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| Patricia Lee |
Can you believe almost an entire month in 2018 has already
passed? How are those writing projects coming? Did you submit that query
you planned? Finish the synopsis you needed? Write another chapter or two of
your work in progress?
No? Why not?
Perhaps you concluded 2017 with nothing to show for your writing
efforts. An agent turned you down. An editor rejected your story
submission. Family events stole your writing time. As 2018 opened, you
asked yourself, “Why am I doing this?”
I’ve been where you are.
I’ve written all my life, but I didn’t try creating a novel until
after I’d been married several years and had reared and homeschooled my children.
Writing a full-length manuscript was only a fantasy I entertained in my mind—a
challenge to myself to see if I could do it—someday.
Someday came. My children were gone, and I had time without any
task to fill it. I attended a few writer meetings, wrote a wonderful manuscript
that my critique group assured me was a winner, and proudly toted it to the
Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference in California. I was coming home with
a contract.
Reality hit. The agents I met thought the subject had already been
exhausted. Editors smiled and nodded but didn’t ask for anything more. Instead
of the triumphant, returning writer, I returned home feeling foolish.
By this time, composing stories had entered my blood. Writing had
become like an addiction to a favorite food—I only wanted more. I couldn’t
stop. I attended five more Mount Hermon conferences, as well as the ones hosted
by American Christian Fiction Writers, and wrote three more novels.
Still nothing.
I placed in one sponsored contest and won another. That earned me
the attention of an agent. She circulated my manuscripts through various
publishing houses and was able to get my work in front of a publishing board,
only to come up with no offers. I wondered if I shouldn’t find another way
to pass my time.
Once again, I was ready to quit.
I’d always hoped to please God with my creativity, knowing He was
the only editor that mattered. He and I had a long talk, and I told Him to
remove the desire to create if I was traveling the wrong path. But He didn’t.
In 2016 I was happily writing another novel (are
you keeping track of the numbers?) when I received an e-mail from my agent—contract offer! God had answered
my prayers. I’d met with this publisher at an Oregon Christian Writers
conference earlier that summer, and she liked the book immediately. Not only
that, but I had to promise to create two more novels and make this a series.
The rest of the story is, as they say, history.
Proverbs 13:12 says: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when
the desire comes it is a tree of life.” Cling to that promise and keep writing.
~~~~~
Love
Calls Her Home
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| Love Calls Her Home by Patricia Lee |
Lissa Frye returns home from the Navy hoping to find a different future—one which includes a husband, marriage, and a family, until news from her sister impacts Lissa’s personal life and derails her plans.
Kurt McKintrick, having lost his best friend to an IED in Afghanistan, has returned to help the man's mother run a horse rescue ranch. Images of war plague him, and thoughts of anyone else he might love falling victim to an untimely end, distance him from the person most likely to help.
Eleven-year-old Jayden Clarke seeks to fill the ache in his heart from his father’s death two years before. But his life is turned upside down when the rancher who befriended him is found dead, the horses neglected, and the dog missing. When authorities arrive to investigate, Lissa and Kurt, estranged after a former relationship, are forced to meet again. Lissa must confront images from her past and Kurt struggles to live with his present truth.
Will Jayden be the catalyst that draws Lissa and Kurt back together for a happily ever after?
~~~~~
About the Author
Patricia Lee is a published author, having written since she first
learned what words could do at the age of six. She is a member of the Oregon
Christian Writers and of American Christian Fiction Writers. She and her
husband have two adult children and live in the Pacific Northwest with two
sleepy cats. The first novel in the Mended Hearts series, An Anchor On Her Heart, released in August of 2017. Love Calls Her Home releases in March,
2018.
Connect
with Patricia Lee here:
Website: www.authorpatricialee.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lee_patricia__
