Applying the courtship model to being a professional writer

[LucySnowe]

www.liesyoungwomenbelieve.com/index.php?id=907

Excerpts:

It sounds like you're doing smart things, like blogging regularly. You certainly can't expect to be published if writing isn't a normal routine! [...]

I was approached by a publisher with a request to write a book. Profs never even tell you that's a possibility when you're sitting in Writing 101! They spend all their time warning you that you will have to submit countless query letters and will receive scores of rejection letters until you're convinced you're a dismal failure and then—if you're lucky!—you might, just maybe, meet with success.

I think those writing profs would do well to also remind hopeful students about the sovereignty of God. [...]

So my counter-cultural advice to you would be . . . don't try to make it happen. Rest. Wait. Stay close to Jesus. Be faithful with what God's entrusted to you, even when it looks like no one is watching and you don't know how this could possibly be advancing your own dreams.

So you're supposed to blog every day but leave everything else up to God. Um, well, if God were REALLY faithful then you wouldn't even need to blog! God would just bring you a publisher as a reward for trusting Him.

How exactly were both of the authors of this blog noticed by publishers, I wonder? They don't bother to say. How much of their own work had they put in before being 'rewarded'?

They don't talk about courtship but this is the same passive crap that's all over the model of Not Pursuing A Man.

[Guest Anonymous]

Ummm...God isn't going to turn you into a professional writer. Pray for His guidance, yes, but He expects you to use the brain He gave to come up with ideas and actually work hard. It's a matter of God helps those who help themselves. You can't just wait for God to miraculously make it happen for you. You have to actually work for it. The same can be said for finding your future life partner.

[debrand]

I have submitted many query letters. :cry: Recieved polite rejections and I just keep trying. Occasionally, the agent says something positive about my work or asks for the full manuscript.

Writers are in competition with other writers to attract an agent's attention. It isn't anyone's fault if you are rejected. However, if you can improve your writing do so. Sitting on your butt and waiting for an agent to fall from the sky isn't likely to happen.

I am not certain how blogging would help me as a writer. I've blogged before but never really about my writing. Agents get so many manuscripts that I can't imagine that they spend their free time looking at blogs for talent.

[Guest Anonymous]

Well, we are in the digital age, so it wouldn't surprise me if agents do look at blogs especially those that focus subjects other than your personal life.

[Burris]

Queries and rejections are part of the industry for almost everyone.

Paula Hendrix is not being entirely honest in her breathless assertion that book deals may drop from the sky as tokens of God's favor.

She writes...

Nancy Leigh DeMoss...never set out to become a speaker or an author. She was approached by a publisher for her first book when she wasn't well known. When I first heard that, I thought, Well, yeah, that worked for you, but then . . . you're Nancy Leigh DeMoss. You're special!

DeMoss wasn't merely "special"'; she was filthy freakin' rich, through her father Arthur.

Papa DeMoss founded a successful insurance company - the National Liberty Corporation - and his personal assets were eventually poured into the Arthur DeMoss Foundation.

Nancy 'Women have no rights' DeMoss sits on the Board of Directors, which as a body grants millions of dollars each year to conservative organizations and causes.

This is in addition to her work as CEO of Revive Our Hearts.

DeMoss was offered a book deal not for her talent but for her ideology and possibly to curry favor with her for some of that sweet, sweeeet honey.

Hendrix continues...

But then, miracle of miracle, it happened the same way for me, too. I was approached by a publisher with a request to write a book.

Miracle of miracles? I hardly think so.

Hendrix has been offered a writing gig, not out of the blue, but because she has been a faithful employee at Revive Our Hearts for the past six years.

She's also a graduate of the Moody Bible Institute - the same fine establishment that gave us Courtney Joseph.

It's crystal clear Hendrix is being offered a book deal not on the strength of her talent nor because she persevered in her search for a venue, but rather because she continues to demonstrate an ideological purity in the blogging she does for Nancy DeMoss' organization.

