Since reading my first novel anthology, The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis as a child, I have wanted to be a published author. Traumatic life experiences in the following years negatively influenced my self-confidence. They caused me to doubt the worth of my writing, so I did nothing with the works of fiction I produced, hiding them from others. Through the years, I’ve written several full-length manuscripts of 50000 words or more, some of which were fanfiction and others original compositions, but I didn’t dare to move beyond writing the first drafts. I never allowed anyone to read my writing until I began writing fanfiction online in the mid-to-late 2000s (more about that in a future blog post)….

I repeatedly hear as I study how to become a writer and how to write a novel that one of the most important aspects of becoming an author is to discover and develop one’s writing style. This has intimidated me because I find it difficult to describe my style to someone else, but I can see how it differs from that of authors whose works I’ve read and loved….