Hey there, DETECTIVES! DETECTIVE WRITER here to tell you all about my writing experience and my journey to becoming a published author. Let’s take a break from murder mystery this week and just talk about writing, reading, and all of that good stuff.
As you may know, I have always wanted to become an author ever since I was a kid who couldn’t speak English at all. However, my teachers helped encourage my love for books by reading stories of all genres. I became a self-proclaimed bookworm at four years old and once I got to college, I just knew that it was time for my lifelong dream to come to fruition. I majored in English with a creative specialization and minored in professional communications before finally graduating in 2020, class of the global pandemic. Go figure.
I always knew I wanted to write a book but I wasn’t sure where to begin until one day a good friend of mine told me about her experience publishing with New Degree Press. She referred me to virtually chat with the head of the Book Creators Program, Eric Koester, who was so wonderfully supportive throughout the entire process. I won’t lie and say that it was an easy journey. When I was twenty years old, I first began writing my book, The Doctor, for a creative writing course. I recall my professor assigning us to write a short story of our choice but on another version of ourselves in another life. The prompt was: “If there was someone else who looks and sounds just like you, what do you think he/she/they would be like? Would they be just similar or the complete opposite of you?” I immediately thought of my past experiences wishing I was someone else, someone more powerful, someone who could stand up for herself regardless of what others had to say. Before I knew it, two-three page short stories ended up becoming some fifteen-thirty pages, then some fifty-seventy pages. My professor laughed and said, “Sally, you don’t have a short story anymore. You’ve got a book!” I couldn’t bear the thought of not writing. So I continued.
Publishing was an adventure. I realized that I not only wanted to bring forth my dream and passion for writing but also transform my voice. Let go of past hurts and finally get out of my comfort zone. I had to let go of my ego and embrace that I had a dream that needed to be realized. I wanted to live up to my role models, Stephen King and Agatha Christie, and make something out of myself, especially as a person of color. Writing a novel became an adventurous endeavor for me because not only did I realize that I would be the first one in my family to even publish a book, but I also knew that success wasn’t guaranteed. Not when you have to go through something like that alone. I encountered several challenges on my way to publishing, challenges which I had no manual on how to deal with, like how to structure a story, how to advertise and reach out to the general public, gather an audience, and beta readers, and earn money to fully fund my book. I also experienced judgment from a few individuals who told me to find a different way of publishing or to give up on my dream because apparently, it’s hard to become an author. (Oh jeez, really? Not that I noticed.) I also realized that being a relatively unknown person without extremely powerful connections, and without a strong social media background, I feared that my book would probably not do so well or that I would be discouraged from publishing any more novels because of the obstacles that I was facing. However, I will note that what did help me overcome the difficulties were not just the people closest to my heart, myself, and my determination to move forward and succeed, but recognizing that I wanted to be an example for young women of color who have dreams of becoming authors but either have no way or no idea where to begin. Writing a book is hard work but being able to publish and hold a book with my name on it was worth it. Help is out there, you just have to ask for it.
Links are below if you would like to purchase a book, DETECTIVES, and ClueFinders!
I hope you have enjoyed this storytime as much as I did, DETECTIVES! Please let me know in the comments if you want to have more storytime! Have a great day, night, afternoon, or evening, DETECTIVES! Stay tuned for next week’s post and until then, keep on sleuthing, DETECTIVES!
P.S. Feel free to check out the official blog post here!
Detective Writer 