Shirley~~Sept 14, 2022 How SGBLit & our first book, In Truth, It’s All About the Baby, Came to Be
Writing newsletters has been part of my life on the mission field for most of my career. People often tell me that I should write my life story, but that is a subject for another time. After retiring from the mission field and returning to the states to live with my mother, I began attending the “Women of the Word” Sunday school class. At that time, the class was about two-thirds of the way through the Book of Revelations. It was the best teaching on Revelations that I had ever attended, and I fell in love with the class and the teacher, one of the best Bible scholars I have ever known.
As the class progressed, I was asked to be a substitute teacher. I accepted but felt entirely inadequate to fill the shoes of our wonderful teacher. Fortunately, my class loves me well, and I can teach in my own style and on my own subject when she is away.
One day, a class member asked me if I liked to write. “Liked to write?” I thought. I'm not sure if I like to or need to write. Sometimes I have to get ideas down on paper. Writing is often how I process thoughts and emotions. I am a feeler. That is my primary way of communicating with the world around me. Just as seers see things and get meaning from those experiences, feelers sense and share meaning through perceptions or emotions. And so when something touches, confuses, or provokes me, I often find myself awake in the middle of the night writing about the experience and getting all those feelings out.
So I replied, “Well, I guess I do when I have something to write about.”
She then asked if I could write a script from the Christmas story for the youth to perform for the church. "Perhaps," she said, "a story about the shepherds." I told her I wasn't sure about it, but I would think it over, and we would see.
I went home from church that day, sat at my computer, and began thinking about those shepherds. Being the feeler I am, I could not help but wonder what happened to them after witnessing the most important occurrence in human existence. Then I began to write. The first and last story in our book is what I wrote in about two hours that afternoon. The story and thoughts seemed to flow onto the computer screen. I changed very little of that story once I had written it, other than dividing it into two parts so that it begins and ends all the other stories.
Once I finished with the shepherds, I could not stop thinking about the other people mentioned in the Birth Story. What about them? What happened to them? How were they affected? So, I just kept on writing. I shared the stories with my Sunday School Class, who declared they loved them. Not totally trusting their response because they are all loving and gracious women who love me, I also shared my writing with another Bible study group. I did not know many of them very well, yet when I read the stories to them, they all agreed that the stories should be published.
A co-worker agreed to read them for me and offered advice to dig deeper into imagining the story of some of the characters, which made the stories even better. My next readers were my two sisters, who also said they loved them and offered ideas and edits for improvements. Then my little sister Billie, who wrote the second part of the book, told me that I had left out the animals' stories; the animals were, after all, also there.
I told Billie that I could not put myself into an animal’s mind. I could understand people and even third-world cultures and thoughts, having lived in West Africa for almost thirty years, but I could not do that with animals. Honestly, the sad ending of Old Yeller kept me from any interest in reading animal stories for many years. So, I challenged her to write them herself. She took up the gauntlet, and the animal stories in the book were born. I am so glad that she did. Her writing style has elegance and beauty that my down-home style does not. I am reading animal stories again (Billie's stories anyway), and I love them and the sister collaboration that came to life with the addition.
Once we were ready to move toward publication, I decided that the stories needed illustrations. I reached out to several people I knew who could do beautiful drawings, but none were available. Then I heard about a young man in my church who loved to draw, and he was good. I approached him, and he was excited about the possibility of illustrating the book. His drawings were quite good, but his style does not fit this book. If I had been writing for teens, his illustrations would have been perfect, but this book was for a much broader audience, or at least I hoped it was.
Finally, I decided that if I wanted illustrations, I would have to do them myself. I love coloring but cannot draw. It was daunting to even think about taking up this task. My first attempts were . . . interesting. Eventually, I fell upon the idea of scanning family photos, downloading them to the computer screen, tracing them, and then coloring them. I used a combination of art supplies: watercolor pens and pencils, chalk, acrylics, and markers. Every one of the illustrations was done repeatedly, some of them dozens of times. I studied pictures on the internet to help me with how to shape poses but used faces from my own family. None of the pictures in the book are from the internet, although some ideas were gleaned from it. All illustrations in the book are original works by me. I am not bragging. I am not a Grandma Moses, but they do feel personal to me. I am sure that very few of my relatives, probably thankfully, can recognize themselves in the pictures. Perhaps, in one or two, there might be enough similarities for a guess.
Part 2
How we came to be SGBLit, Inc is another long story and is mostly due to the vision of Billie. I will let her tell you about that part of our path. Honestly, I just wanted to write, and then I wanted to get it out to people who might read these stories, go back to the Bible to read the original stories, and be drawn a little closer in their walk with the Lord.
But God. He began to show us His plans for not one, not two, but all three sisters to be a team to produce books for His glory. Our sister Gail has become our business manager, proofreader, all around whatever-we-need business partner, and she humbly does it all. One of these days, I believe she will also join the writing team. This is her story too.
And, most importantly, God continues to deliver just when we need something. There have been so many rescue moments that it will take us years to tell the full journey story--if we can even remember them all. For example, I had no idea how to get what I had written into a book form. While at a retired missionary conference, I was in a meeting with a group of people from all over the state of Tennessee. Few of us knew each other, so we were asked to introduce ourselves and tell a little about what we were doing now. When it came to my turn, I shared that I had written a book but had no idea what to do next. I had researched publishing a bit and contacted a few places. But they were very expensive and just did not feel right. Then, a woman on the other side of the room spoke up and said, “I think I know someone who can help you.” And she did.
She gave me the name of Yes Bear Publishing, a former colleague of hers on the mission field who does just what I needed. When I contacted Steve, I knew my fellow conference attendee was right. Steve has become a valuable team member with otherworldly patience as we work through the publishing process. He is worth much more than gold or anything we could compensate him.
Then there is the church member who told me that when I am ready, she wants to help me with pre-sales so that I can order more books. Another friend wanted to help with printing. Next, when I went to a lawyer, she did not ask for a retainer; she only asked if I had the fee for filing the paperwork. She is quite enthusiastic about our project; I feel like she is already an old friend. And guess what. I received a gift from another friend that was just what was needed for that fee at that moment.
Additionally, there is an accountant who insists on doing my taxes free each year because of my missionary service. He answers countless questions about how to set up a company and continues to help with the paperwork setting up a business requires. Because we are determined to do this correctly and with excellence from the beginning, he is also more valuable than gold.
You see, if Billie’s vision is correct, we have many more books to come, and we want to be sure that all we do glorifies God. There will be more to share as time goes on, but I think it is my sisters’ turn to chime in with how God has led them thus far. Watch for their blog posts.
Shirley
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