Somebody emailed me yesterday asking about my writing journey, so guess what today's post is about. Yep. It's testimonial time, my writerly congregation. Get all comfy on your pew . . .
I started writing when I first discovered blank walls and Crayolas. My mom wasn't too happy about that. She wasn't too happy when I had imaginary conversations with Daniel Boone under the living room table, either, so she took me to the pediatrician to see what was wrong with me. He said I just have an overactive imagination. Yes! Score one for the fiction writer.
In junior high, while most hooligans were smoking cigarettes under the bleachers, I went to poetry camp and buried my nose in everything science fiction. Ray Bradbury was my best friend. Can anyone say geek?
In high school I finally found a friend . . . one who loved to write. So we wrote stories, back and forth, her writing one chapter to a cliffhanging ending, me writing the next.
Then I got married and had kids. End of writerly story. For years. Kids have a way of sucking the ever-loving life out of your bones. I lived in survival mode until they were older, and then I ran away from home. One night a week, that is. I ran to the library at first and started writing my very first manuscript. I didn't have a clue about writing but it was fun to let my imagination off the leash.
I sent out that manuscript because I didn't know any better. I learned that I needed to distinguish between showing and telling. I also learned that if I sat at Panera instead of the library, I could eat chocolate chunk cookies and drink coffee. Double score!
So that's where I wrote my second manuscript, keeping in mind the ol' showing vs. telling rule that I'd since learned, and that story was called Gallimore. It's still for sale on Amazon and at Black Lyon Publishing. It's a small, independent publisher, but was a great way to dip my toes into the world of publishing because they take unsolicited manuscripts.
I kept up those weekly one night stands for my second book, A Heart Deceived. By then I'd started a blog. Yes, this one. Lo and behold, out of the blue, an editor for David C. Cook read a few posts and liked my style, and oh, by the way, did I have anything to submit? Yeah. We're talking miracle material here, folks. They bought it.
It'd taken me a year and a half to write the dang thing, though. I figured if I were going to make any money at this gig, I needed to up my game. I did, by writing 4 mornings a week. Brentwood's Ward took me 10 months. By then I had an agent. She helped shop it around, but it was really a face-to-face appointment at the ACFW Conference that scored the sale on that one.
And that same editor is the one who offered to buy the book I'm writing now, which will release next fall.
That's the shortened version. I left out all the gory bits because hey, we live in a violent enough world as is, right? The takeaway value from today's post isn't that you need to start talking to dead actors under the table to begin your writing journey. The point is that if I can do it, heck, anyone can. It just takes a LOT of time and the gumption to keep writing when you don't feel like it.
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