Hiatus

Just wanted to let everyone know that I won't be updating my blog because I'm headed on vacation to Costa Rica for two weeks.
I'll be back December 31st, but probably won't post anything until Jan 1st.

Talk to you guys then!

Top 5 Books I Read in 2014

Hi! So 2014 is coming to an end. I honestly don’t know where the year went. It’s already December! My semester is technically over. I mean I still have finals to get through, so this blog post is going to be pretty short and sweet. I’m going to make a point not to mention anything that spoils the books so don’t worry! (All the links are to the Goodreads pages btw.)

1. In The Afterlight by Alexandra Bracken

This shouldn’t be that big of a surprise that this is number one. I really love this series and the author. I made a post about it here. It was honestly the best ending to a trilogy I’ve read in a while. Seriously, go read this book! You won’t regret it, I swear!

2. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

I love Rainbow Rowell’s books. I know Eleanor and Park is more popular than this one, but I think Fangirl deserves a little more love. It had be squealing in my bed as I read it. I definitely recommend it to anyone in college because Ms. Rowell has a knack for capturing the college life (eating granola bars for breakfast, lunch, and dinner—definitely did that my first year of college). 

3. Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

This is the third book and ending to The Grisha series. I’m really glad I finally read the second and third book to this series. Ms. Bardugo’s worldbuilding is amazing. I'm sad this series if over, but I am so excited for another series set in the Grisha world called Six of Crows!

4. Silver Shadows by Richelle Mead

This is the fifth book in the Bloodlines series (which is companion series to Vampire Academy series). Let’s just say that I read both series in the span of a month this year. My only regret is that I didn’t know about these books sooner! I can't wait to read the last book to the Bloodlines series, The Ruby Circle. 

5. Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

This is the second book in the Cinder series and while I loved Cinder. I loved Scarlet even more. If you haven’t heard about these books, but like fairytale retellings with a sci-fi twist, I would definitely pick them up over the holidays! 

Bonus: The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Maas

This book doesn’t make my top five, but I had to have it on here because…well just because! It’s the prequel to the Throne of Glass series. It gave me great insight into the main character, Celaena. Ms. Maas' novels just get better and better. Also how amazing is this cover? 

Thanks for reading! What are some of your favorite books you read in 2014? I would love book recommendations for 2015! Comment below!

BR: The Darkest Minds Series

Whenever the post title has BR, it’s going to stand for a book recommendation/review. So if you see BR and know it’s not your thing, you can just close the window if you want, no hard feelings! 

Now that’s out of the way….Where do I even start explaining how much I love this series? 

The Darkest Minds (1) Never Fade (2) In The Afterlight (3) is a series written by one of my favorite authors Alexandra Bracken. It’s a dystopian trilogy where the majority of children in the US have IAAN (Idiopathic Adolescent Acute Neurodegeneration). There’s only two outcomes when the children have IAAN: they either die or obtain Psi abilities classified into the groups Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, and Blue (why does it feel like I’m in microbiology class? Though the alternative to death was never as cool as developing mind powers or anything.). The kids that survive IAAN are considered to be a danger and under the guise of rehabilitation, they are taken to camps where they endure mistreatment, etc. The main character is Ruby Daly and the series is all about what trouble she runs into as she lives her life as a Psi. 

Now onto why I recommend reading this series. This is only a small list because honestly I can talk about these books for days. 

1. The Darkest Minds series is the reason I love dystopias. It was written so well. It’s the exact reason I still buy or check out every YA dystopia even though the market is saturated with them. When they’re done well, they just make me squeal. If you have any interest in dystopias, but find yourself a little tired of the typical ones, pick this book up! 

2. The characters. Ruby, Chubs, Liam, Zu, and many others…I adore them so much. From the first time the main four characters were introduced, they were written so well. Realistic, complex, three-dimensional—Ms. Bracken has a skill in creating distinct characters and it really pulls you into the story. 

3. Who doesn’t want to read about kids with awesome powers: pyrokinesis, mind control, electrokinesis (I’m not sure if this is actually a word, but basically the ability to control electricity), enhanced intelligence, and telekinesis.

4. It’s a finished series now, so you don’t have to suffer like I did waiting a year for each book to be published. Go out and buy all three. I’m warning you now. It’s in your best interest that you just buy all three so you don’t even have to suffer the car ride to your local Barnes and Noble or local indie store to get the next book. 

