I did it! I did it!

My first attempt to revise into an inspirational is complete. TMB is now an inspirational, AND I'm no longer short on word count. All in all, I think it's a success. The really crazy thing? I sat there, in IHOP (the pancake place, not The Hop), reading it, cracking up, and really enjoying the story. My basement dweller said it was a good thing she was sitting across from me, otherwise, people would have thought I was nuts.

I've got news for them-I AM nuts. But I love it. And I love this book. It's so weird... all this time I've fought inspirational, it totally felt right to make the transition. Yes, this is the one that everyone who doesn't read inspirational read and said, "Hey, this sounds like an inspirational!" Well, it is an inspirational.

The book is done, and ready for crits. YIKES. I started on the other book, which is another shoulda been inspy. It finalled in a contest, but was ultimately rejected because the editor couldn't identify with the heroine's motivation. No one in the non-inspy world can understand why a woman of her age would CHOOSE to be a sexually inexperienced. Funny how that's a given in inspy-land. DUH.

Why did I fight this for so long? I guess because I really didn't want my audience to already be inspirational. I wanted people who don't understand why a woman would wait for the right man or understand the power of miracles and God's healing to see what an awesome God we have, even if I wasn't overt in saying it. Maybe I wasn't a good enough writer for people to "get it", or maybe I was going about it the wrong way. I don't know. But it felt really good, as I edited this book and added in the overtness of God, to be able to do so.

And, in the words of one of my CPs, who thought I invented a new genre with my semi inspirational books... I have to share this part of the email, because it's so cool... Okay, congratulations on your commitment. I personally feel like this is a GREAT choice for you. I really think that this is what you should be doing and I think you'll really excel at it. And I'm very excited to read the rewrite of the book.

Yeah. Cool stuff. One rewrite down, um, a few more to go. Now the question is, which ones do I rewrite? I have this and another that have never been submitted, plus the one rejection that the problem clearly was that it wasn't overtly inspirational, and then there's the seven other books I've written. A couple I think will probably never be able to be converted, like the terrorist book. I miss that book. I wish I could sell it someday. I never did send it to Berkley, but then again, the editor who wanted it is completely out of the business now, and I still feel like I'm not at a point where I should be straddling genres, which this book clearly would do. It's crazy... I know the work that I need to do on it, and I think it would be an AWESOME book if I finished the edits, but I can't see spending the time on it given that I want my career to be focused elsewhere. ACK!!!

But then, there's the whole "new stuff" bag o' tricks. I still need to finish my Hosea book, but I really want to finish my Hosea study first. I also have ANOTHER terrorist book, but I'm pretty sure it would work in inspirational. Possibly. However, my fear with it is that it's still a bit "far out there" from what I typically write, so I'm not sure if now is the time to try to pull it off. Which leave me with the following incomplete but still viable ideas: How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days (with a twist, of course!), The Marriage of Convenience (with a modern twist, of course! It doesn't have a major conflict, though-much fleshing out is needed-have not gone deep with it), and The breast cancer one (but I don't know if the heroine is well motivated enough). Or, I could let my brain go all sorts of hog wild. :)

OR I could start working more on my nonfiction books. I don't know why I'm dragging my feet so much on them. Really, I don't. Except that there's that whole growth thing that I'm still doing. I want to know... seriously. What if I write these books, and then ten years down the road, I look back and realize that I was completely idiotic for thinking those things, but now it's all published into a book that I can't take back?

Then again, for the contest I'm putting two of the books in, I really need to revise my synopsis. Ah, so much work, so little time.