When One Journey Ends, Another Journey Begins
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
I wasn’t always a romance author. I’m a librarian by education (with a Masters of Library Service from Rutgers University) and an entrepreneur. When I was a teenager, I had a babysitting empire. During high school, I took classes at FIT in NYC and started a tailoring business. I also worked, sporadically, for my aunt who was a well-known floral designer.
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Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
I’ve also worked as a maid on Kiahwah Island, SC and was a Red Cross case worker in Uijongbu, South Korea. Eventually, when I had a full-time job as a chemical and patent librarian, I had the privilege of studying couture techniques in Paris and started designing wedding gowns. National Geographic Traveler magazine even featured one of my gowns for a spread they did on Charleston, SC society weddings. Then, when we moved to Virginia, I worked as a special projects librarian for art museums, embassies, trade associations, and map collectors. I even managed a tax library–which lasted two weeks. Then I taught art history, ESOL, and classes on how to do library research to all ages, K-12.
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Photo by Anna Docking on Unsplash
And . . . I’m a wife and a mother of twins. The only reason for this litany is because I need you to understand that becoming a romance writer was, truly, the last thing I’d ever considered doing. Yet, things change. Life happens and you find yourself at a crossroads, ready to take a new path. And that’s what happened after my twins were born and my library was combined with another library leaving me without a job. I needed something new, something I had some control over, and something that would allow me to stay home with the kids.
I spent four years looking for that something, in between volunteering at the kids’ preschool and being a wife and mother. Then, when my kids were four and a half, my father was diagnosed with cancer. Not sure what to do with all the grief, I turned to romance novels which had saved me from grad school stress. I read many books in a short period of time, but a few affected me so deeply that I wondered, “Could I do that?”
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Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
To which I answered, “Sure. Why not?” I was a librarian and had always been an avid reader. I knew a ton about books, except for actually how to write them. My grant requests could win money from a stone, but I’d not written fiction since I was in high school. I couldn’t even remember how. After discussing this with my husband, I joined the Romance Writers of America and started writing. I only told a handful of people because this whole idea was scary and I felt very alone.
I’d love to say that I wrote a novel, got a few rejections, and was published quickly. But that’s not what happened. I joined RWA in March 2, 2004. And EVERY DEEP DESIRE, the first book in my Deadly Force Series comes out tomorrow. March 6, 2018. Fourteen years from beginning to . . . another beginning. I’d no idea that when I joined RWA how my life would change. Not in a rapid, OMG-this-is-amazing kind of way. But at a slow, steady pace that taught me how to be a successful published author, allowed me to be present to my family whenever they needed me, and reminded me why patience, perseverance and gratitude are virtues.
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I’m not going to list all of the doomed manuscripts or the many, many rejections. None of that matters because I am, simply, beyond grateful for that journey. For all of the authors I’ve met and who’ve helped me along the way. For my agents Deidre and Kristy for their constant support. For my awesome editor Deb who makes me a better writer. And for my family who’s always believed in me. Fourteen years is a long time to wait for a dream. But looking back, it seems to have gone by so quickly. Not unlike how fast my children have grown. And now it’s time to let go again. Once this book enters the world tomorrow, it’s no longer mine. It belongs to every reader who finds it. It belongs to everyone except me.
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So, tomorrow, a new journey starts as a published author. But this time I’m not alone. This time I have friends, peers, and . . . readers. This time I have a published book–a retelling of Romeo and Juliet–that makes my heart sing and my soul cry.
And all I (and Rafe, and Juliet, and the rest of the characters in the Deadly Force series) can say is Thank You.
[image error]Sharon Wray is a librarian who once studied dress design in the couture houses of Paris and now writes about the men in her Deadly Force romantic suspense series where ex-Green Berets and their smart, sexy heroines retell Shakespeare’s greatest love stories.
Her debut book EVERY DEEP DESIRE, a sexy, action-packed retelling of Romeo and Juliet, is about an ex-Green Beret determined to regain his honor, his freedom, and his wife.
EVERY DEEP DESIRE releases on March 6, 2018 and is available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and iBooks.
Adding it to your Goodreads TBR list is also always appreciated!
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