Dreams
When you think you're in danger, real talk on publishing, and faith from a Northern lake
I was with my toddler who was playing with his water table in the backyard. Since he has figured out how to turn on the hose, the small space is usually soaked. The hibiscus and loquat tree love him for it. My legs dangled off the freezer while I was absently scrolling on Instagram.
That's when I saw it. An announcement.
And just like that, it felt like a bomb went off. My ears were ringing and everything went sideways and felt wonky. I stepped inside, trying to make dinner, and the tears poured out anyway. Over the next couple days, my head felt like I was in a washing machine. I smiled a lot, like I do, but I was on autopilot and barely functioning.
It might seem unrelated, but I began to stare at things, like books or handles, wondering what types of microbes were on them. If I touched them, would I be back in the hospital by the weekend? All I needed was for my toddler to swipe some sticky virus germs on me. And I wouldn't be able to fight it this time. That virus would consume me from the inside out. My immune system would join in on the fun attacking me instead of the virus until my lungs filled with liquid and they wouldn't be able to get me into the CT scanner and I wouldn't be able to breath, and I'd then probably catch something else stupid, like c-diff...
That could all happen in the next few days. After all, it has happened before.
*Inhale* *Exhale*
I vented crazily at the friend who stopped by when I was making dinner. I texted my husband and another friend. Then I subsequently made an "emergency" appointment with my therapist.
No surprise, but we don't do the greatest when we feel like we are in danger.
Writing a book
If you didn't know, I've been writing a book. Or a few books, depending on how you define "writing a book." I've had a fiction piece I've been slowly working on since I turned thirty, nearly ten years ago. I've written a couple resource books that have sat as PDFs for sale on my website. And much of the content here at Authentically Elisa is also slowly taking form to be revised and reformatted into a narrative nonfiction piece about thriving in the midst of suffering.
But that isn't what I mean by "writing a book." Ironically, when I state, "I'm writing a book," I don't actually mean the writing process. I'm stating that I'm pursuing the dream of being traditionally published.
I'm not sure this dream is going to pan out.
We've all had deferred dreams. And I don't know about you, but I've always found it difficult to know when to give up on a dream.
The healthcare carousel
Recently, I haven't been that great physically. The truth is, I don't have the lupus thing figured out yet. For one, my body aches a lot, especially in the midnight hours. Inflammation in my joints has been an unresolved issue, but it seems the level of pain has increased in the month since I've been off my primary medication to manage lupus flares.
My health is at the center of a carousel that my insurance, my rheumatologist, and a specialty pharmacy are going not-so-merrily around. It is making me dizzy. Welcome to the world of chronic illness, where more often than not, self-advocacy feels like banging your head repeatedly against a wall. (I write more about that here.)
Yes and yes
Benlysta is expensive, and one of the only drugs designed specifically for lupus (both SLE and Lupus Nephritis). It is a monoclonal antibody that chills-out my white blood cells as they swoop through every system of my body.
Some doctors might go as far to say that this drug saved my life, but I can't uncouple the healing that began taking place in my body from being a spiritual thing too, orchestrated by God. Yes and yes. God saved me. And the drug did too.
There is an unnecessary tension in the space where incredible medical science meets the miraculous. But regardless of the role of faith in healing, and healing through medication, having no choice and no ability to be on my meds at this moment, I am forced back into the realm of faith.
Self-publishing is not an option
While I was in Montreal last month, I began writing a guide I promised awhile back to my readers at Average Advocate. It quickly became apparent that "Should I Start a Nonprofit?" would have to become a workbook. And why should I write another book like this when I already have two others that I've never officially published?
I wrote the Life Mapping Workbook in 2017, and have revised it a few times. I use for some of the people I coach. It was the method I needed to move forward holistically and intentionally after starting nonprofits, ministries, and social good projects, from which I then burnt-out. It helped me align with my priorities, figure out my purpose, and gave me a framework to manage my life. As someone who doesn't really enjoy scheduling or planning much, this life-design framework reigned me in, keeping this recovering people-pleaser within some healthy boundaries.
Then, when my kids went back to school full-time in 2019 after homeschooling for four years (which then became five, no thanks to COVID), I wrote Justice-Minded Kids (formerly the Kids Character Challenge). This is a simple curriculum to teach kids how to practice justice, empathy, love-in-action, and essentially become changemakers.
