Hello there!
Welcome to the first of my personal newsletters.
Over the upcoming weeks, this Adventures in Fiction Writing newsletter will give you updates on my debut novel and series. And because I frequently get questions about the profession of writing, I'll also provide an inside view of today's publishing world.
My first novel, Becoming Amber, will be released later this year. It's the first book in The Amber Saga.
The fiction journey today is so unlike my 30 trips with non-fiction horse books that, in some ways, I felt like I was starting from square one!
Getting a novel published in 2026 is like trying to sneak into an alternate universe. There is an almost impenetrable curtain between aspiring novelists and agents/publishers. But more on all that down the road.
I like to start at the beginning.
Step
One.
You gotta love writing.
You just have to - because . . .
- You'll spend entire afternoons (or nights!) creating your stories without so much as standing up to stretch or grabbing a grass-fed meat stick.
- You'll suddenly get struck with a plot idea or a line of dialogue, and before it escapes, you'll scramble for the closest envelope or napkin where you jot it down . . . then later wonder what the heck it means!
- You'll be awakened in the wee hours by your characters auditioning for a part in the next chapter.
Yeah, you gotta love writing.
I, for one, have always loved writing. To see how I got started, step into the Wayback Machine with me to a time when there were no cell phones, no instant messaging, no computers. Imagine that!
To keep in touch with friends and family, you could visit, call, or write. But using a rotary dial phone to place a 15-minute call in 1965 from Michigan to California cost $78.05. That's $824.62 in today's dollars!
So, handwritten or typed letters were the most common way of communicating long distance.
I tried to make my letters interesting and enticing so my siblings, cousins, or pen pals would write back soon. The reward was receiving a reply that not only commented on what I had written but filled me in on my correspondent's latest news - the next best thing to sitting down and having a good long talk.
Yeah, to be a writer, you gotta love writing. And sitting. And then counteracting all that sitting with walking, riding a bike or a horse, working at a treadmill desk, or shopping in a big box store.
My husband, Richard, made me a plaque for the wall of my scriptorium which quotes Sinclair Lewis:
"The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair."
Stay tuned for the next installment of Adventures in Fiction Writing.
Until
then,
