Writer's Conference Jitters

Last year around this time I was preparing to get ready for the church-planting assessment in Minneapolis, MN. And by preparing, I mean doing everything they told me to do and not putting much effort into it. I flew by the seat of my pants...it's one of the things I do best when I'm forced to do it, but when I try to use that talent to cover up my laziness, it just ends up ruining good opportunities for me. You can guess whether or not I passed the assessment based on how much work I put into preparing for it...in my own defense, all laziness aside, the primary reason I didn't pass was because I didn't have (and still really don't have) any pastoral experience since I'm only one year out of college.

The good news is that this upcoming writer's conference in Denver, the American Christian Fiction Writers' (ACFW) conference, has very few guidelines at all for what you have to do to prepare for it. Ironically enough, this lack of information forced me to more actively research and prepare for it than the very specific guidelines I was presented with at the church-planting assessment. So, even though we're down to the wire and I naturally have a few last-minute things I need to wrap up, I feel very, very well prepared for it overall.

Having said that, my whole purpose of this blog post is to beseech you all to pray diligently for me from the moment I set foot on the airplane in Milwaukee on September 16th all the way through the conference itself until I get back on Monday the 21st. I have the unrivaled opportunity to have two scheduled meetings with two very potentially important people in my writing career: a literary agent AND a representative from a publishing house. At this point, I don't have any more info on who they are, but I know they are going to be the right people who will tell me what I need to hear, even if it isn't all good news.

In these meetings, I will actually be able to "pitch" my book idea to them for their consideration. This is a real life, viable opportunity for me to #1. get an agent; and #2. get connected with a publishing house! That means, if all goes the way I want it to (which is at least remotely likely), I could be a published author within a year! It's crazy to think about, I know, but there is a possibility of it happening. So like I said: I need prayer for this. I need prayer that I will be clear and articulate with my presentations to these folks, both in the scheduled meetings and in the multiple non-scheduled encounters I will have with other agents and publishers. I need prayer that God's Will will be done regardless of what I think it is or should be. He's already miraculously provided a way for me to go to the conference at a very low expense to me, and I'm certain that I wouldn't be going if He didn't want me there for a good reason! Otherwise He wouldn't have made it possible, right?

Well, anyways, just pray for me. This is not only a dream come true in the making but also a chance to finally use my talents for God, something I've been yearning to do all my life but could never quite figure out which direction to go with what He's given me.

That about wraps it up...I'll give you an update once I get back. Until then, pray for me. I've got more work to do. Thanks!

-Ben