I was proud of both of these, but I had no desire to traditionally publish them nor did I want to do the work of officially self-publishing them.
To pursue my dream of traditional publishing, it didn't seem like self-publishing was an option. I’d heard that the traditional publishing industry doesn’t typically rally around these authors. I've seen some agents say they won't be interested in picking you up as an author unless you have over 20,000 sales of a self-published book! This feels insurmountable and insane.
Querying
Maybe I’m late to the game, but I’ve been soaking in the commentary about traditional publishing. That it is unsustainable. That too much is about luck. That too much hinges on the "big five," the monopoly publishers. That it doesn't support authors, expecting them to do most of the work of marketing, which is also unsustainable. (For the curious, I link to these articles at the end.)1
When I sent my first query into the traditional publishing black hole last year, I already heard all of these things (but without the personal stories). I was determined to try anyway and committed to giving it a year. Or to send out fifty query letters—whichever came first.
Fast forward a year, and May has already come back around and I am on query thirty-two.2 It is time for me to reevaluate. I wonder if it is time to give up on this dream.
Lake waters
Have you ever been on the water in the dark? When I was a child, my family camped each summer at an obscure lake in the forests of Upper Michigan. Often it was just us and the loons enjoying the beauty. I loved the times my dad would anchor a boat out in the water. His lantern was a beacon to help us find our way. I'd jump off the boat, tepid water engulfing me as I’d swim to the campfire on shore. It is a happy memory; a safe place.
I also know how easily my imagery can turn sour. I'm on the inky waters, but without the reassurances of a boat or even a raft. Underneath me is a watery grave, filmy and swampy, where giant pike swim and twenty-feet of decomposing mush prevent me from finding my footing on the bottom. There might be a midnight sky above and a sparkling Milky Way. But I don't see these wonders. My senses are heightened and I only smell the dank mossy depth, hear the lapping waves, and feel the dark liquid sucking me down.
This is an ideal setting for faith.
Someone else's book
Remember that announcement I saw on Instagram? Well, it came from someone who I was sure I had muted.
This individual is someone who played a major role in the destruction of a large swath of my professional life. Within one week, over a decade of work imploded through horrible and hurtful communication. The situation grievously shaped me, altering my perceptions of trust, safety, and how I viewed myself.
I know they were hurt too, they might even claim it was all my fault. I have no desire to minimize their experience. I just can’t repair what happened and I only have my own experience to tell.
When this all exploded like a bomb, I had a newborn and was just beginning to have a positive turn in the direction of my illness. I was in-between hospital emergencies, and I was fresh into my first round of trauma anniversaries from Kai's pregnancy. My therapist regularly points out that because of when in my life this occurred, my brain coupled this experience with all the other life-threatening PTSD complex traumas.
That being said, it isn’t abnormal for a memory associated with this blow-up to trigger panic about a lupus flare. And something I associate with medical trauma can also bring me back to that week, ending in a spiral of self-loathing.
But the degree I was triggered on this occasion was much more extreme.
Why? Their happy news was that they just signed with a book agent. In fact, their new agent was my dream agent, the very first one I queried a year ago. And I didn’t even know this individual liked to write, let alone was interested in publishing!
The smalleness of the publishing world suddenly became claustrophobic. I felt it more than consciously thought it: “…but I was here first! Writing is my safe space!”
Faith is…
When our safe spaces become transformed into dangerous ones, they become moments of sink or lift. I either dog-paddle, obsessing to find a way to survive until I inevitably drown. Or I can hope in the Unseen. There are no other options here. I can't stay indefinitely in the chaos of dark and scary waters. Once it's obvious that I've done all I can to mitigate a situation, and I'm struggling to keep my head up, faith stops being an ideology. Faith receives a form and it gets very real.
Too often what we call faith isn't faith at all. It is a worldview, yes. It is a theology, sure. But faith in practice actually only exists in the space between the unknown and being caught up securely.
What I have going for my survival doesn't even come from me; it isn't how long I can "just keep swimming" or even in how long I can hold my breath underwater. The tiniest spark of faith is enough to act on. The smallest fleck of trust can form something from nothing.
