About Wendy Jo
|
Stories Have Always Captivated My Heart
|
|
Never Underestimate the Power of Story
|
|
From the bedtime stories my dad read to me and my brothers, to the required reading of various literature classes, to the novels consumed in the quiet of the night, stories have always captivated my heart.
Growing up in Minnesota as the daughter of educators, at times I found myself in the back seat of a station wagon travelling on family vacations during a break in the school-year calendar. My two older brothers were the perfect companions on these journeys. The eldest had an uncanny ability to map out our routes to ensure that we investigated and enjoyed as many aspects of our outings as was humanly possible. And the middle brother was my built-in entertainment. He and I engrossed ourselves in developing talk-shows and other narratives that required quirky characters, funny voices and distinct accents. In high-school and college, I discovered a love of theater playing roles in everything from The Glass Menagerie to The Real Inspector Hound. The stories that played out in front of the curtain as well as those that developed behind, filled those years with interesting people, adventures and memories. After graduating from the University of Washington with a degree in Theater Arts, I married my college sweetheart and settled into being a wife and mother in the Seattle area. During those years, my creative propensities were pretty much limited to the spheres of parenting our three children and participating in various church or school activities. But it was not until January of 2015, when a divine prompting dropped from the blue into my heart, that I even entertained the notion of writing a novel. Frankly, I didn’t know if I could. But with my children all grown and my husband’s business requiring less and less of my attention, space had finally opened up for me to do what I had in my heart to do. So, I chose to give myself to learning the process of moving a story up out of my heart and onto the pages of a book. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the quirky characters, interesting settings, and imaginative realms that once intrigued me as a young person should now bubble up in my books. It reminds me that our Heavenly Creator is very intentional about our earthly journey. As I write, I sometimes feel as if I am still travelling in the back seat of a station wagon with my Jesus at the wheel and my characters as my companions filling my heart with their stories as we traverse both life on the planet and that which is to come. Can’t wait to see what’s up around the bend. |
|
|
|
A few of my favorite things
Family Travel Flowers Gardening Painting Cookies |
