the cowardly writer & the "scary" novel

      Hello. My name is Gary — and I am a cowardly writer.
     By "cowardly" I don't mean that I'm afraid to write about my faith, or afraid to share my convictions, or scared to voice an opinion. No, my fear is something else. 
     Over the last 20 years I have written more children's stories  than I can keep track of. Hundreds. Most of them were never submitted to publishers because, quite frankly, I was afraid of being told they were unworthy of being published. 
    Somehow, I did muster up enough nerve to submit others — maybe 60-70 different book proposals in all — though every time my insides were a twisted knot. Of these proposals, more were rejected by editors than accepted. (Whether it's a marriage proposal or a book proposal, rejection is always hard. Trust me; I've experienced both.) Still, over the years I've landed several modest book contracts with very respectable publishers. Monetarily, they amounted to very little; but hey, a check of any size feels better than a rejection letter... or the dreaded silence.

Like a chickadee that flies back to the same feeder where it found its last meal, I kept going back to the old

formula: writing short, cute picture books for little children. It made sense. Rhyme and meter are very natural for me, and my personality tends to fluctuate between silly and sentimental. (Children love the former, and grandparents seem to appreciate the latter.) And although the pay was little more than bird feed, there was reward in knowing that tender young plants were sprouting from the seeds of faith my stories planted. I felt (and still do) that such stories can make a wonderful and lasting difference.
     But something inside was nagging at me. For years my head had been mulling more elaborate stories. Stories for older readers, with deeper plots. I toyed with the idea of writing chapter books, or even (dare I think it?) a novel. In 2011 I even began writing one (just for fun, of course), but I chickened out. For six years I let one excuse after another talk me out of it. No time. I already found my niche. I'm in a groove. I'm married to an illustrator, so I might as well stick to picture books. But beneath all these surface thoughts was the real issue.
​      I was scared to death.
    Scared of a new audience. Scared of letting my words stand alone without beautiful illustrations to prop them up. Scared of wrestling with a giant I might not  be  able  to  handle.  Scared  that  my

imagination would sputter, and my idea tank would run dry. Scared that I didn't have the skills to hold anyone's interest for more than 32 pages (the length of the average picture book). In short, scared of failing.  

     In August 2017, I opened that old file from 2011 and read the opening pages. I had written about a trembling 15-year-old bundle of nerves. After coming off the bench, he found himself holding the basketball in the final seconds with the weight of the entire season on his shoulders. He had dreamed of this very situation many times, but when he stepped to the free throw line his arms and legs felt like jelly.
     Suddenly, I realized I had been writing about myself. 

    My mind went back fifty-three years to my childhood swimming

lessons. As a third-grader, I had successfully stroked and kicked my way through levels 1-6...until I reached level 7 — the diving board. That's when I quit. Never went back. Even seemingly confident people have limits to their comfort zones.
​       This time I decided to take the plunge, literarily speaking. I notified my agent that I would be writing a Christian fantasy novel for teens. Then...I did it. For thirteen months I worked on it every spare minute I could find, which was often in the wee hours of the morning. It was not as hard as I thought it would be...it was far harder. I had visited the fascinating fantasy worlds of other authors, but I had never created one of my own. Often I felt like my brain was about to explode as my story tagged along everywhere I went. For a year I rode the emotional roller coasters of all my characters. I prayed more prayers and cried more tears and dramatized the action out loud in my office more times than I can count. I even wore some of the letters off my keyboard. But I did it. I sent the completed manuscript of The Gems of Dara Mhor (75,000 words) to my agent on September 10, 2018. 
     Now I wait. Meanwhile, I'm re-reading it, trying to learn some of the things the hero of my story learned, because I'm still a bundle of nerves.