Hendrix is doing her readers a major disservice when she argues one need only wait on God rather than going through the query process:

So my counter-cultural advice to you would be . . . don't try to make it happen. Rest. Wait. Stay close to Jesus. Be faithful with what God's entrusted to you, even when it looks like no one is watching and you don't know how this could possibly be advancing your own dreams.

And that, there, is a lie. Hendrix hasn’t been entirely honest about how both she and DeMoss got their book deals.

These deals certainly didn’t come of waiting around in the ol' trailer raising a dozen of your siblings for Jeebus.

I feel bad for the readers who take her self-serving advice seriously.

[LucySnowe]

I was going to write something snarky about 'blogging won't get you an agent' but then I realised that if you're popular enough, you'll get pursued by someone.

But the other thing is, there are so many scammers and vanity presses - Writer Beware highlights them wonderfully - that I have no idea how any modest homeschooled maiden who has no experience of the world could differentiate between those and a legitimate publisher/agent. And I have no doubt some of them will prey on the Christian market. So even if God supposedly drops that golden opportunity into your lap, who's to say it's legit (as the kids say)?

I am normally not a huge fan of self-publishing but frankly, I would like to applaud the commenter who decided to go that route after getting rejected by publishers. She feels she has something to offer, and she found a way to do that. She didn't just Wait On God. But then, didn't God provide Kindle?

Burris, thanks for the dirt - I knew there had to be something more to that.

[Guest Anonymous]

I was going to write something snarky about 'blogging won't get you an agent' but then I realised that if you're popular enough, you'll get pursued by someone.

But the other thing is, there are so many scammers and vanity presses - Writer Beware highlights them wonderfully - that I have no idea how any modest homeschooled maiden who has no experience of the world could differentiate between those and a legitimate publisher/agent. And I have no doubt some of them will prey on the Christian market. So even if God supposedly drops that golden opportunity into your lap, who's to say it's legit (as the kids say)?

I am normally not a huge fan of self-publishing but frankly, I would like to applaud the commenter who decided to go that route after getting rejected by publishers. She feels she has something to offer, and she found a way to do that. She didn't just Wait On God. But then, didn't God provide Kindle?

Burris, thanks for the dirt - I knew there had to be something more to that.

This reminded me of something that happened to my niece. She wrote a poem and posted it on her Facebook page. Days letter she got the letter in the mail that she had placed in a poetry contest (which she didn't enter) and wanted to publish her poem in some kind of book series that would be placed all over the country, including the Library of Congress. It was an obvious scam to get her to buy a book. Luckily, she wasn't stupid enough to fall for itl

[EmmieJ]

Ummm...God isn't going to turn you into a professional writer. Pray for His guidance, yes, but He expects you to use the brain He gave to come up with ideas and actually work hard. It's a matter of God helps those who help themselves. You can't just wait for God to miraculously make it happen for you. You have to actually work for it. The same can be said for finding your future life partner.

I bolded the sentence that best defines the way I view life and life's opportunities. God (or yourself, fate, good fortune, etc) will generally tend to favor those who put in the time and effort to achieve a certain goal versus those who sit patiently in their homes, waiting for opportunity to hunt them down and present them with a fait accompli.

Although I believe in a higher power, less and less do I believe in a God that is on call 24/7 for my needs and desires to be heard. So mostly, when I "pray," it's really my own soul and inner strength that I am calling upon for help. If that soul contains a spark of divinity, then I am fortunate indeed. Patience is only one of the virtues that everyone should have; perseverance, willingness to educate oneself and work hard, and steering our own destinies are other virtues I admire in others and strive for in myself.

Even if I did believe in an omnipresent god who was at my constant call whenever I needed to pray, I would still feel awkward about placing the entire burden of my life on the diety. "God, send me a writing job" "God, send me a godly man" "God, God, God, God, God!!!!" I'd zoom off for a universe far, far away, just to get away from the din.