Wednesday, April 4, 2012

#Journey to #Publication & #Spotlight on @DevonMatthews_ #Blog #Excerpt #Readers

My journey to publication has really been a long time coming, at least in my mind. I've known I wanted to write since I was a child, but it wasn't until 2006, with my stepson already in school and my daughter soon to be heading that way, I knew the time I spent as a stay-at-home-mom was going to open up and that besides housework, I would have time for other things.

Something I hadn't spent much time doing since I'd moved in 2001, gotten married and had my daughter, was write. I thought about it constantly but kept believing, with the self-doubt I'd carried most my life, that I probably couldn't accomplish it. I knew there was a partially finished novel tucked away in my closet or a drawer somewhere, and several other novel "ideas" scribbled and scratched out in notebooks and on scraps of paper, but there was no encouragement nearby to say, "You should definitely take your writing back up."

And then I got a friend request from an old schoolmate and therein came the encouragement, so I really started digging in to the unfinished manuscript and in a fit of frenzy, I finally put the finish on a nearly 10-year-old project. It had been hard to give birth to because some of the situations in the novel hit so close to home for me personally, but I did it. To that friend, and my mom, I'm forever grateful for your encouragement. You will NEVER know how much!

But just like getting my first tattoo, finishing that first manuscript was addictive. It bolstered me, lifted me up- I was hooked on that feeling of self-satisfaction of creating something and finishing it. Of course, that manuscript might never see the light of day- or I might someday polish it up and publish it, but it was with great enthusiasm and confidence from completing that 1st one, that I dove headfirst in and started writing with serious intentions and with a sense of pride I hadn't felt before. I'm working on my 11th manuscript at the moment and hoping I finally found my mojo again because for a while, I think I'd lost heart. The burnout nearly wiped out my desire to write, but I'm getting it back, bit by bit... (bird by bird)

Castaway Hearts is actually the 3rd novel I wrote, over the summer of 2007, between a computer crash and the relief when those files I hadn't backed up were recovered before the hard drive was trashed completely. So that gives me even more joy to be able to share this story with you, the public. It was saved from oblivion, once upon a time.

And so, today I'd love it if you would swing by and join me at
Western Historical Romance Author Devon Matthews' Blog
where she's honoring me with an author spotlight and I'm sharing another excerpt from the now available Castaway Hearts.

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