Fabulous Friday Feature-Tina Radcliffe

Today I welcome a fantastic author who is funny 
and a super friend: Tina Radcliffe 

Enter to win Tina's latest book, 
Mending the Doctor's Heart.
 International readers may also enter! 

(see end of post) 

I met Tina at ACFW. After a meeting, I happened to step into the same elevator as Tina and a group of conferrees. We went up a few floors. The others stepped off the elevator leaving Tina and me, but we were not alone. Before the door closed, Tina looked at the inebriated man mumbling to himself, grabbed my arm, and said, "Mary remember we were going to  talk with a few friends first?" She grabbed my arm and the two of us escaped. Tina is a lot of fun. I highly recommend you introducing yourself if you ever see her. Warning: be prepared to laugh. 

I asked Tina to share how God has led her writing journey. This is what she said:

These Books Aren't Mine, They're God's

Mary, thanks so much for having me on your blog today.

I started my writing journey as a short story writer. I had a nice side income with sales to publications such as The Star (the tabloid used to pay $300 for a short story), and Woman’s World (when I started they paid $1000 for 1000 words) and The Trues (True Confession, True Story, True Romance). By the way, The Trues aren’t true and besides their scintillating cover stories they buy sweet romances as well.

My foundation in short stories taught me a lot about publishing. I learned how to track my submissions. I learned how to handle rejections. If I was rejected, the story was immediately rewritten and sent to another publisher. If I was asked to revise, I revised, with no questions asked. I learned to always have at least four to six stories circulating at one time. I learned not to take anything personally and to keep an eye on the editorial staff. When an editor moved on I resubmitted something that was previously rejected. That’s how I first sold to Woman’s World. Four editors later, the same story that was rejected by one editor was a sale to the new editor.

I also started my idea box at that time. Snippets of conversation, magazine articles, and bright ideas go in this box. It’s a physical box.

There’s some amazing stuff in there like this newspaper clipping. Doesn’t it just scream a story to you?

Sometime the stories that the ideas hold are longer than a short story. That’s when I began writing novel length fiction seriously. I joined RWA and began to learn exactly what I didn’t know. Quite a bit it turns out. I started writing short contemporary and single title romance, but when Love Inspired launched I knew that the merging of faith and romance was where I wanted to be. I wanted to write about normal people whose faith walk is part of their life. Like me.

My plan at that time was to enter the Golden Heart with a new manuscript each year. In 2005 and 2007 I finaled. Contests are great, but if you are consistently finaling and winning, but not selling, there is a problem.

I had a problem, so I hired a professional editor to look at my work. A former Pocket editor, she had edited New York Times best-selling authors. That edit taught me things that I will apply to my manuscripts for the rest of my career.

My next step was to reevaluate my submissions to Love Inspired. I read books from the line again, listened to the editor podcasts, and then submitted a query. The query met with a request for a partial, then a full, then a revision letter and then a sale in January 2010.

An amazing thing happened after that book debuted. I got reader letters. When you get a letter and someone you never met tells you that your words changed their life, well that’s quite a responsibility. For me, that was the point where I realized that these books aren’t mine. They’re God’s. That’s actually been freeing. God graciously opened the door for me to write novels and sell them, and it’s his job to help me write the next book and the next synopsis. My job is to be willing and obedient.

                                                                  

Tina Radcliffe draws from her idea box and her many careers to write her stories. She’s done a tour of duty with the US Army, been a certified Oncology R.N., a library cataloger, and a tech at a national mail order pharmacy. She’s from Western New York and has lived in Oklahoma, Colorado and now Arizona.  Mending the Doctor’s Heart is her third Love Inspired release and it hits the shelf this month.

You can find her at www.tinaradcliffe.com or in Seekerville.

To enter the contest for an autographed copy of Tina Radcliffe's latest book, leave a comment and become a follower of this site if you aren't already. Include email address in your comment. GUESS WHAT? International readers may also enter! Winner announced on my facebook page. Kindle book will be given to International readers.

Thank you, Tina for Joining us This Weekend!

Reader: Have you had a situation where you realized the task your tried so hard to do on your own belonged to God? How did/does this change your approach to the task?