For all those aspiring writers out there let me tell you a story!
I was in elementary school when I first started writing poetry. I loved the sounds of the rhymes in poems. As a little girl I just wanted to make a poem of my own. So I did! Only they weren’t the poems that you would read in Maya Angelou’s poetry books. I was little! Mostly it was just me trying to put together rhyming words. Don’t believe me? Buy my poetry book Emotions and you’ll have your proof. Flip through the pages and I’m sure you will find many poems that look as if a little girl wrote them! That was the start of my writing career.
I continued to write poetry constantly throughout the years. From elementary to middle school to high school! I was encouraged by family and friends to continue to write. They loved my poems even if they were silly or stupid and I loved poetry. I looked up to Maya Angelou and Shel Silverstein hoping one day I would be a great poet like them.
It was in high school that I started writing more. I started a short story after being given a writing assignment in a computer class. It wasn’t an English class but a computer class! We were told to start typing a Halloween story and then we would move to other desks to add to the other person’s story. I began typing a thriller like story and had to move when I had only begun the beginning. Let’s just say that by the time I got back to my desk the story was all wrong! I took my part of the story, went home, and began to continue it. I wrote my first short story when I was only in high school. I shared it with all my friends, my boyfriend, and my family. They loved it. I had an inkling then that I wanted to write my own novel one day.
I wanted to get the short story published but I didn’t. Instead, I put it aside to publish my poetry collection. At the time I had over 40 poems! There were some from my elementary days, some from my middle school days, and some from my high school days. I put them all together and me and my family got them published. I had my first book published in 2008 while I was in high school. I was so happy to have it published. I even did an interview on the news for it!
After that I wanted to do more. I wanted to write a real novel. Like the ones it takes people days to read. I had the story of my current novel being published in my head when I was in high school. I just didn’t know how to start it. I had already written the short story but my mind was at a dead end on how to begin my own real novel. So you know what I did? I decided that I wasn’t going to write it because I didn’t know how. I put it at the back of my mind and moved on with my life.
I started reading a lot and by a lot I mean A LOT! I love to read! I have read over 70+ fiction novels! I’ve somewhat counted. By the time I read all those novels, I knew what style of writing I liked, I knew what kind of tense I liked, and I even knew how I would start my own novel. So you know what I did then? I started writing! I started writing my current novel Transition on September 15, 2014. I finished it by December or January 2015. I looked through it several times and by February I knew I had to get it published. I started the publishing process for the novel in August 2015 and it will be released on December 1, 2015! I CAN’T WAIT!
I tell you my s
tory because I know there are a lot of people out there that want to write but don’t put the pen to the paper or the hands to the keyboard. Find out what you like in a novel. Figure out what stories you would like to read that aren’t out there and then start writing! Don’t put your dreams aside! Let your creative voice be heard!
I encourage you to Just Start Writing!
On another note!
The title of my novel is Transition! Its release date is December 1, 2015!
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Until next time, P. Walker