by Patricia Bradley, @PTBradley1

Photo by Torbjørn Helgesen on Unsplash

I’m a list maker. I make grocery lists, to-do lists, gift lists…the lists go on, and the other day I was listing a few of the things I’ve learned in my writing journey. When I finished I thought, gee, I wish I’d known some of these things when I first started putting words on paper. So…I thought if I felt that way, maybe you would too. Here goes in no particular order:

1. It takes eight to ten years of schooling for a person to become a doctor. Likewise, it takes years for a writer to learn how to craft stories that are publishable. Maybe not ten years, but certainly longer than the year it took me to write my first book— which will never see the light of day.
2. Writing is subjective and not everyone will like what you write. If you don’t believe me, enter your story in a contest. You’ll probably get a couple of high scores and one very low score—I did—two 98s and one 59 on a manuscript I entered…a manuscript that a publisher bought a month later.
3. When you first start out, do not submit three chapters and an outline if you haven’t completed the whole manuscript. If an editor likes those first three chapters and asks for the completed manuscript and you haven’t written it, you will make a bad impression on that editor.

4. On that same note, when you go to a writer’s conference and an editor or agent asks you to send your completed manuscript, do it. I’ve had editors and agents tell me they only receive about 25% of the manuscripts they request at conferences. 
5. Most people like to HAVE written because writing is hard work from the first sentence to the middle to the end. Understand that there will be days that the words will not flow like water from your brain to your fingers. 
6. Following up on #5, I’ve discovered if the words aren’t coming, if I make a deal with myself to write for five minutes (anyone can write for 5 minutes) once the timer goes off, I keep writing. Sometimes you just have to fool that inner critic that says you can’t do it.

I hope my list has helped in some way, if nothing more than to encourage you to hang in there and keep writing! I know one writer who received 10,000 rejection letters before she sold five books in one day. What if she’d given up the day before?

NOW GO WRITE SOMETHING!

Crosshairs (Natchez Trace Park Rangers Book #3)

 

Investigative Services Branch (ISB) ranger Ainsley Beaumont arrives in her hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, to investigate the murder of a three-month-pregnant teenager. While she wishes the visit was under better circumstances, she never imagined that she would become the killer’s next target–nor that she’d have to work alongside an old flame.

 

After he almost killed a child, former FBI sniper Lincoln Steele couldn’t bring himself to fire a gun, which had deadly and unforeseen consequences for his best friend. Crushed beneath a load of guilt, Linc is working at Melrose Estate as an interpretive ranger. But as danger closes in on Ainsley during her murder investigation, Linc will have to find the courage to protect her. The only question is, will it be too little, too late?

Patricia Bradley is a Carol finalist and winner of an Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award in Suspense, and three anthologies that included her stories debuted on the USA Today Best Seller List. She and her two cats call Northeast Mississippi home–the South is also where she sets most of her books. Her romantic suspense novels include the Logan Point series and the Memphis Cold Case Novels. Obsession, the second book in the Natchez Trace Park Rangers series, released Februrary 2, 2021. She is now hard at work on the third book, Crosshairs.

Writing workshops include American Christian Fiction Writers online courses, workshops at the Mid-South Christian Writer’s Conference, the KenTen Retreat where she was also the keynote, Memphis American Christian Fiction Writer group, and the Bartlett Christian Writers group. When she has time, she likes to throw mud on a wheel and see what happens.