Who would have thought I’d be here, about to publish my first novel? Not the first I’ve written, for that one is long gone in the process of growing up, disorganization, moving, and all that.

See, the first novel was written when I was about… what, 10? It was on loose leaf paper, written in pencil so that I could erase and correct. Back in my day (side note- I still giggle every time I get to use that phrase), there weren’t smartphones or computers or word processors just laying around. I didn’t even know how to type, and that was a course I wouldn’t take until 7th grade.

It all started with my love of all things ‘The Outsiders.’ My love of this book was an extension of my sister Nickie’s love of this book, and since I couldn’t quite follow along when she was telling me about it, she promised I could read it as soon as she was done. I devoured every line of that book, loving the story, the way it wove and duck and sang and swam through every emotion I had. This continued on with the movie, of course, but even before that was released, I had started.

We had cried at the end of the book, each of us wondering how it would have been different if certain things hadn’t happened. I figured… why not write it down? Why not have something that Nickie and her friends, and my friends as they also grew to love the book, could read, and imagine. So, here I was, just into double digit years, dreaming of my own story, putting it to paper… well, wait. Back up. I was dreaming up a fanfiction and putting it to paper. Apparently this was not the norm back in my day, and who knows how different my life would have been had the internet and such existed, but I digress.

The story doesn’t exist anymore. It’s now a distant memory, its pages lost forever. It will never truly leave my heart, though, because through this story, through the endless hours of writing it down and sharing it with my sister and all of our friends, my love of writing was born. Here, I could take these characters and plots and weave them together. Here, I wasn’t ‘strange’ or ‘weird’ or ‘crazy’ or ‘obsessed with a fictional world.’ Here, I was master. Creator.

Storyteller.

And here I am, a mere… what, couple of months?… away from fulfilling my dream.

If I could go back to my fifth-grade self, I would tell her not to worry. She isn’t crazy. She isn’t weird. She’s creative. She’s gifted. And her time will come.

May 4th, loves. May fucking 4th I will be a published author. Take that, elementary school (and middle school, and high school) haters.