Did You Read the Success Stories?

One of my duties at WOW! is to collect success stories, mostly from Facebook and Instagram. Every so often, we put out a call to our social media community asking for anything they feel is a success in their writing career, and the answers we get range from a writer finally writing again after a long hiatus to an author receiving a huge publishing contract or signing with a lit agent. For some reason, the success stories we published in the newsletter last Thursday, February 21, 2019, really touched my heart.

Maybe it's just me, and the place I am in this year--trying to grow my editing business, my writing time and my dedication to the craft and to my dreams. Maybe it's the cold winter days causing me to wish for warmth on the outside and the inside. But whatever it was, I just really enjoyed this section and felt inspired to get busy and get moving on my goals.

For example, look at three of these success stories:

Lynn Assimacopoulos says, “I am a retired Registered Nurse who spent more than thirty-five years working in various areas of nursing. In 2005, at the age of sixty-six, my seventy-one-year-old husband’s health was deteriorating, and I had to retire to care for him, twenty-four hours a day. During that time, I questioned as to what I could still do, as I also was getting older and at home all the time. The answer came to me rather quickly: It was writing. Eventually in 2000, when I was in my sixties, I had actually written a devotional book called, I Thought There Was a Road There…. Several years later, my husband passed away, and I also began to have some health problems. I now could not do many physical activities at that point; however, I could still write, and since then, I have written and published another nonfiction book called, Separated Lives. I would urge interested senior citizens to explore this opportunity.”

How can you not be encouraged by her inspirational words and her tenacity to write, even during difficult times?

Or I love this one:

Kimberly Butnick says, “I write a blog and think it might be something that could be something: Living On the Edge of The Desk. I teach in a small high school in Wisconsin, and I love to share the funny stories that happen throughout my day. I started to post on Facebook the weekly funnies. I was getting some great feedback from people and was encouraged to write a book about my adventures. I was having a hard time putting this format into a book and decided to start a blog. I started October 5th; and by November 5th, I had over 1,000 hits and 100 followers.”

She followed through on a suggestion after sharing stories on Facebook--and even though the first thing she tried--a book--didn't seem to work out, she started a blog, and it is working out. More tenacity here!

Or this story of NEVER GIVING UP!

Wilma Hollander says, “Never give up! For twenty years I had a dream: I wanted to write romance novels for Harlequin, even though I'm Dutch, and English is not my native language. I came far in various contests, but not far enough. So, I took a side road. I became a Dutch published romance writer, but…in 2018, I accomplished my dream, writing and publishing the first Dutch(!) trilogy for Harlequin/HarperCollins Holland. Yep, I'm officially a Harlequin writer now!”

And the thing is, Muffin readers, these are REAL people who we can interact with every day on social media, who are sharing their success so that you too can live your dreams and one day, share your success.

I know sometimes your email inbox gets full, and you put off reading a longer email until you have time. But I encourage you that if you haven't read the Issue 90 email that made it to your inbox last week, make time to do it. And don't skim over the success stories. If you thought these three were great, then there are a ton more where these came from.

And as always, you can send your own success story (we like them to be 100 words or less) to me at Margo@wow-womenonwriting.com or respond to one of our social media posts when we put them up.

Stay warm, get inspired, and keep writing!

Sign up for Margo's Writing a Novel with a Writing Coach, which starts on Friday, March 1, and you will soon have your own success story to shout about!