Let us introduce YA Author Rendezvous – a group of independent Young Adult, Middle Grade and Children’s Book authors who have banded together to bring their stories to as wide an audience as possible. Visit them online and find some great reads!
Ever hear someone talk about “The Writing Process”? It was probably some professor, right? Or a bestselling author trying to sound sophisticated? I don’t like that phrase because, to me, writing in itself is not a process. Sure all the other stuff surrounding the writing consists of steps and “must-dos.”. But I don’t sit at my computer every day and follow steps. It’s more of a hodge podge, miss matched bag of tricks. I open my laptop and stick my hand in, never quite sure what I’m going to pull out. Creativity can’t be forced. The imagination doesn’t have rules. Not all authors fit in a box.
This “process” that people refer to is what comes after the writing. The editing. More editing. The cover design. The publishing. The marketing. If we weren’t all crazy to begin with, it would make us insane. They say that insanity is doing something over and over and expecting different results. Well, most of us writers will never be able to do it full time. Yet we keep plowing through an unforgiving process. We spend months, sometimes years working on a single book. My first series, the Dawn of Rebellion trilogy, took me two years to complete.
There IS hope - sanity in this world does exist! Well, a special kind of sanity anyways. We just have to find it. The Austin Powers fan in me wants to call it my author mojo. I’ve been lucky enough to find it in my fellow authors. My friends at the Young Adult Author Rendezvous, a writer’s group on Facebook, help me make sense of this world. They have quickly become my reviewers, my beta readers, my editors, my cheerleaders, my critics, and my friends. I get so much of my inspiration from their books. One of the largest parts of my process (man, I still hate that word) is reading. Every. Single. Day.
I am an author but I’m also a reader. I’m a fangirl. I’ve read a lot of books of all genres. Very few have touched me as much as many of the books from YAAR. I could not be the writer I am without them. My process (gag) would not be complete.
Who would have thought Facebook would be good for anything other than wasting time?
What a great giveaway! I hope I win something.
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