SPARK: Writers Wisdom

A Way with Words is Her Labor of Love: Sally Hanan June 7, 2009

A love for writing often begins early in a child’s life, and Sally Hanan is no exception. She began writing in the first grade, with a teacher who instructed the children to write a few sentences every morning in class. “That was my introduction to a writing life that has never stopped,” Sally explains. “While my early writing life consisted of journal entries and school essays, I didn’t start writing for others until my kids were old enough to entertain themselves. My first daily effort was a devotional for our church’s leaders, and after that ended (early 2005), I joined faithwriters.com. It was a great place of safety for me to experiment and find my voice.”

Fiction is Sally’s true writing passion. “While I like to write non-fiction to help others figure out how to do things and do them well, my favorite thing to write is fiction. It’s where I can let my mind wander and give myself the occasional chuckle.” Much of her in writing is presented with the underlying desire to “open readers’ eyes to see into the hearts of others. It is so easy to judge people and assume things about them because of the way they act or speak but deep down, everyone needs to be loved and accepted. I try to let my writing do that.”

“My fiction is varied and depends upon the mood I am in when I sit down to write. In the book Joy in a Box, I have an assortment of genres: literary, humor, suspense, contemporary, based on a true story, Christian, and biblical. I set out intending to make the book more marketable to secular readers, but I guess there is so much of God in me and my head that nineteen of the thirty stories ended up carrying a faith element. While in one way I am happy that God overflows into every area of my life, in another way, I did not want to shut out people who would perhaps have read my fiction had it not had the “Christian” label on it.”

Something you may not know about Sally because you aren’t hearing her speak, is that she is originally from Wicklow, Ireland. The ‘Luck of the Irish’ might seem to weigh heavily in bringing the Hanan family to the United States, allowing them as Sally describes, “to permanently escape the cold, wet weather… in 1995. The true story about being allowed into the U.S. is that my husband and I got lucky with the lottery visa,” she said, ”but I tell people that America just couldn’t bear to be without my wit and charm. I now live in Texas, where I am known for chumming up to people who own boats and cook rib-eye steak on the bar-B.”

When asked what brought the Hanan family to America, Sally replied, “I tell people that God made us come. They laugh but it’s the truth! I was reading my Bible one day, and one particular verse seemed to grab me between the ears and stay there. It talked about living in a foreign land and raising our children there. Based on that and many other “coincidences,” we applied for a lottery visa/green card and within a year, we were here.”

The future is bright for Sally Hanan in the world of the written word, as she prepares to launch a collection of short stories. Currently, the collection is available online in trial form, while she gathers reviews. It is a bit of a family endeavor, with Sally’s sister designing the book jacket. At this writing, it is going through a final edit, with plans to have it ready by the end of June. “Because short story collections don’t sell that well, I am using it as a way to build my platform as a writer and get my name out there,” Sally explains. ”I am working on a novel and hope to write more. Ultimately, I’d like to consistently write in a way that brings people to a greater understanding and acceptance of love and truth in their lives.”

In addition to writing fiction, Sally Hanan recently established Ink Snatcher, a copywriting and editing service. “My husband was let go at the end of January, and because we are both entrepreneurial, we needed to set up two businesses—-one for his photography and one for my writing. I have found that writing fiction doesn’t pay bills, and I am gifted in the area of writing copy and editing grammar, and punctuation,” she explained.

Ink Snatcher offers a general clean-up of a client’s writing, and copywriting services. As her service business is so new, Sally is still in the process of building her client base. She has already had an opportunity to work on interesting projects, by assisting a college student (in Australia) whose first language was not English, and an American author who wanted help editing her book before submitting it to agents and publishers.

This year has been a big one for the Hanans, because in addition to establishing two family businesses, they also celebrate the end of homeschooling their two teenagers. Sally says she is looking forward “with a high level of excitement to sleeping in (more than I already do), writing in Starbucks, and eating lots and lots of chocolate.” In addition to writing, she also serves as an inner-healing ministry leader, youth pastor, lay counselor, and teacher in my home church. “This information should help to explain why I seem to get inside the head of my characters so easily,” she muses.

You may have noted by now, that to say Ms. Hanan is industrious would be an understatement! Someone as multi-faceted as Sally must also have some special interests and indeed she does. “Ha! I love to sleep, eat chocolate . . . but I don’t think that’s what you’re going for. I am a project-oriented woman, in that I will take on a project and run with it until I feel as if my job is done. I am currently selling off my inventory of letter magnets http://eagermind.com, helping my husband set up his photography business, doing a final edit on my book, taking a class on how to market my freelance business, getting to know people in the writing world through Twitter, acting as youth pastor our youth group, keeping up with my blog, writing articles for Helium, finishing up a revivalist academy and an advanced ministry training class . . . Life is always packed with possibilities. I hate to let any slip by unnoticed.”

Unnoticed possibilities? Not a chance, Sally! You go, girl!

Sally’s Writing Blog, featuring weekly fiction-writing tips: http://sallyhanan.wordpress.com

Sally Hanan’s Editing and Copywriting Service: http://inksnatcher.com

The original collection of Sally’s short stories set up so the first 10% can be read for free: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1912