Educating Yourself and Others: The Writing of Sharon Lemonry

By: Nikki Ruthig and Alex Brunk

Some people write everyday while others spend very little time writing, only writing the bare minimum. Business writing is a big part of some careers while it is hardly used in others. When it comes to business writing, most people consider it to be memos, interoffice mail, and notes for or from a meeting. All of that is true of business writing, but some people have to write articles, speeches, and books for their job. Mrs. Sharon Lemonry is one of these people. She is the Senior Vice President of Cultural Transformation Process for Healton Healthcare, a healthcare company focusing on teaching others about new technologies in healthcare. Sharon Lemonry is a registered nurse, RN, and has a Bachelors of Science in Nursing, BSN, and a Masters of Science, MS. Along with having two degrees and being an RN, Sharon has also been published a number of times.

Writing as the Senior Vice President

Sharon Lemonry has been working for Healton Healthcare for around thirteen years and has been in the health care and nursing fields for around thirty years. She received her training from Michigan State for her Bachelors of Science in Nursing and from Andrews University for her Masters of Science. As for the training she received when it came to the business writing she would have to do for office work, Sharon received it while going for her masters.

The business writing that she has become accustomed to varies from proposals to letters. She also writes and gives speeches across the country to inform others about improvements in the healthcare fields. She writes articles for publication in various journals in addition to whole books. Some of her books are work-related while others, mainly the poetry books, are just for fun.

Students will often have someone read or re-read a paper that they had written for class to check for mistakes and grammatical errors. Sharon occasionally has an editor check her work as well. Depending on what she was writing, Sharon might have someone check and edit it. If Sharon were writing a proposal, she would most likely not have someone proof read it, but if it were a book or an article that she was writing, then she would have someone proof read it. When an editor reads something they usually suggest that Sharon cut back on the length due to the lack of space for the article or that it just continues and continues. Another thing they might have her fix in her writing is content related, meaning if something was confusing, she should try and make it more understandable to the average person. Sharon also has the revisionist check for grammatical errors as well.

Sometimes, Sharon is the person whose work is being edited or proofed, and sometimes she is the editor. When Sharon is at home she spends some of her time checking and proofing her children’s work.

FUN, FUN, FUN… WORK, WORK, WORK

While she does spend a lot of her time writing, about twenty to thirty hours a week and possibly more, Sharon spends some of that like any normal person, returning e-mails. Sharon has published many books and articles pertaining to management and the healthcare system. She is often surprised when she receives e-mails from readers of her books or articles as comments. She says that the e-mails help her understand more about what people think. When it comes to her poetry, Sharon says what a lot of good poets say about the way they write, “I write from my heart.” This is an essential thing when it comes to writing poetry.

Getting published is always a good thing. As many new authors have learned, it takes a lot of courage to go out and get something that you have written and find interesting published. However long it normally takes to find a publisher was never a problem for Sharon since Healton Healthcare owns their own publishing company. Sharon has to summon up this courage every time she writes something new and wants it published.

Sharon writes a lot for fun and for work. She writes books about work-related topics and poetry and articles and speeches for her job. However, there are some down sides to her job and the writing requirements for it. For Sharon, the hard parts of her job include: writing business papers because she doesn’t enjoy it and it takes some time away from her free time to write what she actually wants to write. When she has to start another article or book, she says it’s kind of hard to get started and to come up with a good opening. She will occasionally work on the body of the piece until she has an idea for the opening. Other parts of her job that she doesn’t like include finances and budget related topics, the organizational politics, and being away from home a lot because of the traveling required to give the speeches across the country.

On the plus side of things, there are several other reasons she likes her job with Healton Healthcare. They positive aspects include: doing some of the executive management jobs, interacting and learning from others, and because she says that it just feels natural to her. Sharon says that the more she writes, the better she gets, but then again, who wouldn’t? Doing this job helps her become more concise with her writing.

As far as technology goes in Sharon’s life, she had to learn how to use a number of assorted computer programs. She uses Microsoft Word when writing books and articles, uses Microsoft Power Point and Excel when writing and/or outlining speeches, and Quark, a publishing format assistant. “My thesis was the first thing that I had written on a computer,” Sharon says while talking about computers and their technologies.

When Sharon puts something that she thinks is interesting on paper and gets it published she helps herself along with others. By putting something out there she makes connections that give her other opportunities and experiences that she never would have had before. She helps others through her poetry saying that it can help them discover more about themselves.

Educating Yourself and Others

Writing is a part of everyone’s life. Some form of writing takes place in our lives every day and there’s nothing one can do to stop it. When it comes to Mrs. Sharon Lemonry, she writes for herself, for her work, and for others. Whether it’s poetry, healthcare related books and articles, or just work proposals, she spends a lot of time educating others with her writing. Traveling can be fun, but when she is away from home she misses it a lot too. While traveling, Sharon gives speeches about improvements and other things related to the healthcare field. These speeches are designed to educate not only members of the healthcare field, but people who are receiving or know of someone who is receiving treatment. These speeches are given all over the continental U.S. Sharon plans on continuing to write more poetry books, more work-related books, and more articles. In fact, Sharon said that she has already started writing another poetry book.