Sign up for Melanie's newsletter --> Sign me up!
I have big news! I’m in a YA romance anthology that comes out at the end of this month!! Aside from the trashy stories I wrote in middle school, I’d never written a proper short story, and I’m very happy with how it turned out. There are EIGHT other stories in the anthology, and best of all — the anthology will be free!
I’ve been hibernating since The Trail Rules first came out a couple months ago, but this coming weekend I have an event! Reading Rocks in Rockford: Saturday, June 2, 2018 – 9:45am to 1:00pm at the Krause Memorial Library.
Enjoy this list of things you might not know about The Trail Rules, including the fact that there are ten “Trail Rules” throughout the book. They’re things that can apply to both riding and life. All three books in the series have rules like this.
I’ve been writing novels for about eleven years, and if I had to go back and change anything, I wish I would’ve started sooner. I first started writing as a kid, mostly short stories and poems, but I stopped when I got to college and started studying graphic design. Every time I read about a person in their 20s who’s already written half a dozen novels I kick myself for giving up on my passion.
Because I’ve clawed my way up from the very bottom, I know how to recognize the signs when I start to slip. I’ve learned to take a step back, evaluate the situation, and make adjustments as needed. (btw, our minds respond oh-so well to this kind of analytical approach. At least for a little while.)
I’ve written eight novels and the idea for all but one of them started with me thinking, “Ooh, what if there’s this girl who….” (the first is about a boy so I thought, “what if there’s this boy…”). I take that spark of an idea, let it germinate in my mind for days or weeks, then form a story around that initial idea.
As of about 7pm last night, the first draft of my next book is with my first reader. Yes, that first reader is my mom, but she’s an excellent proofreader and catches inconsistencies. Of which I fear there are a lot.
When I first get an idea for a new novel, my mind is in overdrive. Ideas come to me rapid-fire and I take notes haphazardly in an effort to get it all down, either in notebooks, stickies, or my phone’s note app. Then I transfer those scribblings into a word document and organize them into character development, backstory, and the story itself.
I’m super excited to be doing the YA Scavenger Hunt again. It’s fun to get to know new-to-me authors and check out their amazing books. This year there are at least 17 authors I’ve never met, including Kathleen, featured below, and LM, who I’ve linked to at the end of this post.
I’ve always loved sports. Give me something physical and I’m there. I’ve tried pretty much every sport under the sun, and since I’ve skied since I was five, writing about downhill skiing made total sense. But that was The Slope Rules, the first book in The Rules Series. For The Trail Rules, I decided to write about mountain biking because many skiers and snowboarders bike in the off-season—never mind the fact that the riskiest maneuver I’ve tried on my bike is hopping a curb into oncoming traffic.