This post is part of the Women-Loving-Women blog hop, featuring lots of great authors loosely writing about the same general theme each month. At the bottom of this blog you’ll find a link to another another’s great blog. Have fun reading! 

This month’s topic: My first book. 

I didn’t set out to be a writer. I wonder how many people do?

But after I had my first short story published in 2008, I got the bug. I liked seeing my words in print. I liked knowing they were out there, (even if it was erotica and I turned tomato red every time I mentioned it to someone). Creation using words reminded me of their power, of their beauty, and of their elasticity. It reminded me that writing can be fun.

Short stories were all I had time for, though. I was an editor learning my craft, and writing short stories was a good way to stay grounded and reminded me how it feels as a writer to be edited.

And then a story came to me. Something to do with mythology, (my literary love), and something to do with the gods…Something bigger than a short story. A lot bigger.

It simmered. It took shape, dissolved, reformed. Still, I didn’t do anything with it. I talked to a few people about it, who encouraged me to go for it. But no. I wasn’t a writer. Not that kind of writer, anyway. And I didn’t have the time.

And then…

Fast forward to 2014. My life had turned upside down and I was on an entirely new path. When I told Robyn about it, she made me a promise. If I finished the book, even just the first one, she’d get the tattoo my main character has. She was working on her first book, too, so it made sense to sit and actually do something while she was writing…

And so Fury’s Bridge was born, the first of a trilogy about the three Greek furies from mythology. It’s a world where the gods exist and work out of a building in LA (my home city). The world is changing, people have lost faith, and to stay relevant, they need an atheist philosopher’s help.

It had been in my head for so long I didn’t have to do a whole lot of planning, though I did have to do a lot of research on the various world religions and types of philosophy I wanted to play with. I started writing it in 2015, and in January of 2016, I received my first publishing contract.

It came out in March, 2017. It was exhilarating, and it was scary. It was a lot of work, and it was fun. There is no feeling like the one you get when you open your very first book box and hold your hard work in your hands.

So, I didn’t mean to, but I’m glad I did.

I always tell the authors I work with that writing is a craft. That you get better with every book you write, as you come into your own voice, as you learn better ways to say what you want to say, as you develop your skills. And I think that’s true for my work as well. It’s now October 2018, and Fury’s Choice, Fury’s Death, and Chosen have all come out since my first one. My next two come out in 2019.

But that first one? It’s special. And it will always have a special place in my heart as the jumping off point into a life where I get to play with words all the time.

Oh, and that tattoo? It graces Robyn’s shoulder, along with words from the book. It’s gorgeous, and a reminder of both her encouragement and my accomplishment.

 

Find out how an unexpected rejection encouraged young adult author S R Silcox to self-publish her very first novel. S R Silcox currently writes the queer-girl cheesy romcom series, The Girls of Summer, and the Alice Henderson series about girls who play cricket. http://srsilcox.com/2018/10/authorbloghop1