By Penny Reeve

I remember it clearly, the day I gave up.
The day I ran my hand over the top sheet of my children’s fiction manuscript, shut the folder and slid it out of sight. It was a good book. It had tension, heart, pace and great chapter hooks. The themes of faith were relevant, real and true. It was worth reading. Worth publishing. But I’d submitted it everywhere I could. I’d been knocked back, repeatedly. I’d done the math, weighed up the options and decided I couldn’t even afford to self-publish. There was nothing more I could do. So I put that manuscript away and gave up.

Writing is a tough gig. We love it, yes, but it can also be heartbreaking. Rejection and discouragement lurk closer than we like to admit and sometimes it seems like the doors we need opened are constantly shut. It can be especially hard when the books we’ve put our heart and soul into are those we feel called to write! But how we handle the rejections and disappointments that come our way can also shape us into the writers God asks us to be. 

Sometimes, I believe, giving up is what we need to do as Christian writers because it’s so tempting to clutch our creative work with both hands scrabbling. We work so hard at it: we pitch and we polish, we edit and research and rewrite and submit, over and over and over again. We deserve to be published! Surely? 

Well, no. We don’t. When it comes down to it, the world doesn’t need our words. It needs Jesus’ words. And yet, every now and then we are granted a space in the mystery of spreading his love through the words that we write. For me I had to give up before I learned the deep truth of this. I hid that manuscript on my shelf and continued writing. Other books, other projects, other rejections to read and face and cry over. 

One such manuscript was a young adult novel I’d been writing and researching for almost 11 years. It was the story of two young Nepali girls who were trafficked into the brothels of Mumbai, India and one who escapes. It was the toughest project I’d ever written. It broke my heart and fired me up like nothing else. I knew it was a story I was supposed to write, and yet it continued to be rejected. Over and over. Good rejections too – the ones with encouraging comments about my writing, or the importance of the story, or… But still the answer was, ‘No’. I wrestled with God over it. Discouragement and doubt hounded me. Each time it was rejected I worked on the story a little bit more: adding another layer, drawing out a character, breaking my heart that little bit more. 

Rejections are tricky things for writers to handle. Sometimes they’re are just part of the course; we need to dust ourselves off and send our story out again. Sometimes we need to push our writing harder; perhaps we’ve gotten lazy, or entitled as we write? There are other times, though, that closed doors are not-so-subtle reminders to wait on God’s timing instead of our own. 

By the time I’d received the 11th rejection of my YA novel, the landscape of Australia’s response to human trafficking and slavery had shifted dramatically. A Modern Day Slavery act was about to go to parliament. People had started thinking and talking about the issue. I could see how God may have held back on my book for such a time as this, but all I could do was wait. And it was while I was waiting that I received an email, out of the blue, from a publisher who’d previously rejected the children’s novel I’d given up on. They asked whether I ‘still had that story’ and if I did, could they publish it? I couldn’t believe it. This was the story I’d carefully hidden, certain it would never come to print! And then, while I was revelling in excitement of such an unexpected publishing contract I received news that my YA novel had been accepted for publication also. It was God’s timing, not mine, that saw the publication of both books in 2018. 

Camp Max, my children’s fiction novel, came out in March and went on to win the 2018 CALEB Prize Children’s Literature Category AND the Overall grand Prize (Australia’s only literary award that recognises Christian faith inspired writing for children and young adults). Out of the Cages (published under my pen name Penny Jaye) was published in July and won the 2019 CALEB Prize, young Adult Fiction category. 

Despite the discouragement and rejections, God’s timing had been perfect for both of these stories. He’d had these books gripped in His purpose, always. My task had been to walk and wait and yes – even to give up – and let God write the story His way. 

Penny Reeve (also writing as Penny Jaye) is the award winning, Australian author of more than 20 books for children. ​She writes picture books, junior fiction, children’s Bible studies and young adult fiction. She’s an experienced writing workshop leader, conference presenter and writing coach with a particular interest in equipping Christian children’s writers. You can learn more about Penny at www.pennyreeve.com and www.pennyjaye.com or find her on Facebook Penny Reeve .