Writing career comes full-circle
I remember those days when I was just beginning my career as an author. While still in school, I did well in a writing contest. My family read my writing and encouraged me. In a way, I took after my mom who on occasion wrote special poems for us.
Dad was a pastor. Of course, he wrote sermons. As a teen, I wrote poems Dad published in the Sunday bulletin. Sometimes those focused on the loss of a loved one and my writing seemed to bring some comfort. I felt called to write, something I could do even when I ended up in a wheelchair when I was thirteen..
I wanted to bring light and hope to lift up and encourage. I also wanted my writing to share my faith. Mentors helped me hone my writing and taught me how to format and submit to markets. I joined a pen pal writers’ group where we each submitted a piece and sent it on by regular mail. We critiqued each other’s work which helped each of us become better writers.
At a time when I wrote and regularly sold children’s stories, articles and program material, a friend gave me a fiction book and challenged me with, “You can do better than this author.” I liked challenges. The ideas began to flow. I continued writing non-fiction, but now I started working on fiction.
Eventually, I wrote novel-length works. When the Internet was new, I was invited to join an exclusive writer’s loop. There weren’t many loops of any sort out there and this was by invitation only. I felt a bit overwhelmed to become part of a loop with mostly well-known and very successful authors.
To say the least, I grew under the tutelage of such kind and generous authors. It took ten years, but I received my first book contract and more followed. The Heartsong Presence line of Barbour Publishing became my home for my next six books. They started an author’s loop for Heartsong Presents authors. We encouraged one another. Many of us were new in the business and hungry for contracts and publication.
Meanwhile, I sold articles to any number of publications some with a small number of readers and others with large, even, worldwide distribution.
My journey took me to other publishers, and other ventures like running a well-received review column for fifteen years or more. I did book reviews for NTV. I did interviews and became a speaker. For several years, I substitute taught in the media department of UNK. I taught where I’d graduated though when I graduated UNK was still KSC, Kearney State College.
My author friends have had their journeys as well. Eventually, we had pages on Facebook. There is a difference now. We are no longer young. Our writing and outlooks have matured along with our focus and faith.
We help new generations of authors. We’re not fresh and our lives are different now. Our Facebook news is filled not only with book promotions, but also requests for prayer for illnesses personally, spouse or family. Too many now grieve the loss of a spouse.
Our writing now may be more real. We have lived through ups and downs personally, professionally, and politically. I look back and am thankful for my journey (which didn’t always go the way I planned) and my desire to write hope. I may have slowed down, but as long as the ideas come, I will write and pray God uses what I write to encourage and lift up.
How can I not be excited that my daughter recently released her first book Ellie’s Absolution. It is doing very well on Amazon. From my folks to me to my daughter, writing has come full circle. The baton is being passed on. How can I not be excited about that!
© 2024 Carolyn R Scheidies
Published Kearney Hub 12/5/2024
https://kearneyhub.com/writing-career-comes-full-circle/article_9554e24e-fbaf-5b06-905b-bc05d22cb387.html
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