FAQ's

How do you get your ideas?

What is your writing schedule like?

What has your writing journey been like?

What advice do you have for someone who might be thinking about writing?

Can you help me get published?

How do you get your ideas?

Ideas come from everywhere and from as diverse a range as you can imagine: from dreams and the evening news. From eavesdropped conversations or something a friend might say. But I think most of my ideas, at least for historicals, come from history itself. I love to read about other times and places and so often something comes up that begs me to ask, "What if?" and a story is born.

What is your writing schedule like?

I'm a morning person so I'm up early. I'm ready for the day well before needing to get my boys up and off to school. As soon as they're out the door, I'm at the computer. I usually work four or five hours and before I know it my oldest son is back home.

Because he has Fragile X Syndrome, (a genetic form of mental retardation) he needs a bit more attention so my writing day is pretty much over when he's home—at least the outwardly productive part of writing. I will say that some of my most creative moments have come in the car or right before I nod off at night. I'd say if I'm not actually writing, I'm thinking about it most of the time.

What has your writing journey been like?

I'm never sure if I should be proud or embarrassed to admit I've been writing nearly all my life. After all, a lifetime of doing something—anything—should have evidence of it oozing out all over the place, right? And here I am, well into middle age and my writing hasn't gone beyond my own front door in years.

Like most writers, I was an avid reader first. This first manifested itself when I discovered the Nancy Drew series back in grade school. I had a few volumes of my own, but I had a friend who had the entire collection shelved in her bedroom. I would ride my bike over to Kathleen's house once a week and borrow two at a time.

The next stage of my writing came one summer—I think between fifth and sixth grade. I went to a neighbor's garage sale and discovered quite a selection of the old (sweet) Harlequin Americans, each book marked ten cents. I purchased one and read it that same day—and loved it. It captured pure romance in its one-hundred-seventy pages or so, where boy meets girl, loves girl but can't have girl for one reason or another. But of course there was a happy ending. I was hooked. I went back to the same garage sale the next day and bought as many ten-cent books as I could afford. That, truly, was the beginning of my writing life because suddenly I wanted to write my own.

And so I did. I continued to write and in my early twenties I entered one of my manuscripts in Romance Writer's of America's Golden Heart Contest. Just before I left for the National RWA Conference I received a contract from a New York Publisher wanting to purchase my book.

Needless to say I was thrilled. But the ride wasn't over yet. At the RWA Conference I learned my entry was the winner of the Golden Heart Award for Best Historical.

And so I was a "real" writer. I saw my first book published then I sold a couple more. But shortly after I finished my fourth, my life took a turn. Sadly, I went through a divorce and I entered the busy life of single parenthood.

On my own for the first time, my writing time evaporated in a hectic schedule. I also did some serious re-evaluating. I'd turned my back on the faith I discovered as a child and this was a time to look at what life was really all about. God led me to a wonderful church where I felt instantly at home, and I soon gave my life back to my Creator the Lord Jesus Christ.

But with that came the unavoidable truth: the kind of writing I'd done so far was chaff, without eternal value. So I withdrew my fourth novel from my agent and we parted on friendly terms. I didn't know it at the time, but it would be fifteen years before I became serious about writing again. Not because God wanted me to stop writing, but because redirecting my writing to a new (and at the time barely existing) Christian fiction market demanded more time than I had back then.

Eventually I met a man who was everything I'd written about in my romances, but also with a strong faith and the ability to inspire me to be a better person. We were a well blended family, my husband, my daughter and I, happily adjusting to a new life. Settled, I considered writing again, but frankly life was just too good to want to escape into fiction. I was also still quite busy, since we had our first son about a year after our wedding and both my husband and I wanted another. When our son was a few months old we were ecstatic to learn our dream of another child was about to come true. Life was as near perfect as this side of Heaven has to offer.

But no stage of life lasts forever. At the end of the first trimester we lost the baby I was carrying due to a miscarriage. My husband and I look forward to the day we'll meet that precious little one in Heaven.

After a time of healing, we tried again and were blessed with another pregnancy. But I was only a couple of months along when we learned our first son has Fragile X Syndrome, a genetic form of mental retardation. Because I was the carrier, any child I conceived was subject to a 50/50 chance of inheriting my affected X. That meant not only was the new baby also at risk of being mentally retarded, my oldest child, my daughter, while obviously not mentally impaired, might have been a carrier. We wondered if our family's line would end with this next generation.

Now I was too devastated to write, but as I said—no stage of life lasts forever. We had my daughter tested immediately and were relieved to learn she had received my "normal" X and therefore was not even a carrier. Our third child was born seven months after the diagnosis, the longest seven months of my life. Despite the stress of not knowing if he would be okay, he was born on time and weighing in at an incredible 10 lbs 6 oz—also totally free of the Fragile X gene. We were indeed blessed.

Soon healing began again and I wanted to write. Words came like a gift from God, so easily I knew He was beside me, affirming me. In three months I wrote one hundred and fifty thousand words, and anyone familiar with writing knows that's an incredible volume. (Okay, so it needed some cutting, but that's another story.) The wonderful part is that I sensed God's presence more clearly than ever. I knew I was doing exactly what He'd wired me to do, and I've been doing it ever since. It's been over five years since the Lord brought me back to writing and even though there have been ups and downs on this rough road back to publication, there's never been a doubt that this is what He wants me to do.

