In the spring of 2004, I was inspired to take my writing hobby seriously. It was a beautiful day, and I wanted to spend it reading a good book. I wanted to immerse myself in a story about falling in love, and the trials and tribulations surrounding the act. I drove to the mall, headed straight for Waldenbooks (a blast from the past, right?), and spent quite a while browsing before I finally settled on a title.
I rushed home and began devouring it, page by page, hungry for some romance heavily laced with some messy drama. The story started out great, but suddenly took a left turn into weird-ville. In fact, it took such a dramatic turn, that the only reason I kept reading was to see if it would ever recover. It didn’t, and I was so upset that I’d wasted precious “me time” on such a disappointment. It was at that point that I literally declared aloud, “I know I can do better.” And so I set out to do just that. And, I kept the book as inspiration.
DISCLAIMER: I will never reveal the name of the book or the author who wrote it. I know the hard work that goes into writing a book, and I would never want to disrespect another author’s work. I will also say that this author was actually a very good writer, they just took a chance and took the story in a direction that I personally didn’t like.
The first chapter I wrote was inspired by a dream, and after I completed a few more chapters, I actually liked the story that was starting to develop. I wondered if I was just full of myself, so I decided to bare my soul and send the first chapter to some friends to see what they thought. Surprisingly, the response I got was “send more as soon as you can.” If it weren’t for their enthusiasm and encouragement, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to write a second manuscript (a raw, unedited book), which eventually became What’s Done in the Dark.
The book is available in soft cover or e-book format, and you don’t have to have a Kindle to read it. To learn more about reading the e-book on your iPhone, iPad, Android or Windows phone, Windows pc, or Mac computer, click here. You can purchase the book on Amazon.com by clicking here.
I’m currently working on a second novel, but I humbly ask for your patience. I’m not a very fast writer (I do have a full-time, non-writing job), I’m very particular, and I don’t write formulaic books that can be churned out every few months. If you enjoy my style of writing, you can always keep up with me at my blog until I release my next book. I’m also pretty active on Facebook. I have a personal page which is open to the public, as well as an author page that I post to much less frequently.
Angela