On the release day for He’s Making Diamonds, I promised to write this post. I’m sorry it’s later than I imagined — like over a year late — but I wanted to do it justice and I honestly am still unsure of where to start. God has simply done SOOOO many things and worked so many miracles to bring this book into existence (probably WAY more than I’ll ever know) that I don’t know how to recount it all to you.

 

As I wrote in a guest post on Tessa Hall’s blog, writing is hard, illness is hard, and when you put them together, they can be almost impossible. I still don’t know the answer to the question “how did you do it?”

 

Correction: I do know how. God’s grace. My favorite Bible verse is 2 Corinthians 12:9, which says:

 

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

 

And it’s true. Y’all, I shouldn’t have been able to write He’s Making Diamonds. I shouldn’t have been able to edit it. I definitely shouldn’t have been able to publish it. I started writing it a month after I was supposed to have died for goodness’ sake!

 

But . . . look at your bookshelf. I did publish it. Or, more accurately, God did. Let me prove it to you.

 

First, the writing of it. You’ve heard of brain fog, right? Well, I had it. Badly. Very badly during that season. I could barely do anything. But by God’s grace, I could write (some of the time).

 

And I didn’t write it in the four years it should have taken. Or really, forty. I didn’t write it in one year, or even six months. No, God enabled me to write it in. four. months. Four months of inconsistency and confusion. Four months of constantly forgetting what I’d already written and what I had planned to write.

 

Every time I would worry I’d worry, knowing I’d forgotten something, a friend would encourage me.”God will give you the words to write,” she’d say. And you know what? He did. My constant prayer was the He would not let me write anything I shouldn’t or omit anything I should include.

 

Then, miraculously, I finished the rough draft. The longest piece I’d ever written. The first major project I’d completed.

 

Next, God provided the instruction and self-control I needed to get through a month of ignoring the book and then I launched into editing. And editing. And despairing of ever enjoying writing again. And more editing.

 

With that, God guided me through 20,000 more words that I didn’t know I needed, and He helped me as I ripped the book apart and put it back together and got so sick partway through I couldn’t work on it for several months. Really, it’s a miracle the book made sense after that.

 

In January 2018, I thought, “You know? It would be really cool if I published it on July 23rd since that would be the 3-year anniversary (to the day) of getting sick. It would be a really tight schedule, but it’d be neat.”

 

But I got sick on December 28th or so and it set my health back a lot. I couldn’t work on the book for months.

 

In March, I felt God whisper to my heart as I “happened” to read the following verse as part of a Bible reading plan:

 

On the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people to their homes, joyful and glad in heart for the good things the Lord had done for David and Solomon and for his people Israel. (2 Chronicles 7:10 NIV)

 

The twenty-third day of the seventh month? Call me crazy or tell me I forced one verse to fit a situation. Who knows. Maybe I did. And I don’t even think the ancient Jewish calendar matches up with ours. But . . . all I can say is (spoiler) against so many overwhelmed odds, my book managed to get published on July 23rd.

 

 

I didn’t tell anyone, and I didn’t announce it. I thought it was impossible and I didn’t want to give a false alarm. I just began telling friends and family vaguely that “the end of July would be cool.” Maybe my faith was just too weak. But God knew what He was doing.

 

Around the time I was in the last legs of editing, my doctor informed me of something I already knew: it was impossible for me to get my book published by July 23rd, 2018. From her professional standpoint, there was no way my body and mind would be able to handle the work it would take to publish it in so short a time.

 

At first, my heart sank. But then I smiled. In my weakness, God’s power would be more obviously shown, right? 😉 God’s grace would come through. He always has, He wouldn’t stop now.

 

My faith wouldn’t always be that confident and I was in for a rollercoaster month or two, of course.

 

Seriously, ask anyone and there was no realistic possibility that I could publish He’s Making Diamonds on time and do it well. So I formed a prayer warrior team specifically for the publication of the book.

 

Now. What to do about a book cover? From all my research, the two most important things for an indie author to focus on are editing and a stunning book cover. For my birthday, a family friend who was a graphic designer volunteered to make it for me. Do you know what a huge favor that is??? Good, professional covers take a lot of time and therefore usually cost a lot of money. They make such an impact on the sales of your book that you want it to be the best. But I was a broke teenage spoonie. So I am still so grateful for our family friend’s help.

 

Of course, I had no idea what I wanted the cover to look like. I simple couldn’t picture something that would both encompass the message of my while still looking good. All I told the cover designer was that “I kinda want diamonds to be part of it somehow.” Yes. Very helpful. *rolls eyes* But he took that and he made a cover more beautiful and perfect for my book than I had imagined. God provided just what I and it needed right when it was needed, and so many people have told me since then how much they like the cover.

