I’ve wanted to write this blog post for a long time. Now I finally get to.
My journey from being a new mom, struggling to find the hours in the day (and night) to get enough sleep, work full time, and take care of a colicky infant to traditionally and indie published, multi-award winning author has been a long one.
I remember writing out my first two books long hand and meeting with my critique partner, Erin Kellison, every week wondering if I’ll ever be good enough to finish a book, much less get published.
As I got book contracts, publishers, and agents, I started to believe that maybe I could put together a sentence or two and possibly repeat it enough times for it to turn into a book. But really, I seemed to be the last person on earth to actually believe in my writing. In some ways this was a blessing. I never just wrote a story. Every book I’ve written I’ve strived to do better, sharpen my craft, push my boundaries of what I was comfortable with. I believe my drive to always do better has helped my writing turn into more than just a story, but something I a very proud of.
In 2012, I was awarded my first RONE award for a sci-fi anthology that I wrote with 2 other awesome and talented authors, Erin Kellison and Jessa Slade. Of course, there was a part of me that doubted the validity of the win, wondering if I could ever win on my own merits.
In 2015, my book, The Space Captain’s Courtesan, was nominated for a RONE award. I went to the ceremony with my two best friends with every intention of getting pleasantly drunk after clapping politely for the winner. I was so nervous before the event that I told my friends we should just skip out and forget the whole thing. That night, to my surprise, I won 1st runner up in my category. I don’t even remember walking across the stage to accept my certificate.
This year my book The Breaking of Dawn, was a finalist for the best sci-fi and fantasy category. I knew the awards were going to be announced on Oct 13th, and in my journal I wrote out all the reasons it wouldn’t win. Not because I thought it was a bad book–I knew it wasn’t–but because it was the last book in a series, the first few chapters read a little slow do to setting up info from the previous books, it was written in 1st POV.
To say that I was surprised to see my book announced as the winner was an understatement. I replayed the video and had my daughter watch to make sure I saw it right. 
As of 2019, over eleven years later since I started writing seriously, I won my first stand-alone, single-author, RONE award, and I couldn’t be happier.
Thank you to all my readers and other authors who voted and supported me through this journey.
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