Everything Changes in the Write Way

2018 has been a roller coaster of a year for my writing life. In February, I signed a contract from Cedar Fort, Inc., a local Latter-day Saint publishing house, for them to publish my “clean” college romance novel, Smiles, Boyfriends, and Other White Lies. I’ve wanted to get published since I could hold a pen, so imagine me as the heart-eyed emoji and you’ve got a good visual of how I felt. After getting some constructive feedback from an editor, I spent several weeks hacking out a stronger, wittier story. I was pumped to turn it in, brush my hands off, and hit the marketing how-to books.

But then along came June 29th. All my writing plans screeched to a halt when I sat down with my editor over my lunch break and she told me that because of financial issues, Cedar Fort was canceling several authors’ contracts—including mine.

I’ll be honest—I was devastated. My editor offered to get me some ice cream or chocolate, but I’m the opposite of a stress eater (a stress faster?), so I opted to wander around the UVU grounds like a sunlight-seeking zombie for the rest of my lunch break. A coworker kindly tried to distract me by enlisting me to help rescue baby ducks (the distraction sort of worked). :)

That afternoon sucked, but even as I was stumbling around in shock, I had this feeling that things were going to work out for the best. After all, my story had been accepted once—it would be accepted again. The trick was just to not give up.

So to all of you who supported my excitement about getting published—thank you! It’s not happening yet, but stay posted! I’ve got some more editing to do, and then I’ll query different agents and publishers and cross my fingers to find a good fit. In the meantime, I’ll be blogging here about books, my writing process, and whatever other tidbits come into my brain. Hope you’ll join me!

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash