Wednesday Wisdom: Welcome Post

Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to "jump at de sun." We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.
                                                                      -Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God


Hi, I'm Dylan an aspiring author of m/m romance novels and this is my "jump at de sun."

I grew up a shy army brat and for most of my childhood books were my best friends. As time went on I developed a love for the written word that transferred out of the pages of my books and onto the pages of journals and diaries.  The older I got, the more I wrote and by the time I was a senior in high school I was the editor of our school newspaper.  I dreamed of being a writer the way other kids dreamed of being a famous athlete or musician.

Then...life happened.  I met a boy, I fell in love, I had a baby and my dreams got pushed aside in favor of a more practical reality.  Fast forward *mumble mumble* years and there were kids and responsibilities and illnesses (the excuse trifecta) and I hadn't written anything other than my signature in so long I had almost forgotten how.  And then I reacquainted myself with  fanfiction..

Okay, I know what you're thinking.  And you're right.  I wish I could say it was like riding a bike and everything just came back to me but that is so not what happened.  My first few fanfics were awful. No, I'm not being modest.  On a scale of "This is the best fanfiction ever written" to "My Immortal"
it was closer to the latter than the former.

As poorly written as my fanfics were, they ignited my creative spark. I kept at it, improved my technical skills (my nemesis grammar and I are now on somewhat civil terms) and slowly but surely fell back in love with writing.

I've spent the last few years writing "slash" in various fandoms and now I feel like I'm ready to take the plunge into the scary exciting world of published m/m romance.  This blog is going to chronicle my journey as a newbie author figuring out everything from networking on social media, to building a readership base to navigating the choppy waters of submitting to publishers vs. going indie and self publishing.

I'm excited about this journey and thankful that you've decided to jump with me.  Let's see how close to the sun we can get.