In late 2014, a literary agent contacted me to see if I had a book idea I was working on, and if so, was I already represented by an agent. He represented an author whom I had guest posted for, on her blog, and I soon learned he also repped several other authors who had “made it big” in Christian publishing. I was flattered. I’d only been writing publicly for a few years and it seemed like I would be bona fide soon. I thought my turn was coming.
I did not have a book idea, but I began to try and find one1. I tried many variations, meeting with this agent a few times in person and exchanging lots of emails, throwing out potential book ideas, and just generally wasting a lot of his time. He tried to gently steer me towards marketable ideas, ones that would sell and that I could surely write, but I just kept looking for The One that felt like me. I knew what I liked to read, and I especially knew I was tired of being told what to do by Christian authors who claimed expertise. Wouldn’t you know it, those were the kind of books the agent kept suggesting I write.
I thank God that, though I was starstruck and flattered, I knew enough to refuse the ideas that did not fit. I thank God that I did not write the book I could have written, the marketable one, the Do Better/Be Better one I was so familiar with. I thank God I didn’t have any good ideas back then, because I was not ready.
In 2019 I began writing my book, the book of me and for me, first and foremost. I contacted that agent and pitched the idea to him, and his wise answer was that I should let him know how things progressed.
Things progressed in fits and starts, slowly, by the seat of my pants and in very very rough drafts. I’d never attempted sustained thought for 50,000+ words. I’d never come up with an outline before I wrote something—in school I always wrote on a whim right before the deadline and made my outline after the fact, if it was required. I’m what you call a Pantser, not a Plotter. I struggled to get momentum on my own, even though I knew what I wanted this book to be.
And then 2020.
And then my dad died.
And then I stopped, for a long time. I stopped writing the book about the ways Beauty and Goodness were so lacking in my early walk with Jesus, but how I held on to Truth and order as if they were all that were necessary. I stopped writing about my path from rigid control to a little more freedom, a little more play. I stopped writing about Beauty that would save the world, and I wrote about grief, instead.
For a year I wrote about the several griefs that had impacted me, and I worked through maddening doubts and questions and deep, deep loss, like a driver going the wrong way on the interstate; like going against everything calm and sedate; like saying and thinking things I’d never felt the freedom to say or think. I wrote what I really thought, unfiltered and unchurched.
My guides in this time were my husband, who told me to take as long as I needed—to take a lifetime—to process my grief; and Callie Feyen, who patiently read my work before grief and offered feedback, and who graciously extended my six month writing intensive to well-over a year, waiting for my work after grief and wisely telling me to let that writing sit for awhile. Write what you need to write, she said. This writing is raw and just for you right now. The book will wait.
And then we started our deli adventure.
In 2024 I started working with a book coach, Kris Camealy. I’m not afraid to admit what that literary agent knew already: I needed hand-holding. I needed help keeping my self-imposed deadlines because I am very loosey-goosey with my own rules for myself; very gracious; very lenient. I needed someone to feed courage to me, and it really helps to have regular cheer sessions via Voxer or Zoom. It really helps to have someone outside my head, reading my words and giving feedback.
Sometimes I think all of Job’s friends live inside my head and it’s really hard to hear from the Lord, with all their facts about how the world works.
But in the end, I have to do the work myself. This week I will turn in round two (hundred thirty-one) of this manuscript that has evolved and grown with me over the last SIX years. Oof. We think it’s close. Sometimes I think it’s pretty great and sometimes I am so sick of reading it I want to quit, but I won’t. Without an agent or a publishing contract, I’m still making my own deadlines and will probably handle the publishing myself, but I am determined to finish and to be proud of this work, to not overthink it to death; to release it.
These days, I really dislike talking about plans that haven’t happened yet. This is what has happened so far, and that’s all I know for sure.
When will it be ready for readers? I truly do not know, but my hope is: by this winter. We are moving in the next couple months and that has been/will be a major change. There are still a lot of unknowns for us in this move, and I’m not sure how much more work the book needs, or how long it will take to self-publish something that meets my aesthetic standards ; )
What is the book about? I can tell you that so far it is about losing control, losing certainty, grief, and the overwhelmingly beautiful presence of Jesus through it all. To me that sounds like a dozen other books published in recent years but this one is my story, from my perspective, and I’m not too proud to say the important things again. I know this is a book I wish I’d had available when I was deep in the trenches of motherhood and homeschooling and learning to be a Christian, all at once; and more recently, while wading in the well-meant answers given to me after losing my dad, who was not a follower of Jesus.
Some of you have been here with me, in the several iterations of my blog and now on Substack, since the beginning—2012. There have been hints about this book in the last few years but I thought it was time to spill all the guts as I have them, right now. You all are my people, and I will keep you posted.
A teeny-tiny sneak peek?
“I can passively sleepwalk through the wonders of a world that feels too big to have any real connection, overwhelmed into slumber. Or I can wake up to the attention of the smallest of wonders and trace the thread that ties so many random things together. I hope to be “rescued by a revelation so tiny it would take a crazy and holy attention to see it as such,” as Christian Wiman puts it.
Coincidences can be the result of that crazy and holy attention. The things I can’t control can be better than the plans I strangle into submission, the conversations I carefully calculate. God can do more with my attention than I ever could with my effort.”
A single-friend just a few years younger than I was telling me about the angst of dating at this age, and I can’t help but make a parallel here: Is this the one that will be It? Is this one safe? Is this the book/the person I’m meant to write/be with forever? How much do I invest before I know for certain? Yikes.
This is so exciting!! I cannot wait to read this book. You’re truly one of my favourite authors.
So excited to hear this for you Tresta!
Cheering from the sidelines!
So glad for the wisdom and guidance that God has given you along this journey!