“You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked. A place you could sprain both you elbow and chin! Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? How much can you lose? How much can you win?
And IF you go in, should you turn left or right… or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite? Or go around back and sneak in from behind? Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find, for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.
You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place. The Waiting Place…
…for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or a No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.
NO! That’s not for you!”
Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
Dr. Seuss
Let me tell you a little story about what it’s like to write and launch a book.
It’s a process filled with waiting places – places where you can choose to sit back and hope good fortune stumbles over you, or where you can take matters into your own hands and walk to the good fortune.
The beginning of this journey is filled with excitement. You head down these long wiggled roads at a break necking pace, and it’s exhilarating and terrifying, and you sort of stumble your way through the process until you reach the other side. Finished. A completed manuscript in your hands.
This is when you enter the first Waiting Place.
You hold in your hands a tiny piece of your heart, and you have to decide if you’re going to let anyone read it. So you timidly hand it over to strangers, hoping they like it. And you wait for the “Yes” amidst a whole lot of “No.”
If you’re not content to stay in that waiting place, you persist and push through all the “No.” Because eventually, with a little dedication and refusal to give up, you find your “Yes.” Someone agrees to bind up that piece of your heart, and put a title to it. This, it turns out, is where the real work starts.
Launching a book is like running a marathon in the dark. You sort of stumble along pitch black roads, feeling your way toward the finish line, hoping you don’t peter out and die before you get there. That’s where it’s imperative to have running partners by your side.
Last weekend, I headed up to Greenville, South Carolina for the Allume conference. This is the third time I’ve attended this conference, and it holds a special place in my heart. This is the place where I found my running partners.
There’s a confidence that comes from being with a group of people who understand this crazy journey of publication. They understand the rejection and the fear. They understand the extreme exhaustion that comes from pouring your heart out on the page, and the utter terror that you feel when you must submit those pages to be judged.
The first year I attended Allume, I went all alone. I had the unedited manuscript for my novel tucked away in my bag, and I met with several agents, all of whom loved the concept, but “fiction is a touch sell,” and on they went.
Except for one.
She agreed to at least read the first 50 pages and give feedback. “It’s too long,” she said, and she was right. 150,000 words was a ridiculous length for a debut novel, so I spent the next year editing, and cutting, and shaping it up.
I went back the second year with my edited novel, but I was also joined by Wendy, and together we had a proposal for a new book – a book for creative moms, meeting them right there in the mess of motherhood.
I went to Allume this third year with two books in production, and the weekend was spent trying to learn the ins and outs of marketing and launching. It’s intimidating and overwhelming. I’m running a marathon in the dark.
But at least I’ve got running partners by my side who are cheering me on. Several of them have already walked this path, and so they offer advice and wisdom, lighting the road before me just slightly.
It’s exhausting and overwhelming, this journey I’m on. But I’m glad I pushed myself out of the waiting place and onto this path. Dr. Seuss was right – waiting isn’t for me. The journey is so much more fun when you move forward…even if you’re moving in the dark.
So, what are you waiting on? What’s stopping you from moving forward?
When I graduated Baylor University with a degree in English Professional Writing, I immediately took on the title “writer.” That’s what I wanted to be, that’s the field in which I looked for a job, and so that’s the title I claimed for myself.
Writer.
That one word feels lofty and even a bit snobbish. Writers are romanticized in movies and television. They are these deep thinkers who live in quirky apartments, and they wear funny sweaters and smoke cigarettes while tapping out the Great American Novel on rusty typewriters.
I don’t know a single writer who does any of those things, by the way.
Photo Courtesy of Tammy Labuda: TammyLabudaPhotography.com
Most of us are tapping out our stories in the dark hours of our days – early morning, and late nights make up a world of stories. If you were to come to my house, you’d see that writing takes place in the cracks of life. During lunch break on homeschooling days, and on the rare gymnastics nights that I can slip away for a time and tap the keyboard while my daughter swings the bars.
