I never would have thought I could make money from my writing. While I always enjoyed reading, and dreamed of being a multi-million dollar bestseller author (who doesn’t fantasize about this?), I had no serious expectation that I could put two words together to make a coherent thought, must less anything that someone would actually buy. Later, when I ventured feeble attempts at dipping my toe in the novel business and mailed off some of my fanciful fiction stories, all the rejection letters that arrived proved my earlier self-doubts.

For a few years, different people had encouraged me to try my hand at non-fiction. I thought they had to be joking. If I couldn’t even imagine anything good enough to get paid for, why should I believe anyone would pay some bucks to read of uneventful happenings in my dull life?

Still, folks prodded me, and still I resisted. Then while surfing the web one day in September 2007, I came across this little magazine that wanted true stories…of disasters that happened while cooking. I thought, ‘Well, there was this one time when I accidentally popped popcorn in kerosene…’ Would they actually want to know about that? Would they really send a $75 check to hear about something so stupid?

They did!

And suddenly I remembered this other time when my brother, sister and I went swimming in the neighbor’s pond against Mom’s strict orders. The only way we avoided a hickory switch whipping was to dirty our brother’s feet as proof we’d never touched the water. Would someone buy that story? Yep, I sold it.

And I eventually did sell a fiction book too, one that is still—after a year of publication—on my publisher’s best selling list. My second book will be released Feb. 4, 2009 and my third in April.

But I’m continually watching my dull, everyday life. I know editors pay to hear true, even if seemingly mundane moments. Which reminds me. I think I have another story. See, my husband and I got married in a barber shop and…

Lula Thomas has been writing seriously for the past two years. Her non-fiction and humor articles have appeared in widely circulated publications like Out of the Boxx, The Front Porch Magazine, and Good Old Days. Her first historical romantic mystery, See No Evil, My Pretty Lady, is available as an ebook at https://www.thewildrosepress.com, the second, Said the Spider to the Fly, a romantic suspense, due to be released Feb. 4, 2009, and a third, It’s Elementary, My Dear Winifred with Class Act Books in April. Known as Miss Mae, the Pure Southern Genteel author, she lives in Georgia with her wonderfully patient husband and three mixed breed adopted dogs. Please visit her at https://www.missmaesite.com.