(Laurence O’Bryan, international suspense writer of note, asked me to write a guest blog for his website, http://bit.ly/12mQSW1. Flattered as I can be, I share it with you now.)

Last fall, less than seventy-two hours after returning from a writers’ conference accosting acquisitions editors, a Big Six Imprint asked for my first manuscript. Things then slowed considerably when they deemed my heroine “too atypical.” A very fine literary agent now shops the three-book proposal everywhere.

I am a patient woman.

When Laurence graciously asked for a guest blog about this writing adventure (which began with a journalism degree in the eighties, and was honed in marketing and advertising for twenty-five years), I thought immediately of the social media challenge. Writers I know tend to be hermits like myself, so tossing a private soul to public wolves is intimidating and puzzling. What to do?

My epiphany occurred when I realized I was no longer me, but rather the product. I instituted the demographic grinder: who is my market? What are they interested in reading? What are they buying? The NYTimes bestseller list is a good place to begin research, and the recent-release shelf of your local bookstore depicts what publishers are buying. (If you’re not using a professional facebook page, you’re missing a demographic bonanza; the reports are invaluable.)

I questioned my “product.” What is its competitive point of difference? How does it nest uniquely in the marketplace? How can I position it in the best, most engaging light? To answer these, I had to know market and genre, study competition, and analyze accomplishments and topic. Gone are the days when authors are Hemingway catching a marlin with one hand while writing The Old Man and the Sea with the other. Today’s authors have to be aware, educated, and savvy. Businesspeople.

Then I analyzed data and budgeted. What could I do—copy and design—and what did I need to contract? I fearlessly created facebook and twitter pages, and my original website (now being redesigned as my persona evolves). Fortunately, I’m a prolific (if untalented) photographer, so photos colorfully enhanced the initial platform that professionals now take to the next level. I sought input from the most qualified, talented people I could afford.

And I write. Two manuscripts are complete: first professionally edited, second scheduled for edit in July. I’ll finish the third by year’s end. A fourth and fifth lurk in my mind’s dark recesses. Meanwhile, manuscripts and persona mature simultaneously, creating the professional author’s image publishers seek.

I am an optimistic woman.

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During Lent (the 46-day season preceding Easter on the Orthodox Christian calendar), churches worldwide recount Christ’s death, Herod’s complacency, Peter’s betrayal, and finally, Christ’s resurrection. I’d say this powerful theology is the cornerstone of my faith.

But did you hear a sermon on the first person to recognize the risen Christ? It wasn’t the local priest or pharisee. Not the youth minister sporting a well-trimmed soul patch. Nor the local magistrate rescinding the death certificate, or paparazzi wanting to make a quick mosaic. According to Luke (my favorite), Mark, and Matthew, Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene — a woman and prostitute, no less — and her friends. John wrote she didn’t recognize Christ (while confirming she was first), and Paul (an easy target for misogyny) told in Corinthians He appeared to Cephas, then Peter.

And here’s a shocker: the women were on their way to the tomb to render service. You know, like the thankless jobs (nursery work and bake sales) they do to keep today’s church running smoothly. Mary Magdalene came to the tomb to anoint Christ’s body with spices, delaying its putrification.

Women were second-class citizens in those times, unable even to testify in court. And yet Christ, whose every move, breath, and thought was significant, chose to appear to them — to us, to you, to me — because His messages are unlimited by gender, race, and creed.

As I’ve written before, Christian women are part of an unbreakable chain anchored to the very foundation of our faith. Our links include Eve (BTW, Adam was standing next to her, mute, in the garden — check the verses in Hebrew); Miriam (Moses’ sister, the prophet); Deborah (Old Testament judge, warrior, and advisor to kings); Dorcas (church-builder); Junia (disciple whose feminine name scholars now believe was changed to the masculine, Junius); and the disciple Phillip’s four daughters (prophets all).

Claim your heritage! Educate your daughters. Hold your pastor accountable for preaching inclusively when supported by Biblical data. And live vigorously and joyfully as representatives of Christ, daughters of God.

Christ is risen! Hallelujah!

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It really was a research trip: the Amazon River, Machu Picchu, Cusco. Along the way, I caught piranha in the Amazon. Tiny, deadly fish that struck aggressively, baring razor-like teeth before hitting the boat in a Napoleonic frenzy. No skill was involved except preventing the snarky devils’ interaction with a body part.

But how can a fly fisherman go to South America and skip Patagonia’s fine rivers? I was Chile-bound with my wading pants in my carry-on.

