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    How My Book Became a Movie: A True Story
    How My Book Became a Movie: A True Story
    How My Book Became a Movie: A True Story
    Ebook108 pages1 hour

    How My Book Became a Movie: A True Story

    By Robin Jones Gunn

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    About this ebook

    I vividly remember the day my agent called and said,
    "A film producer would like to turn your book into a Hallmark Movie."
    To be honest, I thought it would never happen.
    But it did!

    It was a roller coaster experience that took many years of grueling rewrites, waiting for approvals, praying, trusting, meeting with producers and releasing creative control of the original story.

    Finally the day came when I got on a plane and flew three thousand miles to be on set. I was ushered to a director's chair and given a headset with my name on it. I saw the familiar actors take their marks. I heard the director call out, "Action!" and that was the moment I knew that dreams can come true.

    For over a decade I recorded the process in my journal. I drew upon those notes as I compiled this personal account. Never did I expect to be so challenged and humbled as my book went from story idea to publication to film production and became a Christmas movie for the Hallmark Channel titled: "Finding Father Christmas"

    For anyone who has ever thought their dream was impossible, this book will renew your hope and inspire you to trust God in new ways.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateAug 22, 2016
    ISBN9781942704102
    How My Book Became a Movie: A True Story
    Author

    Robin Jones Gunn

    Over the past 25 years Robin has written 82 books with almost 4.5 million copies sold worldwide. To her great delight, Robin’s books are doing exactly what she always hoped to do – they are traveling around the world and telling people about God’s love. She is doing the same. Over the past ten years Robin has been invited to speak at events around the US and Canada as well as in South America, Africa, Europe and Australia. Robin and her husband have two grown children and have been married for 35 years. They live in Hawaii where she continues to write and speak.    

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      Book preview

      How My Book Became a Movie - Robin Jones Gunn

      Glow

      Chapter 1

      Pay Attention

      Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.

      Emily Dickinson

      I would like to tell you a story.

      It is the true story of how my books became a Hallmark Christmas movie.

      If you are a dreamer, you will recognize the unspoken wishes and the parched silences that accompany a fledgling dream. A dream that takes a long time to come true. You’ll feel the familiar sense of hope that rises when promising news comes at just the right time.

      If you’re a serious novelist on the hunt for insider tips on how to break into the biz, I’ll be sprinkling throughout the story lessons I learned along the way. But mostly you’ll find on these pages something none of us gets enough of—encouragement and inspiration.

      This little book might even dare you to dream again.

      The first little seed of my adventure blew my way on a hot July afternoon. I was at a bookseller trade show and had just finished a book signing. I was schlepping a tote bag full of books when the toe of my shoe caught on the collapsing step of the escalator.

      I managed to catch myself from falling, but on my awkward dismount, the bag over my shoulder was flung forward. Books, wallet, phone, pens, and business cards all sprawled across the floor at the hub of the convention center.

      I gathered up the pieces quickly because important people were scurrying by on their way to their next appointments. One person stopped long enough to help scoop up the remaining two books and hand them to me.

      He was an editor I’d met several years earlier at a writer’s retreat on the Oregon coast. He remembered my name and I remembered his. We greeted each other and I laughed with the sort of half-snorting chuckle that comes out when you’re so embarrassed the only thing you can do is be the first one to make fun of yourself.

      He asked what I was writing these days. I handed back to him one of the crumpled teen novels he’d just rescued.

      He studied the cover and seemed to be trying to think of who he might pass the book on to and said, Have you ever thought about writing a Christmas novella?

      I said yes because I truthfully had thought about such a project several times. More than that, I knew it’s always good to open every door, as Emily Dickinson said. Especially when talking to a book editor at a trade show.

      Who’s your agent?

      I told him and he nodded. I’ll give her a call. Off he went to his next appointment.

      There it was. The first seed of a small dream planted in a ninety-second divine encounter.

      Over the decades that I’ve been writing, I’ve attended dozens of trade shows, conferences, and writer’s retreats. My favorites have always been the International Christian Retail Show and library conventions. At the Frankfurt Book Fair one year, I connected with an influential international writer. She had a profound influence on what I wrote and the way I wrote for the decade following our simple meeting at an afternoon tea. When I attended the Las Vegas Licensing Expo at the invitation of friend in marketing, I gained an eye-opening understanding of how ancillary products connect with books and movies.

      The greatest takeaway from these various trade shows has always been from the conversations. Writers, publishers, editors, and agents need times and places where we can interact with others in the industry. You never know who you’ll bump into or what ideas might come to you as a result of a simple conversation.

      My agent and I met for dinner the night of my escalator encounter. She grinned as she said, So, I heard you want to write a Christmas novella.

      Word travels fast.

      It does when an editor is on the lookout for something particular. He seemed pretty interested.

      What did you tell him?

      I told him I think you could write a delightful Christmas story.

      My agent is always the epitome of grace and affirmation. She is also very practical, which is a good thing when you’re an artistic, intuitive, squishy-hearted-feely type.

      The challenge, she said. Is going to be in fitting a project like this into your current schedule. You wouldn’t be able to start writing it until a year from now, and it wouldn’t be released until two years from now.

      That’s okay. I’d like to do this.

      I was beginning to have a feeling about this project. I didn’t know if the editor would still remember the conversation a week from now. I didn’t know what the book would be about. I didn’t know how it would fit into my current writing schedule.

      What I did know was that there are no coincidences in God’s schedule.

      All I could do was wait and see if my agent was able to secure a contract with the publisher. That would be the first step.

      Nothing is trivial; since the human soul, with its awful shadow, makes all things sacred.

      Harriet Beecher Stowe

      Chapter 2

      Ask for the Moon

      "Twenty years from now you will be

      more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did.

      So throw off the bowlines.

      Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.

      Explore. Dream. Discover."

      Attributed to Mark Twain

      As soon as I got home from the publishing trade show, I set aside some time to dream about the Christmas novella. My pattern before starting a new book is always to sit down with my journal and Bible. I write out a prayer, dedicating the new book to God and asking for His wisdom and direction as the storyline comes together.

      I often ask God for a verse that will become the banner over the story. That day I was on the hunt for a verse that kept rolling around in my head. It was a line from Handel’s Messiah. I found it in Isaiah, chapter 9: And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

      I’d always loved that passage. I read it again in The Message

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