Hey, there!
I’m so excited that Andy invited me to blog today!
I love firsts. I love starting things. Now, ask anyone who knows me, and they’ll tell you I’m not good at finishing them…
The urge to leave this blog post right here just makes me giggle, but I won’t, because I have a story to tell about, well, my first story.
It wasn’t great literature.
I was nine, and I wrote it on lined school paper in a letter to my grandma. The story was all about powering the entire world with popcorn.
Yeesh.
Fast forward twenty years and I wrote my first gay romance, a fanfiction in the Xena universe, of all things. Less than a year later I was writing original characters and posting then to a blog (okay, Livejournal) and having a ball. A year and a half after that, I wrote a Nanowrimo novel, and shortly after, I was a published novelist.
It’s very different being a novelist than it is, say a journalist or literary journal writer. I’ve done those, and I’ve done freelance, all of which are fleeting at best. In the age of the e-book, an author’s backlist can stay up indefinitely, and I continue to get feedback on some of my oldest stories. Sadly, that Nano novel isn’t out anymore, but I’ll send y’all to my first big series, the one that really launched my career and also made the biggest controversy I’ve ever created as an author. (Book 2 has a break up in it, just FYI). I had so much hate mail over that, and if it was now? I feel like it would ruin my career.
Which leads me to tell y’all when my first novel came out.
2003. I’m such an old lady in gay romance lol.
Anyway, this rambling post brought to you by fond memories and first times.
XXOO
Julia Talbot
Book Link: Jumping Landing and Taking
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GH62KJY
That’s one of the first mm books I read. I actually liked that it wasn’t pretty and I stand by that more today than when I first read it. I grew up in romance novels and this was so refreshing. You’re are one of my favourite authors and I always look forward to your new stories.
Thank you so much! Squishy hugs
Thanks for the post! LOL about powering the world with popcorn. (That would be awesome. I love popcorn.) My 10-year-old son loves to write/draw comics and he comes up with ideas like that.
Love kids and imagination!