Roads We Travel to Publication

In American Christian Fiction Writers we all serve one God, but there are many roads we travel in his service. Sometimes the path can veer from the course we think is appropriate. It may even wind down shadowy valleys we don’t want to walk or lead up mountains that are daunting. As long as we are on the track as he directs we are exactly where we should be.


My children graduated high school in the mid-nineties and it was then that a story began to weave itself into my thoughts. The path to publishing that first novel seemed clear. Write it. Edit it. Get published. I wasn’t prepared for the twists and the turns that followed. As I look back, I can see God used each new job experience to teach valuable lessons, learn needed skills, provide funds, and mature me.

Poetry is one of those routes that I considered to be a detour, but which has proved to be a divine plan. Merging fiction, poetry, and Bible truths has been a profitable pleasure as well as deepening my understanding of the Word because of research. This weekend I’ll be e-publishing “Ten Days to the Empty Tomb” for Amazon’s Kindle. Please be on the lookout for it. Meanwhile, here are a few words of encouragement:

1. If you have a dream for a certain novel, don’t give up on it, even if the road seems circuitous.

2. Don’t fight the way that the Lord leads. He doesn’t delay capriciously. There are skills to be learned or heart lessons to be absorbed for our safety and protection. After all, what good would it be to have a best seller and lose our souls to greed or pride?

3. Perfect obedience the first time is the best. Even if we don’t understand God’s reasons, He will always prove true and right.

4. If we miss opportunities God will keep steering us back onto His plan. No one wants to wander in the desert for forty years, but in the end God brought the Israelites to the Promised Land. Following through on point three will lessen the times we have endure point four, for there is always something lost when obedience isn’t prompt and complete.

Have a wonderful March and a great INACFW meeting this month. Hopefully I’ll make it. 

Mary Allen has authored numerous articles and two books of poems "Journey to Christmas" and "Ten Days to the Empty Tomb". She hopes the road leads her back to focusing on her first piece of fiction in 2013.