The fulfillment of an (almost) life-long dream...

Ever since I was a kid writing Steve Austin (Six Million Dollar Man) short stories with my best friend Lisa, I dreamt of having a book published but I never had the "big idea" until I was about 22 years old. I was listening to Amy Grant's latest album "Fathers Eyes" and in particular to her song entitled "Fairytale" when a particular verse caught my attention: "...two princes wages the battle for eternity but The Victor has been known from the start...

Being a J.R.R. Tolkien fan, an image popped into my head: Jesus in a suit of shining armor and Satan in a suit of black armor crossing swords over "the bride". At the time I was working as a receptionist at an ammunition factory and not always busy so to fill my time and entertain myself I would write my story on the state-of-the-art in technology back then; an IBM Selectric typewriter. My co-workers could hardly wait for each page to come out and really seemed to like it. I typed for what seemed months, rewriting and rewriting and correcting mistakes and eventually getting it onto computer some years later which made correcting mistakes so much easier than having to retype a single (or many) pages over again v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y so as not to make any further errors.

I believed in my heart of hearts that the idea had been inspired by the Lord but I wanted further "proof" so I asked God if He would give me a special scripture confirming so. Psalm 45 popped into my head and so I looked it up: "My heart overflows with a good theme; I address my verses to the King; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer...". I was just flabbergasted. It could not have been more perfect and what was even better was the rest of the Psalm described the wedding of the King to his bride; which I use almost in its entirety at the end of the book.

I tried for several years to get it published and got close once but since I was a total unknown with no other publishing credits to my name; no publisher was going to take a chance on me. Add to that the fact that from ages 24-28 I suffered horribly with ulcerative colitis (which ultimately resulted in major abdominal surgery, a month-long hospital stay and not 1 but 2 surgeries because of complications when I was 28); then dealing with infertility, the adoption of our daughter when I was 37, working full-time and having next to no time to myself I quite frankly just gave up.

But about a year and a half ago an old friend of mine who had just produced an independent movie (the same friend I wrote all those Steve Austin stories with when I was 12) told me about how it was now easier to get published because of the internet. So I did some research looking online for Christian publishers and found a relatively new one by the name of Tate where they actually welcomed the uploading of unsoliticed manuscripts; and so I did and promptly forgot all about it. That was the August of 2007. In April of 2008, while at work I was caught off guard by a phone I got a call from one of their acquisition editors offering me a contract!

I think I was in a state of shock. After all, this story of mine had basically languished unread and unappreciated by just about everyone I knew: family, friends...I couldn't even get my own mother to read it! and now a total stranger was offering me a contract!!!

To be continued....