5.  I really admire Alexandra Bracken (if you haven’t noticed). I love the way she writes and I love that she does her research (regarding IAAN especially in the 3^rd book—biochemist/pre-med in me really appreciates that she didn’t just leave the science out of the series). Most of all, she really cares about her fans. She’s active on Tumblr and Twitter—I mean she retweeted me and answered a question on Tumblr. It’s the first time I reached out to connect with the author of a series I loved and Ms. Bracken exceeded my expectations. If I can just have a fraction of her writing ability, I would be satisfied with my writing (well not really, but I would be happier :D) 

6. Bonus: The book titles make a sentence! The Darkest Minds Never Fade In The Afterlight. How awesome is that? 

Seriously, I really recommend that you read this series. You will not regret it. Let’s just put it this way, I will be buying anything Ms. Bracken writes until there’s nothing left. 

Have any of you read this series? Or are you now interested in reading it after this blogpost? Comment below! I would love to fangirl about The Darkest Minds. 

You should be a _______

No one has ever said I should be a writer. I’ve heard doctor (friendly classmates that really shouldn’t get to have an opinion), pharmacist (parents who want an easy life for me), secretary (people who don’t know anything about me other than the fact that I’m meticulous), etc. 

But never once has writer or author come out of someone’s mouth. I mean it’s only two syllables. My parents can even say it without being misheard because of their accent. It’s really just a simple word. It’s not even the fact that I don’t talk about with my friends and family. I think the only thing I’ve talked about this semester is my writing (and how much my classes are kicking my butt). 

They know how much I love it. They know how happy I am thinking about anything pertaining to writing. They know it all. But not once have then said “you should be a writer”. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve definitely told me that I should be happy, that I should choose a career that’s going to please myself, and that they would be okay if I chose something else other than being a pharmacist and a doctor. 

They’re supporting the idea that I should be happy. They’re supporting the idea that I have the freedom to choose my own career. They’re supporting the idea that I can change my mind despite being a semester away from graduating. But those are just empty words. 

They’re doing the “right and responsible and loving” parent thing where they support their child. I love them for putting up with all my indecisiveness and uncertainty. But honestly I probably won’t ever forget the fact that they’ve never once said “you should be a writer”. 

Writing is a hobby. Maybe you’ll become a famous fantasy writer when you pursue writing, but you still need a job. We can’t keep supporting you forever, so you have to do something. Honestly, all I can hear is—you can’t do it as a career, so why waste your time. 

Those words are hard to ignore. They hurt because it took me nearly a year and a half just to tell them I love writing enough for it not to be a simple hobby. It was a stab from a knife and frankly, I saw the knife coming. You have to see it coming when your parents are the ones telling you that you can do anything you want to. The worst twist of the knife came from the fact that my mom just completely ignored what I wanted and asked me why I needed a year off from school if I wasn’t going to medical school.

Mind you, this is after the time period for applications for medical and pharmacy school to go out. And it was after part of me started to believe they would be okay with me getting lower grades as long as I was happy. And it was after I spent hours and hours and hours (time I could have and should have been studying) looking up things about writing, revising, publishing, agents, queries,  and everything else you could think about in this long path to become a published author. 

I know it’s going to be hard work. I know things aren’t going to work out the way I want them to. I know I’m probably just going to end up in the slush pile of agents and hopefully eventually editors. 

Despite this, I’m still hoping that I’ll have just a bit of luck. I’m hoping that maybe things will work out the way I want them to. I hoping that someone’s reading and understanding that we as humans deserve to pursue what we want, what we’re passionate about. 

If that puts us at the bottom on a well, that’s where it puts us. Frankly, I know I can get out of the well. I know I can climb (well not really, I really can’t climb a tree or anything really, you would laugh at my attempt) out of it because I’ve never wanted something so much.

I never wanted something so much that I’m crying every night thinking about the way my life could end up if I just ignore everyone and pursue this. I never wanted something so much that I can’t focus in class (albeit one of my classes are really really boring this semester). I’ve never wanted anything so much that it hurts to think about it, about how I don’t have it, but then get excited because I still get to go through the process, the journey, the path to get there. 

But despite this fact, no one around me seems to see how much deep I’ve fallen. All they can say is that they “love me and support whatever decision I make”.

