Even as Junkland continued to grow and I learned more about the craft of writing, I never once thought about it as a serious thing.
I was writing for fun. I was writing to stay sane. I was writing because it was the only thing keeping me grounded during this very stressful stage of my life.
I only planned on writing a 30-page manuscript.
Until that summer, when my manager hired someone from my college.
I met Steven for lunch one day. At first, we didn’t get along. But after he told me he was writing a fantasy novel, of course we had to become best friends. I told him I was also writing a fantasy novel. What the heck were the chances of that? Before that, I had never met anyone else writing a book.
We met every day for lunch after that. For the next year and a half, Steven was, in a way, my first book coach. He opened my doors to the writing world. He taught me the difference between traditional and self-publishing. He taught me about the business side of the writing world, publishing options, and marketing. He showed me that this could be an avenue to making a living. This could be a job. This could be a way out of my toxic life that I so desperately wanted to escape from.
So we both worked hard, motivating each other every day to keep writing, just keep writing. A better future awaited us both.
I remember we were tubing down the river at Harper’s Ferry a year later during the summer when the idea of a trilogy popped into my head. When I first started writing Junkland, I thought it was going to be one and done. But boy, was I wrong. The story I had once imagined as a standalone was far from over. It all happened naturally and grew organically. It felt like the story had a mind of its own, and it was my job to dig up the pieces and make some sense out of them. Or maybe some of it came from the motivation I found through my talks with Steven every day.
I published Junkland that fall of 2017. I had no idea what I was doing beyond the things I learned from Steven. All at once, I had to manage a website, take author photos, download social media, do author interviews, ready my book for publication, work with an editor and cover artists, manage beta reader comments, actually find people to read my book, set up an email and other random author accounts, buy ISBNs, register my book with the Library of Congress, and tackle so many other random tasks I never once thought about. I had no idea what to focus on or what was more of a priority, so I tried focusing on all of it at once, and it created so much overwhelm. But in the end, I made it through to the other side.
I still remember that first proof copy I held in my hands. I cried like a baby, tears of pure joy.
It only took me a year and a half to write and publish Junkland. In that moment, I thought that was a long time, but I was soon to be proven wrong. It wasn’t easy at all writing Junkland. I had to sacrifice a lot. All my friends were continuing to go out on the weekends. I realized being hungover and tired and writing didn’t mix well. So I had to start saying no to social outings. I’m a very social person, and saying no to socializing was difficult. I felt very antisocial, and this scared me. But I was determined to be an author.
During this time, I would get these divine callings through my Uber drivers, who would literally turn around in their seats and tell me crazy things as if someone from above was speaking to me, telling me to continue on the path I was on. I wish I had written these moments down and remembered exactly what they had said to me, but all I remember is the feeling from their words, a divine feeling. I would have friends text me out of the blue at the exact moments when I desperately needed some kind of push, asking how my writing was going. Stuff that really blew my mind. There was no doubt about it. I needed to continue forward.
Another thing I didn’t know at the time was that Junkland sold REALLY well during its first year of publishing. I didn’t know it because all I wanted was more, more, more. But now, looking back, I’m blown away by the number of sales during that period. Authors dream of those numbers.
And little did I know where my writing journey would take me next: moving to Spain the following year.
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