Mary E. Jung's Blog

Offer letter in hand, I wondered if a dream had turned to reality. Surely it wasn't this easy to get published? And it wasn't, but i was mislead. That comes later in the story.
The world is an odd place full of minds that think in their own realm. To predict someone else's motives or understand reasoning is arduous. Even the inner workings of our own mind cannot be entirely unveiled.
When I received the offer letter for my first novel I was 8 months pregnant. I can't imagine the state of mind I inhabited at that time, nor could I replicate it. I can however explain that even with all those hormones coursing through my body I knew this offer letter was odd.
I scoured the online sight for information on the publisher but found nothing amiss. They were listed under the Better Business Bureau, had a Facebook page, the line up for their publishing process looked legit. There were books on the Amazon bestseller list and even author interviews on their success. In short. Nothing gave me warning bells.
I called the publisher on the phone and asked my questions, putting my arts management brain into high gear. After a week I asked for the contract to review.

We will continue in the Next Segment.

I thought I'd begin my blog how I came to be a published author. I've been on this journey since 2014 when I got the idea of raven shifters from a fairytale. I kept the notes but never really invested until 2016 when my son was 18 months.
I was incredibly bored every day for 3 hours during his nap. At the time I read all the books on my shelf, cleaned the house, and just couldn't find a hobby that clicked.
I traveled into my past and discovered my old literature projects. The binder of short stories and poems from my high-school anthology. Dream journals and literary magazine from college. Even the arts management marketing packages I put together.
I sat staring at them all and wondered if my hobby had been hiding in my drawers all this time. Opening them all, I discovered a plethora of ideas waiting to launch into a full novel. I never wrote a novel, but I had 3 hrs to kill every day. Surely, I could try.
And I did.
I wrote and wrote and wrote every day until I was complete at 500 pages. I looked at my Manuscript and realized "holy shit I actually wrote a novel". After initial edits I decided I would copyright it just for kicks and giggles. I would just keep it and if I decided to do anything with it, well, I had the evidence and resources.
6 months later... I had a copyright in hand and an offer letter too.

Thank you for reading. I'll post part 2 next week. Check out my page on Facebook and see all the new updates for upcoming books! Happy Reading!