Turning Points: How I Became a Writer
I belong to several writing groups, and this week, the 540 Writers Community issued a blog writing challenge and I’m participating. Today, we’re challenged to write about turning points, so I thought I’d share how I became a writer.
In the 80s, we moved from Georgia to Oklahoma, where I got saved, and got active in church. I joined a Baptist Young Women’s group and received their monthly magazine Contempo.
I loved that magazine filled with inspirational and educational stories about missionaries, so I sent a letter to the editor, just to thank them for such a quality magazine. Didn’t think anything else about it and went about my life.
A year later, on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, my toddler son and I attended a community-wide Thanksgiving worship service. As we walked in the door of the hosting church, we were bombarded with posters everywhere about giving. This hit me hard, because we had nothing. My husband had been sent to Germany with the military and his pay had been delayed, so we were barely surviving. All those signs reminded me I had nothing to give.
When they announced that the offering would go to local ministries to help the needy, I felt a nudge that increased each second, a nudge to “Give!” I told the Lord I didn’t have anything to give, and He nudged me to look in my purse. I knew there was nothing in there and reminded Him I’d already counted change just to put gas in the car to get to the service. “Dig deeper.” I scraped my hand along the bottom of my purse and pulled out a handful of change – mostly pennies.
No way would I put that change in the offering plate. How embarrassing. “Just do it.” I bowed my head and prayed and cried, apologizing for having so little, and honestly, praying that there would be enough money in the plate by the time it got to us, that no one would notice the coins. But I tend to sit toward the front (thankfully not the first few rows), and this church used metal plates without liners. I gently placed the coins on top, but they plinked to bottom, with a noise I’m sure was heard on the moon. I passed the plate along, and just sat there crying as the service ended.
Monday morning dawned, and we walked to the mailbox, where I found an envelope from Contempo magazine. The editor wrote to thank me for the letter I’d written a year ago, and apologized for the delay in responding. He said the letter had been lost on a desk and only recently found. He wanted to print my letter as an article in an upcoming issue. A contract was enclosed, and a check would be issued upon receipt. He also asked if I might be interested in writing a monthly column, reviewing books written by missionaries.
Only God could have done that. I know that letter was delayed for a reason, and the timing wasn’t lost on me. For it to arrive the day after I was obedient in giving was more than coincidental. I’d had a heart for missionaries since I was a young girl, when my paternal grandmother gave me two books as a Christmas gift: The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom, and God’s Smuggler by Brother Andrew, so all of this just seemed to good to be true.
But then the doubts crept in. Me? A writer?
I remembered the time as a teenager when I wrote a poem and was so proud of it, I showed it to my dad. He read it and cried. I thought I’d done something wrong or that it was horrible. But he asked if I really felt the things in my “Sea of Loneliness” poem. I explained that my friend had written a letter, talking about her own loneliness, and from there, I wrote the poem. He was still in tears as he hugged me and said there might be a writer inside me.
(A couple of years later, a big old red “D” on an English paper made me question him a little. But I learned what a comma splice was, and never got a D again!)
I signed the contract and wrote for Contempo for over a year.
That unexpected writing assignment was the turning point that led to a lifetime career with the written word. I’ve held many types of writing jobs over the years, including owning a weekly newspaper, writing as contractor for a major online company, and operating an editorial service. As an independent freelancer, I’ve written hundreds of articles for magazines, newspapers, and online outlets. In 2011, I founded two traditional publishing companies that moved into the hands of another publisher in 2016; in 2014, I opened TMP Books, which I still own and operate today as a hybrid press. I’ve published hundreds of books for other writers, and I’ve even written a few books of my own. I went back to school in 2010, earned a bachelor’s degree in Biblical and Theological Studies, then entered grad school to earn my MFA in Screenwriting.
It's amazing to think that those simple acts – of writing a letter, of being obedient – led to all the rest. Only God. My cup overflows with gratitude for Him placing me on this path.
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