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The phone call I received after I taught my last class revealed things I did not know.
“I know why you walked out of the church,” said the wife of one of the deacons. “You are not alone. Many people are having problems with the pastor.” She told me about the confrontation she had with him, and listed names of people who had already left the church. The deacons were meeting secretly to pray for the church, which was hemorrhaging members. She pleaded with me to return. I returned because Rory was not ready to leave the church.
It was a mistake to walk out of my class. Rev. Meyers had remained in her church until God resolved the problem between her and her pastor. Instead of taking the problem to God, I tried to solve it. Initially, I considered leading a rebellion. At the time, I was writing Surviving the Wilderness. Fortunately, God spared me from making that mistake by showing me why he dealt more harshly with Miriam than with Aaron when they led a rebellion against Moses.
Without any prospects of teaching again, I fell into depression and considered seeing a psychologist. The oft-repeated comment by my former students—”You should be published,”—found its way into my thoughts again. This time, I entertained the thought instead of swatting it away. A project would distract me from my misery and be cheaper than a psychologist.
Lest I end up in a padded cell banging my head on a wall, I rummaged through my closet until I found my favorite teaching series. I Googled “how to write a manuscript” and rewrote the Steps of Faith series into a manuscript format. The project that kept me occupied for more than a year lifted me out of depression.
A question mark floated above my best effort at preparing the manuscript stacked neatly on my desk. What should I do now? Research revealed the slim chances of traditional publication, and the exorbitant cost of self-publishing. Before expending energy on the first option or money on the alternative, obtaining a professional opinion seemed the best course of action. I wanted to know if I had a talent for writing.
An Internet search led me to an editor with impressive credentials: master of arts in writing, teaching fellow at Johns Hopkins University, author of several Christian books. Before I spent my husband’s hard-earned money, I requested evaluations he had prepared for other writers and read two books he had written. The evaluations offered constructive criticism to guide the authors in refining their manuscripts, and I loved the writing style in his books. Satisfied that the evaluation would be an honest opinion from a talented writer I paid him to evaluate my manuscript.
I expected five to ten pages explaining how I could improve my manuscript, which would keep me occupied for months. The first paragraph of the evaluation read as follows:
“Teena, I find Steps of Faith a dynamic, refreshing and incisive “grand teaching tour” of the nature and meaning of faith. Your choice to “unpack” the subject as modeled by the “father of the faithful,” Abraham is an anointed one indeed, especially because it allows your reader a full understanding of how true faith and true foibles can coexist in us all-too-humans, and how grace alone enables us to walk as overcomers despite those flaws, sins, and weaknesses to which “the flesh” is heir. Because you achieve these things so well, you offer, without compromise and without self-righteousness, hope for the journey and plenty of “equipment” with which believers can themselves follow in Abraham’s steps. For undertaking the monumental task of pursuing these lessons, first as “live” teachings, then in book form, I thank you personally, for I’ve received from your work many valuable insights that will help me in my own walk with the Lord.”
The praise continued for six pages and concluded, “Fine as is its content, your manuscript needs sorely some line-by-line editing, to clear up things like typos, punctuation errors, some grammar glitches here and there…That’s something we can talk about…”
My first effort at producing a manuscript could not have been that good, and I found his evaluation of my work suspicious. A flare of anger followed my suspicion. It seemed like a bunch of meaningless flattery intended to extract more money from my sparsely filled bank account. But the fact that the other evaluations I read were not wall-to-wall praise like mine threw water on the blaze. His evaluation confirmed the opinion of my students and suggested I might have a talent to write.
He offered to do the work for 1.5 cents per word. I compared his offer with the rates of other professional editors and found an average of 6 cents a word. Even at the rock-bottom price, the fee came to several thousand dollars, a sum I could not afford. I thanked him for the generous offer and declined. He told me that if I ever changed my mind, the offer stands.
I put the manuscript in a box and set it on the top shelf of my closet to collect dust. I thought I’d reached the end of the publishing road. I was wrong.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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