Hello, I'm Pen.

I’ve been wanting to start a newsletter for a while, especially a year ago when I was in the middle of drafting my first novel. At that time, I was hoping to share my insights of what it was like to go from writing friendly fanfiction to having to work out a novel fit for publishing. But alas, I was worried constantly that I was jumping the gun—What if nothing ever came of it? (for example)

My mentality then was fairly optimistic. I’ve been through the rigors of auditions as a singer (yes, classically trained, actually), so I knew what it was like to face the rollercoaster of encouragement, enthusiasm, victories and devastating rejection.

But writing feels different, because it’s a lifelong dream of mine to write and publish. While I’m still optimistic and proud of what I’ve accomplished, it’s easy for that confidence to dip and dive with what each day brings.

I’m self-taught and sowed my oats in fandom spaces, and it’s been one hell of place for me to gain experience, but what if that wasn’t enough to teach me what I needed to know to get an agent’s attention?

I wrestled with that a great deal as I drafted my book, redrafted the last twenty percent, sent it off to beta readers, edited more, edited even more, edited until I thought my eyes may bleed, and then continued the process of building a query letter which went through it’s own process of editing.

So, anyway, here I am, because I have a small community of writers that I’m close with, and we talk about writing and publishing and storytelling. We get into heated text battles over a book we’ve read or a fic we’ve loved. We agree to disagree about an ending. We celebrate each other and cheer each other on.

But I often felt like I had to work to find that, so I wanted to share more of that here in case anyone wants to better understand my process. I may not be saying anything different from what you’ve already heard, but if you want to hear it from me, now you can.

Thank you again for being here!

Love, Pen <3