In my last post, I mentioned that the jury was still out on my 2nd novel. Well, it isn't any more!
To bring you all up to speed…
Earlier this year I entered a contest. The Search for the Next Killer
Voice was a four stage contest held by the editors of Love Inspired Suspense.
Stage 1 – Submit your first
page. No problem. I already had it written.
Stage 2 – Submit a synopsis.
Not much of a problem. I had a synopsis written, I just needed to tweak it,
re-write it, start over and try again. (A huge shout-out to Mary Denman for
talking me through it at midnight!)
Stage 3 – Submit the first 3
chapters. Bit of a problem. Wasn’t exactly expecting to make it this far and
had to rewrite most of what I already had to make it work for this publisher.
(Never-ending gratitude to Lynette Eason for reading it and giving me hope that
it might work!)
Stage 4 – Submit the full
manuscript by June 9. Big problem. Way back in March when I sent in my first
page, I never imagined I’d still be in it at this point. The pressure was
intense. I may have sent out one, two, multiple SOS prayer requests to my writing
and non-writing friends as I wrote during every spare minute and most of the
rest of the minutes of my days and nights. There is no human explanation for
how I was able to finish the book on time. Truly, it was a case of God
expanding my time and energy.
On the evening of June 8, I hit “send” and put it out of my mind for a
few weeks. I celebrated my 40th birthday, went on vacation, and tried
not to think about the fact that somewhere in New York, an editor could at any
moment make THE decision about my book.
Which leads me to the stage no one warned me about.
Stage 5 – Lose your ever-lovin’
mind while you wait to hear if they want to buy your book.
