Writing and Publishing: My Evolution as a Writer

I started writing Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles fanfiction after reading a lot of them in college. I would go to the library with white sheet of paper and write about these characters that I had grown to love. I remember I wrote a story about myself, because my name is Claudia and in Interview with the Vampire Claudia is a very important character, where I was supposed to be the reincarnation of that Claudia. Fun times. 


Not all was about me, of course, but I confess I did write several stories where I turned into a vampire (of course, by Lestat or Louis or someone important like that) against my will. Again, fun times.


I would write in this unlined paper trying to keep my sentences straight.


I then began writing about Dysa. Dysa is a vampire I created. Back then she followed Anne Rice’s vampire rules, but that soon changed. Dysa soon became my alias, my avatar. I remember drawing her in different posses and outfits during class (although when you’re studying engineering, drawing in class is not always a good idea). You can see some of my Dysa art here.


It didn’t take long before I decided to write my own original stories, like the story of Dysa (titled “The Dark Gift”, I know, not very original) or my first attempt at a novel, “Marriage Signed in Blood”. After I wrote my second novel, “Last Hope”, I decided novel writing was HARD. It was hard to keep track of events and characters and descriptions and PLOT. Hard, hard, hard. For the first time I realized that writing was really an art and not everyone woke up one day and wrote wonderful stories. I, for certain, wasn’t one of them.


My brother, my one and only faithful critic, read and reviewed everything I wrote. He never missed the chance to tell me about how my characters never seemed to have valid motivation and that sometimes things just plainly didn’t make any sense. He still thinks the end of “Marriage Signed in Blood” is the best ending in the history of writing. Yay for that.


My husband, who has read some of my writing, mostly always used to tell me my dialogue was the only good thing about my writing. Now, he’s a huge fan of Stephen King and, honestly, he is really, really, really detailed. I don’t think I will ever be that detailed, nor do I want to be. My husband also hates stories about vampires and the like, so at some point he stopped reading.


After all my adventures with novel writing, I chance to short stories. Short stories were great because, first of all, they were easy to finish! The plot was also very straight forward and I didn’t need to have many subplots going at the same time. Short stories are good. I will publish my fave five in the soon to be published collection “A Few Drops of Fantasy”. I am really proud of my short stories. In fact, I remember that back in 1998 I gave a few of my co-workers (I eventually graduated from college) my short story “Family Secret”. This is a werewolf story that will, unfortunately not be in my collection, about werewolves. Everybody really enjoyed that story and praised the transformation scene. That was a good day for me.


It wasn’t until I started working for Lithonia Lighting that I started to write N.A.V.S.A. I was the production scheduler there. Believe it or not I finished work in 3 hours and then spent the day solving other people’s problems. I was good at my job, don’t get me wrong. In fact, when I resigned, they had to hire four people to replace me. That raised my self-esteem a bunch! Working for Lithonia allowed me breaks and it was there that I started to outline my now published story: The Recruit. I honestly planned it for a short story. Also, I didn’t plan for a series, but sometimes stories just take you for a ride. 


There are about twenty N.A.V.S.A. books on my computer right now. All need to be revised and edited. But they are there. Soon, they will see the light of day. Or, at least sometime. Hopefully before I die.


​cheers