine. If God has called you to write, He will see you through it.
Glad there was nothing good on tv that day 😀
What a blessing & so encouraging! Thank you for sharing your journey of writing…
Prayer unlocked the door. Quite a good story. Thanks for sharing.