Songbird.. what would you like to know? Do you have any specific questions? I'd be happy to share any info I have and tell you about my experiences.

You can also e-mail me privately if you'd prefer not to have your questions in public. I don't mind. I like helping out beginning writers.

[ July 27, 2004, 04:53 PM: Message edited by: Vicki M. Taylor ]

I was surfing the web, and saw a magazine for women in ministry that looked interesting. When I saw they had a page with the writers' guidlines on it, I checked it out. One of the topics sounded interesting. I thought, I can write about that! So I did. Never tried to submit anything before that.

A couple weeks later, a couple started attending our church, and the woman mentioned she was a writer and moderated an on-line group. Don mentioned I had tried my hand at it (Boy was I experienced! LOL!) and she invited me to come to iVillage and check the group out.

That's when I realized what a long shot it was to have something published! Just when I thought what a fool I'd been, I got a letter of acceptance along with a contract in the mail! I jumped around like a maniac all over the house.

That was in January, 2003. The article came out in June, 2003, and I've been plugging away ever since. I'm so thankful to God I don't have to make a living at it!

I started writing for children last summer, and that is so much fun.

I'm having a ball. And writers (or authors! ) are the nicest people in the world.

Donna

Songbird and everyone else wanting me to write a sex book. I did, and had a publisher who especally ordered the 8 short stories that were in the book, all S & M. The book was finished to be sent in when the publisher wrote me an email to say they were no longer able to pay expenses and going out of business. I was devistated. I had worked so hard and the book was perfection, (not my words here!) Well, I had an illness recently that took away my sight and I promised God that if he gave me back my sight I would never again write smut or talk on the phone about sex. To answer your question, about 78% of all my phone sex clients were married men, some were happily married too. Strange but true. To get back to my promise. I destroyed my book and anything I had in the computer and I quit my phone sex job all in the same day.....My vision is as good as new and I am greatful and will not look back. As it is now, I have a great new job and hope to be as successful at it as I was on the phones. So you can see why there will be no sex book in my future.....I never break a promise.

Chatty,
You will be blessed by your decision and by your actions. Knowing God inside your spirit changes you and if you felt bad about the phone sex and the sex book, then it was not right and you should never again do it.
God will bless you for respecting his child (you).
In the Bible God SPOKE the world into existence. And in the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was God and the WORD was with God. That must mean that WORDS are very important.
The words you SAY are very important, but they go into the air or over the phone lines and are gone. But the words you WRITE survive even your life on earth so they are even more important.
In the original language of the Bible, the same "word" was used to mean both word and spirit. So if your words are your spirit and those words survive you, then in some ways your written words are your eternal spirit. And if not eternal, at least they survive your physical body.

I think God created sex and He loves it when we find joy in it, but when it is corrupted, it must make him sad.
I am thankful for your newfound joy which I believe will be a "serendipitous" blessing in that it came from what appeared to be a curse.
Love, Peace, and Joy will find you.
smile

Chatty: I applaud your decision and will pray that God will help you stay true to it.

God bless you and bless others through your writing!

Chatty, I'm just grateful that you are well whether you write, take calls or anything else!

If the men were happy, why did they say they were using phone sex? Asking because a woman on my site found out her husband had been cruising porn sites on the Internet and she's fit to be tied! Do they get bored?

Yes, a couple of you were right. I didn't sit down to write a book. I sat down to write about my experiences to help other women who were staying in our local shelter. A miracle took place. That's how I became an author...when Louise Hay published me. My editor called it a fluke but I called it a miracle!

It's wonderful to read all of your stories.

Donna: Interesting story. Wow! You did it right from the beginnig, girl!!

I don't submit regularly, thou I am looking for new soruces. Mostly, cause I was providing my local church of much needed material. 2003-2004 I submitted a number of devotionals for a women's devoional book, written by women. 7 of them will be published in the yearly book to be used during 2005-It should be in print fall 2004. The rest, they keep, to be used in a future devotional book.

I wrote musicals in high school and in my twenties I wrote grant proposals which got me a great job in D.C. I wrote legislation and business plans and administered $39 million in grants. In my spare time I published magazine articles, produced plays, and wrote for national television.
Then I decided to get a graduate degree in writing. My thesis was a play. During the thesis process, it was previewed and it got a backer, which had never happened before, and it was performed to sold out crowds. It was on television and radio. The thesis committee hated it. They required me to rewrite it ten times. I destroyed the play. I never allowed it to be produced again.
My writing has been broken ever since. I can't seem to get anything good enough and I no longer send things off. Maybe I don't take the risk now because my kids are gone and I don't have to make every penny I can. Or maybe I have nothing to say. Or maybe too much time to think about it. Or maybe I have simply been there, done that, and I'm resting. Who knows?

I wonder if I am called by God to write or by simply want an ego trip. I'm working on this. Any ideas?
smile

If you ask me, and you didn't, I think you would make one heck of a LIFE COACH. Just my 5 cents worth. I'm a Queen, I get more...

JJ

I always struggled with the "ego thing" too. But, I just kept writing and told God that if it was my ego, let me know somehow. I also pray before I write that God will help me to get my old ego out of the way. It makes for honest writing! I think that because we're writers we have the tendency to go inward too much and question everything. I'd say just keep writing and let it happen because it will.