In the post What does God think of divorce, I introduced Elsi Dodge as a published author. Although she’s been a writer for a long time, becoming published is a relatively recent accomplishment. She got her big break when she went to her first Christian writing conference. Here’s how she tells it.
I’m a writer. I had about 400 pages of scribbled notes, some in long hand, some on computer, about my 25-plus years of teaching emotionally disturbed children and other types of special needs kids. I love to read books by teachers of special ed kids so I decided this was what I was going to do. I was going to be a Torey Hayden and write one of these books.
Try as I could though, I could not get it to come together. I just couldn’t. I tried it this way and 77 million other ways. It got preachy every time. It got didactic. The characters didn’t live. It was very frustrating. Then I tried turning some of them into devotionals*, what did the Lord teach me in this situation? That felt a little better.
It was at this time that I was getting ready to go to my first Christian writing conference. My panic attacks were a way of life then and nobody could believe I was trying to go to this conference. The conference offered paid critiques where you could send a manuscript in and an editor would look at it. They had someone looking at devotionals so I sent in five of mine.
At the conference, I went to my appointment and the editor asked, “Are you Elsi?” I said, “Yes, sir” and we shook hands and sat down. He handed me a manila folder with my devotionals and said, “I have no suggestions for you. You write beautifully. May I offer you a contract?”
This does not happen! I think I said, “Wow! Thank you. Yes, I’d love to have a contract. Tell me what you publish.” But inside I was leaping up and down and going, “Yeah! Yeah! Wahoo!” like a five-year-old. He wasn’t interested in what I’d submitted but he wanted to give me an assignment for a week’s worth of devotionals for his quarterly devotional guide.
Then it turned out his wife edited the Cup of Comfort Devotionals for Women and I had six pieces published in that. That put me on Cup of Comfort’s mailing list and when they have new titles coming out, they email me. Now I’ve been published in many, many different Cup of Comfort books.
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Every writer loves to hear a story like this and we all hope it happens to us. It won’t happen though if you don’t take the risk of showing your work to someone who is in a position to help. Elsi put herself out there not only by submitting her work but also by going to the conference, which for her was a major risk. I’ve just realized too that taking a risk is the one commonality among all the women I’ve interviewed. That’s an interesting thought as we approach the new year and think about what we want to achieve next year. I’m working on one but haven’t committed to it yet so I’m not quite ready to share it. Are you planning to take any new risks next year?
I have one more post in Elsi’s series and this one is all about the challenge of a longer assignment she was given to write about Proverbs 31. Even if you’re not religious, there’s a message in this for you.
Elsi published a book about RVing: RV Tourist – Tips, Tools and Stories, and you can see a full listing of publications, visit Elsi Dodge‘s website. You can also follow her musings at her Meandering Moments .
* In case you’re wondering, Elsi describes a devotional as a single page between 250 and 350 words that starts with a scripture verse. It has a title, a scripture verse, a story or an incident that goes with the scripture verse in some way, a closing application point and quite often, some kind of closing memorable tagline.