Suffolk native explores lessons

Published 6:58 pm Friday, January 14, 2011

Suffolk native Adrienne Thomi Vaughan wrote "Life Lessons for the Journey," available at Barnes & Noble, Borders and Amazon.com in the Christian living sections.

Adrienne Thomi Vaughan didn’t set out to be an author, but a recurring dream and a God-given vision for a book landed her on store shelves.

Vaughan

“About three or four years ago, I just started having this urge to write,” said Vaughan, a Suffolk native. “I didn’t feel like I could really write, but one day I went in the bookstore and I saw immediately the books that I could have been writing.”

Vaughan began to feel God’s guidance that she should share her life experiences with people. The same dream two nights in a row affirmed the idea.

Email newsletter signup

“I was driving down the highway, and I was trying to get to a certain place,” Vaughan said of the dream. “There were roadblocks in the road. I couldn’t go the way I was going. I knew immediately when I woke up that it was not about a physical location. [God was saying], ‘You’re going to have to take a detour and go the route I’m leading you.’”

According to Vaughan, that’s when she got the inspiration for the book.

“He [God] gave it to me in a format that I felt like was simple at that time,” Vaughan said. “I agreed to start writing. As I started writing the book, it got a lot more complicated.”

However, before Vaughan started, she pursued a publishing contract. She didn’t want to self-publish, she said. Instead, she wrote a book proposal and won a contract from Destiny Image Publishers, a Christian publisher.

The book is arranged into 30 chapters, each on a different topic such as faith, hope or joy. With each topic is a story from Vaughan’s life, a story from the Bible and a suggested prayer.

“It is written so that the book can be completed in 30 days,” Vaughan said. “At the end of 30 days, you’re a completely different person.”

Vaughan says she wrote most of the book at her kitchen table, mostly without knowing ahead of time how she would compose the next chapter.

“For most of the book, I never knew when I sat down what God was going to give me to say,” she said. “I had to completely rely on God to give me the life stories.”

Vaughan said she already has some ideas in her head for the next book.

“I’ve got other books God has given me the ideas to write,” she said. “Authors basically have ideas. I’m full of those.”

Vaughan’s book is available at Barnes & Noble, Borders and Amazon.com in the Christian living sections.