The Backstory for The Unsigned Masterpiece

Scroll down a little on this website homepage and you'll see that I've added a new book! It may seem strange that I would publish a book while serving as a missionary, but this book has an interesting history.

Almost 25 years ago, I wrote a sweet little Christmas novella and sent it off to a variety of publishers. I ended up with three offers to publish and chose the company that seemed the most solid. Whether that was true or not, I don't know, but they're out of business and the others are not. **sigh...What might have been!**

But with such seemingly stunning success in my debut novel, I realized "Hey, I really can be a writer!"

A few months before The Angel's Song debuted, I had a dream. In my dream, I met a world renowned artist. Young and handsome, he had acclaim, wealth and honor. But he wanted to paint Jesus Christ in order to cement his place as the greatest artist of all time. He had the skill and the general idea, but he was agnostic and couldn't see the image of Jesus in his mind's eye.

I saw the elegance of his home and knew the time period based on the clothing worn by the people in the dream.

When fully awake, I realized that it was a purposeful dream, intended to help me start my next project. The main character was clear in my mind, as though he was a real person whom I knew well.

I wrote out The Masterpiece over the next six months.

Because the company that had published The Angel's Song had first right of refusal, I was contractually obligated to send my next work of fiction to them.

A few weeks after I sent it, they told me that they loved it and wanted to publish it, but it was too soon after my first book to give me a contract. (I don't know why. It didn't make sense then, either.)

In the meantime, I was very disappointed with the way The Angel's Song was presented and marketed. I realized that the company had such a limited market and limited resources that they wouldn't do The Masterpiece justice.

They couldn't keep the manuscript longer than two years without signing a contract to publish so they sent it back and asked me to resubmit it.

I was pleased to see it's grade. The highest rank a manuscript could receive from that publishing company was an 'O' for "OUTSTANDING". The Masterpiece had an O++

I sent it to a couple of bigger publishers but it was rejected without having been read. (I put a small slip of paper behind the cover sheet that would have been displaced had anyone actually looked at the manuscript.)

So I filed it under "when the time is right."

Over the years, I've done lots and lots of writing. Every so often, I'd go back and work on it, updating the writing as my style and abilities improved. I went back to school and earned my bachelor's degree in English and American Literature from BYU.

I've written 6 other historical fiction novels since that one was first written. (I've published just three.)

Some of the yet unpublished manuscripts have garnered interest from agents, but each agent or publishing possibility had to be filtered through the question, "Would they do justice to The Masterpiece?"

Right before we left on our mission, I scrambled to get The Masterpiece edited into a publishable state. But I didn't know how to produce the fancy cover I had in mind, since I hadn't seen an artist whose style was likely to produce what I wanted. Also, I had allowed so much time to go by that several other authors had used the title. One of those is so prominent that she would completely overshadow my work in the algorithm.

The final impetus for getting it out to readers NOW is that there is political turmoil in this region of the continent and history suggests that we need to be ready for anything. I thought that if we had to leave suddenly, or I was 'taken' suddenly, or if something happened to my equipment. . .I would grieve deeply that my procrastination, (or waiting for the 'right' time,) had prevented me from sharing this story with others.

I decided to go ahead and do whatever it took to get it published.

I found a new editing tool. Then I found a tool for formatting it. All the technical details were far easier than with previous projects. It fit into the time I had available. I feel truly blessed.

After years of debating, I settled on The Unsigned Masterpiece. It actually suits it better than the simpler version.

It's a story of coming to Christ. It seems like an appropriate story to release while I'm a missionary.

So here it is with a SUPER simple cover and simple name.

I think you'll understand why I care so much about this story.

If you've read this far, you probably will be willing to write a review when you've finished reading it. I truly hope you love it!