A Little Good News Today

Everybody needs a little good news. I’d love to tell you the pandemic is over or that our city is having a crime-free year or that cancer has been eradicated. Can’t say any of that and you wouldn’t believe me if I tried.

I do have a morsel of good news, though.

You may recall reading about my journey with a novel I titled Rose Among Thornes. In it, a young Japanese Canadian girl named Rose is relocated from her home in Vancouver to a Manitoba sugar beet farm during World War II. It’s also the story of Private Russell Thorne, a Canadian soldier who spends most of the war in a Japanese P.O.W. camp, wishing more than anything that he was still on his family’s sugar beet farm back in Manitoba.

In a blog post a year ago, I told about how I fought writing this book, believing it wasn’t my story to tell. How the idea wouldn’t let me go. How God showed me that it was mine to write, though it meant more research and study than I’d ever tackled. How I finally completed the 100,000-word manuscript, not knowing whether it would ever be picked up by a publisher.

Backtrack a bit further to spring of 2019. My agent encouraged me to participate in something called a Twitter Pitch. I hate Twitter. I can’t make sense of it and rarely use it. But I had three different stories to pitch, one of them Rose Among Thornes. I wrote four different pitches for each book (12 in all, each limited to 280 characters) and added appropriate hashtags. Then, as the rules allowed, I tweeted these pitches, scattering them throughout the twelve-hour window of opportunity. Here’s how it works: if any editors are interested in seeing more, they “like” your pitch, which is an invitation to send them more information about your book.

I didn’t get one “like.” Not one. I thought I must be messing up with the technology, but when I tweeted a question, one of the organizers confirmed I’d done it correctly. So much for Twitter pitches. I chalked it up to a dreadful waste of a day.

In reality, I guess it was a case of right place, wrong time.

When a whole year went by and my agent still hadn’t found a home for any of these novels, I initially ignored the Twitter pitch when it came around again this past June. Why waste my time? But for some reason, I changed my mind—with stipulations. I would pitch ONLY Rose Among Thornes, and I would use the exact pitches I’d used the previous year. I didn’t want to waste a minute reworking them, and I didn’t know how to improve them in any case.

I anticipated zero responses because, as we all know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing in the same way and expecting different results.

I may need to redefine insanity.

By the end of the day, five editors had “liked” my rerun pitches.

By the next day, two had asked to see the full manuscript.

By the following week, I was offered a contract.

And so, my good news is, Rose Among Thornes is set to release from Iron Stream Media next summer. I’m more excited to see this book in readers’ hands than anything I’ve written.

The lesson here? God’s timing. There’s no earthly explanation for why my same old Twitter pitches should have generated interest in the midst of a pandemic when they had not done so in 2019, except for one truth. It’s wrapped up in Habakkuk 2:3. “But these things I plan won’t happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, do not despair, for these things will surely come to pass. Just be patient! They will not be overdue a single day!” (The Message)

I don’t know what you’re waiting for, but take heart. You can trust God’s timing. He’s never late. He knows best. He’s on your side.

Take it from my little bit of good news.

 

 

Novel Problems

I announced to my husband that I needed to fix my novel problem.

“Novel problem?” he asked. “Is that anything like a novel corona virus?”

Without hesitation, I answered, “Yes, actually. It is.” Then I disappeared into my home office and started writing this blog post, procrastinating yet again on my novel problem.

Writing is weird. While nonfiction must be incredible in order to sell, fiction must be believable. While the author invents a story with make-believe characters, it’s usually set in actual real locations during a real time period. If you mess up, readers will catch every blunder. My genre, historical fiction, presents its own challenges.

For example, in my current work-in-progress, which takes place in Manitoba during the 1940s, I’d been charging ahead with my story in the interest of accumulating words instead of stopping to research. My main character enrolled in the St. Boniface nursing school. So far so good, right?

When I stopped writing long enough to do some digging, I discovered some serious flaws. My character was married, for one. Married women couldn’t enroll in that or most other nursing schools until the 1960s. I also had her going home on weekends. In fact, student nurses worked seven days a week and were fortunate if they got a few hours off at Christmas!

