Happy Belated National Author's Day in the USA! The actual date is November 1, but better late than never. :) To all the authors out there, past and present: I celebrate you. Thank you for writing the words on your heart and going through all the labor of producing books for others to read, whether for entertainment, information, encouragement, inspiration, enrichment, or any other worthy reason. You improve your readers' lives. When I think of all that I owe to authors, I can't even begin to imagine what my life would be like without their books. Especially the Book of all books, God's Word.
The Divine Author and countless human authors have guided me along the path my life is taking. I dared to write my own books because of their inspiration. Here is a condensed version of my author journey.
When I was learning to print, I wrote random capital letters all over the pages of a spiral notebook. I just liked the look of them. I couldn't spell, but in my mind they were telling some sort of story. When I could read and write for real, let's say starting around the age of six, I wrote simple stories, illustrated them, and made books. There was Relics the dog who saved her mean new owner from a bear; there was a family of rocks and minerals led by the father, Captain Corundum. (We were learning about this subject in our homeschooling, and I decided it was fascinating enough to merit a story. Either that or I felt it needed to be livened up by one.) There was a simple story about a treasure hunt where each page revealed a new step in uncovering the treasure. These led into chapter books like Lilly the Burmese cat who got lost in Maine (story idea directly stolen from a favorite book of mine, Princess by Carolyn Lane) and a mystery where the sleuths were a group of six girls ranging in age from 10 to 13. Neither of those stories ever got finished. Thanks to encouragement from some loving adults, I dreamed of becoming the youngest published author ever.
That didn't happen, and good thing it didn't. But at least I kept writing all through my teen years, studying how to write a novel as part of my English curriculum. My major story idea from my teen years never got finished either, but it's still with me as the story of my heart, so maybe I'll rewrite it and publish it someday. It's a kingdom fantasy adventure about two young men and two young women who go on a journey to save their people, so completely different from what I write nowadays, but who knows!
After high school graduation, all I wanted to do was write. It was a calling I yielded to God and felt led to pursue. I did some online classes, read how-to-write-fiction books, and learned about self-publishing. I published my first novel in 2013, Family Reunion, the first book in the Six Cousins series. It was such a scary step, but I had good encouragement and solid author friends, and from then on I was hooked. Since then, I've published six more books and a couple of short stories.
I've continued learning and became a freelance editor. In these ever-changing times, there is always much to learn in order to keep up in the publishing world, and I know I'll never “arrive." My writing has ebbed and flowed, but the Lord has continued to lead me to write stories, and my heart aches when I'm not actively working on a project. I always pray over my writing and hope that the Lord uses my books to bless their readers and point to Him.
If you are an author, what is your story? If you are a reader, what is your favorite author's story?
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