It's a privilege to host ANE MULLIGAN at Journeys To Joy this week! ~ ~Welcome, Ane ~
While a large, floppy straw hat is
her favorite, Ane has worn many different ones: hairdresser, legislative
affairs director (that's a fancy name for a lobbyist), drama director,
playwright, humor columnist, and novelist. Her lifetime experience provides a
plethora of fodder for her Southern-fried fiction (try saying that three times
fast). She firmly believes coffee and chocolate are two of the four major food
groups. President of the award-winning literary site, Novel Rocket, Ane resides
in Suwanee, GA, with her artist husband, her chef son, and two dogs of Biblical
proportion. You can find Ane on her Southern-fried
Fiction website, Google+,
Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter, and Pinterest.
I'm not one of those authors who knew they wanted to write from
the moment they discovered blank paper and Crayons. I was ADHD long before they
knew what it was, and they called me disruptive. Who knew the stories I told
(back then they called it lying) and played out for weeks with my dolls, would someday
become books about women and their friendships?
In 1996, as Creative Arts director for my
church, I wrote my first script, and after we performed it, I sent it to a
publisher. They bought that one and everything I sent them afterwards.
I was still working full time, but in 2002, I started
looking for a new job. For some reason, I was always in the last three to be
considered, but never hired. I was a forever-bridesmaid in the job market. I
should have realized God was at whispering to me.
Finally, in December, the hubs told me to quit looking for a
job and write a book.
Who me?
I quickly realized that was God's call though, because as
soon as Hubs said those words, it was as if God turned on a light bulb, and an
idea for a story dropped into my otherwise empty mind.
January 1st, 2003, I sat down and started my
first novel. I quickly learned being a novelist is a far cry from being a playwright.
Plays are all dialogue, after all. After writing most of that first manuscript,
I found an online Christian critique group and a few mentors, who became close
friends, ones who told me plainly I had a lot to learn.
What an understatement. POV? Never heard the term. Omniscient?
That's what God was. Show don't tell? How do I tell a story without telling? Yikes!
Yet, with each critique, I absorbed a new concept. I bought all the books on
the craft of fiction writing they recommended. I read them and absorbed more.
Then, I met another new writer, Jessica Dotta, whose story I
fell in love with. We became close friends and critique partners.
When I attended my first writer's conference in 2003, I met
a writer who would become my other critique partner and dear friend, Gina
Holmes. That first year, though, she thought I was ... well frankly, a freak. You'll
have to ask her about that.
Gina, Jessica, and I talked
constantly. We believe God brought the three of us together. The next year, we
went to a writers conference—the wonderful Blue Ridge Mountains Christian
Writers Conference (BRMCWC) and joined ACFW (American Christian Fiction
Writers).
In 2005, Gina started to blog her first novel journey. She quickly
discovered she had three readers ... and she and I were two of them. We spent a
lot of time online looking for author interviews. She asked Deb Raney, whom
we'd met and taken classes from at the Blue Ridge. Deb accepted and became the
first author interviewed on Novel Journey, now
Novel Rocket.
After a few months, Gina brought Jessica and me onboard to
help. Over the past eight years, we've featured new interviews and teaching
articles every single day, 365 days a year. Today, Novel Rocket has thirty
terrific contributors.
In 2005, two more critique partners entered
my life, Lisa Ludwig and Michelle Griep.
We formed our own online group, the
Penwrights, and being serious about publishing, we were tough on one another.
So tough, we all earned nicknames: Attila the Holmes, Hannibal Dotta, Genghis
Griep, and Ludwig von Frankenpen. Me? Oh, I'm Ane of Mean Gables. And so the
legend was born.
Through my Penwrights, I learn more every day, and through
conferences, I've always gleaned a golden nugget from each one—something that
takes my writing to a new level. And each time, I see God's hand directing me
this way and that.
In 2006, an editor took my manuscript to committee. While I
waited for the result, expecting a contract of course, I got an agent. However ...
sigh ...the editorial committee said no. Then, God called my agent into
ministry, and we parted friends.
But I was discouraged. I cried out to God, asking ... okay,
whining ... why wasn't I getting anywhere? I had been so sure God called me to
write. From the moment Hubs first said those words, stories bubbled in my mind
all the time. I needed a sign.
And God gave me the one. An editor, (now an agent) gave me
the encouragement to keep on keeping on. After reading a manuscript, she
affirmed that I'd learned the craft. That carried me for months.
At the next conference I attended, I connected with my second
agent. She put my work in front of numerous publishers, and more committees, and
finally, in 2010, she called to say my manuscript had passed editorial
committee and was going to pub board!
This was it! Whoopee! Pub board loved it, but their slate
was filled, so the editor was going to hold it for their next quarter. Only she
retired before the next quarter, and her computer hard drive was wiped clean. I
was lost in cyber oblivion.
Then my agent retired. Do you see a pattern here? I did and
it looked like a tilt-a-whirl. Once again, I whined, "Lord, what is going
on?"
And He said, "Wait. Trust me." He didn't offer me
another choice, so I chose to trust.
The ACFW conference was approaching, so I contacted some
agents I'd love to work with. We set up meetings. Then I got all my prayer
partners, my critique partners, my church, and family praying.
I had a very specific prayer request. This would be my third
agent. I wanted the one God wanted for me. So I asked everyone to pray that the
Lord would seal the lips of those not planned for me, and loose the lips of only
the agent He had chosen for me.
And He did. Boy, did He. One never saw me. One missed our
appointment. The third had a blood sugar drop and didn't recognize me. And the
one God planned for me, Sandra Bishop, offered representation.
I have to admit, I didn't know whether to cheer or feel
sorry for her, given my track record. While at the conference, we received an
offer for a 2-book contract. But once again, God said no and we turned it down.
By this time, I began to wonder if I'd ever publish. Yes, that
was my goal, but if God had something different for me, I was fine with that. I
just felt bad for Sandra. She worked so hard for me.
Then, in August of 2013, nearly
eleven years after I began this journey, Sandra called me to tell me we had an
offer from Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas.
And my heart quickened. All right, God! This was it. This
time, He said, "Yes."
I'm so glad I didn't push but listened to my agent's advice.
If there's one thing I've learned during this journey, it's this: God must be
part of the equation.
I believe people let down their guard when they think
they're being entertained. Through fiction, we can entertain readers. Through
fiction, we can present seeds of God's truth. Then when they least expect it, a
story can reach out, touch their hearts, and change them. And isn't that why we
write?
~ CHECK OUT ANE'S NEW RELEASE ~
Chapel Springs Revival
With a friend like
Claire, you need a gurney, a mop, and a guardian angel.
Everybody in the small town of Chapel Springs, Georgia,
knows best friends Claire and Patsy. It's impossible not to, what with Claire's
zany antics and Patsy's self-appointed mission to keep her friend out of
trouble. And trouble abounds. Chapel Springs has grown dilapidated and the
tourist trade has slackened. With their livelihoods threatened, they join
forces to revitalize the town. No one could have guessed the real issue needing
restoration is personal.
With
their marriages in as much disarray as the town, Claire and Patsy embark on a
mission of mishaps and miscommunication, determined to restore warmth to Chapel
Springs —and their lives. That is if they can convince their husbands and the
town council, led by two curmudgeons who would prefer to see Chapel Springs left
in the fifties and closed to traffic.
Leave a comment for Ane ~
She'll be here to respond all week long.
Seventeen-year-old
Nathan Boliva is under investigation by the FBI for a kidnapping he didn’t
commit.
