I resist talking about myself, normally, though I should be getting used to it as I write more and more of these sorts of introductory author posts. Yet, it’s never easy to decide which angle to pursue. Do readers care that I’m a Canadian writer, living in Ontario? Or that I teach at a university in my day life, and have a four year old son? Or that I started writing because I’m the child of an avid reader (thanks Mum!), and because we didn’t have a TV as a kid? There are a lot of things about me to trot out for one of these posts, and it’s hard to choose which ones to cover.
I guess a place to start as at the beginning. My first novel, Strings Attached, was more than ten years in the making, which might be some sort of record for a romance. I wrote it as a college student way back in 2000, but it got shoved in a drawer when I went to grad school. (Literally, shoved in a drawer, since it was hand written.) I sent out one query for that book, to Silhouette. It was an admittedly lousy query, and it earned me my first rejection form letter.
Unlike most writers who love to tell you how undaunted they were by their first rejection, I have to admit it daunted the heck out of me. I was thoroughly and utterly daunted. And that was the end of my writing career (or so I thought).
Luckily, I was still too vain to actually toss the book, so I kept the manuscript. I later re-read it and typed it up, but it generally languished for a decade. Then, in 2010, I had finally come to a crossroads. My “terminal degree” had been achieved. The big PhD. The moment I’d been working toward since I got on that first school bus, clutching my Big Bird lunch pail. But was I happy? Not in the slightest! Graduating from school for the last time sent me into an identity crisis worthy of any teen drama. What was I, if I wasn’t a student?
Then, sitting one day and pondering such questions, I recalled The Novel. Hey, maybe I was still a writer! I had a summer and a term before my teaching gig started, so why not fill it with doing something with this book?
Well, I did. I re-read, re-wrote, edited, brushed up, etc, and I sent it off. I found a small epub. No agent required! What did I have to lose? Long story short, they accepted it, and it toddled off into the world in 2011. I was pleased. But, it reignited the old addiction. Now, unhindered by my dissertation and school papers, I returned to writing for the joy of it. I ended up writing a lot more than I had planned, and publishing many more than that one book. I have recently released my second novel, Textbook Romance, and about seven shorter works in between. Now, I’m even venturing out of romance and considering my self-publishing non-romance debut.
So, the Anne Holly Story? What is that? I think the only way I can describe myself, and the only “angle” that matters, is that challenge is essential, and crossroads are as exciting as they are terrifying. For now, I’m happy. But seldom content.
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You can get to know Anne Holly at her blog (http://anneholly.blogspot.ca/), on Twitter or Facebook, or find her bumming around the Kindle Boards.
Take a look at her books on her Amazon profile or by clicking on a cover below!
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