Aspiring Writer – The Unexpected

As unpublished novelists writing our stories with no contract in sight, we sometimes wonder. Will all this dreaming and effort take us to the land of published books? And then, along comes …

The Unexpected

Am I getting close, Lord?

That Spring, I decided to find out and entered my novel in the American Christian Fiction Writers’ Genesis Contest for unpublished novelists.

Weeks later, the scores from three judges arrived. What would one day become Her Deadly Inheritance didn’t final, but oh, how exciting–it had missed by a mere fraction! One of the judges, a multi-published romantic suspense author, gave my entry an astounding perfect score and assured me I had a publishable manuscript.

Lord, is it true? Is she right?

A month later at the Write-To-Publish Conference, the manuscript evaluations for the first chapters of my two novels came back running over with enthusiastic comments. The publicist who evaluated them urged me to use her name and contact a Guideposts editor she believed would be interested.

I was stunned. Really, Lord? But God had more encouragement in store.

During an evening critique session at the same conference, a well-known author of romantic suspense listened as someone else read a portion of my manuscript. “Now that’s great writing! ” she said.

I was overwhelmed.

Then in September at the American Christian Fiction Writers Conference, agents and editors and published authors shocked me with their enthusiasm about my novel. One agent told me the publishers gathered at that conference were looking for romantic suspense. I could hardly believe it. Somehow my novel and I had arrived at just the right time. A time when Christian publishers were for writers of my genre.

What happened, Lord?

God’s answer was abundantly clear. “For the Lord is a just God. Happy are all who wait patiently for him” ~Isaiah 30: 18 (The Living Bible, Tyndale House Publishers).

After years of working and years of waiting, I was surprised to discover my novel’s time was near.

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Dear Reader, you may be hurting. You may wonder if all your hard work will ever result in a published novel. Please don’t give up. God is with you and working behind the scenes to bring you to that right moment.

Until then, believe in your growing ability and God’s purpose and for your writing. Trust in his timing.

~ Beth

Copyright 2010 Beth Ann Ziarnik