He was the last fish of the trip. I was tired, having caught and released eight Chinooks in two days. They fought savagely, and I used traditional lures instead of fluffy flies requiring stripping or spey-cast swinging. I’m a committed fish releaser, hoping to catch every one repeatedly as they grow stronger, propagating the species with each seasonal cycle.

But when I hooked El Guapo—which means Pretty Face, which he lacked—I knew he was the size of a minivan. After twenty minutes of slow dancing in a pump-and-reel two step punctuated by long runs and steady head shakes (both his and mine), I slid him to the bank with shaking arms. The mighty beast had swum many seasons from the Pacific ocean less than three miles downriver.

El Guapo the Chinook: 44 inches, 58/59 pounds

Winter in Patagonia hits hard. Employment is still seasonal for many, requiring larder stocking for snowy, blustery months ahead. El Guapo would feed families, the guide assured me, as a welcome addition to many freezers. So we returned to the States with only memories of the fight—a few photos of one of less than a dozen fish kept in twenty years of sport fishing.

El Guapo, I salute you. May you fill a dozen empty bellies, and may your children live long lives.

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I’m a Loomis GLX kind of girl. Add WonderLine and a Lamson reel, my favorite guide Mitch and a few clouds so I can toss double dries at the bank, and I can catch almost anything with fins. (True confession: I was one of only twelve who qualified for the IGFA World Championship a few years ago. Yes. You can salute now.)

But I pale in comparison to the Amazon angler. Our cruise included a fishing expedition down arguably the world’s longest river. A river full of critters (red-bellied piranha and alligator-like caiman come to mind) I really don’t want to catch. (Don’t forget the parasitic toothpick fish, the candiru, but I’ll spare you details.)

Mr. Wonderful, ever accomodating my sporting addiction, bravely offered to accompany me on an angling expedition. For the first time in twenty-six years, I declined.

I simply am not an Amazonian angler. I catch-and-release, something regarded as stupid in a region where every netting fills a belly. I rubberneck, watching elk and deer, golden and bald eagles, ermine and fox in a landscape I know well, and am unaccustomed to things that could eat me in a nanosecond. How poorly would I fish distracted by monkeys and parrots, wondering if the next splash was a flying frog (like the blue poison dart) or aggressive anaconda?

And really, I don’t have the figure for Amazonian angling adventure. A loincloth? No. Give me Simms’ wading pants and good, solid, cleated boots. How am I supposed to see a #22 midge through mosquito net? What if a pirahna eats my hopper? When the electric eel takes my fly, my Tupi vocabulary doesn’t include colorful profanity.

No. I’m sitting on the boat as you read, sipping an iced tea under the sun canopy, watching one of our globe’s most remarkable and least-explored worlds float by. I’ll save my “Fish on!” for the Arkansas River caddis hatch next month, and live to fish another day.

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I’m in Peru, touring sacred sites before cruising the Amazon while the cat sitter deals with our “puma” in the States. (Good luck with that.)

A month before I left, our paper announced the visit of a Q’ero shaman (also known as medicine man or elder) from a village 17,000 feet high in the Peruvian Andes. Q’ero descend from Incas, segregated from the world an arduous two-day bus and foot journey from Cusco. His evening presentation and full-day workshop were perfect for experiencing research for the third manuscript.

Q’ero Pasqual Apasa Flores (phonetic) was dressed like the photo’s suede-hatted men, with chu’llu hat and poncho. His head reached below my sternum; he was the size of an eight-year-old child. Obsidian eyes lacked discernible pupils, the whites putty-colored. An Incan hooked nose, symbol of royalty, dominated a face that seldom smiled. His gentle nature was apparent, and I witnessed his performance of a Ban of Protection and Healer Rite. Throughout my observance of shamanic ritual, he shared his peoples’ culture and terminology. Mother earth is Pachamama.

I am Christian. Overtly so, with a graduate degree from a well-respected seminary. However, my belief doesn’t prevent me from learning about others’, like seminary’s Hebrew Religion in its Ancient Near Eastern Context class. More than one raised eyebrow greeted my plans to attend Pasquale’s presentation, and more than once during my time with him I reminded myself the Holy Spirit indwells me.

I didn’t change Q’ero Pasquale’s life, nor he mine. But because I took the time to learn, I’m travelling Peru with a different understanding of what I see, like Paul speaking from Athen’s Mars Hill. The apostle tailored his message to the Athenians, noting their worship of and statue to an unknown god before sashaying right into YHWH God as source of everything — uncontainable. Paul was an informed Christian, one who met his listeners where they stood.

I aspire to travel as wisely as Paul.

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