Deborah Hall-Branch

“First Things First, Obey Your Thirst”

Before getting published, I attended a great many literary seminars, conferences, and joined a wonderful writer’s group. This soon to be published author determined not to leave any stone unturned settled in for the long assiduous journey. What really fascinated me about being apart of a group was the different genres represented. But, soon noticed only a few wrote nonfiction, an even smaller few wrote poetry leaving the majority fiction writers. Even its fictional category off springs (paranormal, Christian, urban, suspense, etc.) geared more towards this fantastic avenue.

Who in all reality wanted to read another story on abuse?” “If God given me a gift to write He certainly wanted me to be apart of the movers and shakers.” Before long it appeared only to be those who wrote fiction. There were many autobiographies already on the book shelves. It seemed the only ones really acclaimed where written by famous people. An agent I submitted my manuscript to in her rejection wrote back and said, “She didn’t need a story on abuse to remind her of something she was fully aware of.” Didn’t take much to convince me people wanted to read make believes, pretend characters, and happily ever after. Not someone’s true hardships, true victories, true endings. Her statement definitely began to camouflage the certainty I’d worked so hard to maintain in my heart. From that I convinced myself to sit aside the true story instead generating all my time and effort in getting what I considered finished first to be published.

Learning how to write in the first, second, and third person came kind of easy, especially, when you’ve done it on the real stages of life. Becoming every character in that fiction manuscript amazed me how it flowed. As I typed, I heard the crowd cheering. This was going to be a number one best seller! It got so good, a very dear friend soon joined in. We came up with great plots, and a climatic ending that would leave you breathless. Burning the mid night oil hours on end she and I collaborating one chapter after another while pictures of movie contracts danced before our eyes. I became a pro at quickly popping dinner into the oven while reaching over to the note pad sitting atop my kitchen counter to jot down another scene. Still my thirst remained unquenched. Something was missing.

Then it happened. One evening a Seven-up commercial I’d seen a hundred times, but never paid any attention to its tag line highlighted across my television screen. It read, “First things first, obey your thirst.” A sudden light appeared in my dimmed lit literary mind. The more publishing confetti celebrations I’d attended for one of my fiction writing peer’s the more I pushed away what God had prioritized to be birthed first.

Wow, I almost blew it, but discovered a great lesson. Pay attention to your thirst and obey it, never can tell that best seller may be in a file you no longer visit. Redirecting my energy back to my autobiography a few five years later I became a published author with request from my publishing house for another two manuscripts, one fiction. Obeying the thirst also opened a door for me to be blessed with a wonderful, spirit-led agent who’d worked with some of those “well-know” movers and shakers. He refers to me as a “Unique Author” whose writings are “Sometimes Fantasy. Sometimes Reality. Always Spiritual.” No matter the genre, isn’t that what writing all about?:)