Friday didn’t go as anticipated.

I’ve been on pins and needles since February 16th, when I uploaded my second manuscript to a joint venture of women publishing professionals and Penguin Random House. After participating in a 6 month long educational series on the publishing industry, the organizer advised of an opportunity for 100 women to attend an in-person event featuring literary agents and publishers. The first 70 women would be chosen on a first-come-first-serve basis. The remaining 30 would be selected based on manuscript submissions of varying genres.

I applied for both. When I wasn’t one of the first 70, I worked extra hard on my manuscript submissions and did everything within my power to ensure my spot. I claimed my spot in my heart. I reserved my PTO at work for the days off that I would need. I wrote “New York” across the dates of March 21st and March 22nd on my desk calendar. And I repeated the mantra that I always say when I want something that is dependent heavily on someone else: What God has for me is for me.

Welp…on Friday, approximately 9:30pm, when everyone in our GroupMe started posting receipt of their manuscript acceptance letters, I kept checking my email for mine and it did not arrive. By 10:00pm, I willed myself to stop checking. After I awoke around 11:30 from crying myself to sleep, I checked my email again, like, Maybe mine was delayed in cyberspace.

Nope. Nada. Rejection by non-receipt.

I congratulated those who received acceptance letters and then promptly muted the GroupMe notifications. I could NOT lay in bed sulking in my rejection and watch their joyful messages of trip planning and connecting with one another.

I’m in no way a hater. I’m genuinely happy for them. But that does not negate the fact that I really wanted this opportunity for myself as well. And it was hurting like hell that God did not have this in His plans for me, at this time.

I mean, really hurt.

That night I thought about giving up on writing.

I’m tired, I said to myself. Tired of pouring myself into dream.

Sometimes I miss the life I had before I ever got the idea that I wanted to be an author. Reading for the fun of it. Reading for the adventure of story. Reading for a view into life’s possibilities.

All of that changed when I started writing my first book, Unfinished Business. Every book that I have picked up since then always reminded me that I should’ve been writing. First, to finish the novel that I started. Then trying to promote the novel after I published it. Then to start the second novel, Reconciliation to Hell. Then, to promote that one. So on and so forth.

It’s an exhausting cycle. But I’ve done it. I’ve written and published two novels. Written a third novel. Contributed personal essays to three anthologies. And, most recently, published my first Christmas romance story, A Christmas Staged for Love, this past December.

On one hand, I am so proud of myself for what I have accomplished in my writing. But, on the other, there are reminders all around me of what I still want to accomplish with my writing.

Sometimes I wonder is it even possible to go back to who I was before I started writing? What would I do with all the ideas waiting for me to give them life? Pretend they don’t exist? Would I be able to pick up novel or book of any genre and read it without thinking of the stories I turned my back on? As I am reading, would I think about the author and consider how many times they thought about quitting when things didn’t happen in their time?

Even in my sadness of this disappointment, I know the answer to these questions.

The morning after my night spent crying and sulking, I woke up thinking about the lyrics to a Mary Mary song that have gotten me through and continue to get me through life’s challenges: Can’t Give Up Now.

“I just can’t give up now…I’ve come to far from where I started from…Nobody told me the road would be easy and I don’t believe He’s brought me this far to leave.”

Words like these encouragement me to keep going. In life and in writing.

Til Next Time,

L.A.