I’ve done it. I’ve written a book. It wasn’t my first book and it won’t be my last. I’ve been storytelling for my whole life. In elementary school, while other kids were listening to the teacher explain multiplication, I was imagining another world. I would stare out the window and listen to my character’s conversations and see the story play out in my mind.
My mother always said I had a vivid imagination. Even my Barbies had detailed lives. I would lie in bed at night and think of what was going to happen the next day between Barbie and Ken. Long conversations, detailed relationships, and love triangles – my Barbies had it all. By the time I was fifteen, I had written my first novel. A five-subject spiral notebook filled from front to back with my bubbly teenage handwriting, each chapter written in different colored ink. I hid it from my parents along with my need to write. By the time I was 22, I knew it was all a pipe dream. I believed that I could never be a writer. That's something other people did. So when I packed my things to move out of my parent’s home, the handwritten novel went into the trash. I was a grown up now. I had a college degree. I was engaged to a great guy. I had a job. It was time to join the real world.
But a funny thing happened along the way. You see, for most of my life, I was told what I couldn’t do. (That included being a writer.) But my husband thought differently. Early in our marriage, I admitted to him that I wanted to write. He encouraged me. A lot. So while he went to school and I worked to support us, I wrote. But I became discouraged. I heard horror stories about rejection letters and how hard it was to break into the industry. So I put my writing away. But not for good. Months later, I would feel the need to write and I would pick up where I left off. Then I would get discouraged yet again. The cycle went on and on for years.
I had babies. At times, I would start writing again. Poems for my children. Little ditties I would make up and sing to them. I couldn’t stop my need to create. Another story would pop in my head and I would grab my computer or a piece of paper and write. Characters screamed at me to tell their story, so I did.
Then my husband bought me a Kindle for Christmas. It was heavenly to get books at a touch of a button. Speaking as a bookworm - it was the best gift ever. That lead me to find out about self-publishing. I suddenly knew I had to try again. I could self-publish my books! I loved writing so much that I knew it had to be done.
So here I am – finishing the final editing of “Promise Me Darkness.” Soon it will be out there – floating around Internet space. My dream will become reality. I dreamed a little dream and made sure it came true.
