I've been doing a lot of soul-searching as I draft my next book. I'm a classic over-thinker, but also, as a YA author, I take my job VERY seriously. My intended audience is young women (and men) and that carries a lot of weight. During the day, I shape young minds as a teacher and mom, and in the evening, I get to shape hearts as a writer. It's an incredible feeling, but yeah. I think about it a lot before I set fingers to the keys...
So let me tell you all
a story about how I got started. I’ve worked with kids and teens all of my life. One night, when I was in
my early twenties, I co-lead a junior high/senior high girls small group (similar
to bible study, but more casual) with a home-schooling mom of teens. Let me
start out by saying I love homeschooling moms. This isn’t a reflection on that.
I’m just not comfortable saying names even a decade later.
ANYWAY, this mom
pulled a fast one on me. I don’t recall the topic, but whatever it was, it WASN’T
abortion or premarital sex. But that’s what she chose to talk about. She was
prepared. She had pictures and articles and materials and eyes full of
thundering damnation and I was…. Not prepared for this.
She lectured and
terrified and accused these young girls and Reader, I was FURIOUS. Shaking,
sweating, stuttering. Jesus flipping tables in the temple had nothing on me.
All I could think was what if one of these girls had an abortion? Or knew
someone who’d had an abortion? Or, more likely, had premarital sex? Or wanted
to have premarital sex because that is a NORMAL DESIRE for a hormonal human being.
And what if they
went home and cried after that night and decided that because of those things,
because of those gory photos or those damning articles written by nobody important,
Jesus couldn’t want them or love them?
That night, I tried
to patch the hole I saw growing in their hearts. I quoted the truth that “God
is love” and how the greatest commandment is love, and that no matter what you’ve
done in your life, it doesn’t matter because God is grace and mercy and HE
STILL WANTS YOU EVEN IF YOU’RE MESSY and I don’t know if a single one heard my
voice over the rushing accusations in their ears, but I pray they did.
But more than that,
I remember getting into the car that night with my husband (who led the boys
group and who was like, YOU TALKED ABOUT WHAT? WE JUST PRAYED AND LISTENED TO
SKILLET) and cried. I was so angry, I cried. I felt helpless and hopeless and utterly
defeated because like it or not, fear is powerful motivator and those girls
were so afraid of themselves and their bodies and their decisions and that was…
ugh. My stomach churns even now. I’m crying even now.
Its funny, but I think
that’s the night I stopped giving a fuck about hurting the church’s feelings.
I came home and I
looked at my piles and piles of Christian fiction scattered around our spare
room and I was angry. Yeah, sure, it’s inspirational when a character set in
the 1870s can keep her faith and fight temptation because everything about her
society and culture (of no one, because she’s alone on the frontier) supports that.
But what about
someone in 2008 (or 2018 for that matter)? How does someone keep their faith
when they are told that literally everything they do all day is an abomination
of God? Cuss when you spill your soda while driving? Sin. Check out a guy when
you’re swimming? Sin. Check out a guy when you’re a guy? Sin. Sip a beer at a
party? Sin. And all of those sins? Straight to hell. There’s no middle ground. No
grace. No Jesus.
Who can live like
that? Who wants that kind of belief system in their life?
I’m not a great
public speaker, but I can write. And I decided that I was going to write
alternative Christian fiction. Of course, I’d never written a book before in my
life and writing books is hard, but I was determined to create an option C. Not
quite secular, but definitely not inspirational (at least in that way).
It took me a long
time to finish something and then I started querying my books to every Christian agency or publisher I could think of. I was met with
immediate resistance. Granted, my early efforts were not great, but Christian agents
would jump on my queries and then almost immediately reject when they read the
full citing, “not a good fit”. I knew what they meant. They didn’t care for my
less than pious characters. (if you ever want to feel bad about yourself, pull up a Christian publisher and check out their submission guidelines. Mother Theresa would be rejected)
Then came the book
of my heart, a story about a teenage girl whose popular sister drives her car
off a cliff on purpose and ends up on life support. The story follows Ramona,
the sister left behind, as she tries to piece together what happened to Laney to make her do what she did, all before the machines are turned off.
This book took off with agents, but then the rejections rolled in. “I didn’t
get the God stuff”, “It’s too much religion”, “This is beautifully written, but
I’m not a good fit for this kind of book”.
It broke my heart
into pieces. I sent out 90 queries. Had so many requests, but no offers. My CPs
talked me down. We discussed removing some of the faith-talk, but I’d used
that scene from youth group that I started this entry with… it was pivotal to
the story. Pivotal to ME. The church had failed Ramona’s sister and it needed
to be said.
So I shelved the
book and wrote YOU’D BE MINE, which was far lighter (mostly, heh) than YOU
SHOULD BE HERE. I sent it to my CPs who said, “Uh, Erin, you do you, BUT, you
probably aren’t going to win any big hitter agents with this. You still have a
lot of God in this book.” And I knew that. Annie wears her faith like a second skin.
She’s not preachy or cruel, she’s just who she is. And when I was in her head,
it came out.
I sat on it. Prayed about
it. Cussed about it. Drank wine about. I talked with my husband who shrugged and
said, “It’s up to you, but you started writing because you wanted real
characters out there and I think you’ll regret it if you take it out and it
sells.”
“But what if I leave
it in and it never sells?”
“Then you write
another one.”
(By the way, that’s the
LAST thing an author ever wants to hear. “Just write another one.”)
I removed a single
word and queried. The rest you know. YOU’D BE MINE comes out April 2nd
with Wednesday Books/Macmillan and the world can read about Annie and her
sloppy faith (amongst other things like kissing and country music and blue
jeans and sassy lyrics).
I’ve spent my life
sinning. Like constantly. Little sins all day long, big sins, too, if you’re
into ranking. But I’ve also lived knowing that God’s grace covers me and his
love is everything.
I don’t give a shit
if you sin. Or don’t sin. What I care about, so deeply, is that you know that
no matter what, no matter who you are, or aren’t, God loves you. And so do I.
And Annie and Ramona
and every character that I ever write, would love you too.