There aren’t long stretches of time set aside for writing, because that’s just not the nature of my life right now. Someday there may be time for me to dedicate hours a day to my craft, but that day won’t come any time soon. So I fit it in, and I tell myself it’s okay.
Back when I was newly married, living in a small apartment in Frisco, Texas, I set to work proving myself to be a writer. I bought a clunky Toshiba laptop and set it up on the kitchen table, declaring that to be my space to create.
(I even bought myself a typewriter, with visions of romantic nights clicking away at the keys by lamplight. But it turns out that typing on a computer is much more productive, and a whole lot easier. Typewriters make lovely decorations, though.)
I interviewed for writing jobs in those early days, and landed a few freelance positions, and I considered this paying my dues. I ghostwrote a Study Guide, co-authored a devotional, and I wrote weekly newsletters for a local doctor, while also helping him formulate his ideas for a book series.
I did all of this while working on my own book, and I called myself writer, and I meant it. I was a writer because I wrote words.
But no one was reading the words, so I began to question my ability, and I slowly and quietly dropped the title. I began calling myself an editor, instead. I told people I liked to write, which seemed safer because how can you argue with that?
But I no longer felt comfortable calling myself a writer because the litmus test for being a writer seemed beyond what I had accomplished. I wasn’t publishing books, or even e-books. I had a blog, but it was a humor blog, hardly meant to be taken seriously.
Then I went to a conference that changed everything. I sat in on Jeff Goins’ session on writing, and he told us that part of writing is simply accepting the title for yourself. “It all changes when you’re willing to call yourself a writer,” he said.
So I accepted the title once more, and I tried applying it to myself, slowly at first. And then a little more boldly with time, until I finally came to a place where I believed myself to be a writer.
It was then that I fell back in love with the craft of writing. No longer caught up in what I was and wasn’t doing, I simply learned to love the art. And I learned to better love my family in the midst of the art.
Taking on the title of mom, however, was never a problem for me. I believed in my ability to be a mom, and a good one at that, from the day my first child was born. It just felt so natural.
But being a Writer and a Mom? That’s a hard one. Because it’s hard to be both all at the same time. So I swing back and forth between the two titles, and the Mom title gets more of me, because of course it would!
Here’s the thing, though: I can wear both titles.
I am Mom. And I am a writer. I’m both things, simultaneously, though one outweighs the other in dedicated focused hours.
I’m also wife, daughter, sister, and friend. All of these titles rest upon me, and I’m grateful for them. Though I may wear some titles more naturally, and I may not always give healthy balance to each role, none are diminished or any less important. I embrace all these titles, without shame.
What are your titles? How are you embracing all that you were made to be, from your mothering to your wife…ing (go with it), to the many, many skills that make up the whole of your being?
Do you remember that feeling you got as a kid when a birthday would come and go, or Christmas morning passed in a blur, and suddenly it was all over and you were left feeling a little let down?
It was the post-celebration blues, and they snuck up on you every single time.
The same feeling washes through when you finish writing a book. It’s sort of a day-after, did-that-really-happen kind of feeling that leaves you wringing your hands and wondering what you should do next.
The thing is, there’s still a lot to be done. Just like after a great birthday party, or a memorable Christmas, there is cleaning up to do. A new day dawns, and brings with it a flurry of activity. And yet you find yourself a bit dejected for a few days until the moment finally passes and you can start looking forward to the next celebration.
Wendy and I turned in our manuscript on Tuesday. It’s been an intense couple of weeks as we’ve gone through the book with a fine-tooth comb, pulling out sections that didn’t make sense, or stopped the flow. We’ve done rewrites, and we’ve challenged one another on theological concepts, always pushing each other toward becoming stronger communicators.
We’ve pushed ourselves late into the night, and throughout the day, filling each down moment with editing and sharpening.
And now it’s out of our hands.
Add to the the fact that I turned my novel back into the editor on Sunday night after doing all the rewrites, and you find me here in the corner, feeling like my birthday and Christmas just rolled past me in one giant swoop. I’m a little sad that it’s over.
