I was born with an overactive funny bone. If you’ve read my Weddings by Bella series, you know that I like to add as much wacky humor to my comedic tales as possible. Keeping my readers giggling is front and center in my ministry.
How then, did I end up writing an overly serious novel about the sinking of the Titanic? Trust me, I fought the idea, convinced it would never work. Though I’d written nearly eighty novels at the time, I wasn’t sure I could pull off a story with the necessary depth and emotional pull. In fact, the day my agent called to ask if I would consider the idea, my knee-jerk response was a typical Janice-ala-humor-writer quip: “Only if I can throw in a song and dance number involving an iceberg.”
When he responded with, “Nope. We have to play this one straight,” I gracefully declined. Well, I might’ve said, “I’ll think about it.” Strangely, that’s exactly what happened. I thought about it. And thought about it. And thought about it some more. For about five or six hours, I could focus on little else. My heart said, “Go for it!” but my logic/mind said, “No way! Are you nuts?” Strangely, in the middle of pondering the what-ifs, a story idea came. An intriguing, compelling story idea, complete with a title I loved: Queen of the Waves. Who knew?
Still, I had to face my denial head-on. Could I really numb my funny bone long enough to pen 90,000 serious words? I wrote a sample chapter, just to check. Weirdly, I liked it. A lot. In fact, it tugged at my heart and gave me reason to hope as never before. So I wrote a second chapter. I liked it, too. . .so much that I decided to put together a proposal. My agent shopped it around and Summerside/Guideposts bought the story at the 2011 ACFW conference in St. Louis. I could hardly believe it! Of course, this meant that I had to actually write the book. With my heart in my throat, I set out to do just that. . .and ended up loving the story!
So many amazing things happened while writing Queen of the Waves. It would be impossible to cover all of them in one post. Above all, I learned that stepping outside of my comfort zone, while scary, proved to be an amazing experience. No longer “Queen of Denial,” I’m now truly convinced that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Queen of the Waves exists because I dared to lay down my denial, my insecurities and my doubts, and trust the Maker of the Waves.
