Part 1:

As a single, unemployed mother of two elementary school girls, our entertainment budget was limited to rare outings to McDonalds and whatever minimum cable package had available for shows to watch. My favourite way to gain some quality time with my daughters was story time just before bed. However, our personal library of children’s books was small, and I was tired of reading the same books for the 200th time. I decided to bring back my childhood enjoyment and created my own children’s story. The stories had hidden messages about being strong, independent young ladies who learned about showing grace and forgiveness to others without compromising their safety or the safety of others. To my surprise, my girls ate it up! They stopped wanting their picture books and only wanted my stories.

My children’s stories starred Princess Amelia (pronounced Ah-mell-lee-ah) and Princess Rachelle, who were being raised by their single mother, Emra. My creative juices started to spill over into my racing brain after my daughters had gone to bed. Emra’s back story became too elaborate for me to keep track of the details. To solve this frustration, I bought some spiral notebooks and pens from the local discount store.

If you haven’t read the About Me section on my home page yet, I encourage you to do so. That is where I talk about the moment where I decided to explore the possibility of becoming an author.

I started my exploration by searching the internet for authors that did not have a degree by the time they wrote their first successful book. Although there were many names that showed up (including a couple of names I recognized), when I compared it to the number of successful authors that did have a degree, it was discouraging. The following search compared the number of people who attempted to become authors versus the ones who became successful. This ratio was also very discouraging. I wasn’t ready to risk the rejection of publishers let alone an audience of strangers. The thought of publishing anything seemed unattainable yet, I decided to complete Emra’s story. I needed more proof that I could write a story that the general public would enjoy.

Midday on what should be a workday, I ruminated with old familiar feelings of defeat and anger. The cushy faux-leather love seat supported my spent mind as I sent out a desperate prayer to my God.

“Father, we need money! I want to help support my family. What do you want me to do?”

A voice, in a tone that was not my own, said, “Write your stories”

This was not the first time I heard this ‘voice’.  The first time I ‘heard His voice’ was when I apologized to God for walking away from Him (See From Darkness Into The Light in the Story Time category). I knew God was talking to me however, I assumed that He wanted me to write out my testimony so that it could be passed out to other Christians who needed encouragement. It didn’t occur to me that He was sharing His plan for my future career. I wrote the first rough draft of From Darkness Into The Light.

Each time our family faced a small financial hiccup, I asked God, “Why can’t I get a job? What do you want me to do?”. Each time I repeated those questions to Him, He answered me with the same 3 words, “Write your Stories.” Each time I heard “Write your stories”, I argued that this was not something I could make money with. I also speculated that my mind was playing tricks on me and this  “Write your stories” was my conjuration to enable any defeatist attitudes I was still carrying with me.

God told me what my next step was, but I was misinterpreting what he was saying. Four years past before I listened to what God instructed me to do.

Look for Part Two!