The Beginning of the Beginning

I am excited to finally be starting my writing blog. For those of you who don’t already know me from my Hallee the Homemaker blog, I’m Hallee Bridgeman. I live in small town Kentucky with my husband, Gregg and our three kids: Kaylee, who is 15; Scott, who is 5; and Johnathan (Jeb) who is 3.

I title myself as a homemaker, but before accomplishing my daily homemaking duties, I spend my mornings blogging and writing.

I started writing romance novels when Kaylee was about 2 years old. I wrote, very roughly, ten novels in a short amount of time. I didn’t do anything with them, though. I’d just write a book, save the file, and start a new book.

A few years ago, Gregg encouraged me to pull them out and dust them off and start working on them again. Several of my books are suspenseful, and post-9-11 would need to be changed to accomodate our world, terrorism, and the addition of Homeland Security to our nation’s government. With two little boys taking time and sleep away from me, I decided to start working on a timeless trilogy I’d written – my Jewel trilogy.

I started with book one – Sapphire Ice. I read it, edited it, fixed it, and sent it to Gregg who read it, edited it, fixed it. With a synopsis, cover letter, and prayer, I mailed it off to a popular New York publisher.

The second it was gone, I felt a STRONG conviction. This book was a typical conventional romance — full of bad language, premarital sex, and financial greed. I could not stand up in my church, holding a published copy, and proudly claim that I had written that book. I also knew that if I was embarassed about the book and could not proudly claim it among my brothers and sisters in Christ, then I should not have written it in the first place.

I also know how Satan tempts, and I knew that this company would want to publish my book. I immediately re-wrote the book, making Tony, the male lead, a Christian motivated by God’s love. It only took a couple of weeks, but when I was finished, the book was ten times better than the original version.

When I went to my mailbox one day and saw the envelope from the publishing company there, I knew what the letter inside said. They loved my book and wanted to read the whole thing.

Standing on my convictions, I sent them the revised version with a letter thanking them for their interest and asking them to foward it to their inspirational division. In reply from the inspirational department, I was told that the book was wonderful, but too edgy for their market.

I decided to wait until I finished re-writing the other two books in the series — Emerald Fire and Topaz Heat — before continuing to market the books.

In the meantime, I saw something interesting happening in the publishing world. E-books became more than a fad and became a major force in the market. Amazon is the largest book seller in America, and online stores like it sell books electronically by the millions. Major New York publishers are going to exclusively e-books or are printing much less than they used to. Technology has made print-on-demand inexpensive and easy to market. Even grandmothers have computers with internet access and Kindles and other e-book readers.

Watching this happen in just the last 2 years, and knowing that the publishers are scrambling to find their niche in the e-book world, as well as watching professional writers I knew make a success with self-publishing, I decided to go that route rather than going through the process and rigamoral of traditional publishing.

So, that is my journey. The Jewels will be published each month this summer — June, July, and August.

I am happy you’re joining me here and pray my books are a blessing to you. I welcome and encourage your feedback.