Rejected

It never feels good to be rejected.

I just received a rejection letter in the mail from an agent I had queried about taking on my fantasy novel. Because of the explicit presence of God in my book, and my own religious convictions, I was submitting my manuscript to agents who dealt in Christian fantasy. It turns out, there aren’t that many. Since the majority of readers of Christian fiction are women, and middle-age women at that, the best sellers tend to be romances. Amish romances, to be specific. Or historical romances. With Amish characters. (Just kidding. Kind of). There is just not a large readership for Christian fantasy, excepting the classics: Lewis and Tolkien. A writer at a Christian writers conference I attended jokingly suggested that if we wanted to write fantasy or science fiction, we should consider including an Amish character.

An Amish vampire returns to Pennsylvania to unlock a dark secret…

Amish aliens land on earth, warning of an impending war…

A young woman accidentally picks up an enchanted book, transporting her to Amishlandia…

I have nothing against books with Amish characters, or the writers who write them. I am glad there is such a healthy market for Christian writers. However, I don’t write Amish fiction, and I don’t foresee myself doing so in the near (or distant) future. So, as there are so few agents or editors who handle Christian fantasy, there are not many options for a writer such as myself. **A disclaimer** My manuscript is currently being considered by an editor in the Christian market, so my options in this avenue have not closed. It is with the agents that I have had so little luck.

I have now exhausted my list of agents who will represent Christian fantasy. I have been rejected by every one of them. It wasn’t a big list, but as each deadline to hear back approached, and then was surpassed without interest in my novel, my hopes slowly, slowly sunk, until today when the last agent responded with a rejection.

So, here I am, a little heart-broken, a little frustrated, a little confused about what to do. I love my novels. I love the process of creating and writing. I love my characters (I cried when I killed one of them off) and the stories they inhabit. And I want others to read them and love them too. I believe the inspiration for these books comes from God, as does the call on my life to write. Without representation, it will be that much harder for me to negotiate and advocate for my books, though I dare say it can be done. So, at this point, I have a few options:

1) I can continue without an agent. Many editors and publishers will not consider unsolicited manuscripts; they get manuscripts through agents. This would limit my access to the market.

2) I can abandon the Christian market. I can edit my manuscript to make it more acceptable to a general (ie: non-Christian) audience and query general market agents for representation.

This latter option makes me a little sad, though the potential to reach a wider audience is there. What this essentially means is that I would go through my manuscript and eliminate the mention of God. I would erase His name from my book. Can I do that? The Christian morality that is the foundation of my novel would still be there; my characters would face the same dilemmas and have the same choices to make. But instead of actually writing ‘God’ in my novel, I would skirt around Him. I would find ways to hint at Him without naming Him.

Reaching the general market would make my books available to readers who might not otherwise read Christian fiction. It would expose them to Christian morals and values without putting that label on them. And this is what I want, what I hope for. Maybe this is what the Lord has wanted all along. But it seems like a betrayal of some sort, not to write the name of the One who gave me the stories in the first place.

I don’t have to decide right now. But as each of my options is eliminated, one by one, I will have to consider alternatives. It will require some serious wrestling. As in Jacob-style wrestling.

 

 

Disillusion and revision

I spend the last five days in the redwoods, in Mount Hermon, at the Christian Writers Conference, learning what it means to be a Christian who writes.

I went through a similar process as I was finishing my PhD, trying to reconcile academia and my faith, and I see many parallels. But I have returned home (to the ‘real world’, I guess) and have been suddenly struck with what I can only describe as depression. Not clinical, don’t worry. But I’m overwhelmed by a serious sense of bleh, and I have been trying to think of why.

The realist in me knew that I would not leave the conference with either an agent or a book deal, but if I am honest, that was my fantasy. So, when the conference ended and I was sans agent and book deal, as I had predicted, I was of course disappointed. One critique I had with an agent was especially hard to hear, though I have been through such critiques and I would like to think that I know good writing advice when I hear it. Still, it stung.

 And that is not to say that I did not have positive feedback. One publisher and one agent asked me to send in more. This is a great first step. Even the agent who ripped my manuscript apart said he would be happy to look at my work again after I’ve revised. The door has not shut completely, even though the sound of the initial slam is still echoing in my ears.

The time at Mount Hermon forced me to revise more than just my writing. In one session, our teacher asked, “If you knew that God was going to use your writing to touch the lives of people, but it was not going to be in the form of a shiny new book, would you still write?” What he was asking, really, is, to whom does my writing belong? Is it God’s or is it mine? If it belongs to me and I am writing for selfish reasons, then I can pretty much write whatever I want, cater to the general market and run with popular trends, even if the content is not edifying or honoring to God.

But if my ability to write, and the stories themselves, are gifts from God, then they belong to Him and I have a responsibility to use them for His namesake. And I have to trust Him with it, to open up opportunities when and where and for what He chooses.

 So, I have revised my writing in more ways that one. I have to come before Him again and surrender myself, and my writing, to His uses and his timing.

On this Good Friday, I am especially reminded of the great gift of life I have been given through the sacrifice of my Lord. I am reminded that I do not belong to myself. I have been bought with a price.