Friday Before the Storm

Next week, my fifth book will be in stores. I’m going to repeat that. My. Fifth. Book. And even after five books, it still feels completely unreal. It feels unbelievable that the little girl scribbling stories in spiral-bound notebooks became me. It feels inconceivable that the girl with some fanfic and half a dozen first chapters of romance novels on her hard drive in her college dorm room became me (especially because that girl was dating some loser at the time who — in all seriousness — told her that writing romance novels would be injurious to his political aspirations). It feels impossible that the young woman with dozens of rejection letters to her name, with mean writing contest scoresheets telling her that she’d never make it, with well-meaning family and friends wondering if maybe she shouldn’t think about a real career became me.

And then again, maybe it isn’t. Because I did write all those stories. Because I didn’t give a damn about some dude’s political aspirations (as far as I know, he never did go into politics), found a much better guy to date — a guy, who, I might add, actually sent me to my first RWA conference as a birthday present one year, which was one of the most special, most romantic birthday presents EVER — and finished an entire manuscript. Because I finished that one and several more, and sent them out, and racked up all those rejection letters, and shrugged off all those scoresheets, and kept on trucking. When I started in this business, I didn’t know a single solitary writer in the entire world, except for my one college creative writing professor (who I wasn’t a big fan of, since he hated “genre”). I didn’t have anyone to point my well-meaning family and friends to and say “look, this is totally a career plan.” But I soldiered on, anyway.

[Edited to Add: Actually, my family was very supportive (even if a few of them were skeptical). My mother sobbed over my first rejection letter. I had to comfort her. My very awesome brother bought me a COMPUTER so I could write. They are and have always been tres cool.]

And I sold a book! Actually, two! (Not any of those romance novels, but oh well.) And then I sold two more. And two more. I’ve been living off my writing for more than three years now. I have a whole series out. Next week marks the launch of a new one. Wow.

I kinda wish I could go back in time and whisper in all those younger mes’ ears: Keep going. You’ll make it.

But who knows? Maybe I did. After all, I’m here now.

_______________________

So next week, to celebrate the launch of RAMPANT, I’m going to be blogging all over the place. In fact, it’s started already. Here I am being interviewed over at Presenting Lenore. She asked some really interesting questions. Check it out.