Please welcome this weeks guest Jamie Adams for The Journey. She answers the question: How have you seen God work in your writing journey?

As far back as I can remember I’ve had a fondness for lined paper. Add a sharpened pencil into the mix and my fingers start to twitch. It’s always been easier for me to express myself in writing rather than speaking aloud. I was the quiet kid in school whose favorite part of the test was the essay section.

My mother took us to church every Sunday and I knew all the Bible stories by heart. It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I realized something was missing. I wasn’t sure about my salvation. With my Bible in hand I locked myself in my bedroom and prayed—well actually I told God I wasn’t going to sleep that night until I knew what ‘getting saved’ was all about. The Lord used Proverbs 3:5&6 to give me assurance.

From that moment on, my heart and life ambitions changed. I wanted to dedicate my life to Him. For the next several years I enjoyed the blessings that come from serving the Lord. All the while stories and characters came to me late at night when I should have been sleeping.

Although I didn’t have time to write, that didn’t stop the daydreaming and yearning to share the stories playing out in my mind. It wasn’t until after I got marred that I started to write again. I wrote a children’s mystery and sent it to a publisher. A month later I received a generic rejection. They didn’t even address me by name.

I put my dreams of being a writer away and concentrated on my family and church. To ease the desire to write I kept journals. Today I’m so thankful that I can look back and relive all the happy times with my children and husband.

During a very sad time in my life, after the deaths of my parents and two sisters, I longed for the good ole days. On the internet I came across a site made up of readers and writers that were fans of an old western I use to watch with my father as a child.

This group shared stories that were like new episodes of a show that ended forty years ago. Warm and welcoming they welcomed me and when I let it slip that I liked to write they encouraged me to share my western stories as well.

Here I took my first step toward sharing the musings in my head with others. My writing was terrible, filled with head hopping, excessive adverbs, typos . . . But the readers loved my plots. The encouragement and support I found there gave me the confidence to take the next step.

After several years and dozens of short stories I began to feel like I should be doing something more with my writing. I believe the Lord was urging me to write for Him. One of the girls I met in the group had gone on to have several inspirational books published. I asked her where I should start pursuing publication.

Three years ago I followed her advice and joined American Christian Fiction Writers. It was there that I discovered Scribes and eventually a small group of authors who help me by critiquing my work.

Today I have four self published books available on Amazon. My first book, Love’s Golden Quest hit the #1 spot for historical romances after two weeks. For the first month and a half it was the number one hot new release in Christian historical romances.

My stories are set in the old west. As a child I watched westerns with my father and am drawn to that time period. I write about people. I try to create strong characters who are human, with real problems a reader can identify with.

I believe God’s called me to write for Him and I couldn’t have done it without His guidance. The sequel to Love’s Golden Quest, Love’s Healing Power is available now and the third and final book in the series, Love’s Redeeming Grace, will be finished this spring.

You can find my books listed on my author’s page on Amazon or learn about what I’m working on at Facebook.
BIO:
Jamie Adams fell in love with books at an early age. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott opened her imagination and sparked a dream to be a writer. She wrote her first book as a school project in 6th grade.

Today she writes heartwarming romances set in the old west. A graduate of the Institute of Children’s Literature as well as member of American Christian Fiction Writers, The Writing Desk and several critique groups she spends most of her time writing, reading or learning more about the craft dear to her heart.