The Face of Rejection

This is what rejection looks like. This is what rejection feels like.



My sister's dog, Ferbie, was definitely feeling rejected. We had told him he had to stay in the motor home (yes, he understands a fair amount of English) while the rest of us went on an outing. The thing I love about dogs is that they show their feelings. No putting on a stiff upper lip. No need to appear professional--as though nothing in the business world is ever supposed to hurt us. He's wounded and he shows it.



Of course, when we got back he immediately forgave us and did an ecstatic happy dance. Another great thing about dogs.



I was talking to a blogger buddy a couple of days ago about the need to vent and cry on each other's shoulder when the rejections are starting to get to us. I decided we need that right here on this blog today. I'll go first.



The finalists for the ACFW Genesis contest for unpublished writers were announced yesterday. I was not a finalist; hence my need for venting. It's not that I'm devastated about one contest. I'm just feeling things piling up on me in the area of writing--or not piling up, as the case may be.



Let me try to explain. I've mentioned here before that I've been submitting manuscripts, trying to get a novel published for 30 years now. I fully admit that for most of those years, I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Somehow, in that clueless state, I had constant encouragement. When I entered contests, I often finaled. If I went to a conference, editors seemed to love my writing and requested full manuscripts. In fact, my frustration back then came from the vast quantity of near misses.


After about 25 years, I almost quit. I prayed and placed a fleece before God. If he wanted me to quit, I would. Just please show me whether to keep going. Out of the blue, he provided two well-known Christian authors to help me. Not through conferences or writers' groups or any effort on my part. They just happened to be friends of friends. They just appeared out of nowhere, and they provided so much encouragement, they kept me going. One recommended me to an agent, whom I signed with three years ago.



And since then, nothing.



I enter contests, and nothing happens. I get low scores. No one requests full manuscripts.



The hardest part of this writing dream, for me, hasn't been the waiting, or the hard work. It's the confusion. The frustration. Trying to figure out what in the world I should be doing differently.



Well-meaning people say, you need to work hard and study your craft. I heard one writer compare the process to becoming a doctor. Medical students have to study, learn, apprentice. True, but if I had started medical school 30 years ago, I would either have studied, done well, and been practicing medicine for many years now--or I would have flunked out and gone on to something else. I probably wouldn't pass an exam one day, then show up for class the next and be told that a different professor had looked at it and decided I failed.



I want this blog to be all about encouragement. But I decided when I started it that I wanted to be real, to make myself vulnerable. For me, I sometimes need to know that others are facing a dark hour--and that they make it through. So today, I vent! Tomorrow, I'm sure I'll be able to let you know how good God is, and what he has done to encourage me and keep me going. He always does.



(I always think that if God would let me not only publish, but become unbelievably successful after hanging in there for 30 years, that would be a tremendous encouragement to others! But I've discovered that God often has a different point of view from me.)



Tonight I will get back to work and try again. And tomorrow, I have a beautifully encouraging story from another writer to pass along. But for now, please feel free to vent here, if you like. Trust me, I know how hard this is. Leave a comment, or if you have a story about how you got past some particularly horrible rejection and would like to share it, send it to me. I'll be happy to give you a guest blog spot.

Thanks for letting me share with you.

Research Tip: American Memory at the Library of Congress

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division

Have you ever checked out the Library of Congress's American Memory project?

If you're working on a historical set in the U.S., this is a must for you! The Library of Congress has digitized and put online thousands of oral histories, historic photographs, maps, sheet music, sound recordings, and more. The above photo is from the Selected Civil War Photographs collection, and depicts a dinner party outside a tent at the Army of the Potomac headquarters in Virginia. You can browse this collection by subject. So if you're interested in firearms, or battle-damaged buildings, or even pictures of folks "eating and drinking," you can narrow down your focus.

One collection called "After the Day of Infamy" has audio recordings of interviews with Americans across the country in the days following Pearl Harbor. Traveling in America has first-person narratives of people--you guessed it!--traveling in America from 1750-1920. There are slave narratives, pictures from the Dust Bowl, "life histories" of ordinary Americans collected by a Federal work project in the 1930s, folk music... I could go on and on.

Plus, if you need help finding what you're looking for, there's an Ask-A-Librarian link so you can connect with a Library of Congress librarian.

I could go on and on. But you should really check it out yourself. Even if you're not working on a historical, it's fun!

Would You Believe...

Remember my posts from a couple of weeks ago, about my family camping trips attracting natural disasters? I was really just referring to big camping trips involving my whole family and my dad's motor home. But my husband and I have a small camper that fits on the back of his truck. I guess since we have a small camper, we attract small disasters.

