Twice Published

 I am so excited. I also haven't really been ranting lately, Oops!

But oh well, I have been writing since I was really little. Before I could spell I was writing stories and I finally published a book! Then another!

    Running From Survival was the third book I ever wrote. My first one was started when I was in Elementary school and I was bullied so badly for wanting to be a writer that I gave up. I put the pencil down and played sports for a while, like people wanted me to. I played lots of soccer, I worked on art, school of course, and worked around the farm. When I reached middle school we started different writing projects, all of which I got full marks in. It re-ignited the passion that I had for writing and I started again. Short stories about haunted summer camps, vampires, and lost creatures from other dimensions caught my friends interests and kept them reading, which kept me writing. One of my friends wanted to use the first book in the sequence, 'Iblis', as her book report muse, but our teacher at the time wouldn't let her because I wasn't published, and I never would be...

    My whole heart hurt at that moment, whether she knew if I was listening or not, I couldn't believe that even at that age I was being put down again. Twice I was kicked down from my writing, and twice I didn't want to ever look at one of my stories again. I put away the black binder that I always carried around, losing it in my room and not wanting to find it again. I started taking lower grades on writing assignments, if I wasn't going to be an author what was the point in trying so hard? 

    So I forgot. I left writing alone all together, I stopped reading because with no interest in my own stories how could I possibly enjoy someone elses? It wasn't until art class of grade 9 that I found the black binder in the back of my closet again. I read over all of the old stories, Iblis, its sequels as well as a book that was then named "Tiger Lily". I read the beginning of Tiger Lily and remembered the nightmares that I had had and just had to write them down. The large werewolf looking creatures that I could never describe to people had come alive in my writing, trapped in the same room as me. I disappeared at breaks, lunch hours and free blocks in class so that I could develop my stories more. I had no idea where I would go with them but I just wanted to write. I got my friends to proof read them, many of whom's names appeared in my books (Paige, Megan ext.), they liked them, they wanted me to keep writing, so I did. I wrote them out again and again, making sure I had a solid story in front of me until I finally wrote the last words of the book...

    "Tiger Lily" was Running From Survival. Before it was finished, before it had a set name and before I was brave enough to publish it.

 Leading the Pack was a book I started from another nightmare, from Anxiety and from the feeling of nothingness. It gave me strength, and courage. I felt empowered to keep writing, no matter what anyone thought.
I'm working on more books and with any luck I will be writing for a long time, using the judgment of others as fuel for the fire that is my writing, my creativity and most of all, my Passion.

For either of these books please click on the links below, Thank-you.

 Leading the Pack

Running from Survival

 
Photos by Gralyn J. Photography

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