Change is good---scary but good

I get to kick off our HUGE, EXTRAVAGANZA, PRIZE LADEN BIRTHDAY MONTH AND MOVE!!!

No pressure there!

To start this off right I will have a drawing today for the Mary Connealy (or Nealy) book of the winner's choice (assuming I still own a copy...there may be a few missing) So leave a comment and if I draw your name, you get to pick the book you want.
This is all leading up to prizes EVERYDAY (or real close to that!) ALL MONTH, including a few really SPECTACTULAR PRIZES. So PAY ATTENTION.

And at the end of the month we are giving away a NETBOOK. And we will draw from all commentors for the month and if you leave multiple comments you get your name int he drawing multiple times. So stay involved to increase your chances to win.

We're talking about CHANGE. It's part of our celebration as we move Seekerville to a new home OFF UNPUBBED ISLAND!!! We are now dwelling in Seekerville, a lovely village right across the shark infested waters from Unpubbed Island. We are now  http://www.seekerville.net/ Just because the Seekers have all made it to shore doesn't mean we're leaving you. We will continue to help you build life rafts, bridges, and maybe even be able to send a ship now and then until we all reach the mainland.
And so, in that spirit we're going to talk about CHANGE. Or memories. Or the journey. Today I'm talking about a moment of truth. A turning point in my writing life. A huge, wonderful moment of CHANGE.

I started writing in about 1994 or 1995. My great change occurred in about 1999. At first I was writing in utter isolation.

1) I had no training, I belonged to no professional organizations. I was clueless. I just started telling a story. I honestly don’t know why I ever thought I could be an author, a strange goal, honestly. We here at Seekerville get it, this strange compulsion to write, but it’s not a real USUAL choice.


2) No internet.

3) A computer so old it didn’t have memory. I had to save everyday onto a floppy disk, the computer wouldn’t save it. Heaven help me if the lights blinked, because I lost everything.

4) No Google or Wikipedia.

5) My access to publishers was limited to buying a copy of Writer’s Market Guide, and that thing was expensive.

6) I’d never heard of RWA.

7) No ACFW.

8) No Seekers. (sniffle)

It all came very slowly to me. I seemed to have to learn every lesson though my own mistakes. I always hope that Seekerville will help people learn a little faster than I did.

I found a local writer’s group, an RWA local chapter, because there was an article about it in the newspaper. And when I say local, I mean about a 90 minute drive away.

Keep in mind that I was not online at home, that was also expensive.

My huge change came because I was getting the RWA magazine and it mentioned that Harlequin was starting a line called Love Inspired. A line of Christian romances. I don't know if that's the year it started or that's the year I heard of it!!!

It was a light bulb moment.

Christian romance? There was such a thing? Suddenly this whole wide door opened for me. I didn’t know there were Christian publishers. I’d read Love Comes Softly—which is considered the beginning of Christian fiction and was published in 1979, but I just didn’t get it that a publisher existed specifically for Christian fiction. Now I discovered not just Love Inspired but I found Christian publishers everywhere.

I had a lot of books written by the time I figured it out. And all these books were very sweet romances. I just wasn’t willing to write graphic sex or sex between unmarried couples. I refused to lace profanity through the books. These all seemed increasingly to be not just allowed, but they seemed to be required.

It wasn’t what I believed in and I wasn’t interested in writing foul language—and it was already all over TV. I was being left in the dust.

My books didn’t have a faith thread , but they had characters conducting themselves as Christians. And they had themes...the struggle against good and evil, honesty and lies, cowardice and courage, that lent themselves to Christian faith, I just needed to go through and say out loud what was already there.

There’s a line in Petticoat Ranch that says, “Parson Roscoe moved west in answer to a prayer that Sophie wouldn’t begin praying for five years.”

And that’s a reflection of how I felt about my writing. I was writing books for a line of publishing that I wouldn’t discover for five years.

This was my moment of change. My moment of almost euphoria, to think I could write what I really wanted to write. That moment of discovering a whole group of publishers who would consider a book with God in it.

Let's talk about a change in your writing. Are you experimenting with a brand or have you picked one? Was there a moment of truth that set you out on a writing journey or have you been writing all your life? Let's talk about change and any comment puts your name in the drawing for today and for the whole month.

Http://www.maryconnealy.com/