So what am I doing here and why am I blogging? Honestly? This is sort of an experiment.
It all started back in April 2009 when I was bored one day at work and I started banging away at the keyboard and a voice started talking to me. She was sweet and wanted her side of things out there and felt like she'd always been misunderstood so a little bit each day this girl, Jillian, told me more about herself until I had a few pages, then a few chapters. I'd never finished a short story let alone a book so I had no intention of Jillian's tale turning into anything viable. Then one day I realized I was nearly done and I sat there stunned. I was writing a novel. A real honest to God novel. I started researching writers groups, conferences and conventions in my area, and even sent a few friend requests to authors on facebook.
Somewhere along the way I found a few people interested in being beta readers for me, though at the time I had no idea that's what they were called, and with their suggestions my little story, Jillian's story, got better with each revision. By the end of May 2011, after multiple breaks, some lasting as long as six months, doubt, writer's block, losing my plot bunnies, and even thinking I deleted the entire thing, I finished Illuminated, the first book in Jillian's series just in time for my first convention in Cincinnati, Ohio.
To say I was star struck was an understatement. I won't be an obnoxious name dropper or braggart but I will encourage you to go the Reader and Author Get Together next June. I managed to convince an agent to accept a submission from me although she very politely rejected me as a client, maybe one day she'll regret that decision. I also met a very shy man who would later, a year and a half later to be precise, give me a very swift kick in the right direction towards his publisher. His comment of "don't make me look stupid" was exactly what I needed to complete the final revision before submitting Illuminated to SCP where I was offered a publishing contract.
That was February 2013. Fast forward to today March 12, 2014, I've been published for seven months and three days and it still feels so surreal. My family and friends have been super supportive, encouraged me, been amazing in general. This year has been a whirlwind. On top of finishing the books final revisions, submitting it, getting a publishing contract, convention in June, meeting more amazing people, I started a new job as well (love it), started a direct sales business, lost nearly fifty pounds, started a second book series, and got accepted into a Bachelors program (but decided to put it off for a bit).
So now begins (or should I say continues) the journey of attempting to gain publicity and marketing my book while I wait for sales reports from my publisher and stalking the websites to see my sales rankings so I know where I compare from day to day. I had no intention of becoming a blogger but I've been told numerous times I should give it a shot so here I am, and now you know why. I'm not perfect, I don't plan on spending the same amount of time editing and revising this as I do my books so if you find a typo or a grammatical error that I missed I really don't need it pointed out, but if you feel the need to tell me, please do so respectfully because I'm pretty sure most of these posts will be late at night when I'm tired or on my lunch break.
I'm sure my twisty brain will make some of you ponder my sanity but I assure you, I've been tested and you need not fear, the voices are just the characters telling me pieces of their stories.
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