The Musings of a 30 Something Novelist

Okay, so you know how I eluded to the fact that my favorite author of all time...ALL TIME (note the excitement with the caps lock) said she was, and I quote, "looking forward" to reading my book? Well, she also read my blog....and LOVED IT! AKJFHADKJFASJFKA TOO MUCH EXCITEMENT! The lovely author, who you all should go out right now and buy all her wonderful books, is Marianne Curley (Seriously, if you need to stop reading to go get her books, then stop and come back. I'll be waiting). I will post a link to her website at the bottom of this post. She is a lovely Australian young adult novelist whose books literally inspired me to read and write. If it wasn't for her books, I probably wouldn't be typing these very words. Her works include "Old Magic" (LOVE!), The Guardians of Time Trilogy, which include "The Named", "The Dark", and "The Key" (LOVE LOVE LOVE!) and her latest work "Hidden" (Book 1 in The Aven...

Just kidding. There aren't any bears in this post. Sorry to disappoint you. So, how did this whole novel writing/publishing thing happen? Good question. I'm still trying to figure it out even now. But I suppose starting with the beginning would be best. I was fifteen years old when "Forget-Me-Not" was born. It was April 4, 2008 and yes I am a nerd because I can remember the exact day, moment, and time. Don't judge. I was sitting in study hall doing my best to study for a test I had the next period. I was very studious like so. Note the confused expression. I honestly don't remember how I did on that test. When all of a sudden a voice started talking to me. I swear I'm not making this up. This is legit how it all happened. Of course, I don't normally hear voices in my head so I kind of freaked out like this. Um, hi random voice in my head?  I tried to ignore the persistant voice (who was later named Adeline Jasely, my protagonist) be...

I'm a published author. Wait, what? Yeah, that's my reaction whenever my brain suddenly realizes that my book, my baby, my heart is going to be published. And be available for the whole world to read. Insert scream of joy and fear now.  Now, don't get me wrong. I am absolutely thrilled, astounded, dumbstruck that someone, anyone, is going to read this book (including my favorite author of all time, but that deserves a blog post of its own). However, the nagging voice in the back of my head still creates numerous doubts, the top one being: everyone will hate it. Of course, this is simply fear of the unknown (the unknown being, I've never been published before and don't know what the heck is going to happen). Yet, the Lord says 365 different times in the Bible "Do not fear." Okay, Lord, I get it. However, I am not so naive to believe that everyone will love it. There are haters out there in the world whose sole purpose in life is to hate on t...