The path to publication can be a long and winding one. I was extremely lucky on my journey to meet many wonderful authors who were willing to help. Some became my mentors, most all became my friends. I created this page in hopes of helping other emerging writers along the way. I hope you find encouragement and some practical advice too.
I’d like to begin with a few words about rejection. Take what there is to be learned from it, each time you face it, and forget the rest. There have been many examples of authors being rejected time after time, and then when the timing was perfect, meeting success. Enjoy!

I am often asked how to prepare a manuscript for submission to an agent or publisher. Click here to find out!

HOW TO PREPARE YOUR MANUSCRIPT

I am sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just do not know how to use the English language.
--San Francisco Examiner, rejection letter to Kipling (1889)

Shakespeare's name, you may depend on it, will go down. He has no invention as to stories, none whatever.
--Lord Byron (1814)

Ralph Waldo Emerson [is] a hoary-headed and toothless baboon.
--Thomas Carlyle, _Collected Works_ (1871)

A huge dose of hyperbolical slang, maudlin sentimentalism and tragic-comic bubble and squeak.
--William Harrison Ainsworth, New Monthly Magazine, review of Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1851)

A gross trifling with every fine word.
--Springfield Republican, review of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

We fancy that any child might be more puzzled than enchanted by this stiff, silly, overwrought story.
--Children's Books' review of Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carrol (1865)

The Diary of Anne Frank: ‘The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the “curiosity” level.’

Animal Farm by George Orwell: ‘It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA’

"The next time you receive a rejection letter. Just come to this web page and remind yourself what good company you’re in.

WORDS OF WISDOM

Many writers work in isolation. Have you ever wished you could ask an established writer what they wished they had known when they started writing? Well, here’s what they would tell you.

Brandilyn Collins	Deb Raney	Liz Curtis Higgs
Angela Hunt	Veronia Heley	Sharon Dunn

Brandilyn Collins:

1. I wish I'd known that each book becomes harder to write. The more you know about fiction, the less you realize you know.
2. I wish I'd known that the most glorious time I've spent writing occurred before I was published. Then I could write because I wanted to. When things got tough, I could kick a cabinet and quit. (And I quit many times.) But when you're heavily contracted, you HAVE to create. Regardless of your health or your personal life or you totally lack an idea, or whatever. Writing truly becomes a job, and therefore no option.
3. Despite point 2, I wish I'd known how wonderful it is to be used by God, writing for God. When I first began writing fiction, it was all for me. God had to knock me down, drag me around a little. I'm so glad He did.
4. I wish I'd known that agents are NOT created equal. It's wonderful to have a wonderful agent. It's merely okay to have a mediocre agent. It can be career killing to have a bad agent.
5. I wish I'd known that family has to come first. And the more contracts you have, the harder this becomes. Only God can give you wisdom for a good balance.

 

Angela Hunt:

1. Integrity counts. You should insist on it from yourself and also from your publishers. Among other things, that translates into this: if you write a book, your name should be on the cover. Period.
2. Find your voice and your vision and write your books. Never try to write in someone else's style, with their quirks, or on "their" topics. If you ask, the Lord will lead you to unique story ideas that are yours for the telling. This is where your passion will lie. Write those stories.
3. Craft counts. Never put second best to paper and trust that your editor will "fix it." Trust me, there are enough things for the editor to fix without your deliberately leaving in less-than-perfect prose or punctuation. Study your craft and apply it.
4. Story counts most. You can have the most beautifully crafted book in the world, but if the story lacks passion, no one but your mother will want to read it. Does it make you cry and/or rejoice? If not, work at the story until it does.
5. Don't write what you know--write what you NEED to know! Don't offer up Sunday school lessons you learned ages ago. Write about your struggles, the things the Spirit is teaching you NOW . . . because you will learn through your characters and your reader will learn with you. To do this, of course, you'll have to wait for the Spirit's teaching, and you'll have to do the painful part of learning. But the end result will be worth it.

 

Deb Raney:

1. How much I didn't know about writing.
2. How to gracefully "just say no" when an editor tries to talk me into writing something that I know isn't me.
3. That it wouldn't always be the high that writing the first book was, but that the hard work is all worthwhile when a reader says "your book healed my marriage, changed my life, brought me closer to the Lord."
4. The publisher/author relationship is not a marriage. Don't take it personally when a publisher "breaks up" with you.
5. I wish I'd known that my writing would eventually "buy" me a Schwan man, a cleaning lady, and a husband who now does laundry. Sweet rewards.

Liz Curtis Higgs:

1. The first novel is the easiest, and each one after it gets harder. As your skills inch up, so do your standards.
2. It is a solitary life. Unless you're careful, you will find yourself choosing time with your fictional characters over time with family and friends.
3. Your writing improves as your reading improves. Read your peers to encourage them; read literary classics, old and new, to encourage you.
4. Reader and reviewer comments are a double-edged sword, lifting your spirits one moment, then dashing them the next. Listen for God's "well done, good and faithful servant" above all else.
5. Never write in a genre you would not read and do not love. Write from the deepest places of your heart. Write as if it will be your last book.

 

Veronica Heley:

1. That my talent does not belong to me, but is a gift from God.
2. Technique. Like, less is more. Short sentences when the pace heats up.
3. That God sometimes shuts doors in your face (painfully) because he wants you to go through a different door in future.
4. That even if the roof is leaking and I desperately need the money, it's no good my trying to write a bodice-ripper.
5. That I'd make so many good friends along the way.

 

Sharon Dunn:

1. It ain't about you, honey. Writing cannot be about me trying to cure my insecurities with publication it has to be about meeting the reader's needs.
2. Just cause you got a book published doesn't mean you get out of cleaning the toilet and scrubbing the floor.
3. My identity cannot come from my next failure or success as a writer because that fluctuates by the minute. My identity comes from knowing I am loved by the creator of the world and the savior of the universe--that should be enough.
4. The things that I value most is being alone in a room creating walking, talking people on paper
5. Only other writers will really understand you. I have had friends (kind friends) say off handed things about my books, not because they were cruel but because they don't understand the hundreds of painful hours that went into creating the book. I have found only encouragement from other writers because they too had to open veins and bleed on paper. Just like no one understands an alcoholic like another alcoholic, no one understands a writer like another writer.

I'd love to stay in touch.

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