WRITE: It Began with a Whisper
It began with a whisper. “Set up an appointment. Have a conversation.” I noticed her the year before at the Florida Christian Writers Conference. In fact, I attended a panel on which she served. I liked her direct manner, her easy laugh, her knowledge of the industry. But her role as a publicist didn’t mesh with mine as ghost- or collaborative writer. She’s also an author, so I spoke to her briefly about how much I enjoyed her books. A quick connection. A new Facebook friend. No genuine relationship. That spring, I was pushing. Many of my writer and author friends felt I needed an agent, someone to advocate on my behalf and handle the business side of my writing career. It sounded like a smart move (although I’ve learned a lot, I’m driven more by heart than business savvy), and I wanted to heed wise counsel. So I looked. And set up appointments with agents. And pushed. And in the end, nothing happened. Oh, one agent offered to sign me. I respected that individual, but it wasn’t a good fit. And after the conference, I sensed God’s direction to stop pushing and wait on Him. So I did. Over the next few months, I taught at two conferences but had no agent appointments or agent-seeking conversations. God kept bringing work. I stayed busy. I navigated a few more business deals. “I can do this,” I thought. “I don’t like it, but I can do it. God will give me the strength.” And He did. But in March 2011, at the same Florida conference, it began with a whisper. “Have a conversation,” He said. And, as you can guess, I did. In the space of fifteen minutes, God did amazing things. No, I didn’t leave the conference as an agented author. But I had an engaging conversation with a fellow industry professional—the same one I’d admired the year before. I knew she and a partner had combined talents to produce a distinctive new management company. We discovered some names and projects in common. And she agreed that I needed representation—although she wasn’t sure who should fill that role. “I’ll know in a week,” she told me. Publishing time reminds me of God’s time, where one day is as a thousand years. Before all the questions and conversations came together, July had all but ended. And that’s when I gained a new family at Reclaim Management, headed by the creative team of Steve Feldman (producer, director, and Renaissance man) and Rebeca Seitz (publicist, author, and all-around miracle worker). Reclaim’s commitment to produce “stories that matter” matches my own. I’m not (so far) a novelist, but I have an artist’s eye,...
Read More
