Frozen Forsythia

Halfway through April, and it’s snowing again. The forsythia bush outside my window is in full bloom despite an icy veil. Writer to writer, the weather reflects how I feel. After months of perfecting a proposal for a new memoir, I finally got up the courage to send a query to my dream agent and within twenty-four hours received a rejection. Perhaps I shouldn’t use the word rejection. She was timely, candid, and kind in telling me she loved my topic, and it was certainly important, BUT it’s almost impossible to sell a memoir by an unknown author. So how does one become known? The proverbial question asked by us unknown authors, in full bloom beneath obscurity’s veil.

Last weekend it was pushing seventy degrees, the grass was greening, the daffodils were lifting their heads to the sun, and I was basking in two encouraging speaking engagements involving my first memoir, Teacher Dropout: Finding Grace in an Unjust School.  One was a virtual women’s group at my church, Grace United in Northampton, MA. The other a virtual open mic through Straw Dogs Writers’ Guild, a local writers organization. One of the participants at the Straw Dogs event, also a self-published author, Stephanie Shafran told me I could sell my books on consignment at my local bookstore, Broadside Bookshop. So Monday morning, I called the bookstore and they graciously accepted three copies for sale. Later in the day, I emailed another participant at the Straw Dogs event, Terrianne Falcone, an online writing teacher, and she bought the very first copy I ever sold through a bookstore. Yeah!    

It’s a scary thing to put yourself out there. To tell the stories that haunt until God heals. Scarier still to place your book for sale as if the truth and freedom you’ve found can be defined by a sales figure. And most frightening to keep trying with failure your most predictable outcome.

But what else can we do, we writers who have to write because it’s part of the way God made us? What else can we do but unfurl our joyful yellow standards in a frozen world? And who knows, along the way we might meet some new friends and fans to cheer us on, and even some truth tellers to course correct. By the way, there’s a saying about the weather in New England. If you don’t like it, wait a minute, and it will change. But God Almighty never changes. And with him nothing is impossible.

That said, outside the snow has turned to rain, and sunshine is predicted for tomorrow. Thanks for listening, sisters. My mood, like the weather, is already brighter. Hope yours is too.