Signing the contract
When I typed The End last night, I began to shake.
Finished, done, completed–at least the rough draft.
I sat back in my computer chair, put my hands to my face and sobbed.
While a writer is like God as she writes her book, plans her story, incorporates facts, and hunts for words, this writer doesn’t always feel like God.
Certainly as a biographer, I’ve been more in control of Biddy Chambers’ life story than I have with some of my novels, but not exactly.
Just the facts
I’ve had the facts for a year, ever since a week-long trip to Wheaton College‘s Special Collections Library when I scanned documents from their Oswald Chambers collection.
Indeed, I stood at a desk and scanned for five straight days.
I scanned so much that my scanner died on day two. I gasped. Was this the end of my ability to research?
I had to buy a new scanner.
(Total miracle–I, the inept woman who struggles with all the appliances in her house– was able to download the driver and get the new scanner to work!)
OC and Biddy; Wheaton Special Collections
(Okay, I admit, I started crying in helpless fury at one point and a German researcher stood up to help–but then it worked!)
I brought everything home and then I read it and learned about the woman I proposed to write about.
Oh, my. Biddy was far more complex and her story even more thrilling than I realized when I began.
Her life lay before me and I saw exactly where this one would go and how rich a life she led.
I just had to write it.
Except, there’s all this other stuff
When David McCasland wrote Oswald Chambers’ definitive biography, Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God in the 1990s, he spent several years researching.
He interviewed people who had known OC (as we affectionately call him around here) and Biddy, as well as their only child, 80-or-so-year-old Kathleen Chambers.
Ever generous, McCasland left all his research at Wheaton, which is what I searched for in the summer of 2015.
With one small exception, no one else has written much in the interim and no one knew anything about Biddy.
I began with a question: Who was this woman who pulled off such an amazing feat–to compile, edi,t and publish 31.5 books with OC’s name as author after his 1917 death?
Genealogy steps in
As a genealogist, I started in the logical spot: I did a full genealogical workup of her family.
Oh, my.
Kathleen had much of it wrong.
Or, if not wrong, inconclusive. I visited a lot of rabbit trails.
But along the way, I became an expert on Biddy Chambers’ ancestors.
I know their names, some of their proclivities, their fears and I was surprised by who they were.
And Google
Google, again, got tired of me as I mercilessly poured through old documents, weather forecasts, cyber-moldering books and odd factoids.
I give up. I have no idea how many searches I initiated with those guys from Silicon Valley.
They were polite, but they’re glad I’m done.
(Ha! Who believes that?)
McCasland didn’t have search engines a general ago; I discovered much he simply couldn’t have found.
Wow.
Me, an expert?
Biddy circa 1935; Wheaton Special Collections Library
I’ve written before about the surprise of discovering I’m an expert. I hadn’t expected that.
But ask me anything, domestic, about Oswald Chambers or Biddy and I probably know the answer.
As a result, the two became real to me–and my family and some of my long-suffering friends.
(Do I still have friends?)
I now “pull a Biddy” when I decide to believe something about God that doesn’t make sense or when I choose to have faith.
Even my husband, a true OC fan, was wearied of hearing about his opinion, “the good is often the enemy of the best” when we house-hunted three years ago.
We speak of them in shorthand now and discuss them as often as we tell family stories.
They’ve become part of our life.
And that’s why “the end,” hit me so hard.
How can this be the end?
It’s not, of course. I have months of work ahead of me to clean up the writing, make sure I got all the stories inserted, and work with the publishing process.
But the sweetness of it being just me and the Chambers family, deciphering what is important to tell and what is superfluous, has come to an end.
The story is done, it’s just editing now and I’ll miss the fun of learning something new about them every time I . . . google . . .
Of course, like Biddy did for 49 years after her husband’s death, I’ll live with OC’s words each day at www.utmost.com.
They’re Biddy’s words, too, because she put them together.
And I’ll always love her for it.
I’ll be writing more and in far greater detail the rest of 2016 and all of 2017.
Mrs. Oswald Chambers–Biddy’s life but also a story of Oswald Chambers’ domestic life and how that translated into their personal Christian walk–will be published by Baker Books in the fall of 2017.
Watch for more information here on my website, or sign up for my periodic newsletter here (this month it will feature OC and Biddy’s love story)
You’ll forgive me–I think I need to cry a little more
Tweetables
An author’s tears, Mrs Oswald Chambers, and the words “the end.” Click to Tweet
How does the biographer say goodbye to Oswald and Biddy Chambers? Click to Tweet
Mr and Mrs Oswald Chambers–just starting to tell their story. Click to Tweet
What an adventure! Congratulations on finishing. Whew!
I’m curious, what was the intrigue that made you want to tell Biddy’s story, that grabbed your interest in the first place?
I wrote a WWI novel in which Oswald Chambers was a marquee character. And with Oswald, came Biddy. The more I researched–to get him right–the more I was drawn to Biddy.
And then, of course, she took over and became part of two major turning points in the story!
Wiley woman, that one. The more I thought about her and her life, the more intrigued I became and then I learned a few more facts that made me realize she was a far more interesting and complex woman than I had imagined–plus, without her, there would be no My Utmost for His Highest, not to mention the other 30 books.
Once I get this one pretty much set, I’m going to write a lengthy story about all the ways God led me to write about the Chambers duo through both A Poppy in Remembrance and Mrs. Oswald Chambers. I have been led in amazing and gratifying ways. Some of my Oswald Chambers posts (listed on the Oswald and Biddy Chambers tag) tell the stories.
Thanks for asking!
I’ll send some kleenex FedEx overnight. So looking forward to meeting Biddy!
It’s funny – I’m the least emotional person you would ever want to meet (a slight upturn of the corners of my mouth is riotous laughter), but I did feel a sense of loss at the conclusion of each novel I’ve written.
The characters would go about their own lives, no doubt, but without me, and that somehow seemed wrong.
Which is why there is a sequel to BPH in the works.
When we sat out on a porch overlooking the Bay this past Spring and you talked about Biddy, I could hear it in your voice and see it in your expressions. She was “family” now. She was a friend… Well done.
I very much look forward to reading Mrs. Oswald Chambers! I’ve enjoyed reading all your posts about the Chambers.