Shortly after getting back to writing, I joined American Christian Romance Writers, which is now American Christian Fiction Writers. It's a group of Christian authors who are unselfishly dedicated to supporting other writers. I entered the Noble Theme Contest (now the Genesis) for unpublished authors (it had been so many years since I'd been published, I qualified) and was happy to learn my entry into the Women's Fiction category took first place. That was Pieces of Silver, which I sold to Kregel Publications a couple of years later.

By the way, I sold my Inspirational through a contact I made at the Write To Publish conference. A couple of years later, I also met my agent, Greg Johnson, (WordServe Literary) at the ACFW conference. So if you hear me touting writer's conferences, it's because it worked for me and I've seen it work for others, too.

I continue to work on other projects every moment I can. Being a writer is a job, but when doing what we're wired to do, it sure doesn't feel like work. I think that's how Heaven will be; we'll have assignments up there we can't wait to tackle.

What advice do you have for someone who might be thinking about writing?

The first thing you'll have to ask yourself is if your desire to write will be satisfied if it's a hobby or do you want to pursue publication? There's nothing wrong with either option but it's good to identify your goal. If you decide publication is for you, be aware that it's going to be harder, take longer, and not be the answer to every problem in your life. In fact, it'll bring new problems of its own. But?it's possible.

Some might tell you to just sit down and write. If God has put a story on your heart you should tell it. In an ideal world, this might be the exact way we'd go about doing this. And maybe there is some merit to such advice. Certainly whatever story you write will be fresh and unique, not a cookie-cutter, formulaic one that fits nicely into a specific genre.

This leads back to asking yourself why you want to write: because you have one special story to tell, or because the notion of writing in general fascinates and excites you? If your answer is that writing excites you (and you want to take it up as more than a hobby), consider commercial fiction. Pick a genre you love to read: romance, mystery, sci-fi, chick-lit, etc.. Genre books have a built-in audience just waiting for a new author to love and aren't as hard to sell as single-title, issue books, or fictionalized memoirs that don't fit a category or have a spot booksellers can easily place your book.

But to write a book that fits into a genre, you must first study the market.

I started my writing education in grade school and it's still going on. Not formal education although if you count the hours of research I've done, the number of conferences I've attended, the critique sessions I've participated in and endured, I should have some kind of degree to show for it. I'm sure Creative Writing courses are helpful in the mechanics of writing and those must be mastered, especially today when the market is so competitive. But a lot of practical learning comes with reading successful novels.

Another helpful aspect is to join a critique group and listen to the criticism. Not only those critiques directed at your work, but for others as well. See what's working and what isn't and replicate the good in your own project.

Once you've been writing for a while, find a small network of supportive writing friends who will give you honest and learned criticism on your completed project, not just the bits and pieces you can bring to larger critique groups. Asking your mother to read your work might feel good (depending on your relationship, of course) but unless your mother is a writer with a writer's eye, all she's going to see is her precious baby's hard work and probably not be very objective. Even if she thinks it stinks she might only tell you what she likes. My point? Go outside your circle of family and friends if you want to improve your writing.

Keep in mind that when you try breaking into print, you won't be competing with the established, big name authors. You're competing with the best of the others trying to get in, so try and read new authors. See what editors are looking for and buying today. That'll give you a better clue as to the competition that's out there in your market and believe me, it's stiff.

Check my page for Writers to see further tips. And get to work!

Can you help me get published?

I wish authors had that much power, but we don't. Unfortunately, my answer here will be similar to what doctors tell dieters: eat right and exercise. In other words, work hard and wait for results. I'll readily admit this is advice we don't want to hear. In both dieting and writing we want the fast track to the fruition of our goals.

The best thing you can do is get serious about writing. Claim a spot in your home for your new endeavor and devote regular time and energy to it. As I mentioned above, study the craft. Attend writer's conferences and establish a network of your own by joining or creating a face-to-face critique group, and/or join an online writer's group. Ask at your local community college or library to see if there are any writer's groups already established in your area.

After you've written a while, take your first plunge into those icy waters of the publishing pool: start sending things out and get that first rejection behind you. When I was a freshman in high school I took a Creative Writing course. One of the assignments was to submit something to a real, live publisher: a book proposal, a poem, an article—the choice was ours. The teacher's goal was to get that first rejection behind us. All of us did and lived to tell about it.

And one last thing. Know that this is the most important time in your writing life: you're growing toward this goal. Once you stop growing, talent often stalls out and writing becomes work . Before you know it, nobody's enjoying your writing any more. Not you, not your editor and certainly not your reader. Readers only keep buying your books because they hope you'll get back some of that old ?magic? they fell in love with in your earlier projects. But let me tell you, that unknown quality that makes a story exciting for both the writer and the reader is more likely found when you're hungry for your goal. Maybe some of that doctor's advice to the dieter would be appropriate here, too: let yourself get hungry.