For the second week in this series, please welcome Elaine Cantrell as she shares her journey to becoming an author.

ACHEIVING A DREAM

First off, I’d like to thank Liz for inviting me to her blog. It’s always a treat for an author to go to different blogs and meet new people.

When I was a small child my mother taught me to love reading. Every Friday afternoon she took my sister and me to the public library, a one room building about the size of a large living room. We’d choose several books, and then she would take us to the five and dime store to spend our allowance which was about a quarter a week. Yeah, things were a lot cheaper then. Afterwards, she would take us to dinner. We looked forward to our Friday treat all week long.

So, from an early age books were associated with something good. Both my sister and I became avid readers. I remember thinking how incredible it would be to put words on paper and tell a story that people would enjoy reading. I daydreamed about becoming a writer, but it never occurred to me that I could really do it.

Follow up:

It was my younger son who showed me the way. He called me one day a couple of years ago and told me that he had written a book. I wasn’t surprised. I knew he had a lot of talent because he had won a prize for a short story he had written when he was in college. He told me that he had always made up stories in his head to amuse himself, so he thought he might as well write them down. Glory be! I’d always done that too.

Well, that did it. I sat down to write my masterpiece. The problem was, I couldn’t think of how to begin. There were umpteen dozen ways to do it. Finally, I realized that it didn’t matter. Pick one way and get started. I had a delete key, right? I typed my first sentence, and from that point the words seemed to fly from my fingers to the computer screen. It was absolutely exhilarating!

I finished my first story in record time. Nobody liked it much. My husband didn’t want the hero to be crippled, and nobody liked the heroine. One of my friends said that the heroine was a good girl, so of course she wasn’t as interesting as a bad girl.

I wasn’t discouraged. I liked my story and decided to write another one. It was almost finished when I found out about a small publisher who sponsored a yearly writing contest. The first prize was publication of your novel. I sent my manuscript in, and several months later I received a call from the publisher telling me that I was one of two grand prize winners.

From that time on, I was hooked on writing. My house isn’t dusted as often, sometimes dinner is take-out, and I have been known to take my computer with me on vacation. Since that first contest win, I’ve had eight books accepted for publication. I also have two more coming soon from Astraea Press. Writing is a part of my life that gives me great satisfaction. My childhood dreams came true and were every bit as sweet as I thought they would be. My only regret is that my mother died before I started writing. She would have been super proud of me.

Please support Elaine by purchasing her book from Astraea Press, A New Dream.

Synopsis:

After an auto accident destroys his NFL career, Matt McCallum struggles to find a new dream for his life, but nothing engages him the way football did. After a stint in rehab, he takes a job managing a grocery store where he meets Violet Emerson.

Violet works in the bakery department, but her dreams carry her far beyond the doors of Chef’s Pantry. As soon as she can save the money, she plans to open a catering business. And she thinks the new manager’s broad shoulders and blue eyes are simply divine.

Thrown together at work, Matt and Violet find a common dream for their lives, but a loose end from Matt’s past returns to jeopardize their future. Will love be enough to save their new dream before it turns into a nightmare?

 Astraea Press | Amazon | B&N

Additional Information on Elaine Cantrell:

• elainecantrell.com
• elainepcantrell.blogspot.com
• facebook.com/elainepcantrell
• twitter.com/elainecantrell
• pinterest.com/elainecantrell

**Read about other writers' journeys (see A Writer's Journey index)**