Choosing or Chosen?

I began life as a writer of non-fiction. Working on my local newspaper, there was no place for either fiction or poetry so those had to be kept strictly to my leisure hours. Later working life involved editing and publishing non-fiction, and when finally I was able to write my own books, it was easier to keep going down that familiar and by now well-beaten track. Especially as I had lots of friends and contacts amongst the non-fiction publishers!

I suppose it was the path of least resistance - or to put a more positive spin on it, working to my strengths. Non-fiction had chosen me, much more than me choosing it.

But my heart yearned to write fiction. And I was already writing lots of poetry. Over the years, the folders filled up, some with complete stories, some with starts that never got finished! And life went on, in all its gruesome technicolour. And each time I moved house, those folders got repacked into boxes and emptied out on bookshelves, nagging reminders...

Until one day, I definitely heard the starting pistol. A completely new idea, needing serious research to create a good story that I, with my muddled background, was well-placed to write. It had only taken all these years...

Now with six novels under my belt and plans for two more in the most recent series, I look back and I know I couldn't have written these books back then when I wanted to. I didn't think I needed the time but I'm grateful now that I had the opportunity to learn the necessary disciplines of writing to length, for my audience, and the simple but essential disciplines of tackling it as work and subduing my ego when corrections were needed!

Patience is not one of my strengths but waiting on God and His timing certainly seems to be a recurring lesson in my life!  

Dorothy Courtis writes faith-infused fiction as Dorothy Stewart. The novel that launched this stage of her career is When the Boats Come Home about the Fishermen's Revival in Great Yarmouth in 1921. Her most recent publications are two titles in her Somerset Mystery Series: Loose Ends and Stitch-Up. She blogs at www.dorothystewartblog.wordpress.com