Updated: Aug 23, 2019
Being that this is my first post, I guess some kind of introductions are in order. I’m 57 years old; happily married (going on 30 years); I have four dogs and four cats; have four amazing children; was a homeschool mom for the last 14 years; I tutored other homeschoolers in math for the last 3 years; and I have a degree in electronics. That’s me in a nut shell.
Three years and two novels ago, I decided to try my hand at writing. I knew I had three things going for me. First, I have an imagination that sometimes doesn’t stop (which might have been mistaken for ADD.) Second, I had the time (okay, well my house didn’t get cleaned as often and we ran out of clean clothes a lot, but hey, I had the time!) Last, I had a story that had been floating around in my head for the last several years and I knew what kind of book I wanted to write. I knew I wanted to write Christian Fiction. Not the kind of Christian fiction that was just clean and wholesome. It was going to be real, raw, and with scriptures.
In order to start this new adventure of mine, I had to first get my husband and children on board with the idea, and of course, they have been a my biggest supporters. Next was a trip to Best Buy to invest in a laptop (the very one I’m typing on now.) Then the big day arrived. I was in my pajamas, (homeschooling dress code) sitting at the table with me kids while they did their school work and I began to type.
Now I probably should have said I can’t spell to save my life. I hated English, along with grammar and its use of lay, laid or lain (I still don’t know how to use them, just saying.) All I can say is thank goodness for the times we live in. My cell phone has a dictionary app on it and spell check on the laptop and a lot of fabulous friends that read my first manuscript with a red pen in hand. Knowing my weakness was half the battle and I forged ahead knowing I miss used a word or two, or even created a new one. It took me 3 months to finish the first book and because I am not a gifted writer and was sure I would forget what I was writing about, I didn’t stop writing until I had all three manuscripts written. It took a total of seven months to complete the series.
The next step was to find someone to read it. I invited a group of friends that I knew enjoyed reading the same type of books that I did, over for dinner (pictured above) and gave them each a copy of my manuscript. I have to say, that was one of the scariest moments in my life. Handing over that thing that had been floating around inside my head all these years for others to read. Not easy. To my surprise, I got responses back pretty fast, and well, if I may be so bold to say, they like it! A huge sigh of relief is all I can say and they even encouraged me to do something with it. An Inheritance of Hope was published the following year, with The Restoration of Hope following the next year. The third and final book of the series, A Beacon of Hope, is coming out this fall.
Of course the next step was to find a publishing company to publish my book. But that’s for another day. But I will say, before I even did that, I went to Barnes and Nobles, not looking for anything, just went to see if I thought one of my books could actually sell there . . . Have you seen how many books and authors there are in that place! “Wow!” is all I can say. It was terribly overwhelming to be standing a sea of books, asking myself, “Do I really want to do this? How am I going to stand out in this crowd?” (That part I’m still trying to figure out.) Anyway, I did it and am glad I did. It’s been fun, an education, and an experience of a life time for me.
Larissa