From "Only" to "First"

The past few weeks, I've found myself in the midst of an interesting transition. After Sourcebooks bought two sequels to My Very UnFairy Tale Life last month, I've been shifting from saying "my book" to saying "my first book." It's one little word, but boy does that "first" make all the difference!

When I was a kid, perched in a tree with a notebook in hand, writing terrible poetry, I fully believed that I would have lots of books out in the world one day. Everything seems achievable when you're eight. But as I got older, the dream started to seem less and less possible. After all, you can only handle so much rejection before you start doubting yourself.

I didn't give up--when it comes to writing, you NEVER give up--but I didn't let my dreams get too big. I told myself that if I could have one book published, I could die happy. Now that I'll have three, I guess I can die three times happier? I'm not sure writing math works that way, but we can pretend.

So here I am, starting my first sequel. It's both terrifying and exhilarating. While writing a book is nothing new, writing a sequel is. I almost feel like I'm back to square one again. As I start on this new journey, I've been trying to remember how much fun writing can be, the same way it was fun when I was sitting in that tree all those years ago. That was one of my first writing endeavors. I'm glad to be able to say it was the first of many.