There’s still so much to be done, obviously, but today I’m simply in that strange aftermath – the waiting period before life kicks back into gear.
Tomorrow my husband celebrates his birthday. He’s had a stressful few months as well, so we’re sneaking away for a few days, just the two of us. We’ll join Matt and Wendy in San Diego, and we’ll celebrate birthdays and finished manuscripts.
And hopefully we’ll sleep, because I’m running on fumes.
I’m not taking my computer with me, and I’m not going to lie – I’ve had a couple of panic attacks today as I’ve thought about leaving it behind. I need to get started on marketing plans, and I need to finish my ebooks. I need to contact people for endorsements, and I have a MOPS talk to prepare.
But if I don’t stop to take a breath, I simply won’t make it to the next goal.
There’s something to be said about stepping back and taking it all in. Just like there’s something to be said about sitting in front of the fireplace the day after Christmas and not diving right into the cleaning and organizing. Memories can’t be made if we don’t stop to digest the moments.
Books won’t be launched if we don’t stop and digest the accomplishment of writing them.
So tomorrow morning, I will drag myself out of bed at O’Dark Thirty (it’s hard to fly from one coast to the other), and I will leave the work behind. It’ll all be waiting for me when I return, no doubt.
I’m going to step away and celebrate the accomplishment of finishing these first steps. This is the time to breathe, to soak it all in, and to not think about what’s next.
So that’s where I’ll be, and that’s what I’ll do. And hopefully I’ll come home relaxed, refreshed, and ready to prepare for the next big celebration. TWO BOOK LAUNCHES!
I work in a profession that requires thick skin. I put my heart out there, tapping each beat to the rhythm of my keyboard, and I hand it to a friend, an editor, the world via a blog post, and then I wait for the feedback.
I learned to accept criticism in college. My senior year, the class Writing for the Popular Market would be the training ground for giving and accepting constructive criticism.
That was also the year that I began to associate editing with coffee.But that’s a different topic for a different day.
Once a week, my classmates and I, along with our professor, sat in a circle in the local coffee shop, or on the couches in the room above The Sub, and we’d dutifully hand the ten pages we’d written in our novels that week to the person sitting just to the right.
Then we’d sit back, sip our coffee, and read one another’s words.
There were only six of us in the class, and by the end of the year, we each had a completed manuscript. This would be the first draft of my novel. It was the beginning of learning to communicate through story.
I’m grateful for the lessons learned in that small class. I’m glad I learned to hear someone criticize what I wrote, and not take it personally. It’s a necessary skill, and it’s one that’s served me well over the last fifteen years since I graduated.
When I shared the news that my novel would be published last week, I received so many wonderful, encouraging messages and comments from all of you. And I cried a lot as I read through them, because fifteen years of waiting and dreaming of seeing this book published suddenly took a realistic turn.
I received a lot of rejection letters for the various drafts of my novel. For a long time, I kept every rejection letter I received. After reading Stephen King’s book, On Writing, the notion of a stack of rejection slips seemed almost romantic.
[Tweet “There is a refining power in rejection. It either makes you, or it breaks you. “]
See, when I started the process of trying to get my book published (an earlier version of it that is nothing like the one coming out next spring), I did it the old school way. I mailed letters – actual letters written on paper.
I sent query after query in the mail, along with book proposals and sample chapters. And I included in each stamped envelope, a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope (SASE) for the publishers to send me his response…which was usually a big, fat no.
Every once in awhile, though, there would be a glimmer of hope. A note, scratched at the bottom of a form letter from the editor encouraging me to keep writing.
Those rejection slips went to the top of the pile.
I tossed the folder of rejection slips when we moved, because I was over the romanticism of it all by then. And the world had moved on to email, so now I had the privilege of receiving electronic form letters, and that felt a little less nostalgic. I wish now, though, that I had that stack of “No’s”
Because I’d love to see it dwarfed next to the contract that says “Yes.”
I haven’t really minded all the rejection, if I’m honest. I’ve been impatient at times, of course. And there were days when I’d feel terribly discouraged over it all. But in all the years of waiting and hoping, it never occurred to me that I should give up on the book.
There are some stories that just get under your skin, and this story that I’ve written is one of them. The characters crawled into my very being, and I knew that someday I’d see them really come to life in print.
So I waited, and I pushed, and I simply refused to take no for an answer.
[Tweet “Rejection doesn’t mean the end of a dream. Rejection says you’re on the right track.”]
If you’re in a place where “No” is the only word you’re hearing, can I just urge you not to give up? Sometimes you have to wade through a whole lot of “No” to get to “Yes.”
And when that happens, you’ll find that the “Yes” is so much sweeter after the waiting.
Fourteen years ago, the phone rang, piercing the silence inside my tiny apartment. Lee was at work, and I was preparing dinner, because we were newlyweds, and making food was still exciting to me back then.
I answered the phone, and her voice came across the line all buttery and warm.
“I hear you like to take tea,” she said, and I could hear the smile behind her words.
That was the beginning of one of my most cherished friendships. For the next year, Wendy was my confidant, my cheerleader, my prayer partner, and my sweetest friend. Our love for tea and scones wasn’t our only commonality, either.
Photo by Tammy Labuda: TammyLabudaPhotography.com
We both shared a passion for encouraging other women through our creative pursuits. I was a writer and a singer, she an actress who penned poetic prose in her spare time.
In those early years, before children rounded out our families, Wendy and I dreamed of all the different ways we wanted to work together in some creative capacity. But as time marched on, babies entered the picture, and our husband’s jobs moved us to different coasts, the dream of working together felt a bit lofty and ambitious.
Until last summer
At our 4th Annual Creative Retreat, Wendy and I began to speak earnestly of our dreams to work together creatively. We spoke in depth of our heart for creative women, and for mothers living this creative life with little ones in their midst, and the time felt like now.
We put together a book proposal, and we met at the Allume conference in October where we found an audience with an agent who caught our vision and agreed to represent us in our writing pursuits.
So we started writing and praying for the right publisher, and the right timing, and the right audience, and…
This week Wendy and I signed our first publishing contract with Kregel Publishing, with a release date set for September of 2016.
A book.
A real book!
A real book written for women…
Written for creative women like us…
Creative women who are wondering if their creativity has a place in this intense season of motherhood.
Our book (which is tentatively titled at this point) is coming together beautifully. It’s been as much of a journey this past year writing this book as the past fourteen years of dreaming and living it have been.
Our goal is to encourage other creative moms to use their gifts and talents to make an impact in the world.
We’re writing this message as we live it ourselves, seven children between the two of us, while our husbands travel, and the intensity of living creative passions next to the hustle of growing families sometimes overwhelms us.
Next week, Wendy and I will be together again for our 5th Annual Creative Retreat, exactly one year after this long-held dream took root. Our goal is to finish the rough draft of our manuscript, and after our week together is over, our husbands and children will join us, and we’ll all celebrate as one unit.
Because they are friends who have become family.
I’m not going to lie, my friends – this has been such a journey, and it’s not over yet! This is only the beginning of the exciting things to come. Because not so long ago, I surrendered this longing I held in my heart – a longing to see the words that flowed from my fingertips in print – and I committed to write simply for the joy of it.
But still I hoped. I longed for the day when I could sign my name on the line that validated my gift of words. And I realized that it’s okay to want it.
[Tweet “It’s okay to toil toward a dream, because there’s beauty in the journey, and victory in the labor.”]
Today I placed the signed contract in the mail, and a long held dream finally grew wings.
There is a lot of work still to be done, and so much to learn, but isn’t it exciting? This life of living and dreaming all wrapped up tight with friends and family is a privilege, and I’m thrilled to share this journey with so many of you as well!
Creative Moms, don’t miss the release in fall 2016, sign up for email updates here at kellistuart.com, or over at wendyspeake.com, and we promise to joyfully prime the pump in the next 15 long months with posts purposed to bless your creative hearts. We are really excited about the community of creative moms that God is going to knit together in the coming days!
