What does it take to get you down as a writer? Agents and editors who don’t respond? Editors who seem to have only a Reject button? A disappointing sales number on your royalty report? The news that some publishers have laid off your favorite editor? Failure to effectively connect with any editor at a Christian writers’ conference?
As we think of Christmas we focus on God sending his Son into the world to redeem the world, but may overlook a key truth that has personal application.
This year in particular I have been receiving both fiction and non-fiction proposals from writers who are upset about where the church is headed and where the country is going. Many have a lot of criticism and few solutions for the problems they see.
Forty years ago as editor of Moody Press, Les Stobbe gave permission for Campus Crusade staffer Josh McDowell to extensively quote from three Moody Press apologetic books in Evidence that Demands a Verdict, his first major apologetics book for high school and university students.
Over the last few weeks I have repeatedly been asked, “What shall I write?” I received the question from both not-yet-published and already published fiction writers, as well as non-fiction writers.
A call from my brother on the last day of 2010 set off reflections on moving on after setbacks. What gave me the courage to keep going despite numerous setbacks? And I recognized a key factor was our father’s persistence despite his setbacks.