One Simple Word. 

One Big Announcement.

Posted on January 23, 2010 12:00 AM MST by Tiffany Kinerson

Reading back over the blog history, I realized we kind of left you hanging about our "exciting development" for the Falcon Flight series. Last week, Sara and I partnered with a ridiculously fabulous agency, Alive Communications (www.alivecommunications.com)!

In case you don't understand the whole publishing process, an agent is the person/entity who sells an author's work to publishing houses. They act as protection for the author when it comes down to signing a contract, as well. 

Most of the big publishers these days, because of both funding and an overwhelming amount of manuscripts out there, will not accept work from an unpublished author without the help of an agent. Needless to say, this has been quite a hurdle for Sara and me to leap in our writing careers. With economy problems and changes in the industry, most agencies, also, are gun-shy (to say the least) about accepting authors.

I want to tell you this next part because it's my hope that our story can give you encouragement for any hurdles you might leap (or attempt to leap) in the coming months. And my story, as with all really good, goose-bump inclusive stories, begins like this:

Once upon a time, God loved us so much we couldn't fathom how high or far or deep or fast or slow it ran.

Is there anyone out there who needs to hear this right now? Anyone? Because I'm telling you, He LOVES us! That means you. And that means me, too.

Years ago, He laid a word on my heart.

Compose.

I didn't know what that word really meant. I was never one of those people who had to write in order to breathe, in order to think. As a matter of fact, it wasn't really on my docket at all. I was a mom.

Of little tinies...who cried A LOT. And tinies...who stole seemingly every piece of my waking moments until I was so busy yet so BORED that I couldn't even think straight.

Compose.

What did that mean? I could sing, but I've never really been a musician, per se. And I could write, but I wasn't exactly the Poet Laureate of my class. I'd never set my sites on a Pulitzer or anything. But still the word echoed through my mind.

Compose.

Then a problem with humanity rocked my little world. I met these people from these solid backgrounds, yet the individuals couldn't seem to make the right choices. How could this be? Why would God create people like that? How could they take everything good in their background and mangle it all into a really difficult life? What could the person be thinking at night when all they could see was their own face staring back at them? And was there any hope for them? Or what about me? What if I took that same type of history and distorted it into something dark and stormy?

Compose.

Okay.

So I wrote about it. I picked out the Bible story of Rahab the harlot and this little mommy created a whole, really crummily-written 500-page novel about a prostitute. And I learned a few things. About life, about people, about writing...about my gifting.

And this started my whole, long process spanning four more books and so many more years of work that will, eventually, end up with a serious contract. (I think.) With people who actually want my signature for something more than a conduct report at my sons' school. (Maybe.) But the thing about it is, I really--can you hear me on this one?--I really could not have done any step of this on my own.

Really.

I am naturally lazy. I love to hang out and have coffee with friends. I hate housework--it stinks! I'm not organized. I'm not focused. I don't do well with self-promotion. I'm not a business woman. Not that I don't want to be any of these things--I mean I'll do things that people tell me to do, but I just don't think of them on my own. It's not my bent.

But it's God's bent for me.

So what He did with me was tell me one simple word: Compose. And then what He did with my simple step of obedience from that word is turn it into something great. Something big. HUGE! Bigger than I can even imagine. So big that sometimes it paralyzes me with the thought that I'm too small. I'm too normal. I'm too...

Compose.

So I'll do it again. Today. Tomorrow. The next day. And we'll see what comes of this. You see, I've never thought I could be one of those people who could encourage others just by the way I live my life. I am really nothing. Just a mom. A wife. Someone's daughter. A really BIG Someone's daughter--a child of God.

And He told me to compose. So I will. Because He loves me so much that He took a single word and started molding me into something that might just do things in this world.

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