Save me, O God, for the floodwaters are up to my neck. Deeper and deeper I sink into the mire. I can’t find a foothold. I am in deep water, and the floods overwhelm me. I am exhausted from crying for help; my throat is parched. My eyes are swollen with weeping, waiting for my God to help me. Psalms 69:1-3
When your dream isn't in demand
So, what has a year of querying taught me? For one, it has helped me make a process to query. It has helped me better understand dynamics that I co-actively coach other writers in. But besides that?
I don’t have the bandwidth nor enough luck to procure 50K, 100K, 200K followers. Unsurprisingly, “Get rich in potential book-buyers and then contact me!” has been the primary feedback I’ve received on my book proposal. If I had that many followers I don’t think there would even be a reason to pursue traditional publishing. I could hire the right team. I’d already have a huge audience. And I might even be able to pay a few bills, because we all know an advance and meager royalties sure won’t.
The only other feedback I've received, in a nutshell, is that social change isn't in demand. Unless it is a niche social issue, Westerners don't care. It doesn't make them money; it doesn’t keep them alive.
(This feedback has also made me more confident this book is needed in the world.)
When the world was on fire, in 2020, I wasn't ready to publish a book. Even though I began writing Restart the Rising’s proposal in 2019, in 2020 I was on the verge of burnout again. I was struggling with illness, broken relationships, family crisis, and that was all before I got seriously knocked out by the lupus/pregnancy.
It gives me pause to admit that the publishing industry uses fear as their primary marketing motivator. I might also feel a righteous anger that my target audience—overwhelmed middle-age women, from the dominate culture, who’ve invested deeply in building a family or career, and who are aware they hold some privilege—only care about doing good, navigating social change, and addressing social issues when their world is falling apart.
But I get it. My dream to traditionally publish Restart the Rising isn’t in demand. So what do we do when our dreams aren't in demand?
Sin of Certainty
For the last few months I've slowly been pondering a book that my writer friend, Sarah Butterfield, recommended to me, The Sin of Certainty by Peter Enns. I'm finding it a wonderful companion to life. It isn't because Enns has anything terribly profound to say. In fact, it might be the most simple message of all: the essence of faith isn't certainty, but surrendering to faith. His story is a constant reframe of our typical religious tendencies—especially in the United States. We tend to try to control the chaos and the outcomes by defining, and consistently buckling down on correct theology.
Enns pushes back by continuing to bring it back not to what we believe, but who we believe in. Over the last few years I’ve begun to wonder, is it possible that a large swath of what I believe might not even matter to God? That I don’t have to try to figure this mystery out? That it is really only about leaning on him?
I imagine many of my Christian friends would hate this book. I probably would have too, at least a decade or two ago. It would be too frightening to inch close to believing the wrong things.
It's why we dog-paddle harder in the darkness.
Three new things
After returning from Montreal, I was bemoaning to my fellow writer's coach how I wasn't sure about writing another guide when I haven't even officially published my other two. It is too hard to get it to the audiences who need them without publishing. In our short conversation, something shifted. All of the sudden it became obvious I should self-publish the other two books, that it would be nearly asinine not to.
Why hadn’t I before? Why sit on something that could actually help others? And who cared if publishing these two books might affect my chances of getting traditionally published in the future—I’ll never have control over that anyway!
The past month became a flurry of revising, editing, and partnering with a freelancer who makes this all happen. And just like that, in the first week of June, both The Life Mapping Workbook and Justice-Minded Kids will be published.
When I was in Montreal, another new thing came about. I was asked to author a column for the online religion magazine of Patheos for a year minimum commitment. Although there are both pros and cons to this, I felt overwhelming peace that taking on the column, Flourishing Faith and Justice, is a right step for me.
I'll let you know more about these launches in the next couple weeks. But as of today, I’m acutely aware that they all inform my revaluation to traditionally publish Restart the Rising.
It’s one thing when life takes you by the hand and you go with its flow—either to survive or because you’re just not very intentional. But it is another thing to be intentionally making choices that don’t drown out your dreams, but they might possibly pivot them.
Is it injustice…or fear?
It is easier to talk about the seeming injustice of the publishing industry than the fear publishing brings up. Or the fears any of us have when pursuing our dreams.