We went to a nearby lake to camp this past weekend. At one point, we made a run into town to buy some groceries. When we came back, we got within about a half a mile of the campground, and--would you believe it--saw smoke blanketing the highway and firetrucks stopping the traffic. We had to turn around and make a huge detour to get to the campground.

I asked Dave, "Do you think it was a car burning or a wildfire?" He said, "Looked like a woods fire."

Oh great, I thought. Half the state's been burning for weeks. Now our camping jinx is going to set the other half on fire.

Fortunately, the blaze was quickly extinguished. Thank you, wonderful Georgia firefighters! But he was right. When I drove home Sunday, I saw about a hundred yards of burned trees. It could have been a horrible disaster.

On a positive note, I read an entire novel this weekend. May not sound like much to the rest of you, but I've been having readers' block along with writers' block of late. I think I've made myself read too many books either because they were given to me to review, or I thought I needed to read them as a learning experience. I actually picked up Waking Lazarus by T.L. Hines as the latter category. But wow, what a great read! This was the first book that I just couldn't put down in a long time. Can't wait to read more by him. If you want to read something spooky, suspenseful, and completely unique, I highly recommend it.

Rachel Hauck With a Gentle Reminder

First, thanks to Robin for having me stop by her blog this week. I really appreciate you, Robin.

So, how many of you are writers? Oh, nice showing of hands. How many just readers? Oh, good. We love readers.

Well, here’s a peek into a writer’s life.

It’s hard work. Whether one is striving to be published or striving to meet a contract deadline, writing is hard work.

There is a certain joy in it. For me, it satisfies a deep, interior longing I didn’t know existed. And on the days of insecurity and doubt, I would never want to do anything else.

Writing is a discipline. An Olympic athlete begins with one thing – ability or gifting. A special talent for a game or sport.

The ability births a dream – to go to the Olympics.

The dream forms in to a plan.

After that, it’s all about work and discipline. Training, working out, giving up free time or friendships to achieve the dream. Sacrifice. Waking up at 5:00 a.m. to train while everyone else is sleeping.

But if the goal is Olympic Gold, discipline and drive is the only way to succeed, the only way to get even close to a Gold Medal.

While researching Lost In NashVegas, I interviewed song publisher Ree Guyer Buchanan and when I asked her the number one quality of a successful songwriter, she said, “Drive.”

Like athletes, writers have to be disciplined and driven. Outline a plan to achieve your writing goals. If you work full time, or have young children to tend to, or perhaps both, find those one or two hours a week you can dedicate solely to writing.

And stick to it. Shut the door and for one or two hours, only write.

Writing is a creative venue and too often we wait for the muse to visit before sitting down to write. Let me tell you, the muse does not visit often enough. The muse can be ruthless. Showing up only to inspire an idea or two and never returning.

While writing Diva NashVegas, my latest release (May 8, Thomas Nelson) my muse showed up long enough to get me excited about country super star, Aubrey James, then never showed up again.

The book was hard to write. I had four months to write and research. God was so good to me. Just when I didn’t think I could do it, He’d reassure me.

Really, count on God showing up more than your muse. As you preserve in writing, God will meet you.

One day while struggling, I said, “Lord, I thought you said you were going to help me.” He’d given me the scripture Isaiah 41:13 at the beginning of the book.

A soft answer came to my heart. “What makes you think I’m not?”

I laughed. “Because it’s hard.”

Then I really laughed.

Don’t be afraid of the discipline of writing, or the painful blank page. Give yourself to it if you feel the Lord has called you to write, then trust Him. He will be with you. He promises us He will.

Finally, the best advice I can give is “backside in chair.” You can’t perfect what isn’t written. You can’t submit a book that doesn’t exist.

Write on!

Rachel Hauck is Coming! Win her latest book.

First, just wanted to give you a little teaser for what's coming up this weekend. Rachel Hauck will be doing a guest blog designed especially for us--you know, "us." Writers and dreamers who are dragging a little and need a pep talk about persevering in the writing life. I've had a little peek at her message, of course, and she manages to give us a very ladylike kick in the pants and somehow make it fun all at the same time.

Speaking of fun, that reminds me (because Rachel's books are always fun), I'm giving away a copy of her latest, Diva Nashvegas. Leave a comment here today or when Rachel guest stars, and I'll have a drawing to pick the winner.

Have fun!

