My son Caleb turned me on to a website that lets writers upload their books at no cost and sell them. A few days later a friend to whom I mentioned the site shared an article about a woman who sold an astounding number of digital copies of her first novel there after being turned down by traditional publishers (who are now scrambling to get her to sign).
In 2006, I was toying with an idea for a novel when I came across a publisher's website that welcomed ideas for new books. CarePoint had found a niche -- group discussion workbooks. Immediately, I thought of what I would write, if I were writing such a thing. It would be for people who had been hurt by Christians. I even had a title come to mind: Baaad Sheep - When God's People Let You Down.
By the fall of 2007, Baaad Sheep was a reality. CarePoint had liked the idea and requested an outline. They'd liked the outline and sent a contract to sign. I'd holed up in my little shed/office in Lillington, North Carolina and done the research and the work. I can't begin to describe the incredible feeling of opening up a box of author's copies and seeing my name on the cover. Even if it was "just" a workbook, it was mine.
Last year, CarePoint closed its doors in order to pursue a completely different publishing venture about the same time we were preparing to move back to Florida. Then we were relocating my parents. Then I was busy with other things. I made a few anemic attempts to find another publisher for Baaad Sheep, but also heard - several times, from people I respected - that I might consider rewriting it as a "regular" book.
And then Caleb told me about smashwords.com. Currently, I'm incorporating the oral material I had recorded for introducing each of the ten weekly discussion group sessions and formatting everything so that smashwords' mysterious computer mechanisms will not say, "What the..?" when I try to upload it, spitting it back out and trying to wipe the bad taste off its mouth.
As I do this, I'm not re-reading every single word, but I'm re-reading a good bit of it. And I'm revising some of it. Have I really changed so much in five years? Apparently so. I say this not to justify any changes, but simply to say it has happened.
Have I changed any of my bottom-line convictions? No. I still believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God who came in the form of man to teach us, but even more importantly, to sacrifice himself once and for all time, for the sins of the world. I still believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.
But where I once was more of black-and-white, I'm willing to blend those extreme ends of the spectrum at times and entertain more possibilities of gray. On absolutes, no. On disputable matters -- and there are so many of them, almost everything we fret about! -- yes. And probably not a minute too soon. I thought I was merciful before, but I need it more now in my old age (hey, the longer you live, the more opportunities to screw up) so I am better about dishing it out.
I'm not as church-focused as I once was. There is one verse in the whole of the Bible that cautions believers against neglecting regular corporate worship (and none that says anything about membership) and yet there are folks, lots of folks, who act as though going to church is the single most important part of their Christianity. I was right there with them for most of my life.
This morning, for example, we woke up to a fine Florida morning and I asked my husband if he wanted to go to church. We haven't found a church home since our move. We have visited around. There are still scads of them we haven't attended. He had something else he wanted to accomplish, and wanted me along. Would it have been "better" for me to demand that we go to church, or did I better honor my husband (and God) by providing pleasant companionship?
I was at first surprised in the last year or so at how many people I went to church with, say, 10-20 years ago are not attending church at all. They listen to tapes, watch television, read their Bibles, pray - in other words, they are still pursuing their walks with God. But not in church. I have heard it so often that I rather expect it now. It is as if a whole segment of my history has come to the same conclusion: it's not just about church. And if church was in competition with what God was wanting to do, God wasn't about to be the one that got left in the dust.
Issues, too, have needed tweaking. As I was re-formatting the manuscript today, I grimaced at some of what I'd written about divorce. The Bible says that God hates it, which I still find completely believable. God is the Creator, the giver of Life, Love personified. Divorce represents, in contrast, the death of love and relationship. But I would also have to acknowledge, at 54, that for some people I know and love, it has been healthier to go ahead and have the burial than try to live with a corpse. When a marriage has lost its meaning, I better understand why people can sincerely believe divorce to be the best option. Even the godliest option. And so I had some revision to do.
Perhaps the changes are much deeper and personal. I know that since writing Baaad Sheep, I have grown less codependent. I've grown in self-awareness and the ability to take care of my emotional needs. My writing may have reflected a tendency to look outward for affirmation and support, for nurture and affection. The older I've gotten, the less this is the case. I'm growing up!
All of that to say this: one of these days, a digital version of Baaad Sheep - When God's People Let You Down will be available at a ridiculously low price for purchase by (I hope) thousands and thousands of people with Kindles and other e-books. I think it will be a better version than the original.
Five years down the road, I could write it even better. And five years after that. Because I haven't "arrived" either as a woman, a writer, or....most importantly...a Christian. I may not believe in evolution as it pertains to Mother Earth, but I definitely believe in it for myself.
Some things are written on the fabric of the universe, unchangeable, immutable. I'm just figuring out that there are fewer things than I thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment