First let us just get this outta the way:
Happy Birthday to me / Happy Anniversary to the blogdom!
The one year anniversary of this blog has left me pondering my life as a writer thus far, as well as how much starting this blog has changed things for my writing life.
There are a lot of writers out there who will say that they’ve always known that writing was what they wanted to do with their lives. With the inconceivable number of new books, especially by self-published authors, that have hit the literary world over the past few years, it appears I am not in the minority.
I can pinpoint the exact moment I decided I wanted to be a writer:
My elementary school had a yearly book they created of student work. In second grade a “poem” I wrote (and I use that term loosely), was chosen to be published in the school book for that year. I went:
I love me
My mom loves me
My dad loves me
I'm happy
Or something like that - the kind of thing a 6 year old might write. What mattered wasn’t the quality of the writing, but the fact that others read it and liked it and I had enjoyed creating it. I went home that day and told my mother to forget about ballet - I wanted to be a writer - and it’s all I’ve ever really wanted to do since.
My childhood best friend and I started writing and illustrating stories together. In junior high I submitted a story for publication for the first time to Seventeen Magazine. I don’t know if they still do this, but back then Seventeen had a contest for readers to submit a work of short fiction which they published the winner in one of their issues. This was my first rejection and most of my rejections from then after followed similarly - they wanted “realistic” fiction and what I wrote was more of the surreal and fantasy variety.
Freshman year of High School, I started writing Firechild for the first time. Sitting in the back of the class, I shuffled through the pages of my manuscript - editing and scribbling down ideas. The girl sitting in front of me, curious as to what the strange girl behind her was up to, started asking about it. I started relaying my story and we’ve been good friends ever since.
I started writing Lusus Naturae when I was 16 and finished the first version when I was 17. I gleefully submitted it to a gaggle of agents and Tor Publishing when it was finished. Most of the agents didn’t even bother with a response. Tor’s rejection followed much like Seventeen Magazine’s had years before - my novel didn’t fit with the genre they published. It was a good story - best of luck blah blah blah…
I wrote several short stories in college, joined an online writing site (writing.com) and even did a full rewrite of Firechild during a crazy heavily-inspired two months back while was working at a Barnes & Noble in lower Manhattan. I was surrounded by new writing; reading everything from psychology, ancient philosophy, Sartre, Walt Whitman, Yeats… It was a very productive time for me intellectually and I had a full writing life but I had stopped submitting my work.
After college, things got murky. Entering the working-world full time left little room for writing. I worked on my novels in spurts. In early 2009 I decided I wanted to give self-publishing a go but was knee-deep in planning my wedding. The writing got put on hold once again.
Then marriage and babies made the writing time even less available. In late 2012 - tired, pregnant and feeling like something was missing, I re-examined my writing goals. I decided I wanted to try self-publishing again but make an honest go of it. A close friend of mine suggested starting a blog and I went with it. Never being much of a journaler or sharer of my inner mind, it has taken a lot of hard work, learning and determination this past year - and though I haven’t yet met my goals, I’m picking up my pieces and trying again. 2013 was the most productive year in my writing life in a long time. I feel like this blog is helping to keep me motivated. 2014 is going to be my year. I can FEEL it.
Other than my children, there is nothing that makes me happier than playing in that world inside my head - laughing and crying and often being surprised by my own characters.
So, I’m going to keep doing what I love to do. If success finds me, I’ll embrace it. If not, that’s okay too. I’ve been writing all these years without it and will continue to do so because it makes me happy (though it would be awfully nice to join the ranks of those who sit around in their undies all day writing for a living).
So, Happy 31st Birthday to me! Thanks for reading.
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