Publishing My First Book: Gift of the Tiding Bearer

Last week a blessed green check mark lit up my computer screen, signifying that my book Gift of the Tiding Bearer was live on the Barnes and Noble website for all the world to see and purchase (edit, 2024: I have since switched to Amazon.) I am now a published author. I meant to start this post by talking about how I can't believe I'm here, finally publishing my book and how I don't quite know how this happened, but the truth is that I know exactly how it happened and I can absolutely believe it to be true for one big reason: God is faithful. In only 10 months from twinkle in my eye to 400-page book in my hand, God made a lifelong dream possible while teaching me lessons I desperately needed.

I've always wanted to write a full-length novel and tried a few times as a teenager, but I got so tangled up in details that I couldn't get any momentum. When the idea for a quest-style allegory inspired by Job 28 crossed my mind, I liked it immediately and began to pray that if God wanted something to come of it, He inspire me with more ideas. I also began to spend a lot of time in Proverbs looking for insight on the concepts in Job 28. I don't know what I expected, but I was surprised when ideas began to flood in and everything I read in the Bible and even heard in church began to fit together like a marvelous puzzle. First it was just the story of a boy's journey to a knowledge of God, the greatest Treasure of all. Then, slowly, it became the revenge-fueled quest of an escaped slave. And then, suddenly he was joined by two others: a stuck-up prig of an heiress and another fellow who refused to take any real shape in my mind for frustrating weeks. (When he finally came together, it was clear that he had been stubborn about it just to annoy me.) Because the ideas were coming from God, I was encouraged again and again to turn to the Bible and to wait prayerfully for God's direction on characters, plot points, and themes.

Writing this book was an amazing reminder that God doesn't waste anything that is surrendered to Him. During that unsuccessful period when I was trying to become the next great teen novelist, I researched plot, character, dialogue, and storytelling tirelessly and when it came to write Gift it was because of that work and practice in the past that I was ready. Regardless, the book took me far outside my comfort zone and experience in lots of ways, not the least of which was the countless sword fights that kept cropping up. It seemed I couldn't turn a digital page without Doran drawing his sword on someone and then I'd be face palming and rolling my eyes and trying to make up an intelligible fight scene.

Of course, that struggle is small in comparison to the often overwhelming task of converting heavenly concepts into palpable stories. I have always believed in the power of stories, but I've never respected Jesus' knack for storytelling or God's masterful choice to relay redemption through the rich tales of the Bible more than when writing this book. To know that God chooses to relay eternal truths this way makes storytelling feel almost a holy thing, and that feeling resonated deeply in me throughout the process of writing Gift of the Tiding Bearer.

When you read Gift of the Tiding Bearer, here is what I hope you will take away: the worth and power of God's truth, the unique approach which God takes in reaching each on of us, and the value which He sees in us all. May the book be a blessing to you, the reader, as it has been to me, the writer, and may God take you on Doran's journey to the Priceless Treasure.