Friday, October 4, 2013

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Fame And Fortune by Dr. Richard Mabry



Dr. Richard Mabry
What are your hopes and dreams for your writing career? Is your goal to receive contracts offering substantial advances? Maybe you envision shelves at the local book store filled with your novels. Today, Dr. Richard Mabry shares what he’s learned about prosperity while on his personal journey. 
~ Dawn





A Funny Thing Happened On 
The Way To Fame And Fortune

I didn’t set out to be an author. From childhood, my career goals were airline pilot, then professional baseball player, and finally physician. As I matured, I realized the first one was a fantasy, the second one highly unlikely (although I did play a bit of semi-pro baseball), while the third was what God had in mind for me. I didn’t realize God also planned for me to write, but events after the death of my first wife made that path clear to me.

In none of these did I have an ultimate goal of fame and fortune—well, maybe the baseball thing, but nothing since then. But when I got my first writing contract, the dreams began. At my first writer’s conference, I was awestruck by the published writers there. These were people whose names were household words—maybe not in my household, but I was just getting started, so I could be excused for not knowing all of them. But surely they were celebrities in their hometowns. Most certainly they had to stop and give autographs in the grocery store or dry cleaners. And undoubtedly they lived in the lap of luxury. After all, they were published authors!

Heart Failure is my sixth published novel, and I’ve long since decided that fame and fortune may find some authors, but not me. True a row of books with my name on the cover are spread across the shelf over my writing desk, but with each book release there are no cheering crowds outside my window, no marching bands in the street. A few folks at church might ask, “When’s your next book coming out?” but otherwise it’s pretty quiet around here. And fortune? Afraid not.

Although I haven’t become rich and famous, my words have been read by many more people than the population of the town where I grew up. If I’ve succeeded in my mission, when those readers turn the last page of my novel they find they’ve been left with a message—not a hard-sell of Christianity, because that’s just not my style, but rather a message that no matter how far we drift from God, we can always turn back to Him. I’ve been allowed to use the printed page as my pulpit. And that’s rich and famous enough for me.
                                                                                               
                                                                         ~Richard L. Mabry, MD




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When her fiancé’s dangerous secrets turn her world upside-down, a beautiful doctor must choose between her own safety and the man she loves—and thought she knew.

Dr. Carrie Markham’s heart was broken by the death of her husband two years ago. Now, just as her medical practice is taking off, her fresh engagement to paralegal Adam Davidson seems almost too good to be true . . . until a drive-by shooting leaves Carrie on the floor of his car with glass falling around her.

When he confesses that Adam isn’t his real name and that he fled the witness protection program, Carrie is left with an impossible choice: should she abandon the fiancé she isn’t sure she really knows, or accept his claim of innocence and help him fight back against this faceless menace?



Dr. Richard Mabry is a retired physician, past Vice-President of the American Christian Fiction Writers, and the author of six published novels of medical suspense. His books have been finalists in competitions including ACFW’s Carol Award and Romantic Times’ Inspirational Book of the Year, and his novel, Lethal Remedy, won a 2012 Selah Award. Richard’s medical thriller, Stress Test (Thomas Nelson), garnered rave reviews from Library Journal and Publisher’s Weekly. His latest novel is Heart Failure.

Richard’s website is http://rmabry.com. He blogs regularly at http://rmabry.blogspot.com . He can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.