I started my first novel when my eldest son was five (he's 16 now!). It was pretty bad, a meandering plot of scenes from my favorite novels strung together like mismatched beads on a necklace. But it was a crash course in novel writing, and I was so proud to have finished it, all 120,000 words! Knowing that it wasn't good enough to try to publish, I began my second novel. Snow Angel was born on a frosty night in an old farmhouse in Fishers, Indiana, where the cold floor gave me plenty of motivation for the snow scene. After the first chapter, I knew I had something good, something special. A couple of years later, armed with my jewel, I sat out to get it published.

And so began some of the hardest years of waiting that I have yet endured. When I look back on it, I can hardly believe all the crazy things that happened. (I feel the need to insert a graph or table, some timeline or something to explain it all:). I began my search for publication by doing the conference thing, meeting with editors and learning the submission process, studying the publishing houses and markets for romance novels. Then I sent out several query letters to both ABA and CBA publishing houses. It took months and sometimes years to hear back, but each one was a rejection letter. I wasn't sure what to do next, so just kept researching and waiting.

My first break came in 2000 when Time Warner started an online writing group called iPublish. There was a lot of talk at that time about ebooks and how big they might become, so TW thought to tap into that market with an online community of writers providing the content for these ebooks. I signed up to be a beta tester for the website (praise God for the internet!) and within a couple of months got a call from an editor with Time Warner.

They LOVED my book and felt that in this new format they could stretch out into something on the inspirational side with little risk on their end. Now, I wasn't crazy about the whole ebook idea, but by that point, I was pretty desperate, so I signed the contract, hoped that my book would be so successful that they would eventually print it and looked at the whole thing like a possible springboard for my career.

After 9/11 I received the news that Time Warner was shutting down the ebook division and letting all the ebook authors out of their contracts. One of the editors went to bat for my book to be traditionally published in trade paperback because she loved it so much. These were months of living on gut-wrenching hope, but it was determined that it was too inspirational.

I sank into a minor depression for a couple of months after that and didn't write anything. I kept praying and asking God what was going on, wondering what His will was for my life.

It felt horrible to think of letting my dream go, but I wanted to prove to Him and myself that it wasn't bigger than He was to me.

(I went through this process several times during the ensuing years!). But my desire to write soon surged through me so strong that I was back at the keyboard. By this time I was knee-deep into homeschooling my two boys which lead to various writing opportunities with our co-op (skits, poems, short stories, teaching writing, etc.) and doing some newsletter work for my church. But I wanted to write novels and decided to begin another one and send out queries again.

Now I could at least add my Time Warner experience to my cover letter which I hoped would give me some credibility. In 2002, I got a letter requesting the full manuscript from Avalon. Their blub said they were the "family channel" of romance novels and I thought it might be a good fit. The only problem was that I had a 110,000 word novel and Avalon only wanted 80,000 words. I started cutting like crazy. Anything that wasn't "jump off the page" good was cut. At first, this was really hard to do. But after awhile I noticed something. The story gained pace and emerged stronger than I could have imagined. Like a diamond being cut, it really began to sparkle and shine. Excited, I mailed it in.

That was the beginning of two harrowing years of next to no communication from the publisher. I called, I emailed, I begged, they just kept putting me off. Finally I threw up my hands (probably railed at God about how unfair life was) and sent it off to a few more publishers.

If you're wondering if I was looking for an agent during these times, the answer is, of course! But I had always heard that getting an agent was even harder than getting a publisher on a first time book, so I had little hope there. But I did try hard. One day, I was online looking up agents and came across an agency that I had never seen before. They had an online form (Praise God for the internet, again!) so I thought I wouldn't have to wait quite so long to hear back and . . . why not? I was shocked to get a call from one of their agents who had just relocated to Indianapolis. Within minutes of talking, he asked if I would like to meet him somewhere with the manuscript. With my five year old son's hand firmly clasped in mine (I'd had a third son by then) we walked around a Boarders book store in search of my new agent.

I was a nervous wreck as I handed it over to him, believing he was my ticket to publication. He read it and loved it. So again, I signed the papers without knowing very much about him. Now this man was a really wonderful person, but he had never sold fiction before, only non-fiction in the technology field. He was able, however, to get the editor at Avalon to finally give me an answer (I think he sent her chocolates - really). The answer was "no." It just didn't quite fit their list.

During the next ten months, I continued to have great hope that my agent would sell my book. At the end of the tenth month with him, realizing he hadn't sent out more than two proposals, I decided to take a leap of faith and part ways. This terrified me, because now I was back on my own, but I honestly thought I could do a better job myself, and I kept hearing that still, quiet voice say, "I'll be your agent."

"Really?" My slacker-faith self asked.

"If I am for you, who can be against you?"

"Really?" I whispered as tears began to flow down my cheeks.

Armed with fresh faith, two novels finished and the beginning of the third one, I set out to query every possible Christian and non-Christian publishing company that had ever published a romance novel. I poured over each word and sentence in that query letter. I used a sample proposal from a well-known agency as a template and polished my 40 page proposal until it glared it was so bright.

Then, in November 2005, I sat at my kitchen table and looked at the giant stack of brown envelopes. A part of me felt hope, a part of me felt fear, but a big part of me said, "This is it Lord. If this doesn't work, I'm going back to college, getting a degree in advertising or something creative. I have too much creative energy inside me not to be doing something with it. Then, surprisingly, my sister dropped by on her way to work. Jennifer is something of a prayer warrior and we laid hands on the stack and prayed over it, asking God to bless each proposal.

Within two months I had a bite from Bethany House and B&H Publishing. Bethany eventually bowed out due to the fact that they had an "A-list" author already doing a series on Alaska. B&H gave me a call. I took the call out onto the deck where it was quiet.

"We want to publish your book."

Long, deep breaths. Was this real? Would it work out this time? I was excited but wary. "I would love that." I said simply. And, in the months that followed, I found that I would. God even provided me with a wonderful agent to help navigate the contract! His timing is perfect, but it was hard to wait for the fruition of that.