Ever since I was a little girl, I have wanted to write. I did try my hand at it many times, even submitting something when I was a pre-teen. Graciously, the company did not reply to my pencil scribbling. I have scads of poems saved somewhere in the house, and I cannot tell you the times I have allowed my imagination to direct me into acting the heroine of a television show. Yes, even way back then, I made up lines of fantasy.
After getting married, having a child of my own, I still kept that idea in the back of my head. Finally, I begin to get serious, I wrote fifteen pages of a medieval and then got sidetracked. When I started back, I changed sub-genres and turned out almost three chapters of a contemporary. Then I quit. Life interfered; I went back to school, lost my mother and nephew in the arms of death and just tried to get through one day at a time.
Around 1999, I took the plunge and bought a computer. I had no clue as to how to set it up. A fellow DJ at the station I worked with got me up and running on the internet. Worlds began to open up. I found ivillage.com, their reading and writing boards. From there, I was blessed to meet the talented owner of a newly founded review magazine. After that, I became a reviewer for Romantic Times and other publications.
I realized that if I was to ever be published, I had to get serious. I finished the medieval, entered a contest and NO, I didn't win, but I found I also didn't fall apart too badly when it came to rejection. A good thing, because I had several rejections before I entered the Behind The Garden Gate contest at The Wild Rose Press in 2007. I entered under my real name and the name I write under not my editorial name with them. Again, I did not win but was asked to resubmit with a new portal for the time travel. I was over the moon when they contracted Beware What You Wish in January of this year and which is now available at TWRP..
Still reeling from the shock, I found out the first of March, that my vampire tale, Kensington's Soul also had been contracted. The first of my vampire series is close to my heart. My husband, who I lost in 2006, helped me research some of the sights of Savannah where KS takes place. Although it took me several decades to realize my dream it did happen.
My words to anyone out there who is sure they will fail, is you can only fail if you don't try. A rejection can be so beneficial to getting your work up to snuff and when it does happen then it will be worth all the agony of first, second and several defeats.
Write from your heart and soul!
Faith