No. Tell me something substantial. Tell me something that’ll make me want to hug you. I need the conformation. 

Hell, tell me something that’ll make me want to slap you. I would settle with someone saying “No, you shouldn’t be a writer” because then at least I can ignore the “No and n’t”. 

What do you guys think? Isn’t it just nice to have a conformation sometimes? Comment below! 

Turkey, Stuffing, and Gravy! Oh My!

Hi! Sorry I haven’t updated in a while. I was just really, really lazy over Thanksgiving break. Like really lazy. I didn’t get anything done…other than finish my 50k for NaNo!!! You got it right, you’re talking to a NaNoWriMo 2014 Winner (er…technically reading, but you get the point). I finished NaNo with 50,099 words for my GUARDIANS story at exactly 6:16 PM on November 30^th, 2014. GUARDIANS isn’t completely done, and I expect it to be about 80k words, which rather short so I’ll definitely have to add a subplot or flesh out a rushed one or two. I’m excited to wrap it up though soon and hopefully start revising some of my other stories. 

Now onto the real topic of this post. Thanksgiving. Isn't the turkey cute? 

I’m not a big fan of major holidays—I just don’t like making a big deal about things really. I’m always more reserved about how I feel about things, but no matter how quiet I am, I would like to state that I love Thanksgiving. It’s not because of the delicious turkey, yams, and other savory foods. It’s not about going to Barnes and Noble after reading a Tumblr Post about how they have signed copies of books on Black Friday (yes I love books that much). It’s not even about getting time off from school—a much needed break. 

I love Thanksgiving because it forces me to remember how thankful and grateful I should be. I love Thanksgiving because I get to lay around with my family (though not on the actual Thanksgiving day). 

It more or less gives me an excuse to say two simple words: Thank you

Mom and Dad, thank you, for always supporting me. Thank you for putting up with my crazy and foolish ambitions. Thank you for telling me it’s okay to chase my dream. Thank you for loving me despite all of my mistakes. Thank you for everything…I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you (quite literally, I mean, they did give birth to me and all). 

D (my younger brother), thank you for always being there for me. Thank you for putting up with all the times I infuriate you to the point where you can’t say another word. Thank you for listening to all my fears and worries no matter how small they are. Thank you for giving me the kick I need sometimes. Thank you for being my best friend even though you would probably deny it. Most of all thank you for NOT being funny, it makes me smile. 

R (my younger sister), thank you for being my first and sweetest reader. Thank you for being the best younger sister who still gets me a cup of water when I am literally closer to the sink than you are. Thank you for being so passionate about your art because it inspired me to be as passionate about my writing. Thank you for being who you are—because it teaches me a lot about life. Thank you for being the opposites of me—kind, friendly, nonjudgmental…the list can go on and on. 

Friends (I don’t have very many, so I hope you know who I’m talking about to all of my friends reading this), thank you for putting up with me. Thank you for being willing to “hang out” with me when what I actually meant is sit across from each other in silence and study. Thank you for listening to all my worries and showing me that I’m not alone in my fears and concerns. Thank you for always responding to my texts and actually saying that you missed me when we haven’t seen each other in a couple of days. Thank you for being my closest friends in a long while. 

This is just a small list of who I’m really grateful for in my life and honestly I could continue writing about what I’m thankful for, but I don’t really think you want to read about it, so I’ll stop here. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving and I hope we can remember to be grateful for all the great things in our lives year round. 

I’m curious, what are you thankful for?

Is it a crime?

Is it a crime to call yourself an author when you haven’t published anything? 

I never know what to call myself. Writer, author, a dabbler, a wannabe writer, an aspiring author, the list can go on and on. The fact of the matter is, I don’t know what to call myself, so I just avoid answering that question. My default answer is just that I love writing. Frankly speaking though, I want to say “I’m an author” because it has such a large presence and stability to it. It sounds right to my ears. 

But if I were to say that, the next thing they say is “Really? You have a book published? What’s it called?”

“Well, no. I’m not published.” Then the conversation dies down like I just revealed I kicked a puppy this morning or something. 

And it’s not just with the word author. I’ve told people that I’m a writer, and they’re responded the same way. So what’s a girl supposed to do? 

If you look up the definition of an author—it’s “a writer of a book, article, or report”. If you look up the definition of a writer— it’s “a person who has written a particular text”.  (Both according to Google). 

