Today, we have a guest post from Shannon Taylor Vannatter, a stay-at-home mom.   Her debut novel won the 2011 Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award.  She’s added another six novels since then, with another due out in the fall. She lives with her husband, son and assorted pets.  If given the chance to clean house or write, she’d rather write. Her goal is to hire Alice from the Brady Bunch. Here’s her post tell how she got started in writing.  OOPS! I forgot to mention this morning, Shannon will give a copy of  Rodeo Regrets to one lucky commenter. So leave a comment and have a chance for a free book.

Shannon:  I started with a story. The story I’d had in my head since I was a teen. It played over and over, I’d move scenes around, change them up, and tweak the ending. I thought it was a movie, but I didn’t want to go to Hollywood. Years later when I was in my thirties, my work hours changed and I suddenly had time to read again. But when I went to the library searching for clean romance, I couldn’t find any. I finally realized that story in my head could be a book and decided if I ever got a computer, I’d write it.

Two years later, I got a computer and as soon as it was plugged in the wall, I started writing the book. But my characters kept talking to God, praying, and going to church. Christian fiction was in its infancy then and I had no idea there was a market for what I was writing. When I finished, I went to the library to learn how to get published. I checked out a Writer’s Market Guide and learned there were publishers looking for what I’d written. I submitted to several and started the next book.

What I didn’t know is how to write. I didn’t know it was a craft with techniques you have to learn. So the rejections started coming. But a year and a half in, I got an offer from a print on demand publisher. I didn’t know what that was. I soon learned, there’s no editing, the book isn’t in stores—just online, and the book was overpriced. After two years of going it alone and getting published, but not the way I wanted to be published, I joined two writer’s groups and attended every conference I could find in the Central Arkansas area.

I learned a lot over the next few years, but there came a point where I wasn’t learning anything new. That’s when I Googled Christian writer’s conferences and found American Christian Fiction Writers. The conference was in Nashville that year and I went. And discovered, I knew the basics.

For the next four years, I attended all the local stuff, plus ACFW. I entered national contests which offered critiques, bought writers magazines, and writers books. Finally in 2007, I officially joined ACFW and joined a critique group with three other members. Their help was priceless. I got second place in two national unpublished first chapter of a novel contests. The feedback from contest judges was also priceless. In 2008, I got an honorable mention for a short story in a writing magazine and got a short story published in Mature Living.

That year, I headed to the ACFW conference in Minneapolis. I hadn’t planned to go because it was too far and money was tight then. But I met a writer in Arkansas who planned to go and she asked me if I wanted to go along. My critique partner lived near the conference hotel and said I could stay with her. All I had to do was come up with the conference fee. Money came out of nowhere and I decided God must want me to go.

I went and pitched my three book series to Heartsong Presents. In early 2009, I signed my first contract. Seven published books later, I have two more in the process.

And that story in my head since I was a teen—the one that started it all—it’s releasing in November. Completely rewritten since I half know what I’m doing now.

Writing is a calling for me. With every book, I pray Christian readers will loan my books to the non-believing friends and maybe through my characters, a seed will land in the good ground and bear fruit.

Thank you, Shannon for sharing your story with us.  Readers, you can find more about Shannon and her books at:  http://amzn.to/189vnPs