Official Site of Preslaysa Edwards - Preslaysa Williams
Author. Actress. Blasian Gal.
“We don’t have an eternity to realize our dreams, only the time we are here.”
-Susan L. Taylor
Now is the time to step out on that dream that makes your spirit dance.
Now is the time to create that art that simmers in your soul.
Now is the time to act on that idea that moves your heart and mind.
Tomorrow isn’t promised. The moment is now. Today is the day. So step out, create, act, and dream.
All righty folks, here we are for part two of my writing journey. Part 1 is here in case you’ve missed it. So far in my journey, I’ve:
Does my journey sound hopeful to you so far? 🙂
Around 2013, I entered the ACFW Genesis. I remember entering and thinking not much was going to come from the contest. I had been still feeling the disappointment of having to say ‘no’ to the offer to buy my book. I know what you’re thinking at this point: “If you were so disappointed about it, why’d you say no?” Good question. I had to think long term about my career. If I had accepted that contract, I wouldn’t have been a happy writer in the long run. (Side piece of advice: Whenever you’re faced with a decision, carry out the ramifications of that decision to its ultimate end. Take your emotions out of it and really ask yourself: Is this where I want to end up?)
Anyway, I entered the Genesis. I forgot about the deadlines and all that and kept on with my life. Then one day, I was sitting at my computer, and the phone rang. That’s when I heard the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to my spirit.
(I’m not joking y’all. I heard His voice. If you ever meet me in person, please don’t run in the other direction and think I’m some kind of weirdo 🙂 I don’t hear His voice all the time, but when I do, I know.)
I can describe the voice of the Holy Spirit in four words: calm, quiet, steady, authoritative, and true. True, true. True. Okay that was five words (or eight).
Anyway, I heard the Holy Spirit talking while the phone was ringing, He said: “That’s the category coordinator for the Genesis. She’s calling to tell you that you semi-finaled in the Genesis.
Me: She is?
No answer from Upstairs.
I’m completely frozen at this point, a bundle of nerves, and the phone is ringing and ringing and ringing. Finally, I pick up.
Category Coordinator: Hello, is Preslaysa Williams there?
Me: Yeah.
Category Coordinator: Congratulations, you semi-finaled in the Genesis.
God was right. (He usually is 🙂 ) After I heard that first sentence she started talking about some other stuff which I forgot about because by then my brain was going a million miles an hour. After I got off the phone, I was still in this twilight zone state of mind.
Someone else (a couple of someone else’s) liked my work. My writing wasn’t a complete fluke! Â I was a semi-finalist!
So I did what any over-the-moon excited writer would do. I waited until they made the official announcement, and then I wrote my huge Facebook post!
I then checked how many likes I received. I got about thirty of those…
A couple months later, I found out that my manuscript was a finalist in the Genesis too! (I didn’t hear the voice of God that time 🙂 )
And shortly after that, another editor whom I had submitted to had requested my full manuscript!!! At this time, I was also actively querying and researching agents. I received some non-responses from agents, some rejections from agents, and some requests for fulls too!!
Squee!!! I am over the moon thrilled. But then I realized that I’d be attending the 2013 ACFW conference as a Genesis finalist and all my fears and doubts and  insecurities soon followed:
What if I win?
What if I don’t win?
What if the editor buys my book?
What if the editor rejects my book?
Who do I pitch to at ACFW?
Should I get an agent?
How do I pitch anyway?
What if I mess up my pitch?
Too many questions in my head. But there was one thing that had held me together during that time…hope.
I had hope.
Part Three Next Week….
(P.S. I haven’t forgotten about my high school story, either. I’ll be continuing that in future posts.)
This month, I’m talking about my writing journey. I’ve recently received some emails asking me: “You’ve won all these writing awards, when will I be able to read your books?”
God knows the answer to that one. I’m fully trusting in Him. But I wanted to answer the question posed in those emails by sharing my publishing journey with you to date. In doing so, I hope to restore your hope in your own dreams.
Just as an aside, I had hoped to write about my publishing journey in one blog post, but there was absolutely NO WAY I could cram eight and a half years of writing and publishing experience into one post. So this is the first of a multi-part series 🙂
First, a Bible verse (And second, a little anecdote…And then third, my publishing journey.)
