Carol Moncado

I’ve been working on queries again this week.  EEK!  I sent out one email one last night.  I fully expect it to be a rejection but at least it didn’t bounce like it did when I sent it a couple months ago – you know, before I made a bunch of edits to the book itself.

This morning I was working on my query for Steve Laube – my top choice for an agent at this point.  Why?  Because he’s well respected in the industry.  He works with some great authors.

And he lives in Phoenix.

Where I grew up.  And where, if he’s my agent, I may have to visit sometime.  You know.  For business ;).  Yeah.  That’s it =D.

Seriously, though, he’s a top choice for many other reasons, but gets a + for location.

Anyway, I was going through the submission requirements and one of the things his office wants is: If this is a Christian novel and you had to choose a scriptural foundation for the book what verse would you use?

I was talking to Jan, my ‘mom’, and was feeling a bit down.  How do I really know this is what God wants me to be doing?  What makes me think that I will get an agent and contracts and everything else?  Me out of everybody in the whole wide world who’s written a book?  I hadn’t really though too much about the scriptural foundations.  Nate and Mandie are Christians.  They go to church.  They believe God has a plan even if they can’t see it.  They read their Bibles and pray, but it’s more of an overt overtone than a quoting scripture verse every other page type thing, so this was something I was prepared to agonize over.

Then it hit me.

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

I pasted it to Jan in the chat window.  Even as I thought it, I knew that it wasn’t just meant for Nate and Mandie, but for me, too.  I may not know what the plans are, but I know the Lord has them for me.  Plans to prosper [whether economically or otherwise] and not harm me.

So, I have a verse for Mandie and Nate.  I have a verse for me.  So the sense of humor?  Or timing maybe is a better way to put it.

Jeremiah 29:11 is one of the memory verses from my Bible study group this summer.  And probably the only one I actually remember at the moment ;).

And on the ‘prosperous’ note – today, I’m writing that check to pay off that student loan!

Edit: My pastor’s wife posted the same verse to her daughter on Facebook today!  Think God’s telling me [and Rebekah?] something? 🙂