CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Rhonda Mumby of Belle Plaine grew up in Gilman and is a graduate of East Marshall High School. She is a self-published author of “A Journey to My Life” and plans to release “The Ambassadors” and “The Sunflower Experience” later this year.

BELLE PLAINE — Rhonda Mumby grew up in Gilman and is a graduate of East Marshall High School, now residing in Belle Plaine. A lifelong storyteller, with her children now grown, she’s decided to see her manuscripts to fruition and plans to publish two books this year: Semi-Charmed: Book I “The Ambassadors” and “The Sunflower Experience.” Her debut novel “A Journey to My Life” was named a finalist in the 2018 Write Place Iowa Writers Contest but didn’t see publication until last year.

This year, she took part in her first Des Moines Book Festival and recently held talks at the Gilman Public Library and Le Grand Pioneer Heritage Library.

“I’ve had a love of reading since I was a child. Reading is a very big part of my life, and then always kind of that desire to create stories of my own,” she said. “Actually, back in 1989 I think it was, fifth grade, I had written something called ‘The Haunted Halloween’ and sent it into a local Marshalltown radio station as part of their Halloween competition that they did, and they selected my story as one of the ones that they did a recording for and aired on the radio.”

She stayed in Gilman until age 13 when she and her newly divorced mother relocated to Georgia. They moved back to the area two and a half years later.

“I just missed my life and my friends too much here in Iowa, so I talked her into moving back up, and we lived in Marshalltown for a few months before we moved back to Gilman, and that’s where I stayed until I went off to college,” she noted.

She spent a year at UNI, envisioning a political science degree to become a lawyer. Her sophomore year, she transferred to William Penn University with international law on her mind.

“I went through about five major changes before I settled on accounting, of all things, and that is actually what my degree is in, and what my day job has been in for the past 27 years.”

She works as chief financial officer of Eco Lips and Bug Soother in Cedar Rapids.

As a young mother, she found herself with little time to write.

“Writing became something that was just kind of a hobby, and I started several projects,” she noted. “I wrote little tidbits here and there of all the ideas I had that someday I would get around to. And so it wasn’t until about 16 years ago, when I was in my early 30s, that I decided I was really going to complete a book. It took me about three and a half years to complete that first draft, still having young kids, and then I spent about another year or so rewriting it.”

Beta readers provided some feedback, and she sought an agent.

“It didn’t really go anywhere, so I set that aside, and I started on the next book. With having a family and all the responsibilities with that, it took me about eight years, probably, to finish that draft,” she said.

Mumby’s friend Kippen Glenney told her about the Write Place, a creative agency in Pella. In the fall of 2017, the company announced a writing contest to win a free published book, so Mumby entered.

“A Journey to My Life” was named a finalized, but even with a discount as a reward, the cost to self-publish her book still proved prohibitive. She set the book aside, but then reached back out to the Write Place for editing assistance a few years later. She then waded through the often time-consuming process of formatting her book for publication.

“It really was kind of a journey getting that self published. I joined TikTok a little over a year ago at the urging of my adult daughter. But it really has been a resource of other people who are publishing as well, and tips and tricks and things they tried,” she said. “So through that, I discovered the Atticus software, which allowed me to do all the interior formatting of the book and allowed me to do some neat things in there, like putting some floral decorations on pages and doing what looks like journal entries in certain parts. I used Canva for creating the cover. I did go through IngramSpark for the published book.”

“A Journey to My Life” is available as an ebook, paperback and hardcover on several major platforms. It follows the romance of Abby Templeton and Ethan Lansing who meet in the mystery section of his bookstore.

“I have a playlist (in the book). I find that songs help to unlock that creativity, and there will be songs that come on that I’m like, oh my gosh, that would fit so well with the story that it also helps me to think of what scene would fit in and develop out that scene in my head,” she said.

The Semi-Charmed series will launch later this year with book one entitled “The Ambassadors.” It is a young adult fantasy story set in the late 1940s. It centers on a 17-year-old girl who learns she has magical abilities.

“I didn’t want to be an author that was stuck into one genre. I want the story to tell me where it wants to go,” Mumby said. “I have a pretty creative imagination, and so I can imagine a lot of stories and things. The tough part is getting it on paper. But I think, also, another tough part is making sure that the story I’m trying to come up with is something that will resonate with readers, because that’s really important to me. I want people to take something out of what I write, not just entertainment value.”

“The Sunflower Experience” is a new adult fiction romance with spice in it. It took her less than a month to write her first draft.

“Having the time and ability to use that creative space has really helped me to move along with these projects,” she said.

Learn more at: rhondamumby.com and on TikTok @rhonda.mumby.