My Journey to Publication
by Ginny Aiken
My
parents, especially my PhD-in-Pedagogy (art/science of teaching) mom, always
considered education non-negotiable. While at first they loved my early
bookworm tendencies, they didn’t much like when I disappeared into mountains of
books from the school library—when I was finally old enough for them to let me
into the place.
No one was surprised when literature became my
favorite high school subject. What they didn’t know was that by my fifteenth
birthday I’d written a novel. Yech—pure dreck! Fortunately, I saw the dreck
when I turned sixteen. I did everyone a favor by burning it—in dramatic,
teenage fashion.
Although that novel became ashes and smoke, my
love of books and the impossible writing dream never disappeared. College
degrees in Spanish and French literature and a minor in English, plus marriage
and two little boys later, the writing urge returned when I was pregnant with
our third son. That member of our crew developed spinal meningitis at two
months. The fight for his life became my only thought. Writing? Pfft!
After his miraculous recovery, he grew into a
rambunctious…hm…adventurous kiddo—an escape artist. There wasn’t a lock he
couldn’t open. Nothing scared him. Can’t count the times neighbors called me to
retrieve him from his latest escapade—while I used the bathroom, did laundry,
etc. He especially loved the corner of our residential street and a busy main
road. Two years old, in diapers, waving to heavy traffic. Cup hooks became my
friends.
I returned to writing after he started
pre-school, urged by my husband, who’d found me stirring sugar into spaghetti
sauce, oblivious to all I’d already poured in, my nose buried in the book of
the day.
While the first novel didn’t sell, the second
and third became my first and second contracts. A three-year dry spell
followed. I questioned if what I felt in my heart was the Lord’s calling. Had I
misunderstood? My doubts grew when the second contracted book didn’t see
publication. The publisher cancelled the line for which they’d bought it.
I stuck it out; wrote proposal after proposal,
submitted to publisher after publisher. After three years, my original
publisher bought the next book, right after I’d told God—again—that the writing
was His, whether He wanted it sold or not.
Back then, I wrote for the secular market, and
the next five books became a tough slog. The publisher wanted me to write what
I couldn’t and still face my sons, now four of them, much less God. Again, I
told Him to take it all.
Days later, Tyndale House called and opened the
door to the Christian market. I’ve never looked back in sixteen years. Still,
it hasn’t been smooth sailing. I’ve survived another three-year drought, family
troubles, two cross-state moves, health challenges, and, this year’s loss of my
PhD mom.
Trust God. He’ll guide you, give you stories; He
has me, even amid the trials, the ones through which He’s led me. Trust Him.
 |
| Click to reach Amazon. |
Ginny
Aiken, a former newspaper reporter, lives in northwestern Indiana with her
engineer husband. Their four sons have grown and flown the coop. Born in
Havana, Cuba, and raised in Valencia and Caracas, Venezuela, she fell in love
with books early, and wrote her first novel at age fifteen while she trained
with the Ballets de Caracas, later known as the Venezuelan National Ballet.
Fortunately, she burned that book after her next birthday. Stints as reporter,
paralegal, choreographer, language teacher, retail salesperson, wife, mother of
four boys, herder of their many friends, (including soccer teams, marching
bands, and two Drum & Bugle Corps) kept bringing her back to books in
search of sanity. She is the author of thirty seven published novels and
contracted for more. She has also led Bible studies, volunteers at church, and
speaks at women’s and writers’ conferences.
You can find Ginny on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/ginnyaiken
Twitter at: twitter@ginnyaiken
