How I Became an Author

It still feels odd to say that I am an author.

My first novel is set to publish in March but the idea of calling myself an author is odd to say because I never grew up thinking it was a career path for me.

My journey started during my freshman year of college. I wasn’t the biggest fan of reading up to this point. Although I devoured Harry Potter, reading was not my top priority. That was until I read Ender’s Game. It was like my world changed entirely as much as Ender’s in that I was now obsessed with reading.

I binged whatever I could find for free on less than reputable sites and fell in love with fictional worlds. I distinctly remember my first step into the fantasy world was with Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunters series in which I may or may not have downloaded onto my parent’s computer along with a virus. My bad. And lesson learned in many ways.

From there, I found Kindle Unlimited and read whatever I wanted leaning heavily into fantasy/paranormal romance. Some of my favorites to this day are Jeanine Frost’s Once Burned series, The Host by Stephanie Myers, the Mageri Series by Dannika Dark and anything by J.R. Ward. My love of the absolutely kick-ass, tortured-soul, love interest all started with The Black Dagger Brotherhood series. Damn did that series set a fire under me for everything paranormal and dark.

At some point, I can’t actually remember when, I began writing down my own stories. It started because I loved the stories I was reading, and I wanted more of the same. So, I began typing up stories that fell into the same genre as the novels I craved. Never did I think I’d share my stories and for good reason too. They were atrocious, grammatically incorrect, and with no plot or character development whatsoever.

The more I wrote and the more I read, I began to understand how stories should sound or should flow. My writing developed over about ten years and after writing over fifty stories, none of them nearing completed, they improved slightly and were not utterly cringeworthy.

After I completed my education for my PA-C degree and started working, I was eager to pay off student debt which led me to looking into side hustles. That was the first moment I genuinely considered publishing some of my stories. I knew it wouldn’t be an easy side hustle, or very lucrative in the beginning, if ever, but the idea of finally putting my stories out there intrigued me beyond reason. So, I searched around on YouTube for other authors and how to become a better writer and binged hours of videos. I also stumbled upon a writing site called Vocal, which you entered your writing to win prizes but is also a creative platform for authors and other creators to showcase their work. I started posting on there and exposed myself to this world a bit more, interacted with similar people and received feedback on my work.

I finally plucked up the courage to tell one of my best friends about my writing and sent her a few of my stories. Being the amazing friend that she is, she raved about my stories and encouraged me to pursue publishing. I dedicated my time to focusing on one story in particular and wrote Improper Mage.

And that is how I got started on my journey to becoming an author. I didn’t go to university to study literature, nor am I the expert on storytelling. However, I do have plenty of stories to tell and I love writing them. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do, and I hope that you follow your dream no matter how improbable it may seem right now.