As I told my safe people that I was really triggered by my ex-friend getting a book agent, I found my fears reflected back to me as if I was simply jealous. I wasn’t offended, as I am jealous, at least to an extent. But a much bigger part of me doesn’t care if they write a book—if I was still friends with this person, I’d probably cheer them on.
I was genuinely confused why my friends were responding to me this way until I read through my texts. Sure enough, it looked like I was only envious. Talking with my therapist, I realized how much easier it is to address outrage than questions about our own safety and self-worth.
So let’s talk about fear instead.
Silly brains
I feel scared because I feel like I am being followed into my safe space—the world of writing. I feel scared because I don't know if I will show up in my ex-friend’s book. And, as we have such different perceptions of what happened, maybe I’ll even be presented as the monster. Heck, maybe I am a monster! Maybe I don’t deserve to get published!
And although I am not a monster, nor does “deserving” traditional publishing have much, or anything to do with who gets in and who is kept out—somehow I find myself having flashbacks of not being able to breathe on a ventilator.
According to one of my closest friends, brains might do a good job trying to protect us, but they’re also stupid that they can't tell the difference between an emotional threat and another that is actually life-threatening.
The “are you safe” flow-chart
My therapist gave me this flow-chart.
Are you currently in danger?
Yes - do what you can to get out immediate danger
I don’t know - get more information
No - Keep working on coping skills to remind you that you’re safe (like praying, taking deep breaths, going on walks, and truthful affirmations)
Then it starts over again. This flow-chart has been grounding for me. I literally have to walk my crazy brain away from the cliff to even realize my nerves are jangling and I might just be a tad freaked out. But now I’m a lot less freaked out.
After all, I am not really in danger. True, there is a possibility I might lose friends or even opportunities. But there is still a community, space, and a good purpose for me—in the writing world and beyond. Oh, and God gives me mercy, accepts me, and loves me. And almost no one treats me as if I am a monster, ergo, I’m not a monster. Then there is that really important thing: a person writing a book isn’t going to send me to the ICU.
Take that, you scary things!
Northern lights
Naming and then pursuing our dreams is actually very scary. It feels even scarier when we don’t feel safe. This is where faith comes in.
As a young adult, while we were on our summer trip to a lake in Michigan, I happened to look up at the sky as we were gathered around the fire. Low and behold, there were massive green alien worms shifting over the stars. I immediately felt pierced by a fear of this unknown. Were we about to live the dystopian life? Was civilization as we knew it about to be replaced by an end-of-the-world invasion?
However, the real adults excitedly informed me that this wasn’t the apocalypse, but a spectacular display of the aurora borealis. And it was amazing. We stood on the beach and watched it unfold; a grand masterpiece and mystery, only explained by science within the last century. Its beauty is evidence that we’ve been protected from the very real danger of a solar flare.
I couldn’t help remembering this magical moment when people were posting en masse about their sightings of the Northern Lights last week. We even optimistically checked to see if they were visible here in San Diego. (Unsurprisingly, they weren’t.)
Looking up
I don’t really get how faith works. But when I reframe faith for what it really is designed to be—a trusting and secure relationship—I become acutely aware of God’s presence. And I don’t have to understand how it works, even if in some ways faith will always feel like a free fall.
Dreams and the things we hope for—they are good; they keep us moving and give us purpose. Yet my belief isn’t rooted in a dream, which can so easily be deferred. And my assurance isn’t in being safe, either; I’m not guaranteed safety.
What I do have is the hope of possibility. It is the glorious wide expanse of the starstruck sky, fanning faith’s flames. I have the promise of One who protectively holds and advocates for me, excitedly showing me awe-inspiring glory in the midst of life’s feared flares.
In both dreams and in danger, we only have to look up.
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On Average Advocate this week: Addressing Changemaker’s Capacity to Prevent Burnout
Some of these thought-provoking articles were Kaitlin Curtice’s four-part series on sustainable publishing (part 1,part 2,part 3,part 4), Mary DeMuth’s article on platform (although, ironically she has a platform cap),
’s essay, ’s article on legal aspects of publishing, post on quitting publishing, on platform, Sarah Butterfield’s DTR post on the , and there is one other I can’t seem to re-find about a great small house publishing experience (if you know what I’m talking about, tell me!)I also count the agents I research and prep to query, but discover along the way I am bared for pitching to for some reason or another.