Happy New Year Dear Readers! by Gina Fluharty

Happy New Year Dear Readers!

This month’s theme is about First Book and the road to publication. I have a secret: Technically, this published First Book is actually the second in my Preternatural Portland series. Which seems off but hey, it was the best book I’d written so far and it was the one that got the ‘YES!’ from a publisher. I really needed that ‘YES!’

Writing is the toughest job I never want to quit. And after writing for a few years and hearing a string of ‘no’ from several publishers on two separate works, the ‘YES!’ from Loose Id was exactly what I needed to hear. Not to keep going, not to keep writing, not to feel worthy. I needed to hear the ‘YES!’ to feel like I finally, maybe, know what I’m doing. I needed the ‘YES!’ so that I didn’t feel like a fraud as president of Rose City Romance Writers, the local chapter of Romance Writers of America. I needed that ‘YES!’ so that I knew how to build another better book.

I’m sure none of you are unaware that writing is often lonely, difficult to figure out how to do well, time consuming, and somewhat difficult to manage while working a full-time job. I don’t know many writers that can claim this occupation as their sole means of income but I aim to be one of them.

So how did I get here? How did I get that very-important (to me) ‘YES!’?

For one, belief in myself and my willingness to commit to this dream I’ve always had. My mom was a huge influence in my love of the written word. My earliest memories are of us reading together. That shared love of books and my admittedly twisted imagination lead to me telling myself stories in order to get back to sleep after a nightmare.

Fast forward to the next crucial step: Support. I had the great fortune to fall in love with the most fantastic person currently in existence. His unwavering support allow me to write stories that hopefully, make the reader know what it is to be loved wholly and passionately without reservation.

Finding Rose City Romance Writers and RWA were absolutely necessary pieces that shortened my journey considerably. Without RCRW, I wouldn’t have known about various writing books like Save the Cat! By Blake Snyder and The Emotions Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi. Without my Roses, I wouldn’t have companionship, support, and the joy of being with people that love the HEA as much as I do.

Because that’s what this is all about, yes? Happily Ever After. Our quest to write it, read it, discover it in real life. Our chance to escape into a world that it not our norm. The ability to not leave our environment but still get to taste something from another galaxy, smell leather and metal on a medieval battlefield, hear the exotic music of the rain forest, see the world from someone else’s point of view. To fall in love every time we visit the blank page or crack open a book from a debut author.

www.GinaFluharty.com on Twitter @GinaFluharty

Embrace the beast within.

Gina Fluharty never met a piece of profanity that didn’t taste like sin-soaked heaven. She’s lived in a lot of places: Australia, New Zealand, Alaska, Small Town America, but nowhere has called to her like Portland, OR. It’s there that she wrestles all of her personal demons and turns them into playmates. After all, why exorcise such good source material when she can use it as research instead?