My Loaves and Fishes God

I'm in a tizzy tonight. Once again, time has gotten away from me somehow and I haven't worked on my novel. I've been going constantly since I left for work this morning, but here it is almost bedtime and I haven't gotten to the writing. I wish I were one of those high energy people who could stay up half the night and write, then pop back up for work the next morning, but I'm not. I've always needed my sleep. Even back in college, I never could pull those all-nighters.

So tonight I'm trying to remind myself of a lesson God taught me a couple of years ago, when I went back to school after many, many years. I was terrified when I started. I had never tried to work full time and take classes before. I seemed to be exhausted all the time as it was. A number of my colleagues were also working on degrees (I was working at a college, after all), and they scared me to death. They were skipping time with spouses and children. They went without sleep. One co-worker told me she generally started her schoolwork after her husband and child went to bed, worked until two or three a.m., then got back up around six.

I knew I absolutely could not do this. I refused to neglect my family for schoolwork, but I knew I didn't have the energy for the grueling pace my friends were keeping. I feared that, if I could do the degree at all, I would be ready for retirement by the time I finished. I planned to attempt finishing in three to four years, but I didn't know if that would be possible.

At times, the pace did get grueling. I often thought, I just can't do this. I don't have enough time. I don't have enough energy. I don't have the drive.

Somewhere along in there, the story of Jesus multiplying the five loaves and two fishes to feed thousands of people (Matthew 14) started popping up everywhere. It showed up in a couple of daily devotions, the preacher preached on it, I heard it on the radio. Do you ever have that happen? You know God is trying to get something through to you because he drums it into your head over and over.

I wondered what God was getting at. I began to meditate on that story, and I realized it was about Jesus taking something that was not enough, and turning it into plenty. I knew he was trying to tell me that if he could do that with bread and fish, he could do that with anything. With my time. With my energy.

When my energy would lag, when I would start to panic that I couldn't do it, I would pray, "Lord, you are my loaves and fishes God. Multiply me. Make me enough for what you want me to do."

And he did just that. I look back and I can't even tell you exactly how it all worked out. But I never stayed up all night. I spent time with my family and friends. And I finished that degree in two years and two months!

Now here I am, panicking once again that I'm not enough. I don't have the time or energy to write another book. I feel so lazy compared to other writing acquaintances who whip those novels out one after another.

So Lord, I'm just praying to you right now. If you want me to do this, multiply me like the loaves and fishes. Make me enough.

Research Tip: Search Libraries & Archives Worldwide in One Search

Did you know that about 10,000 libraries have banded together and produced one big catalog--and that it's available online and you can search it for free? It's called WorldCat, and it's a pretty good bet that your local public and college libraries are members. So what does that mean for you as a writer or reader?

If you go to WorldCat and do a search on a topic, it won't just give you a list of results. You can give it your location via zip code and it will produce a list of nearby libraries that have the item that interests you. It will even tell you how many miles away the library is--and link you to that library's web page and "Ask a Librarian" feature. So in a couple of clicks, you could locate some helpful material and communicate with your local librarian about it if you have questions. And of course, if it's not available near you, you can also click a button to be taken to an online bookseller that has the item.

One of my favorite things about WorldCat is that it will also tell you about relevant items that are cataloged in the library's archives. In fact, if you just want to look at archival materials, you can look at the limiters over on the left side and click on "Archival Materials." Try doing a search like "slavery oral histories" or "civil war journals," for example, and you'll find published books and one-of-a-kind documents that exist only in the Archives.

Don't forget that, if the book you want isn't in a library near you, you can take the info to your local library and ask them to get it for you through Interlibrary Loan. Most Archival materials won't be sent out that way. But some archives have their cataloged materials digitized, and others might occasionally send you a small amount of photocopied material. I have seen some that would send a microfilmed reel of historic newspapers, for example, to your local library. You would just have to use it in the library, not take it home with you. (But then, not many of us have microfilm machines at home, anyway!)

You could also use WorldCat to try to find other books similar to your Work in Progress. I mentioned some ways to do this in an earlier post, but you can also try WorldCat. I tried my "christian fiction time travel" search and it produced great results.

Here's one of my favorite anecdoctes about WorldCat. For almost a hundred years, a four-volume set of engravings by a renowned 17th century British engraver was "missing." It had actually been purchased by someone and given to the University of Southern California, but researchers studying this engraver had no idea where the volumes ended up. One day, a cataloger working on a project about the engraver decided to check WorldCat. And there the volumes were, very clearly cataloged at USC. But until WorldCat came along, their location was a forgotten factoid. A complete mystery.