I went to the Florida Christian Writer’s Conference in October with a completed manuscript and a confidence built on hope and ignorance. There were no lines of people waiting to fawn over me and my writing. Don’t they know my devotional will transform lives (and I believe that)? But I ran into the cold, hard truth. My words will never change a thing if I don’t do the hard marketing work called “Platform” that gives publishers and the public a reason to put my work in their hands. For a writer blissful over the completion of their manuscript, finding out there is a great deal more to do feels worse than someone moving the goal line. The goal line feels like it hiked up its skirts and ran away into hiding. I felt sickened at the thousands of hours I’d wasted learning about writing and the writing itself. How much money had wasted on conferences and software?

Then God moved. Someone from my critique group connected me to her publisher (Thanks Pat). This kind lady spent an unhurried amount of time looking at my work and validating its value. She offered me solutions to my marketing problems and gave me hope I might have a place in a world well apart from bashing in doors and spraying water on fires. The next day, another well-established, prolific author and speaker offered to look at my work and endorse it. My ignorance was ebbing away but my hope grew ten sizes that day.

I still have a mountain of work today but I made a plan. You’re looking at the first piece of it. I had to build a completely new website and you’re looking at it. I have other equally big and bigger pieces to build, but I am the tortoise, not the hare. The voices in my head advising me to coast in retirement sound convincing in some moments. I resist. Today has enough trouble of its own. I can’t promise for tomorrow but I won’t quit today. This day I will give all I have in my tank in the hope my work will help transform lives any day of God’s choosing.