These discoveries meant I needed to make major revisions to my plot structure. Which, sadly, meant I’d abandoned the whole project for a week. When I finally devised a solution, the conversation at the opening of this post ensued.

My novel problem feels like the novel virus because:

1.      It’s painful. As in, hard work.  

2.      It’s scary, because I don’t know whether my “patient” will survive. Will I be able to fix this story or is it time to give it a proper burial?

3.      Isolation is required. It’s my book and nobody else is going to fix it. No one is going to cheer over my shoulder as I type. In fact, no one’s going to miss this masterpiece if it’s not resuscitated because nobody else ever knew of its existence.

So yes, dear. This is a bit like the novel corona virus, if only to me.

The word “novel” has two distinct definitions. As a noun, it’s “an invented prose narrative, usually long and complex and dealing with human experience through a connected sequence of events,” as in my book.

But as an adjective, it means “new and not resembling something previously identified,” as in Covid-19.

The two seemingly unrelated definitions of “novel” may share more than previously thought—at least for the writer in the process of creating a book. Where will this story go? Who will pay the highest price? How will it be resolved, and when? Will it result in a happily-ever-after? And, perhaps most importantly, will the characters learn and grow from it?

Novelists or not, we’re all writing a story of our own through this uncertain time. It’s one you’ll tell your friends when it’s over and your grandchildren in years to come. And whether it’s a story of fear and panic or a story of love and grace, it will be your unique story. Write it well.

Stuff I Learned in 2017

Going a whole year without learning anything new would be a tragedy, don’t you agree? Some years it might be a stretch to figure out what you learned, but taking inventory of the past twelve months usually sheds light on a few. Here are mine.

I learned some new words.

You would think I’d know a lot of words, fancying myself a writer and all. But the more writerly friends I make, the more I realize my vocabulary is stuck in Grade Five. So, I’ve intentionally tried to notice new words as I come across them. Unfortunately, I’ve already forgotten both of them. Perhaps in 2018, I will remember to take actual notes, not just mental ones. 

One new word that sticks in my head, likely because I see it on Facebook so often, is “trynna.” I’m trynna find a good plumber. I’m trynna clean the house. I’m trynna write a blog post with some value to it.

“Trynna” is similar to “wanna” or “gonna.” Only wronger.

I learned how to launch two novels in the same year.

Photo by Stan Wiebe

My second novel came out at the end of January and my third in mid-August. I’ve learned I need to take a week off from my day job if I’m going to have enough energy for the whirlwind of launch parties, radio and newspaper interviews, hair and nail appointments. It’s a rough life. 

Some readers have asked about a fourth novel and I’m happy to say one is in the works. Since my publisher discontinued its fiction line, however, I’m praying for a new publisher in 2018.

I learned I can still be helpful. For a limited time only.

Our fifth grandson arrived in September. He was considerate enough to postpone his arrival until a day after I’d landed in Calgary to help. I spent ten days chasing his big brother, cooking, cleaning, and generally trying to make myself as useful to my daughter and son-in-law as possible. Long-distance grandparenting seems to be an all-or-nothing deal, so I gave 110%. When the time came to catch my flight home, it was the first time I’ve said goodbye without crying. Too exhausted or too relieved? I’m still not sure. The tears came later, when my daughter’s thank you card arrived in the mail, pouring out heartfelt gratitude.

I learned to celebrate…sort of.

Hubby and I reached our 40th wedding anniversary on October first. Our lofty goal to check all forty activities off our list throughout the year revealed how celebration-challenged we are. Still, we did accomplish half, which is more than we’d have done without the list. Best thing I learned from that experience is if you actually write things down, you’re more likely to take the steps toward making them happen. And there’s no law saying we can’t finish it in our forty-first year or beyond.

Not too shabby, eh? How about you? Look back through your calendar. I’ll bet you’ll be surprised by how much you’ve learned, too.  Happy New Year!