If I have learned anything at all in life, it is that writing is what I was meant to do. I started realizing it around age 12, though I had dabbled in creative writing on several occasions prior. Age 12, though, was when I started keeping a journal and writing stories. Despite my brother bringing my diary to school (a very small school) and letting everyone read it (including the boy I was madly in love with), I continued to write, because it gave me a kind of joy and satisfaction that nothing else in life had given me yet.
I wrote a lot of poetry in those pre-pubescent years, and even got one published in an anthology. I made my first attempt at book-writing at that young age, writing an impressive 30-some handwritten pages before abandoning it. I continued to journal, and have over a dozen diaries to date. I’ve tried my hand at blogging as well, but I was never very consistent with it. My goal is to incorporate my new author blog with my real love, creative writing, as I venture toward publication for the first time.
My Bookshelf
The Early Years
Two Years Til Eternity. At age 15, I started writing more seriously. I worked long and hard at this paranormal romance about an immortal given a chance at life on earth for only two years. Somewhere around the halfway point, the file “disappeared” from my parents’ computer and it was lost forever. I suspect that my dad deleted it, but I will never know if it was intentional. I finished the story by hand in a notebook.
Savage Innocence. At age 16, still scarred from my previous experience with the deleted computer file, I started hand-writing this coming of age romance story. I finishing Book One of Two and abandoned the project out of boredom.
Catch Me If I Fall. An unfinished coming of age about an actress, spiraling to the pits of despair, trying to find herself.
Garden of Innocence. An unfinished mystery thriller that was later transformed into the NaNoWriMo novel Sacred Groves.
A Modern Romance. A coming of age romance about a young woman trying to find herself when her father relocates her to a town of pretentious citizens she cannot relate to.
Paradise. Now dubbed serial fiction, I started writing this series of short horror fantasies in high school. I grew so attached to the story and the world that I later developed it further and wrote a spin-off for NaNoWriMo.
My NaNoWriMo Portfolio
Sacred Groves (2006) A mystery thriller about a woman whose deceased boyfriend bequeaths her a corneal transplant, and by whose eyes she witnesses the inner workings of the cult that was responsible for his death.
Catacombs of Anjouan (2007) An historical fiction about a genocide on a tiny island off Madagascar that was triggered by a man-made tsunami.
Sweet Valentina (2008) A spin-off fantasy of the Paradise series written in high school, from the perspective of the werewolf goddess who battles with a vampire to save their world from the destruction of a monster.
Secrets of Shisiwa Unefu (2009) The prequel to Catacombs of Anjouan, which tells the story of Lila Westbrook, who witnessed the horrific actions of the Mulatto Supremacy, leading up to the catastrophic man-made tsunami that wiped out an entire generation.
White Aura (2010) A lighthearted sci-fi comedy about a woman who is impregnated by a visiting alien.
Silver Ridge (2013) A social satire of a half-crazy apartment manager and the ludicrous shenanigans her residents get into on a daily basis.
Wrath of the Pythoness. (2014) A re-write of Sweet Valentina, and the first of a trilogy. This novel tells of the sacrifices werewolf goddess Valentina must make to the Dark Angel in order to save Aethyria from the wrath of a mad pythoness he resurrected from her tomb.
Works in Progress
Tiny Shadows. A dystopian-flavored romantic sci-fi about a savant violist who is abducted by the government and forced into a secret eugenics program that is meant to save the country from a highly contagious disease.
Silver Shadows. An urban fantasy follow-up to Tiny Shadows in which the first generation of offspring resulting from the eugenics program escape from the government’s hold and discover the amplitude of their enhanced genetics – and what it means for those who are still in captivity.
I am documenting the creative process of my writing projects via Twitter and Facebook, and hope you will follow me on those platforms as well at: www.facebook.com/shouldBnoveling and @shouldBnoveling.
Thank you for following my blog. I hope my insights are helpful to you in your journey!