“They that trust in the Lord will be like Mount Zion. They shall never be removed.” (Psalm 125:1)
Since becoming a writer, I’ve learned to notice patterns. Patterns in events. Patterns in behavior. Patterns in my life. I think that’s because the gargantuan task of writing novel length manuscripts causes me to pay more attention. And so I’ve started paying attention to my life’s patterns. Whenever I reach a personal turning point, God always brings me to what I now call: “the very end of the end of the end”. Meaning, there’s no one else I can trust in but Him to make it through. Hence, Psalm 125:1 This “end of the end of the end” moment happened to me when I was a high school senior.
As a high school senior, I had one dream college: Columbia University. I loved everything about Columbia. Their Core Curriculum. Their location (Manhattan). Their history of producing some of the greatest minds in the world. I loved Columbia so much that I applied to it through the Early Decision process. Early decision shows the Admissions Committee that you’re serious about attending their school. You’re not “playing the field” so to speak. Early decision is also a binding agreement (versus Early Action admission, which is non-binding) Early decision means that you send in your application exclusively to this school and withdraw all other applications to other schools. You can’t apply to more than one school under Early Decision. If you are not accepted via Early Decision, you will be either rejected or deferred. Rejected applicants can’t apply again to that school until the following year. Deferred applicants will have to compete in the larger, regular admission pool. If you are accepted via Early Decision, then you HAVE to attend that school. You are committed.
I applied to Columbia University through Early Decision, and I was accepted! Squee!! I remember receiving that letter and thinking about all the hard work I’ve done leading to that point. I didn’t excel in academics alone. A lot of the applicants to Columbia were also top students. Everyone was highly intelligent. For me to really stand out, I had to focus on one non-academic pursuit and shine in that pursuit. For me, that was acting. (I hadn’t discovered writing at this point in my life.) The Columbia admissions committee saw this in me and decided to give me a chance.
However, there was a hiccup in my dream even after I received the acceptance letter. I was a series regular on a TV show. Acting on a TV series meant that I was out of school a couple of months of the year. There are union regulations and laws in place for these situations, and so my teachers, producers, and I made sure we met them. I had a tutor on set, and I had to fulfill a set number of school hours each day. I would regularly mail my work to my teachers. They’d grade them, and I’d move on to the next assignment. I did pretty well, ranking in the top ten percent of my high school class and graduating with honors.
Yet the vice principal of my school didn’t think this was enough. He had met with me in his office and stated that because I wasn’t physically in the school building, I hadn’t met all the attendance requirements to graduate. And so I wouldn’t graduate from high school. Mind you, I have already received my acceptance letter from my dream college and I told them I’d be going. Under the Early Decision criteria, I had to attend that fall or my chance would be gone.
A huge dilemma for sure…
(Anecdote to be continued next week…)
I started writing fiction in January of 2008. I had left my full time job which held the promise of promotion and increased income to become a mother at home. My first child was eventually born two years later, and so I used these quiet years to start learning the craft of fiction. This was my adult “Early Decision.”
I wrote a lot of stuff. Journal entries. Young Adult. Fantasy. I finally decided that I’d focus on writing contemporary inspirational romance. I’d eat, sleep, and read romance until I knew the genre. (Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit when I say that I ate, slept, and read romance, but you get the gist. I had a strong hunger to master the romance genre.)
After a couple of years, I felt confident enough to enter the Genesis in 2011. (Okay, I’m exaggerating here too. I wasn’t confident at all about putting my work and my heart out there for people to judge! I was so nervous when I entered the Genesis in 2011!) I didn’t place that year, but I attended the ACFW conference and learned all that I could about the craft and business of writing. I love the ACFW conference. I even scoped out some agents and pondered someday signing with a literary agent 🙂
After the conference, I submitted my book to some publishers. I received non-acceptance letters. The letters were all very kind and professional. I wallowed a bit, but then I kept writing and submitting to publishers. I eventually received interest in my manuscript from one publisher, and they offered me a contract! I was over the moon happy! I was un-agented, and there was little room for negotiation in the contract. I didn’t think the terms would benefit my career in the long run, so I declined.
