The Moment I Knew That I Wanted to be an Author
Sometimes I wish that I could say that I was suddenly inspired to become an author, but that’s not the case. For me, becoming an author was something that I stumbled upon, and I’ve never regretted that happy accident!
In order for me to explain what I mean, let me paint a mental picture for you:
It was 2013, we lived in North Dakota, and were a few months into our usual 6-month long winter. My daughters were 2.5 & 4.5 years old, and my husband was knee-deep in getting his masters degree. I had a LOT of free evenings and weekends to myself since my girls went to bed early and Aaron was spending every waking moment at his computer working on school. I felt bad watching shows and distracting him, so I read… a LOT.
At the time I was hooked on science fiction romance and was devouring books one right after another. I found a sci-fi menage series that was recommended to me by Amazon (no, I won’t say which one it was!), and was roughly 3 books into the series before I realized that I had a big problem with the books. The writing was fine, but each book was about a triad of mated males who found their Earther female. It was formulaic, but I had invested time into the series and wanted to read until the end.
I finally couldn’t stand it any longer!
By the fourth book, I was ready to throw my Kindle across the room! EVERY book in the series was about three males who were in a mated relationship, which should imply that they have feelings for one another… at the very least, they should have highly regarded the other males they’d tied their lives to. But they didn’t! At the moment the female entered the story, the males completely ignored each other to focus solely on her. Even during sex, they don’t touch each other. They never talk tenderly to one another, never show the reader that they have any regard for one another other than their shared need to protect/feed/sexualize this female.
I became so frustrated that I began venting to Aaron. He was a trooper and let me use him as a sounding-board. I remember saying things like, “I can’t stand the males’ relationships with one another. If I were to write a romance novel, I’d do things completely differently!”
I’m not sure how long this went on before Aaron finally told me, “Nicky, write it down. If this frustrates you so much, maybe writing about it will help you.”
I think he meant “journaling” rather than “write my own book,” but I ran with it. I sat at the computer and began writing. In the beginning, it was a narration of my main characters, their backgrounds, their traits, but quickly became dialog. Dialog became entire scenes, and within a week I had 70 pages written! Soon thereafter I had completed Alien Savior and realized that I’d had a blast writing it. I was proud of the two males’ relationship with one another, which stays strong and intimate throughout the novel. I was also happy with how I portrayed their connection with their Earther female.
I’d written the story that I wanted to read.
It wasn’t until I was completely finished that Aaron asked, “What are you going to do with it now? Is it just going to sit on our hard drive, or are you going to get it published?”
The next few months were a blur of editing and researching in an attempt to climb the steep self-publishing learning curve. Finally, Alien Savior went online for sale. I was officially an “author!” At that moment, I knew that I wanted to continue writing. I wanted more books like mine available… I wanted to keep showing healthy relationships and promote sex-positivity.
Alien Rescue and Alien Incursion both released in 2014, and I kept telling myself that I would continue to write as long as I was enjoying it. 6 novels and 2 novellas later, I still LOVE what I do and don’t have an end in sight!
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