Editor scores in publishing contest
A favourite activity as a teen was meeting friends and family at the local pizza parlour. As the only place in town I could go to that had a juke box, I used to spend quarter after quarter listening to two songs: Styx's "Come Sail Away" and Kansas' "Dust in the Wind."
As I sang along with the line "all we are is dust in the wind" I didn't know that nearly four decades later I'd have a book published based on a biblical book that echoes Kansas' thoughts—or was it Kansas echoing one of the main themes of Ecclesiastes?
Work on Chasing the Wind: Finding Meaningful Answers in Ancient Wisdom began 18 years ago when I started studying Ecclesiastes scant months before two major life events: the birth of my son and the death of my father.
Through the years, various incarnations and rejections, Chasing the Wind morphed into a look at the Ecclesiastes' three themes: "meaningless, meaningless," "chasing the wind" and "under the sun." Within each theme, the book examines everything from wisdom, wishes and work to desires and deeds to toil, treasure and termination.
After another rejection last year, I'd almost given up hope. While self-publishing was a possibility, my lack of marketing skills discouraged me from going that route. I wasn't willing to fill my basement with boxes of books that talked about meaningless pursuits.
Then along came the 2010 Word Alive Press Free Publishing Contest. I almost didn't enter —my tight, journalistic style led to a manuscript that fell short of the contest's word count. After an encouragement from Word Alive staff at the Write! Canada conference, I rushed home on Friday night and put together an entry.
In late September, I danced a happy dance after finding out Chasing the Wind won the non-fiction category in the Word Alive Press contest. Again, I'd given up hope, reading of a few friends who'd been shortlisted—while I'd heard nothing. What's neat is that I share this win with fellow Guelph resident Sara Davison, who won the fiction prize for her novel The Watcher—a story about understanding what one needs to hold on to and what to let go and the unseen forces that help along the way.
Not only do Sara and I both live in Guelph, we also attend Lakeside Church and, a few years ago, were founding members of GW-ELF (Guelph writers—encouraging, learning and fun). This writers' circle—again an outcome of a Write! Canada conference—became a support and encouragement to us as we both worked on the books that became prize winners.
A month has passed since Sara and I were told of our win. I don't know about her but I'm still excited about it. And somewhat filled with trepidation as the work editing and rewriting, marketing and promoting looms. But all will be worth it once I hold a copy of Chasing the Wind in my hands.
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