Stuff
Essay on Writing
By Karen Young - January 7, 2009
I'm convinced that I didn't choose a career as a writer; it chose me. After numerous long distance moves necessitated by my husband's career, I realized I would never have enough time in one particular job to develop a career. So, out of sheer desperation after the tenth move, I decided to try writing a book. If I'd known then the incredible obstacles that authors face trying to get published, I probably would not have had enough self-confidence to try. But, being an avid reader and having a gift for story-telling, I thought up a plot, wrote that first book and sent it to a major publisher of romance fiction. Imagine my amazement when I received a call from an editor six weeks later who offered me a contract. I knew then that I had found the career for me! Or, as I mentioned, maybe it had found me.
Writing fulfills something inside me like nothing else. I have always been fascinated with human nature. I’m interested in people, in their lives, in who they are, in their interests, in what makes them tick, in what makes them happy or sad or good or bad. Spinning a tale with characters drawn from whole cloth out of my imagination was just plain fun. And so, for a while, I wrote several light romances.
But I soon wanted to say more than was allowed in the narrow scope of the romance genre. I wanted my books to speak to my readers. From the start, I was drawn to explore the problems of contemporary women. With three daughters of my own, I saw first hand the ups and downs of relationships, of difficulties women face in balancing career with marriage and motherhood, with the challenge of blended families as a result of divorce and—looking beyond my family—to issues facing society as a whole. And for the next fifteen or twenty books, I did just that.
And then I lost my husband to a fatal heart attack. Not only was my world changed, but I was changed in ways too numerous to mention. One of the most joyous was that I was drawn back to the faith of my childhood. And, along with that, I began to explore the possibility of writing inspirational fiction. Over the years as I've conceived and developed plots relevant to the lives of contemporary women, there is one element that I felt overlooked in popular fiction. And that is the element of spirituality. Of faith. My books have always included the tension between right and wrong, but adding the spiritual tension— those hard questions and struggles— was never encouraged. In fact, it was discouraged. Writing good inspirational fiction is not about adding a religious component to a book— it's so much more. Now I'm free to explore the presence of a spiritual dimension to my characters as I write popular fiction. For the first time— without apology— I can flesh out my characters to add the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual.
It will give me great satisfaction and joy to do just that for the next fifteen or twenty books.
Writing fulfills something inside me like nothing else. I have always been fascinated with human nature. I’m interested in people, in their lives, in who they are, in their interests, in what makes them tick, in what makes them happy or sad or good or bad. Spinning a tale with characters drawn from whole cloth out of my imagination was just plain fun. And so, for a while, I wrote several light romances.
But I soon wanted to say more than was allowed in the narrow scope of the romance genre. I wanted my books to speak to my readers. From the start, I was drawn to explore the problems of contemporary women. With three daughters of my own, I saw first hand the ups and downs of relationships, of difficulties women face in balancing career with marriage and motherhood, with the challenge of blended families as a result of divorce and—looking beyond my family—to issues facing society as a whole. And for the next fifteen or twenty books, I did just that.
And then I lost my husband to a fatal heart attack. Not only was my world changed, but I was changed in ways too numerous to mention. One of the most joyous was that I was drawn back to the faith of my childhood. And, along with that, I began to explore the possibility of writing inspirational fiction. Over the years as I've conceived and developed plots relevant to the lives of contemporary women, there is one element that I felt overlooked in popular fiction. And that is the element of spirituality. Of faith. My books have always included the tension between right and wrong, but adding the spiritual tension— those hard questions and struggles— was never encouraged. In fact, it was discouraged. Writing good inspirational fiction is not about adding a religious component to a book— it's so much more. Now I'm free to explore the presence of a spiritual dimension to my characters as I write popular fiction. For the first time— without apology— I can flesh out my characters to add the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual.
It will give me great satisfaction and joy to do just that for the next fifteen or twenty books.
