Chasing Dreams

We all need a helping hand sometimes to achieve our dreams. One of my dreams was to write for publication. Although I had enjoyed writing all my life, I didn't know the first thing about getting published, so for many years this dream went nowhere.

Then in May 1985 a close girlfriend challenged me about this dream. "When are you ever going to pursue this?", she asked. For me, it was always sometime in the future, maybe when I had more time, when my kids were grown. She suggested that I take a correspondence writing course called "Christian Writer's Course" (I know, not a very creative name!). She had done this course and highly recommended it. I remember thanking her for that suggestion but inside saying, "no I don't think so."

I forgot about her suggestion for the rest of the summer. Then in the fall, a large white envelope arrived in my mail box. My friend had contacted the course and asked them to send me an information package! I was shocked, but also intrigued as I read over the material. The cost was quite substantial for our small income, but we could pay for it in installments, and I could have up to three years to complete the 40 lessons. So I signed up and tackled the first lesson in the fall 1985. I was 34 years old and had a daughter in grade one and two little boys at home, aged 3 and 4.

My progress was very slow, sometime I would only do one lesson a month! But I loved it and learned so much about writing, publishing, markets and editors. It took me five years to complete the lessons. I began submitting my work to magazine markets before then, and in the fall of 1989 I achieved the dream - I got published!! Here I am with my first published work. It was a devotional article to a non-paying magazine called "Moments With God." I was truly thrilled!! Sam grabbed the camera and said - we have to have a picture of this amazing moment!

I began writing and publishing for the Christian magazine market regularly throughout the 1990's. I published some fiction, but mostly non-fiction articles on a variety of topics. I especially enjoyed writing about family life and child rearing. I also published quite a bit about spiritual growth and pursuing a relationship with God. I never made a great deal of money, but a short story I sold to CBC radio paid me enough for one university course in 1990 (see previous post). It was a Christmas story, and CBC contacted me the next year to rebroadcast it, and paid me again - enough for my second year's tuition at university!

I stopped submitting my work when we took our sabbatical in 2000. Upon our return I devoted my creative writing energy to achieving my Masters in Historical Theology. I don't know if I will ever return to the magazine publishing world. Recently I cleaned out the filing cabinet that held all the magazines that I was published in. I reread all my articles and still felt happy and proud of what I had written. So that was a good feeling.

I know I would never had achieved the dream of being a published author if my friend hadn't taken a chance and had that info package sent to me. I am so grateful to her for that simple act of kindness. There are people in my network of friends who have unfulfilled dreams too. I want to be someone that they can point to and say - she helped me run after my dreams, she helped me make it happen!