I’m very pleased to have Sharon Rene Dick sharing her writing journey today. I had the pleasure of meeting her at Mid-South Christian Writers Conference last March. Her children’s devotional, A Mixed Bag of God’s Grace, is wonderful! Comment at the end of this post to be entered for a giveaway of one copy! I’ll announce a winner on September 17th.
Welcome Sharon Rene!
My Writing Journey
I am grateful to Candace for giving me an opportunity to share my writing journey on her blog. It has been a long, bumpy journey and I thank God that it is a continuing journey.
I have always loved to write. I am an only child who was blessed or cursed with a huge imagination. Without siblings I had a lot of quiet time and I entertained myself by reading and writing. My closet is full of manuscripts I wrote before I really knew how to write. Great plots, but they all need a major re-write.
When I moved to Memphis from Louisiana, I joined Romance Writers of America and attended the local River City Romance Writers group for several years. I learned a lot about the craft of writing and enjoyed the meetings, but life got in the way.
I stayed busy with work, church, teaching in the youth department and mission trips. My father passed away and several years later my mother moved in with me. Writing kept getting pushed to the side, but I never lost my love for the written word.
About seven years ago I started focusing on writing again. I was teaching in the children’s department at my church and I volunteered to write some lessons. I loved it. I believe God used this experience to show me that it was time to unpack my buried dreams. He had given me abilities that He wanted me to use and He wasn’t finished with me yet.
Around this time, I read The Hunger Games and decided I wanted to write a young adult book with plenty of excitement but with a Christian twist. I am now writing the third book in my YA speculative series. The Divine Destiny series has not found a publishing home yet, but I pray God will open the right door when He is ready.
Once I refocused on writing, I joined American Christian Fiction Writers, national and local. I have made great friends at the Memphis chapter and I’ve learned a ton. I also joined the Scribes critique group on the national ACFW website. I highly recommend this to any writer who doesn’t have a critique group. My writing skill has improved, and I’ve made wonderful connections.
About ten of my Scribes friends formed a small critique group through ACFW and we have now started a blog called The Storyteller Squad.
I would never be where I am in my writing journey without ACFW, or my critique groups. If you’ve ever considered getting involved in Scribes – do it, do it, do it!
I’ve had some publishing success in the last few years. Several of my flash fiction pieces have been published in Splickety/Spark Magazine and I published seven of my stories on Kindle, A Flash of Romance.
I enjoy writing short stories for children and TouchPoint Press published my book A Mixed Bag of God’s Grace in 2018. This book is a combination of Biblical, historical and contemporary short stories (a real mixed bag.) It is appropriate for children and middle-grade readers.
Writing is a journey and I don’t think we ever arrive. Whether a person publishes one book or thirty, they are on a continuous journey. Words are powerful. Our society is drowning in words. Politicians, preachers, gurus, peers, celebrities. Writing gives us a chance to share good words. Words of faith, love, trust and life.
I have a Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter profile. I never cared for social media until I got in the writing business and was told I had to “grow a platform.” Now, I enjoy social media because it gives me the opportunity to share truth with people I’ve never even met. If only one person is touch by my post that is enough. That is how God works. He uses one to reach one.
The publishing world is tough. Everything moves slowly, and I have little control over any of it. This is really hard for a control-freak like me. Sometimes I wonder if this is where I belong, but God has been working on me a lot. He is teaching me to hand it all to Him and let Him take control. Life works much better that way.
I don’t have to publish a best-seller to spread God’s word or make a difference in His kingdom. You don’t have to either. Whether you write, sing, paint, teach, or raise children you can spread hope and love. So, will you join me in sharing God’s truth one post, poem, short story or book at a time? I hope so. Together we can make a big difference for the kingdom.
Sharon Rene enjoys writing children’s and young adult books. Several of her flash fiction stories have been published by Splickety Magazine, and she’s also had nonfiction pieces published in Chicken Soup for the Soul and Life Changing Miracles. Her book for children ages seven to eleven is entitled “A Mixed Bag of God’s Grace,” and was published in May 2018. Several of her devotions have been published in Unlocked, a magazine for teens. Currently, she’s working on a YA speculative series and recently completed a romantic suspense entitled Bayou Secrets.
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