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Charity Bradford An Author’s Journey

Welcome, Charity Bradford to Writer’s Gambit!

Juneta, thanks so much for having me over today. I love to talk about my writing journey in the hopes it will encourage someone else to take a chance on chasing their dream, whatever it might be.

Charity Bradford An Author’s Journey

My life of adventure and shaping started in the first grade. I moved from Kentucky to Alabama to Kentucky to Alabama to…well you get the idea. Although the moving didn’t help my grasp of mathematics, it fostered a deep love of books since those were the friends I could always take with me.

My family didn’t mind the growing pile of book boxes when we moved. In fact, when we settled in Tennessee about the same time I started Jr. High, my dad bought a travel trailer and a couple thousand books that the local library was selling for almost nothing. We planned to turn that camper into a real library on our land. Sadly, that never happened. 

Before my parents divorced, I took advantage of the small rural community in Tennessee.  I ran wild over forty acres and learned to drive by the age of twelve. Between books, I shot bee-bee guns, stacked firewood, worked in a garden, hauled water (because we didn’t have running water), and decided one day I wanted to see my name on the cover of a book in the library.

In high school, I started writing stories, but never managed to finish one of them. The characters were real in my head. I just didn’t know where they ended up. So, I put my writing dreams on hold, finished HS and headed to Brigham Young University where I finally filled those gaps in my math knowledge with a degree in Elementary Education.

A year before graduating, I married my high school sweetheart and we started our family right away. In fact, my last semester of college we played “baby handoff” multiple times a day so I could finish all my classes. By the time my hubby finished grad school, we had three kids with one on the way.

The catalyst to start me writing again came with that third child. Two weeks before he was born, my appendix burst. However, the doctors missed it thinking I was in labor. After the longest labor ever, they broke my water and my first son joined the world. I waited to feel “better,” but even after being sent home something was off.

Five days after his birth, I found myself in the ER. I don’t remember the next two weeks, and my poor husband wishes he could forget them. At one point, after the second emergency surgery, a nurse told him, “She’s gone now.” She meant I was in recovery, but he thought he’d just been widowed. It was traumatic for everyone.

The next few years were very hard. I carried a lot of guilt, depression, and fear from the experience. It had never been clearer that nothing was guaranteed and it was time to find my lost dreams.

My first novel was my therapy over those worst years. In 2008, I learned about NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month) and turned to writing seriously. I also entered the blogging community to learn all I could about the craft and industry.

My first novel, The Magic Wakes, was published with a publisher in 2013. At first, this was a wonderful experience. I loved working with an editor, I liked my cover, everything seemed to be moving along nicely.

Then I got the finished product. 8000 words had been cut from the book from places my publisher considered “unnecessary.” I had no say, no way to fix what I felt had been ruined. All my work with the editor to strengthen my novel felt wasted.

I published the sequel with them in 2016. Meanwhile I actively learned what it would take to go Indie. In 2017, I recovered my rights for those books and promptly re-released them with new covers and added content. Sadly, I’d lost the “best” version of the first book when I handed the manuscript over Dec 2012.

All of my seven novels and two novellas are now completely mine. I love being in control and having access to all the metrics. Now I can make sure my books are on audible and I can have them translated into other languages (my publisher didn’t do that). I’m still learning, and hopefully growing. It’s not been easy, but I do feel it’s been worth it.

In the end, I wouldn’t change the path I’ve taken because it has helped me see more clearly the path I want to take. And, I did finally get my name on a book in the library of several local high schools. 😉

Charity Bradford An Author’s Journey

What questions do you have for me?
I write a mix of science fantasy under my real name and clean romance under the pen name, River Ford.