My Writing Journey began while writing book reports in school. My teachers in every grade from 6th grade through my senior year in high school always gave me an A for my flair in writing my book reports. According to my teachers, I had a knack for bringing the characters to life as I told the story of what the book was about. Needless to say, my favorite pastime was reading. Still is.
Later, after I married and had children, I started writing short stories. I took a course from Palmer Writing School, which led me to doing writing assignments that had to be turned in by a certain date. This helped me to understand that writing for a living meant completing a book for publication by an editorial deadline, or what I had written would not get published if I couldn’t make the deadline, say, in time for a Christmas book or any other holiday.
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I went to work for an oil & gas company during the day and attended Houston Community College at night to get an associate’s degree in business administration. Two years into my college plan, I discovered that HCC offered a creative writing course. My college path changed directions, and I took four semesters of creative writing.
It was during this time that I met Patricia Kay who would later become a USA Today Bestselling author of 50+ novels. Pat invited me to her first book signing of her first published romance Cinderella Girl written under her pen name Trisha Alexander. At the book signing, Pat invited me to attend a meeting of West Houston RWA, where the members were either published romance writers or aspiring romance writers or, like me, just wanted to be around serious writers of fiction.
I must say here that, at the time, I wasn’t interested in learning how to write romances. I just knew I wanted to write stories. And I figured WHRWA (a chapter of the national organization Romance Writers of America®) was a good place to start, so I joined the group in 1991. I was also required to join RWA who held yearly conferences, a number of which I attended.
At WHRWA, I met and learned from a number of published authors who gave workshops during the monthly meetings. Among those published authors were Susan Wiggs, Barbara Dawson Smith, Heather MacAllister, Deeanne Gist, Sarah Andre, Cheryl Bolen, Christie Craig, Shana Galen, and Kerrelyn Sparks.
These talented authors shared their knowledge of how to develop the characters that peopled their books, how to filter in back story without stopping the action of the story, and how to introduce the romantic element that develops between the hero and heroine who are brought together because of a mutual dilemma they need to resolve on the way to their happily ever after ending. Sounds simple, right? It’s not.
I mentioned Christie Craig who also wrote non-fiction articles for different magazines. I was able to use what I learned from Christie to work as a freelance writer for various magazines. This led me to serve as a copy editor for Cowboy Sports & Entertainment magazine as well as AAA Texas and AAA New Mexico magazines.
During this time, I joined the Manuscripters Guild that later morphed into the Houston Writers League, where I served as President and Conference Chair. HWL was a group of writers who wrote in different genres like westerns, military sagas, science fiction, historical fiction, literary fiction, etc.
A former member of Romance Writers of America®, I am now a member of the League of Romance Writers (formerly known as West Houston RWA, where I served as the Newsletter Editor, Membership Chair, Treasurer, and The Emily Contest Chair). I am also a member of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW).
In 2017, I had the privilege of co-authoring God’s Hand On My Shoulder: From WWII Bomber Pilot to Building Churches in Mexico with my father-in-law, Joe Carl Martin, Jr., who was a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross during WWII.
For more information about God’s Hand On My Shoulder: From WWII Bomber Pilot to Building Churches in Mexico, please click here.