From Edie: Lynn H. Blackburn shares how Christian writers can trust God and find patience through publishing pressures, unexpected revisions, and overwhelming deadlines.
When Publishing Tests Your Patience: Trusting God Through the Writing Process
by Lynn H. Blackburn @LynnHBlackburn
Fruit Under Pressure: Deadlines, reviews, comparison, the silence after you hit send. We’re on month four of a nine-month exploration of what it looks like to live out the fruit of the Spirit as we navigate the pressure system of publishing.
Everyone take a deep breath.
Today we’re talking about Patience.
If you’ve been a Christian or around the church for any length of time, you’ve heard this. “Don’t pray for patience!” No one, and I mean no one, wants to pray for that. We say it in a joking way, but we know, deep in our core, that opportunities to exercise patience abound. Praying for it is just asking for drama!
And yet, I dare say that if you’re reading this, you’ve asked God to help you in your pursuit of publication.
I hate to break it to you, but if you’ve done that, you have 100% signed up for a one-way, express lane, do-not-pass-Go, do-not-collect-$200 trip to a graduate-level course in patience.
We all know that it’s important to exercise patience as we wait…and wait…and wait…for agents, editors, contracts, and more.
What has hit me between the eyes in the last few weeks is that the need for patience is still there after you sign the contract. It just hits in a new way.
Let me give you an example:
After my book goes to the publisher, I have a general idea but not a firm date for when I’ll get a request for more revisions.
I know they’re coming, but I can’t keep my calendar wide open while I wait. Inevitably, revisions hit my inbox during a week when I am already drowning and come with a cheery, “If you could get these back in two weeks, that would be great.”
If this happened once a year, I could probably manage it better (maybe!), but in the year-long process that extends from the time I turn a book in to the time the book hits shelves, this will repeat a minimum of two more times.
And guess what? I’m not a very nice person during revisions. I find revisions particularly trying, and it’s hard work to keep my temper and mood from boiling over onto the innocent bystanders. I think the Holy Spirit has an almost full-time job keeping His holy hand over my mouth!
It’s in these moments where this idea of patience really starts getting all up in my business. You see, as a kid, I memorized the fruit of the Spirit verses in the King James, and the KJV doesn’t say patience.
It says longsuffering.
And the author in me? She loves a word as descriptive as longsuffering.
First, let’s start with suffering. Suffering isn’t a fun time. It could mean anything from physical pain to emotional upheaval, but whatever it is, it isn’t something we enjoy or want to prolong.
And so, of course, the other part of the word is long. It’s both specific and vague. If we’re talking long to, say, a fruit fly? Okay. Cool. But long to a tortoise? Not cool at all. And yet, its non-specificity gives me a weird assurance. Because what is long to me might not be long to you. But it’s covered, either way.
Here’s the other thing I like about this: if it’s a fruit of the Spirit, that implies that it requires the power of the Holy Spirit in order for me to pull it off.
Which is where I find myself today. I’m not currently waiting on an editor or a publicist, but I am actively writing a new book, and I’m overwhelmed with the number of things on my plate. So much so that earlier this week, I came unglued. It wasn’t pretty. My family can attest to this.
In the aftermath, as I prayed and processed, God pointed out a couple of key things. First, I had been attempting to operate in my own strength, and seriously, I should know better. Second, He kindly gave me insights into how I needed to proceed.
He didn’t remove a single thing from my list, but He did give me direction on how to move forward. Would you care to guess what two of my least favorite things are? Change and admitting I need help. And yet those things are exactly what I needed to get back on track. In my own power and left to my own devices, these aren’t options I would choose. But with Him guiding me, I did.
The “suffering” hasn’t come to an end, but the strength to “suffer long” is now at my disposal.
It always was, but I wasn’t reaching for it.
If you can relate to any of this, here’s my prayer for you and for me, because this one is always going to be a challenge! I pray that we will, as Colossians 1:11 says, be “strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness.”
Grace and peace,
Lynn
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Lynn lives in South Carolina with her husband, children, and an overprotective goldendoodle. She writes her novels in between homeschooling, parenting an adult with special needs, watching her boys play baseball, and teaching at conferences. You can follow along with her real-life plot twists by signing up for her newsletter at LynnHBlackburn.com and connecting with her @LynnHBlackburn on social media.
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