Small Town Talk
I’ve been in Clover my entire life. I went off to college and grad school and then came right back home. I love my hometown! However, having said that, I was nervous REALLY nervous to share my writing. I mean, small towns have a reputation for every one knowing everyone’s business and Clover is no different. It’s better now that we’re basically becoming a suburb of Charlotte, NC, but it’s still a small town at heart. And when you have a small town you have talk. I was so worried about what others might say, what they might think, that for a long time I didn’t open up and share my writing with anyone. I kept telling myself that I was writing for me. And while that was absolutely true, I was writing for myself, it was also kind of lonely. I wanted to have someone I could talk to about the book I just finished writing, like I would have talked about reading my latest James Patterson, Nora Roberts or Steig Larson.
Every book I’d finish, each new book I’d start, my husband kept saying, “Why don’t you publish them?” And I’d reply, “Because I write them just for me.” I was on my 15th-ish book and I kind of laughed when I realized how many books I’d written for myself. That’s a lot of work just to keep locked on my computer. I decided to take a leap of faith and I printed out three copies of one manuscript: The Unexpected Fix, and gave it to two friends and my mom. They all read it and gave me feedback.
I finally had to admit to myself that I AM A WRITER. That was the hardest part to get past for me. I didn’t think of myself as a writer. A social worker, sure. A good student, yes. A writer? Nope. Writer’s majored in English or Journalism or something similar and had dreams of working in the news media or writing the ‘Great American Novel’, not contemporary romance, smut, or steamy cliterature, but here we are.
I waited another 5 years before I did anything else with it. I kept one piece of feedback in mind when I finally moved to publish the book… “You’ve got to use a pen name!” -My Mom.
I did, in fact, use a pen name. However, since marketing and social media are not at all in my strong suits, the very first post I made on my Pen Name’s Instagram automatically posted to my Facebook page and I nearly had a heart attack! Welp! It’s out now! I had a good laugh about it all and quickly embraced it. My friends and family have been so supportive of my work and several girlfriends have been Beta reading the next few books in the series. So thank you for the support and I hope I make my hometown proud!
