Into the Fire

If you’re a parent and considering going out for a long-awaited evening with your spouse sans children, you have to trust whoever you’re allowing to take care of said children. Otherwise you’ll be fretting instead of enjoying that steak dinner and good flick, making every excuse to pull out that cell phone and skip the movie. It ends up being no fun, and you don’t look forward to doing it again anytime soon until you can find a trustworthy sitter.

If you’re a female needing to get your car fixed, you want to go to a shop where the guys aren’t licking their chops and racking up the $ signs in their eyes when they see you coming. You want to trust you’ll get an honest evaluation and estimate from the person who you hope will fix your car for a reasonable price.

If you’re a single guy who loves the Lord and you’ve just invited a gal from your church to go out with you, you want to trust she has the same views of respectful conduct as you do and hope she isn’t eager to entice you with what she’s chosen to wear.

Well, how ‘bout this? If you’ve labored over a novel, read it several times with separation in between, tweaked it, tied up loose ends, inserted more powerful and meaningful language at every opportunity, absolutely love the characters, are satisfied with the plot, and have allowed a number of different people to read it, all of them coming back with good and varied reports of how it touched them . . . if you’ve done all this, do you trust the people to whom you will send your query, synopsis, proposal? Because in this business, you have to. Like it or not, you have to trust the professionals, right?

These are the professionals many of whom will not give you a clue why they’re passing on your novel. These are the professionals who don’t have time to get beyond a few sentences in your query letter in some cases because they’ve got at least a hundred more to read after yours. These are the professionals who encourage you to attend a writer’s conference to meet them face-to-face because that’s the best and maybe only way to be remembered among the hundreds of wannabes just like yourself. These are the professionals who request a partial or a full manuscript and then you won’t hear from them for possibly a few months—or maybe never. These are the professionals whose tastes in literature are as varied as the people who submit to them. These are the professionals who might love Hemingway and you write like Jane Austen. You getting my drift here?

Do you trust the system of publishing? It is as difficult today to find an agent as it is a publisher, and there are a handful of crooked agents out there, too. Yet, for the most part, you won’t be allowed to submit a manuscript to a publishing house without an agent anymore except through connecting with an editor at a writer’s conference. The good agents are generally full up with clients, desiring to take on a few new folks, preferably recommended by another author they know and respect or one who can boast of an enviable platform.

Trusting the system seems the logical choice for aspiring writers. No? Hopeful creators of a manuscript, or even more than one, polish it up and decide to take on the industry, certain they can measure up to the high standards demanded of them by those who are in charge of the keys to publishing gold. Willing to send their lamb to the slaughter of a well-known agent or editor, they wait for months for a rejection letter or an e-mail apology for the form-letter-rejection. Now this scenario does not apply to every agent or editor. Some are kind and careful to encourage or instruct or to take the time to suggest. However, these thoughtful ones are not the norm.

Now for everyone I’ve discouraged, take heart in the fact that if God is directing you to solicit your work, He will find a home for it. He is the giver of good and perfect gifts. He knows what His desires for your work will accomplish and exactly how He intends to choreograph that dance number. You must work hard to obey his instruction. If He takes you through the fire and deep waters, He will go with you. If He leads you beside still waters, it will be refreshing to drink deep. Just be sure to proceed with Him in front of you because if you try to lead, it might feel like “success” at some point, but it will not be.

I have trust issues with the system of publishing, but that’s just me. Could be I just don’t understand the whys and wherefores, but regardless of the reason, the system is what it is, and it works well for some and not so much for others.

Father, I DO trust you. Praise God. And I intend to follow where you lead, so help me to do just that. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

*Please continue to pray for Kristy Dykes.*