I am super excited to share with you my next big project–the one that will release in February, 2019. It just became available for pre-order on Amazon.
The book was first proposed a few years ago as a one-book idea, but it turned into a two-book contract. The second book will release in 2020. (That used to seem so far away!)
My original intent was to write a fictional scene of each of twenty-four women in Scripture and follow-up with a blog-like commentary. My publisher had a different, better idea, though not necessarily an easier one! They asked for more nonfiction content, which meant I had to dig deeper into my experience and my heart.
When a novelist writes a story, they work to bring about an emotional experience for the reader. Some describe it as opening a vein and bleeding all over the page. That may sound gross, but it really means allowing yourself to feel deeply and share those feelings through your characters.
When you write nonfiction, the writer still wants to bring the reader an emotional experience, but this time it’s isn’t wrapped so much in imagined scenes but in real-life experiences. In When Life Doesn’t Match Your Dreams, I took twelve of those original twenty-four Old Testament women, some of whom I’ve written novels about, and created new scenes with a different emphasis than those novels, and then related their experiences to our world.
The book will read at times a bit memoir-esque, because it draws on parts of my past. But my goal was not to write a story about me. It was to write a story about us–women of ancient times and women of today and how we can learn from our often similar lives.
The book was a bit of a challenge, because the truth is, life very rarely matches our dreams, and writing about lost hopes and dreams could get a little overwhelming. After all, we all hope for things we never receive, even pray for things that we wonder whether God will ever give to us.
We blow it big time. We rush ahead of God. We try to control our circumstances. We think the grass looks greener in somebody else’s yard. So like those ancient women.
But those hard times in life can cause us to learn and grow, though there have been times I never thought I would be able to say that with peace and gratitude. When life doesn’t match our dreams, hope can seem like a far-off illusion. And yet, God is faithful. He’s pulled me through many, many trials and made me stronger for having lived them.
I start edits on When Life Doesn’t Match Your Dreams in a few weeks, so I’m scrambling right now to get as much written on Esther’s story as I can before I have to switch gears.
If I’m a little quiet for a time, it will only be because I’m juggling many things right now. I hope to keep blogging each week, but if you see that I’ve grown silent, I hope you will understand why.
And please bear with me as I step into the busy season of writing and editing.
Selah~