That was one of the toughest decisions I have ever made. Especially after my adult “Early Decision” to become a professional writer years earlier. I had set my other options aside and decided that for the rest of my adult life, I’d be a professional writer. Tough. Tough. Tough.
But I said to myself that I’d remain pre-published for now and trust that God had something better in mind for my writing career. By this time it was 2013, and I entered the ACFW Genesis contest a second time…
(To be continued next week!)
Here are free ebooks available now on Amazon. You can download the free ebooks to your Kindle. I don’t know how long the ebooks will be offered for free so be sure to download soon.
Download your free ebook: The Beautiful Home on a Budget
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Hey everyone, it’s Preslaysa!
I am so happy to welcome novelist, Erica Vetsch, today. When I heard that Erica homeschools, writes novels and works as a bookkeeper, I was impressed…and I wanted to learn how she balanced it all! So today, Erica will tell us!
Erica’s has three books available this month: Light to My Path, A Bride’s Portrait of Dodge City, Kansas
Here’s Erica…
A Plan of Attack by Erica Vetsch
As a wife, homeschooling mom, company bookkeeper, and novelist, I often get the question, “How do you balance it all?”
The truthful answer is, “I don’t.” Or at least not very well. But I have learned a few things along the way that help me as I’m striving to get everything done and still stay sane, and I’d like to share them here with you.
Here are some examples of how I implement these points in my life.
Sometimes things can feel so out of control that we don’t know where to start to bring them back into order. But working out a plan is like eating an elephant. It can be done, but only one bite at a time. Try prioritizing, strategizing, and mobilizing one area of your life first, tweak it until it works for you, then try expanding to another area. Perhaps laundry is your Waterloo. Or meal planning and grocery shopping. Give these three steps a try and see if they work for you.
Though I have set aside my career teaching history to high school students in order to homeschool my own kids, my love of history hasn’t faded. My favorite books are historical novels and history books, and one of my greatest thrills is stumbling across some obscure historical factoid that makes my imagination leap. I’m continually amazed at how God allows me to use my passion for history, romance, and daydreaming to craft historical romances to entertain readers and glorify Him.
Whenever I’m not following flights of fancy in my fictional world, I’m company bookkeeper for our family lumber business, mother of two terrific teens, wife to a man who is my total opposite and yet my soul-mate, and avid museum patron.
How could something so beautiful on the outside be so rotten on the inside?
When Sam discovers the truth about his money-grabbing fiancée, he breaks off their engagement and makes plans to head back to Denver alone. Disillusioned, he determines never to get caught by a woman again. But then, Aunt Tabitha asks a favor of him, and he couldn’t turn her down.
Eldora Carter, jobless, homeless, and family-less, finds herself suddenly in charge of escorting three orphaned children across country on the train from St. Louis to Denver. What should have been an easy job, however, quickly becomes a nightmare as each child presents their own crisis. If it wasn’t for Sam Mackenzie, they’d all have been put off the train long ago.
When an avalanche halts their progress, Sam and Eldora both must learn to trust God like never before. Life, health, safety, security…even family and love. Can God be trusted to put things together when, despite all their efforts, they’ve failed so miserably?
A Bride’s Portrait of Dodge City, Kansas
Hoping to leave the shadows of her shady yesteryears behind, Adeline Reid is focusing on her photography career. But when her ex-boyfriend’s compatriot in crime shows up in Dodge City her entire past is threatened by exposure. Can Addie keep her secrets while helping to catch a killer? Deputy Miles Carr’s investigation into a shopkeeper’s murder leads him to Addie’s door. Will his attraction to this female photographer keep him from catching the true culprit? Or will Addie lead him off course in more ways than one?
A Log Cabin Christmas Novella Collection
 Experience Christmas through the eyes of adventuresome settlers who relied on log cabins built from trees on their own land to see them through the cruel forces of winter. Discover how rough-hewed shelters become a home in which faith, hope, and love can flourish. Marvel in the blessings of Christmas celebrations without the trappings of modern commercialism where the true meaning of the day shines through. And treasure this exclusive collection of nine Christmas romances penned by some of Christian fiction’s best-selling authors.
