The Process of Writing Gone in a Heartbeat

On February 28th & 29th, we were on "The Daily Broadcast" with Dr. Dobson and the Murray family. Shortly thereafter, John Fuller gave me (David) a call and asked if he could put us in touch with their book department. It was one of those conversations I was glad was over the phone rather than in person as I was rolling my eyes during the call. I had no intention of writing a book about my daughters or our experience. I was gracious when the book department called and I heard them out. I promised to pray about it but my mind was pretty well made up.

A day or so later, I felt as it were, someone tapping me on the shoulder and saying, "I gave you this platform for a reason and I expect you to use it." It wasn't as mean sounding as that may appear. Just direct. At that time I had no idea that the word "platform" had any special meaning in book publishing. However, the word did draw me back to the letter we had received (mentioned in the book) from our dear friend, Ben Schertel.

"Massive opportunity stands before you. You have the attention of the nation. . . . Be bold. Be strong. . . . Do not be silent."

"Oh, this is You! Well, ok then. That makes all the difference," I figured out.

We enlisted the services of one of the best agents in the business, Greg Johnson of WordServe Literary in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, a southern suburb of Denver. Working with Focus on the Family, we came up with a suitable contract and a fantastic collaborator, Dean Merrill, who lives right here in Colorado Springs. We had earlier read Gracia Burnham's book, "In the Shadow of My Enemies" which Dean had also worked on. The entire team turned out to be heaven sent.

The actual process was very straightforward. We spent hours talking into Dean's recorder, answering questions, telling our entire life story it seemed. We ran into a problem immediately. In the book, we talk about our experience at the 5th month when grief came around even stronger. This was triggered by a visit to our former apartment and realizing that "something really bad happened." We actually started the book during this season. So, when it came time to start editing the chapters that came out of that time, we had a lot of work to get the tone up out of the dumps we were in. This also included chapter 5 & 6 ("One Snowy Sunday" & "Hanging By a Thread") which detailed the events of December 9th. This was a lot of very hard work and emotionally very trying. It is tough enough to have lived through it, but to have to go over it and over it. Well, it was hard.

But the entire process was also very helpful to us. We weren't really sure we could pull this off emotionally. But as we worked through it, we discovered that it became a part of our healing process. It became just as therapeutic as our weekly counseling sessions have been. Yes, we had to face a lot of issues - the events of December 9th, the girls's journals, and our own shortcomings and mistakes as parents. However, we made the decision right at the beginning that we would be as transparent as propriety and our own ability allowed. We didn't want to come across as some super spiritual or holy bunch of people. We're not. We are as normal as anyone else. But we believe in an incredible God and He brought us through some impossible things. It seems to us that story is worth telling.