Every career begins somewhere. Some people change career paths after a time, and some change them drastically. I have held various jobs over the years: sales, market research, teaching. But my passion was always writing. I write mostly historical fiction novels these days, but I began by writing poetry.
My mother was a published poet. When she saw I liked to play with words (at age 5), she taught me about rhyme and meter. In third grade I wrote her a poem for Mother’s Day. I still remember a few lines of it. As a child I wrote lots of poems, but I didn’t save them. A few were published in my elementary school newspaper, but I didn’t save those papers either. Mom wrote a Christmas poem every year, and when I was 12 or so, she’d ask my opinion. What a confidence boost that was! One year, she asked me to write one of the verses. I do still have copies of all her poems to this day.
From Poems to Novels
I first tried writing a novel when I was 12. It was very short (not even long enough to count as a novella), but it was the first time I had thought about plot, character, and setting – I was hooked.
When I was a junior in high school, we had an assignment that lasted a full quarter of the school year. We had to write a sonnet, an essay, a research paper, a lyrical poem, a one-act play, a descriptive paragraph, a short story, a free verse poem, and several other forms of literature we had learned.
“You have the full quarter,” the teacher said. “Use it. I will know it if you try to write them all at the last minute.” I got the research paper out of the way first. I was accustomed to writing poetry and wrote many of them in one sitting, though I confess to saving a lot of it for the final weekend. Yet, I received an “A”. Poetry was my comfort zone, but I discovered how much I enjoyed writing stories.
My First Novels
As an adult, I finally wrote an actual novel and sent it to a publisher. It was quickly rejected, which was a jolt to my confidence. My writing zone became less comfortable.
However, I kept writing, I wrote a second novel, a third, a fourth, and so on. Nobody was interested in publishing any of them, but I wrote for my own enjoyment, and I kept trying. Giving up was not in my comfort zone. Eventually, I went to conferences and workshops to learn from those who had been published and from those who published them. Those experiences showed me how much I still needed to learn. A touch of talent and a heart filled with passion were not enough.
Though Rejected by Publishers, I Kept Writing
I joined critique groups and had others look at my work before I sent it to editors. A couple of my novels caught editors’ interest enough to ask for revisions, but in the end, more rejection came. Meanwhile, a few of my short stories won awards. Those helped me get past the rejection.
It wasn’t until I was working on my eleventh novel that an editor took a significant interest, and Like a River became my first published novel. I signed the contract for that book 39 years after I had first submitted a novel to a publisher. It had been a long wait, but well worth it. That novel won the 2015 Grateful American Book Prize. I was certainly glad I never gave up.
I have had three novels published, as well as several poems and a couple short stories. I still love to write. It’s that passion that keeps me going.
Looking Back
Recently, my friend Vicki sent me a copy of a poem I’d written when I was 11. Her husband went to the same elementary school I did, and he had saved some of those school newspapers that I hadn’t. Here is that poem:
As we come from the school doors daily,
All the birdies sing so gaily.
But soon to school we will not go,
For it’s almost June as we all know.
Instead of in school, we’ll be under the skies,
Slapping mosquitoes and hitting the flies.
So until next September, this I say,
“Have a happy vacation. May fun come your way.”
Definitely not a great poem, but I was 11. I had a long way to go, but everybody needs to begin somewhere.
