Okay, so it’s been a while since I last posted a blog, but it’s Friday and I’m feeling determined today!

The weekend is here! Woo! Super excited for this weekend because it means another week is gone and I’m one step closer to being a published author! Hurricane Vignette is live for pre-order on Amazon (check out the link here) and I got the proofs for the paperback Wednesday! Y’all, I cannot even begin to describe the amount of anticipation I had waiting for my book to get here Wednesday. It was agonizing waiting for the mailman to come and deliver the proofs, and then I had to wait until he walked away some so I didn’t look like a crazy maniac about to jump him. I made it, though, and didn’t tackle the postman in my excitement and now I have my proofs! They have that new book smell and it’s just fantastic!

Ahem. I could spend most of this post talking about the proofs and my over-exuberance, but that’s not what this blog post is about. Today’s post is all about the birth of an author: My story on how I found my dream and goal in life.

My story towards being an author began in sixth grade when I was around thirteen-years-old. Now, like most kids around my age, I didn’t like English or reading because I thought it was boring and unimportant. It wasn’t until my aunt, my mom’s sister, introduced me to my first supernatural romance book: Twilight. Yes, the Twilight Saga was my introduction into the wonderful world of reading. Now, to some of you, Stephenie Meyer’s books were phenomenal and deserved every bit of the high praise it got during its peak back in the ‘00s. However, there are some people who didn’t like the books either due to the story itself, the unrealistic characters, or just because couldn’t get past New Moon like me. I struggled with that second book because I hated that Edward left Bella and I was all #TeamEdward before Jacob became this sexy wolf shifter.

But that’s a different topic all in of itself.

The point is, my aunt introduced me to a world I never thought was possible with books. I thought they were all boring like the ones we had to read in English and Reading classes. Boy, was I wrong. I found more and more books that fed my imagination with wild adventures and romance, characters that I adored and hated, and stories that filled my head with crazy idea: What if I wrote my own story?

BAM! That thought right there became the birth of a budding author.

Now, my first novel was over 100k and cringe-worthy because I had no idea what I was doing, just that I wanted to write the story I had in my head down. My mother still boasts proudly about that first book being written and completed when I was thirteen, but I think of it rather differently. Yes, I’m embarrassed by the stuff I wrote at thirteen and I’ve grown so much since then as a writer. I see that first novel as a stepping stone—a beginning toward a much larger journey.

Will I ever rewrite that book and have it published? No, probably not.

Will I still cherish it and keep it saved on my hard drive? Definitely.

When was your first ‘Aha!’ moment? The very first time you knew that this was what you wanted to do for the rest of your life? Leave a comment below and let me know!