Cheryl Hallon – Pane and Suffering

This week, I’m hosting author, Cheryl Hallon

Cheryl Hollon writes full time after she left an engineering career designing and building military flight simulators in amazing countries such as England, Wales, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan and India. Fulfilling the dream of a lifetime, she combines her love of writing with a passion for creating glass art. In the small glass studio behind the house, Cheryl and her husband George design, create, and produce fused glass, stained glass and painted glass artwork.

The Turning Point

The road to publication can be a difficult journey filled with detours, obstructions and an endless supply of unknown obstacles. For me, establishing a solid habit of writing every morning was the turning point on my journey from writer-in-waiting to published author.

Strangely, it wasn’t the quality of the words that pushed me to a higher level of professionalism. It was taking a dedicated approach to the physical act of writing. As I am deep in revisions for the third book in the Webb’s Glass Shop Mystery series, I feel like a white-collar worker going about the practical business of crafting another story.

Behaving like a professional is the situation you are seeking. How you achieve that feeling is a personal journey of discovery. Some writers I know achieved that level by first submitting short stories until one was accepted and published. Yes! Validation achieved. Others have considered that the completion of a novel-length manuscript is objective proof of professional behavior. The key in these cases was that afterwards, they felt like a career writer.

The journey takes many different paths and appears unique to each writer. Look for that turning point and see how it affects your next steps. The strange part is that you can’t tell if you’ve turned that corner until you look back and see it. After securing an agent and a publisher, I could see clearly that I had turned that corner when I started writing everyday – just like a job – every single day.

Where are you on your writing journey?

About Pane and Suffering:

To solve her father’s murder and save the family-owned glass shop, Savannah Webb must shatter a killer’s carefully constructed façade. . .

After Savannah’s father dies unexpectedly of a heart attack, she drops everything to return home to St. Petersburg, Florida, to settle his affairs–including the fate of the beloved, family-owned glass shop. Savannah intends to hand over ownership to her father’s trusted assistant and fellow glass expert, Hugh Trevor, but soon discovers the master craftsman also dead of an apparent heart attack.

As if the coincidence of the two deaths wasn’t suspicious enough, Savannah discovers a note her father left for her in his shop, warning her that she is in danger. With the local police unconvinced, it’s up to Savannah to piece together the encoded clues left behind by her father. And when her father’s apprentice is accused of the murders, Savannah is more desperate than ever to crack the case before the killer seizes a window of opportunity to cut her out of the picture. . .

You can visit Cheryl and her books at http://www.cherylhollon.com

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cheryl-Hollon-Writer/357992230995844

http://www.twitter.com/cherylhollon

Cheryl and I would love to hear from you so please feel free to leave a comment.