Shh! I'm writing....

I’ve always been quiet about my writing. It started in high school, when I spent a lot of class time writing instead of taking notes. The great thing is, writing and taking notes look pretty much the same to teachers. If asked, of course I was taking notes! and of course my teachers believed me. I was a good student. I got good grades. But sometimes, whatever the teacher was teaching was too easy or too boring.

So I wrote a novel in high school.

Yep. I did. It’s horrible, but it’s a novel. It’s so horrible, in fact, that I haven’t read it in years. I’ve thought many times about shredding it—the computer I wrote it on originally is long gone, as is the floppy disk on which it was saved—but can’t really force myself to get rid of that last, physical copy. There’s something comforting about those blue pages. They were my major high school secret.

See, I was one of those rule followers. I wasn’t terribly popular and I didn’t have a boyfriend. There were two things I most liked to do: read and write. I couldn’t read in class (because, as much as movies/TV shows would have us believe otherwise, you can’t hide a fun book inside a text book). Instead, I wrote.

The thing about writing a novel during class while in high school? I couldn’t tell anyone. While teachers encouraged us to explore and learn, I doubt they meant writing instead of paying attention. I told my close friends, of course, but not my teachers. Not even my English teachers.  I wrote on spiral notebook pages, took those pages home, and typed them onto my computer. I then printed them on blue pages that I still have tucked away somewhere here. Why blue? I think I thought it was less obvious than white. I think my logic was flawed.

Because I was so secretive about writing in high school, I’ve always had trouble telling people that I’m a writer. Even in college, when I wrote another novel for a senior seminar and spent many Friday nights keeping the library company, I didn’t tell many people. The first year after college, I revised that novel. I then bought a Writer’s Market and got to work on my first round of queries. I had no success, but then I didn’t know what I was doing. Part of why I didn’t know what I was doing? I told NO ONE. No wonder I had no success.

I know now. Or at least I know more. FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE definitely fits in a genre (unlike that college novel). I’ve got a pretty good idea what a query letter should look like (more than half the length of that college novel query). I’m doing good literary agent research using the internet and social media. And I’m telling everyone I know: I wrote a novel! I’m trying for an agent! I want it published! I’m doing whatever it takes to get what I want, including tell EVERYONE.

Hey, EVERYONE! I wrote a novel! In fact, I’ve written four! Help me get FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE published! I’ll write more, lots more, and I’ll tell you all about them!