years, I The thing I get asked most often when people I meet learn that I’m an author is when I first started writing. The answer is pretty complex, because it feels like I always wrote and before I had formal reading skills, I told stories, was surrounded by stories and loved stories. Growing up with stories shaped who I am today.
Growing an Author
As a child, I grew up visiting my family in West Virginia in the Appalachian Mountains. The oral storytelling and musical traditions of my people were rich and wove a tapestry filled with conflict and resolution. The stories were true tales with added embellishments to make them more exciting.
The stories in my life didn’t stop there, though. My dad would tale me funny tales about a lovable giraffe at bedtime. He’d read me words out of Reader’s Digest and we’d have little quizzes, building my love of the language even more.
It was in first grade, when Mrs. Young taught the class to read that the world opened to me. I began reading almost all the time and writing my own stories for fun.
The Lightbulb Moment
I always kept a journal, wrote a few round robin stories with friends through high school and started a few books. It wasn’t until college that I took a journalism class as an elective that I realized you could get paid to write. I’d always looked to fiction, but the professor had us write an article and submit it to a newspaper of our choice.
I approached a man in our small town who owned exotic animals. I would see them on his farm as I drove past every day–alpacas, camels, zebras… With my class assignment in mind and my love of God’s creatures, I did something that probably wouldn’t be very safe today and just drove on up to his house and knocked on the door one day. I explained what I was working on and asked if he would let me interview him and I was submitting to the local paper but it might not be published.
He was the most helpful and kind man. Not only did he give me an interview, but he had a friend with even more exotic pets on the other side of town. The man turned out to be none other than “Skunk” Irving, owner of Irving Materials (the concrete company).
I wrote the article, got an A and submitted it to the local free weekly reader. I kind of forgot about it after that with the hustle and bustle of young married life, working 30 hours a week and going to school full-time.
Wait! You Can Get Paid for This?
About a week later, my home phone rang. We had cell phones back then but minutes were expensive and you used them mainly for an emergency. The call was from the free weekly paper. They wanted to “buy” my story and they planned to put it on the front page.
I still remember feeling as though the room swirled. I could get paid to write? They were going to PAY me? How many more stories could I write? Is this something I could do to make money? I’d tried everything and I mean everything at this point, something I’ve discovered since that many writers do for some odd reason before settling into writing. Maybe we need the info for jobs for our characters or something?
Absorbing Information
I began reading everything I could about how to submit articles, writing query letters and about writing the romance novels I loved. Throughout the next few constantly pitched ideas to magazines.
I began writing as a stringer for the paid daily newspaper in my town. The editor slashed my work ruthlessly, teaching me to write tight and within a very narrow word count down to the last character. He sent me on assignments and taught me investigative reporter skills.
I learned and learn some more.
Still a Born Writer
Fast forward to over 30 years later. I have no doubt God created me to be a writer. My purpose is to bring comfort, laughter and word of God’s love to the world. I might do other things to eat and pay bills, but I always come back to my stories.
If I can make a small difference in someone’s life with something I wrote, even if just teaching them a new perspective or a bit of information, then I consider my effort a success. Stay tuned for news about my next release coming in July.
The idea for Anna’s Fresh Start has been percolating for years. I design websites and I used to have an older client who wrote a book about an old war ship. He loved history and we would chat all the time about different wars. One day, we were talking about the Civil War and I remember there were female spies from something I’d read.
