Since 2003, I’ve educated myself in the writing industry, striving to master the craft and develop a strong professional platform. My credentials include two communications degrees, completion of numerous publishing courses through the Writer’s Institute and Writer’s Digest, and the trials and errors involved in self-publishing a non-fiction book.
Since 2013, I have also been a member of Inspire Christian Writers, attended their conferences, and currently co-lead one of the critique groups. With the latest references and resources in hand, I shed blood, sweat, and tears putting my first novel through five rounds of editing before turning it into my publisher. Aside from learning the crafts of writing and professional editing, the reason behind why I write is also important.
Using My Own Story (Life Trials and Triumphs) to Help Others Tell Their Story
I am not one of those “accidental authors,” but one with a dream to write and become a published author since I was a little girl. I wrote in various forms to overcome the challenges of my parent’s divorce. My methods included avid journaling, poetry, and the creation of a story I’ve yet to complete titled Hole in My Heart, where I created a life where a young girl had everything I wished I had in a family and father, yet lost it all in the blink of an eye. By putting this story into a fiction form, I was safe to exaggerate my pre-teen emotions. One weekend I even typed 45 pages, and was sure I would become the youngest published author ever!
Then, when I hit my late teens, rebellion sunk in and just shy of my 18th birthday, I became a mom. By God’s grace alone, I am happily and gratefully married to my little girl’s father. In fact, we had four more kids over the years! We also both became Christians as adults–I at 20 and my husband at 30. Once we’d both made the commitment to Christ, you’d bet your bottom dollar the devil took us for a ride! Yes, my husband still refers to the year 2000 as the year from hell. And it was. Over the years our challenges have been extreme to say the least.
You name it, we’ve lived it:
- infidelity (on both our parts)
- substance and alcohol abuse, co-dependency, anger issues
- various “luggage” associated with coming from families of divorce
- the near death of our (then) 14-year-old daughter in a car accident
- the success and dissolution of a family business
- our two youngest children in and out of hospitals the first few years of their lives (for completely different medical reasons)
- success and failures of homeschooling
- and finally — the physical manifestation of it all when I began suffering from fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue in 2011
And through all of it, my deepest desire is to share my struggles and triumphs with others facing similar challenges. I want to encourage other women not to give up — no matter how hard it gets! I want to remind them that more often than not, God brings his faithful through the fire, and rarely makes a way of escaping it all together.
