I’m excited to welcome friend and fellow author, Ginger Solomon to my blog. I met Ginger at an ACFW conference in 2011, and we both attended the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference last May. Writing and hoping and waiting and hoping and waiting and writing–it can feel hopeless at times. But it’s exciting to know Ginger is finally seeing her dream come true. Be sure to read all the way to the end for a hint of her debut novel, One Choice.
Before I began writing novel-length fiction, I wrote in a journal – sometimes on paper, sometimes on the computer. I would pour out my soul to God. It became my prayer time.
Everything went into the journal – pain, joy, frustrations, and anything and everything in between. It helped me cope with my life surrounded by many young children. My oldest was thirteen when my seventh was born. Yes, I had seven children in thirteen years. No, none of them are multiples.
Many days I was at my wits end, but at naptime/reading time, I could sit in my room, or at the computer and write/type out everything that was happening. It helped relieve stress. It also brought me closer to God. I could feel his comfort as I cried over some of those pages.
Over the years, the yearning to write intensified. I would sit with pen in hand over a blank page and wonder what it was I should write. Nothing came to mind, so I kept journaling.
Many times over a period of two or three years, starting around 2007, I sat staring at a blank page/screen. The desire to write bubbled up inside me, but I didn’t have a story to tell.
One day I woke with the most amazing dream stuck in my head. I went about the day’s business – breakfast, quiet time, school, etc. When afternoon quiet time rolled around, I found I had to write the dream down. That dream turned into my first novel.
I didn’t know ANYTHING about writing a novel, had never really considered doing such a thing. I wrote it and even had the nerve to send it to agents, who rejected it. It hurt, but I vowed to myself each time a rejection letter arrived that I would LEARN how to write, and I would write a novel that would glorify God. So I joined the American Christian Fiction Writers group and I read and listened. I went to their annual conference and I listened. I soaked it in day after day.
Meanwhile I was writing my second novel, One Choice. I applied everything I had learned up to that point. I took it to conference and pitched it. It was then that I learned large, traditional publishers did not like for the hero or heroine to be non-American. I sighed.
I loved the story, but I put it aside and began another novel – a Scottish historical romance. I pitched it and sent it to editors and agents. One editor was VERY kind in her rejection and gave me some great pointers. But it was still a rejection.
While that one had been out there in the hands of editors and agents, I began another novel – a second Scottish historical romance. I’m still in edits on this one, but it has been requested and I am close to sending it to the agent and editor.
Sometime last year, I went back to One Choice. I still loved the story, so I decided that starting smaller was not a bad thing. I had heard good things from friends about Astraea Press. I submitted my story and held my breath (figuratively, of course). Then it came – not a rejection, but an acceptance.
I was finally going to become a published writer. And it all started with a desire to write, and a dream.
In One Choice, my heroine, Cahri, also journals. It became her substitute for prayer when she felt God had betrayed her trust. However, I would say that she was still praying, albeit in a different way and not consciously.
I still like to journal, though now that my kids are much older, I don’t do it as often as I used to. My prayers have changed as my children have grown. Today many of my prayers revolve around their safety and their future. I also pray that One Choice and any future book I write will bring glory to my Heavenly Father.
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Ginger Solomon is a Christian, a wife, a mother to seven, and a writer — in that order (mostly). When not homeschooling her youngest five, doing laundry or fixing dinner, she writes or reads romance of any genre, some sci-fi/fantasy, and some suspense. She’s a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, president of her local writing group, and writes regularly for three blogs. In addition to all that, she loves animals, horses especially, likes to do needlework (knitting, crocheting, and sometimes cross-stitch), and loves to sing in the choir at church.
My Links:
A Bed of Roses…Thorns Included
Writing Prompts & Thoughts & Ideas…Oh My!
One Choice blurb:
Cahri Michaels is American by birth, but Belikarian by choice. Being selected to participate in the Bridal March forces her to give up the
independent life she’s created for herself. She’s not ready to be anyone’s wife, much less to a man she doesn’t know.
Prince Josiah Vallis despises the centuries old tradition—the Bridal March—that is forcing him to choose a wife from fifty women. Why does it matter that he’s twenty-five and still single?
When Cahri and Josiah meet, sparks fly. Will it ignite a godly love that can see them through or will they be burned, never to be the same?
One Choice links:
