Archive for the ‘Introductions’ Category

Posted on August 18, 2009 - by Shannon Vannatter

The Story of My Life

Hi, Shannon here. I’m so excited to be a blogger. A year ago, I didn’t know what a blog was.

I grew up near Chicago, Illinois and Atlanta, Georgia. At twelve, my parents moved me to their childhood home and my birthplace, extremely rural Arkansas. I hated everything country, especially cows and chickens, and planned to move back to Georgia after graduation. Then I met my husband-to-be in the tenth grade. When I saw him, I thought, that’s the man I’ll marry. My home state grew on me and I worked as a hairdresser, bank clerk, and accounts receivable clerk.

After sixteen and a half-years of marriage, I got pregnant. Talk about life-changing. For the better. My husband and I recently celebrated our twenty-fifth anniversary. I’m always the oldest mom in my son’s class, but I like to think, the wisest. These days, in between the care and feeding of my seven-year-old son, my pastor husband, our church family, and our pets, I write.

Home is our rural Arkansas zoo with a chocolate lab, two charcoal gray cats, and a red dragonfish. Each critter has its own domain, so no one gets eaten. My son recently had a silver rabbit, but he was messier than we expected. So, my husband offered our son an Ipod instead. The rabbit went to a new home and I miss the little guy.

 At thirty, I finally figured out the story in my head was a book and promptly vowed to write it, if I ever got a computer. Four years later, my father-in-law gave me his old desktop. I hooked up the dinosaur and started writing. 75,000 badly-written words later, I had a great plot. Several editors said so, out of fifty-two rejections.

Not one to rest on my laurels, I wrote another novel. I heard about conferences and writing books. Read a book on how to write? Why, when I can just write? Another fifty-two rejections on book two. Book three only received nine and an acceptance from a Print On Demand publisher.

I opted not to pay for an editor, so it was badly-written, didn’t sell, and the publisher didn’t accept the sequel. Since it had a cliffhanger ending, I apologize to those one-hundred-eight readers who never got the rest of the story. If it makes you feel any better, it was badly-written too. But, it must have been a great plot since people still ask about the never-to-be sequel.

Could I be going about this writing thing wrong? I finally attended writer’s conferences, read books on writing, and joined two writers’ groups. I discovered American Christian Fiction Writers, and attended three of their conferences. I joined the organization, and applied for an amazing critique group: Lorna, Brenda, and Jerri. God surely put us together as we each excel and struggle in different areas. Linda has taught me new stuff just in the last few weeks.

 After nine years of writing, learning, and praying, God rewarded me with a three book deal with Heartsong Presents. White Roses will launch the series in the book club in May 2010 and in stores six to nine months later. I’m currently working on book two. All three stories are set in Romance and Rose Bud, real-life, rural Arkansas towns.

Since I love to read contemporary romance and women’s fiction, writing these genres seemed like a no-brainer. Always inspirational because I don’t know how anyone could have happily-ever-after without God.

Now that you know a little about me, I hope my future posts will be inspiring and uplifting, with an occasional giggle thrown in.

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Posted on August 16, 2009 - by Lorna Seilstad

It all started like this…

Hi, Lorna here with the first official Inkspirational Messages blog post.

It’s an exciting day for all ten of us as we embark on this new blogging journey, but I dare say most of us would be more comfortable putting characters through new experiences than living them ourselves. Still, I am reminded that “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.” Believe me when I say, I hang onto that verse every day knowing I can’t do it alone.

Since in our first two weeks of posts each us bloggers will be introducing ourselves, here’s a little about myself.

For as long as I can remember, I loved writing. I even dreamed in plots. I also grew up attending antique auctions nearly every weekend, so history was as much a part of my life as chores on our farm in Iowa, reading books, and playing with Barbies.

So, writing historical romances fit perfectly. Times may change, the style of clothes, the way we speak, but the common threads that unite us remain the same. Couples fall in love. Injustices happen. We fight for what we believe in. We struggle. We endure. We grow.

After graduating from college with a secondary education degree, I met and married the love of my life, David. God had written our love story, and I knew from the moment we met he was the one. It was not love at first sight by any means, but I was so sure he was “it” that I wrote in my diary I’d met the man I would marry. We pledged our hearts to one another two and half years later. We’ll be married twenty years this February.

I taught high school English until my oldest child was born. After that, I began my career as a professional wiper. As a daycare provider, I wiped noses, counter tops, tiny tushes, tears, and scraped knees. I have the rare distinction of being able to say I have potty- trained approximately twenty children.

David and I have three children. Our son is 17 and a senior this year. Our two daughters are 15 and 10. As my kids got older and less in need of my constant supervision, I started pursuing my first love again—writing. I found a great way to rediscover that love was by writing fanfiction at romancefanfiction.net.

Along with that, I worked as a freelance graphic designer, wedding coordinator, cookie baker, and 4-H leader. David and I also work in youth ministry, and teach youth and adult Bible classes.

This last year, God fulfilled one of my greatest dreams when I was offered a three-book contract with Revell. The first book, an inspirational historical romance, currently titled Summer of Truth, will be out a year from now. The next two will follow in the subsequent summers.

To all of the writers here, books have played an important role in our lives. My tastes are eclectic. From Shakespeare to science fiction, I can enjoy a lot of genres. Currently, I read a lot of historicals and mysteries. A book with good pacing, great characters, and a page-turning plot will win me as a fan every time.

Dear friend, thank you for stopping by. I hope whenever you visit Inkspirational Messages, your spirit will be lifted, and you’ll feel the friendship of the ten women gathered here.

We’d love to hear from you. To make a comment, please click on this post’s title.