A Beautiful Delay

What a surprising journey life can be!

The Lord has recently blessed me with an amazing opportunity- and I don't use the term lightly, it's truly amazing!

My dear sister, Sonia Grace, starting taking gymnastics a while back. After conversations with some of the moms during gymnastics, my mom and I figured out that one of these ladies used to be an editor for Harper-Collins Publishing.

Did you catch that?

AN EDITOR.

Then there's me, sitting nearby writing a book.

(Skip ahead a few weeks.)

The proof copies of my book come and I have an extra. My first thought is to give it to our editor friend from gymnastics and ask her to read it and see what she thinks.

I hand her the book and she is ecstatic. Naturally I am, too.

Days later my mom gets a text from our friend saying, "Hey, if she'd be interested I'd love to meet with you and Bailey sometime to talk about her book. I've gotten through the first two chapters and I have a few ideas. Just let me know when and where, etc."

A former editor wants to talk to me about my book? YES PLEASE!

This past Friday we met with her at Starbucks(in case you were wondering- I'm not a coffee person but their hot chocolate is sent from Heaven).

Honestly, I was terrified she was going to hate it. I had never had someone as professional as her read it, much less talk to me about it.

We got there and she said, "First, I love this story and where it's going, I can't wait to see what happens." Then she proceeds to tell me that I need more details here and there. A word needs to be changed in some sentences.

I began to become thankful that she was(and is) spending the time reading my book and putting thought into it.

The ideas she had were beautiful. The editing and the new paragraphs would be in my words and they would make the rest of the book so much stronger.

All of this being said, Saturday morning around 8:45am, I began the editing process for the 387th 4th time. If we're being honest- I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This sweet editor friend is going to go through the entire book with me a couple chapters at a time and I'm SO excited to see the end results.

So if you're sitting there reading this post you're probably thinking, "Well, won't this delay the publishing of her book?"

Yes. Yes it will.

But I would rather someone open my book and think, "Wow. I can't believe a 16 year old wrote this." Then think, "This is pretty good."

My goal for publishing(the book being for sale to the public) is now this summer around July.

Thanks again for walking this journey with me. Even though it may be a little later than I was hoping, I cannot wait for you to read this book.

Through this all He has shown me that His way is greater and that He has amazing things in store for me if I just wait for Him.

I know waiting for July will be hard and it will seem like the longest five months but I also know that He will make it beautiful. It will be a beautiful delay, a beautiful time of waiting and writing.

~Bailey