Hello everyone. I'm glad Rebecca let me come by, so that I could talk to you about being a new author.

Being a new author is a roller coaster of emotions, with huge highs and frightening plunges. It's rough at times, and yet in the end is always great. You'll fight through depression and loneliness, but you'll get the elation of events like a first autograph, and first fan, and first review.

I'm fairly new to the writing world. I've been a storyteller for most of my life, weaving tales that I wanted to get published, but just weren't meant for full life. I actually completed a novel in junior high, and have subsequently trashed it and and its sequel. It was a start, but not really any good. I just kept writing, and entertaining myself and my friends, and kept learning to be a better writer.

During the end of 2007, I needed something to help me through a very depressive point of my life. I used writing for my salvation, and started a vampire novel. I wrote it quickly, the first draft was pretty shabby, but the bones were there. I created an outline, fleshed out my characters and their adventure, and in January of 2008, I started All Hallows Blood.

I completed writing it by that summer, edited it through the fall, and started submitting that winter. I'm not a patient person, so waiting for replies to queries was pretty aggravating. If you're not patient, I fully recommend moving on to something else while you're waiting. Do NOT check your email daily, or stare at the calender waiting for the end of fourteen weeks. Keep writing. Or work on your site, your blog, or networking. I chose to keep writing, and during my query time wrote the sequel.

Summer of 2009 rolls around, and I'm finally getting answers to my queries. Rejections, all. One said it just wasn't what they published, and someone else said it was too young adult. Both of those came in the same week. Very devastating. I was in mourning, because this book was my little catharsis. To have people telling me it was no good was pretty rough.

This is the part where having a loved one helps a lot. Even a best bosom buddy, or tight network of fellow authors will help. Because rejection hurts. A LOT. I have my fiance, and he helped me get focused, helped me move past the pain.

So I buckled down, and did a major rewrite of the book, with the help of my beta reader. I changed almost a third of the novel, and put it out again.

This is where my experience departs from the norm. This was my fourth query (the third one has never responded), and I picked Crescent Moon Press because of how their site looked. Something just clicked for me, and I took a chance.

That chance paid off. Within a week of me sending my query, I was asked for a partial, and then to sign the contract. For those who (unlike me) are really following the career, and how publishing is "supposed" to go, I had a minor miracle. No one gets signed on their fourth attempt. And in under a week. Even amidst my naivete, I knew I'd struck gold.

I was so elated and ecstatic, my fiance called me a bobblehead. Yes, those toys with the head on a spring. Anyone just had to mention that I was a published author for me to start wiggling and grinning and making a fool of myself. It was the absolutely greatest feeling. (Other than falling in love, of course.) I was an author now, vindicated in my feeling that I could write better than some of what was on bookshelves.

It's a feeling that's stayed with me. I still become a squeeing mess when I think about it, or when I talk about it. It's giving me the strength to keep at my writing, to craft more, to reach out to other authors more.

Granted, with the highs come some lows. I had to learn the hard way that authors have to do the majority of the promoting work. I'd focused on the writing aspect, and not looked into the industry aspects of it. Start learning how to do that now. Start networking and reaching out to others now.

I also had to learn to balance my work life with my family life with my new author promoting machine life. It was rough, and it brought me crashing down several times. Again, because I'm not patient. Getting a fanbase takes times and effort, and I wanted to be some viral hit.

But then came the first royalty check. While I'm not a storyteller to make money, seeing that check, seeing that people bought MY book really sealed the deal. This wasn't something I was making up, plotting out a book in my head. It was real life. I was an author, with the benefits that come with it.

It hasn't even been a year since I signed my contract. I am just starting out on this journey of being an author. It's tiring, sometimes, but the rewards are worth it. Having a stranger tell you how much they liked your book is wonderful. Having people suggest to you a story idea is fantastic. Knowing that one day you'll be walking through the bookstore, and someone will be reading YOUR book is glorious.

If I haven't made it clear enough, let me simply state that being a new author is awesome.

Raven Corinn Carluk