Hey!
I’ve been writing since I was 18. I know many authors always loved to read and write, and they always wanted to be a writer but… not me. I actually hated reading as a kid. I had to be pulled out of class in grade school because I was behind in reading which I was very self conscious about by the way. I was a painfully shy kid and didn’t want any attention, let alone the “she can’t read good” attention.
As I got older my reading was fine but I didn’t enjoy it. Until my senior year of high school I didn’t read anything that wasn’t required.
Then I became a library aide in 12th grade. Why? Destiny. Fate. Or probably it was an elective and I thought it would be an easy A. Back then cell phones weren’t a big thing yet. I didn’t have one, and things in the library got pretty boring so I picked up a book. Demon In My View by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. I was hooked. Why didn’t I know books could actually be cool and exciting?! It’s likely because I didn’t know I would love fantasy books. I loved The Lord of the Rings movies that came out a few years prior but didn’t read the books until later.
While in the library, at home and every spare chance I had– lunch time at school– I sort of became a loner that year. I began reading a book every few days and was sucked in. After I graduated I thought, you know, I could write one of these kinds of books. So I did. I wrote an epic 130k word manuscript Fire & Ice in about 2 months. My family actually started to worry I was depressed because I sat at the computer writing all day. But i wasn’t depressed at all. I was enjoying creating this amazing new world.
The summer I graduated high school (2005) A distant family member invited me to a writing critique group that met every Wednesday and I went religiously for years. I entered into a novel contest at age 19 and took 5th out of 30 for my manuscript Dragonwings. It’s because of this group that I kept at it and got infinitely better.
Then life happened, I got a job, friends, dating, got married had a baby and books got put on the back burner. Although i still wrote, just not as much. Then July 2018 I decide I’m going publish my book RISE (now available on Amazon). I’d been working on it for 2 years (off and on) and was incredibly happy with the way it turned out. I think why I waited so long is because I wasn’t fully satisfied with my writing. I thought it could be better. But after 13 years of writing it was time.
And so here we are. I’m going full time author. I’ve committed to writing each day and putting out books regularly. I’m hoping every 3-6 months if I can get steady and fast beta readers and an efficient editor.
Thanks for stopping by and if you don’t already follow me on social media!
-J.M. Kearl
(if you really want to know my first name is Janie)
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