I hav
en’t posted in a long time and that’s largely down to the fact that Real Life has been full of so many things. However, it’s also due to the fact that I have been going through a rough patch as far as my writing goes. I haven’t had a lot of inspiration (make that none) but have just recently gone over a couple of unpublished manuscripts. Fortunately, I was pleased with what I found there. Now I’ve just got to hope that others will be pleased too.
I am making inroads into getting these manuscripts checked out and get a bit of feedback on them. And even after all these years, it’s a nervous wait. Will anyone like them? Does it matter if they don’t? So many books appeal only to certain people and not the majority. Many manuscripts can find a market somewhere; it’s just a question of the author finding them.
Certainly, we need to make sure they’re as well written as we can get them and that they make sense and avoid the plot hole pitfall, but apart from that, there is a good reason to think that some of our readers will appreciate what we’ve written.
If you’re an author, maybe you can let me know in the comments of an experience you’ve had like this. If you’re a reader, have you ever loved an author that no one else has seemed to like. If so, it would be great to hear from you. 🙂
Image by chlebicek2 from Pixabay
Lynne, this might seem like a tangent, but bear with me. It will relate 🙂 I once did a YWAM outreach where we went to different churches and groups in New Zealand and ran a Christian counselling seminar. Each person in our group of 12 or so would share a bit of teaching or a testimony. For example, one person might share about a dysfunctional family situation and how God helped them to overcome it. Someone else shared how they’d had a problem that had now been healed. Someone else might talk about identity, someone else about loneliness and another about abuse etc. At the end of one particular session that was attended by over 100 people, I looked around the room and noticed that every single team member each had 2 or 3 people talking to us about their issues. All of those people had been touched by something different in the session and each of us had a special word that helped that person. So I think it’s the same with our writing. It’s good to market and try to get a wide audience. But if we’re authentic and write from the heart what God has impressed on us, there will be people who’ll be touched by those words. So hang in there. Nothing we do in the Lord’s service is in vain.
I still have trouble considering my writing part of the Lord’s service because it’s just for entertainment. I know this is not necessarily so, but this idea still hangs in there.
But your books do deal with other issues too. There’s nothing wrong with entertaining readers. In fact, they’ll be more likely to be touched by what they read if they’re also enjoying it.
Hi Lynne
I agree with Nola when she says that nothing we do in the Lord’s Service is in vain. You probably remember that my story of becoming a writer dropped out of nowhere in particular and I tried to ignore it, putting it down as the craziest idea ever!
I had to come to the conclusion that, because it would not go away, I should stop fighting it and go with it even if it was to prove to myself that it was the craziest idea ever! So I when I realised that so what if it didn’t turn out to be anything worthwhile and I would never know if I didn’t try so the rest is history as the saying goes.
I’m in the process of moving house again so in sorting and packing for the move I came across a manuscript that I shelved because it was causing too many headaches. I was banging my head up against brick walls and got sick of it! A couple of nights ago, just for fun,, I decided to take a fresh look at what I’d done (before I put it through my shredder) and it’s not that bad! I’ve now decided that after the move i’m going to try again! It’s another biographical story and I’ve learned a lot more about the craft of writing and what you can and can’t do with this genre so I feel that God is prompting me to take it up again!
Maybe it is the same with you! Maybe God is prompting you to finish the manuscripts you have shelved for so long as well!
So while I am encouraging you to plough ahead with your stories I’m encouraging myself to practise what I’m preaching here.
I think that’s why you’ve picked up these unpublished manuscripts again. Every blessing in your endeavours Lynne. I pray things will work out for you also!
Thank you. 🙂