 

I finished editing and quickly contacted beta readers. Yes, last minute. And . . . I was a very rude author and made them do it in two weeks. Again, I shouldn’t have gotten much feedback. But I did. I think even more feedback than I did with my next book, Light After Darkness, despite giving people warning and time and only asking them to edit three chapters. My awesome He’s Making Diamonds betas came through, and I got so much feedback I didn’t know what to do with it all.

 

One beta reader even read the book within almost 24 hours. But another beta who gives wise advice to many writers lovingly told me that I needed to postpone the publication date so that the book would be the best it could be. Yet still, the idea of publishing my debut book on the 23rd wiggled around in my mind.

 

One thing I wanted to do since I was a debut indie author was to have someone influential write the foreword. I wanted people to take my book seriously as something that God could use in their lives, and I thought that having someone write the foreword would give me credibility. The thing was . . . I was a no-name newbie indie author with little to no connections. How was I supposed to find someone to write the forward? Someone who would understand my message and be able to help it reach the right audiences?

 

So I made a list of people I would love to have write the foreword for my book. People like Jamie Grace or Laura Story who had experience with illness. Except, I didn’t know any of them or have a way of contacting them. The next two days, I spent scouring websites and social media and I even contacted some of the people on the list’s churches to see if any of them might be interested. But I wasn’t able to get in contact with anyone.

 

You should know, this is not how people usually find a foreword writer. But finally, one evening, I had an idea. I had titled my book He’s Making Diamonds, why not contact one of the people who wrote the song that inspired the premise of the whole book??? A day later, Jon Steingard, the frontman for Hawk Nelson replied to my email with, “I’d totally be open to it!”

 

Wait, really? I danced around the room. Praise God! Except, I could only squeeze out two weeks for him to be able to write it so that I could send it to my editor. Two weeks to read my book, decide for sure that he wanted to write it, and then write it. Plus, I had no clue what kind of direction to give since I had never written a foreword before either. Let alone for someone I didn’t know. But when he sent it to my inbox not long later, what Jon Steingard wrote was exactly the final touch my book needed. Again, the speed with which it all worked out and the connecting God did when I had no connections . . . our God is pretty amazing.

 

Next, it was time to edit. I edited constantly until I ran myself into the ground. And I was still a few days past the date I was supposed to send it to my editor. But Kelsey Bryant, my editor, picked up my slack for me, still getting it to me even before I’d hoped. It was such a blessing.

 

So . . . despite my running behind schedule, God made up the time through Kelsey. I went through her edits and was able to send it to the advance readers and formatter two days early . . . despite so many technical difficulties that got so bad I found myself on my knees praying over my computer as my prayer warriors prayed with me across the country.

 

But it wasn’t over yet. The biggest spiritual battle was still to come.

 

My formatter, Kellyn Roth, did a great job, but she was continually faced with technical difficulties and power outages as well, causing delays and confusion and grapevine communication. But she did it! She finished it, and meanwhile, I was finishing up things for the launch.

 

When she sent me the last version, I immediately uploaded it to Amazon. But every single tiny step of the way there were silly roadblocks that delayed everything. Things that shouldn’t have happened by any logical standard. Everything from number issues to cover issues to Amazon spontaneously delaying approval for “an undetermined amount of time” out of the blue even though if I’d done it any other time it would have been done within 48 hours.

 

Createspace and KDP customer service was so helpful (Amazon Advantage wasn’t, but that’s another story), but at literally every single step (and there are a lot of steps for an indie author) there was some roadblock that should not have been there.

 

It got to the point where there wasn’t anything I could do any more to make things happen. All I could do was wait. Wait for approval while release day got closer and closer. All I could do was try to occupy myself to keep from worrying and pray like crazy. So I tried to and I did.

 

Everything was in God’s hands and there wasn’t anything I could do. I stayed up late each night and got up early, checking and rechecking to see if Amazon has approved it so that I could go to the next step, which would also take time. But it hadn’t come through.

 

July 22nd, I sat on the living room floor by myself with worship music turned up and did battle. And I mean battle. I prayed and worshiped for maybe an hour, and then I video-called with my prayer warrior team and we all prayed together some more. I’d poured the blood, sweat, and tears, and now it was in God’s hands to bring the thunder and complete to some degree the good work He’d begun.

 

That night, still nothing. I sat on the bathroom floor this time, praying and wrestling and battling. I battled for another hour straight, and the enemy had me almost totally convinced that I’d heard God wrong and that it wasn’t His will for my book to get published tomorrow, on the 23rd. I journaled that battle as it happened as proof.

 

But I finally realized what was happening and chose to stand on what I knew God had told me, praying He would come through and my hope would not be put to shame. I went to bed and texted a friend what was happening. She said “my turn” and joined the battle.

 

When I woke up early the next morning, the promised release day . . . the last approval still hadn’t gone through. I left the house for my therapy horse ride with a heavy heart.

 

But by the time I arrived home, I’d received the “go” email. I hurried to click the button. The book was live. Right on time.