They Want My Manuscript...Now What???

My mother taught my sister and me when we were growing up to always keep our rooms and our house clean so that if we ever had an unexpected visitor, then we would not appear slovenly.

I recently "tested the waters" of the publishing market to garner interest in my novel about the rise and fall of a college campus ministry. After sending a query to a publisher about my novel, they have asked to view the manuscript. There is definitely a certain excitement and satisfaction that comes with this news. It validates the endless hours of imagination poured on pages. It manifests the goal writers have initially before they set pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. It breeds confidence in our abilities, talents, and gifts to expresses in writing the issues of life in stunning detail. One dilemma exists with this new development in my progress: the novel remains unfinished! With that aforementioned excitement, validation, and satisfaction, an anxiety is now present. There is an "Oops!" in my conscience that exists because I never truly thought there would be much buzz when I sent the query.

I instantly flashed back to my mother's cleaning method. When I began the novel, I was writing some each day which became every few days...which became once a week--you get the idea. Now that I have a "visitor"--better yet a suitor--to see my work, it is incomplete and not what I desire it to be.

Therefore, the best advice for any writer--as I now have learned--is to keep writing! Away with the insecurities about who wants our work or what entity will reject us next. We must keep writing! Away with excuses for not getting to a place where we can devote our time to our passion instead of explaining why we are writers with no evidence of our work. Away with the fear that people will not "get us" or will not understand who we are and why we write. We must keep writing! Whatever is preventing us from achieving our goals and seeing our dreams manifested, we must escort those things out of our path, out of our minds, and into the same pile where our rejection letters lie. We must reject the rejections! We must make the insecurities insecure!

In essence, the manuscript request was a wake-up call. Who knows if it will be accepted, but being caught with my house not in order has again set my passion for writing ablaze. We never know when the moment we have been waiting our whole careers for will be laid before us, so we must be ready.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some "cleaning" to do...