Welcome Guest Blogger Catherine Richmond

Mary Connealy here. I want to introduce Cathy Richmond to you all. I've known Cathy for a long time. We were both struggling wannabee authors. We're both from Nebraska. And we once took a six hour car ride together and NEVER RAN OUT OF THINGS TO TALK ABOUT!!!
Her debut book Spring for Susannah released this month and is in bookstores now. And, I've read it and it is wonderful. Cathy has really written herself a sweet romance. I could go on about how much I loved it, but then this blog would be mine not hers. Also Julie Lessman's glowing words somehow sneaked onto the COVER, while I managed to make it onto an endorsement page within. Hmmmmmm......
Take it away, Cathy!
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What an honor to visit Seekerville this morning! Especially since my first sale was due to a contest win, which gives Julie Lessman the right to say “I told you so!”

Since my writer’s journey is such a lengthy odyssey, let’s see if Chris Vogler can make any sense of it. In the Ordinary World, I work as an occupational therapist. The Call to Adventure came in July of 1991. I heard a song about a mail order bride meeting her husband for the first time. Prairie grass waved dusty green in the wind. The hot sun released the smell of creosote from the railroad ties. A train whistle echoed in the distance. I knew these two people - where they’d come from, their hopes and dreams, and what happened next to them.

But I didn’t know any writers, so I Refused the Call.

I figured this was one of those situations like on “The Partridge Family” when Susan Dey’s braces started receiving radio signals. This story must be already written and I was receiving it. So I started looking for it - which would have been the beginning of research, if I’d had known any better. And, because it was taking up too much space in my head, I wrote it down, thus crossing the First Threshold.

All this time I thought all writers had to be male, British, and, for the most part, dead. But the newspaper reported my neighbor had a book out with Bantam Loveswept. So one afternoon, when everyone was out of the house, I called her. She was female, still alive, and friendly enough to point me in the direction of RWA, with its many Mentors.

The Tests, Allies, Enemies middle involves learning to write, amassing an impressive stack of rejection letters, and hearing contest judges say “you can’t do that in CBA!” I’d gotten so blasé about bad news - eat chocolate and move on - that finaling in the “Launching a Star” contest didn’t even register.

With no idea I was Approaching the Inmost Cave, so I went on a girlfriends vacation in New York City. Agent/detective Sandra Bishop tracked me down for the Supreme Ordeal. Thomas Nelson was interested, but they didn’t want to use the mail order bride song as a prologue. Could I change the title, characters’ names, and setting? Yes to the first two, but changing the setting would make it a whole different story. I had to confess I was running around without my laptop. Rather than saying “What kind of writer are you?”, Sandra made the changes on her laptop and sent it in.

The next morning, she called to say Thomas Nelson liked the changes and wanted the book. Reward! We were standing at John Lennon’s memorial in Central Park, a mosaic with the word “Imagine.” Doesn’t God have an excellent sense of humor?

You might think that finally getting paid to write would be the Return with the Elixir. But the true reward is all the friends - writers who are fun and very much alive - made along this journey. Please join with me in celebrating the release of Spring for Susannah Saturday at Walnut Grove Park in Omaha. After all, Camy survived a trip here in the winter!

Leave a comment to get your name in the drawing for a copy of Spring for Susannah.
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Find Cathy online at:
http://catherinerichmond.com/

Mary again: Cathy's also got a page on her website called Zingers in which she quotes me a few times, and some other Seekers and Seekervillagers.