So wait, let’s take a step back. 

Sarah, have you written a book, article, or report? 

Yes. 

Are you a person who has written a particular text? 

Yes. 

Does that mean you’re an author or writer? 

Technically yes. 

Do you see my dilemma? When do I get a plaque with the title writer or author on it? When do I get permission to say it aloud without people staring at me as if I grew a second head? Shouldn’t I be able to call myself a writer or an author without feeling like I’m lying? There is no hidden loophole in the definition of author or writer that requires us to have something published. And if there is a hidden loophole, will someone just kindly point it out because I would love to just cut it out and burn up that section. 

Really? Is it a crime that I want to be taken more seriously and want to call myself an author or writer? Shouldn’t I be proud of the fact that I do have several manuscripts? Just because it isn’t published, doesn’t mean that I didn’t write them. They exist. I swear they do.

Shouldn’t we be proud and add that title to our name? Look at Daenerys. She is “Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of Meereen, Queen of Andals, and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons.”

Why can’t I be Sarah, author of several unpublished manuscripts? 

Tell me what you think? Do you guys have trouble with what to call yourself? 

NaNoWriMo

I like to call it NaNo (because it’s shorter and I definitely learned how to say the “Wri” part incorrectly so I’m always self-conscious about saying the full name). 

Either way. You sign up on NaNoWriMo to write 50,000 words in 30 days. 

It’s expected that you start NaNo with a new novel idea; you can do all the planning you want in the months (or days) before, but not actually write anything until the 1^st of November comes around. It seems a little daunting at first and it’s not for everyone, but it’s a fun challenge.

This is my first year competing in NaNo. I actually won Camp NaNo (same thing as NaNo just in July) and finally finished off that manuscript on Halloween night at about 88k words (entirely driven by the fact that NaNo was starting the day after so I could finally write my new novel for NaNo). Then on November 1^st I started writing full speed ahead.

Honestly speaking, I write rather quickly. I don’t mull over the right words and never edit as I go which is why I love NaNo. It more of less gives me an excuse to write as quickly as I want and not feel so guilty about it. I thought NaNo would be a breeze….boy was I wrong.

I never had to juggle school on top of writing 50,000 words in a month and let me tell you, it isn’t easy. At one point I was nearly 13,000 words behind schedule due to having all my exams the first two weeks of November. Good news is, I finally caught up by writing 10,000 words in one day! They’re probably not the best 10,000 words and I will most likely only end up keeping 5,000 of those words that I wrote after I revise this manuscript, but that’s the exact point of NaNo. It doesn’t matter how crappy your draft is. It’s Draft Naught*. It’s Draft Zero. It’s Zilch. It’s just to get all of those ideas in your head down because you can’t revise without a manuscript. That’s why I love NaNo and recommend it to any aspiring writers/authors. 

My first NaNo, I’m writing a story I referenced before that I call GUARDIANS. My small description of what it’s about is below.

Seventeen year old Tamar’s life as a member of the elite 44^th consists of guarding her best friend Akira, the Princess of Ellaria. It’s a simple duty that Tamar has trained her entire life for and yet it isn’t as simple as it appears, especially when there’s the threat of the Sect, a rebellious group of individuals that support Catain, a neighboring nation that Ellaria has always been at odds with. The threat is large enough to influence Tamar into breaking her oath and duty by joining the Sect and forging relationships with her enemies. She has the best intentions at heart, but none of that matters when the Sect puts their plans into motion. How far is she willing to wade into the politics reserved for the leaders of nations when all she was meant to do was protect Akira? 

I would love to hear what you think! Also add me on NaNo as a friend if you’re participating—AshInOurMinds is my name over there. 

*This is my name for Draft Zero because I have taken far too many science classes where the naught symbol was used as initial—like Vo (V naught), etc. 

Ash in Our Minds

Someone decided to comment (in real life) on the title of my blog and I figured I might as well write out an explanation in a post. 

First thing, Ash In Our Minds was just something I came up with. I am absolutely terrible with naming anything it could be the title of a book, name of a class in my fantasy novels, or the title of a blog. Despite this fact about myself, I still like trying to come up with creative/cool titles or names or classifications. It’s grueling work on my part, so when I do find something I like I stick to it like glue. As in I will not change the name of this blog until I achieve my dream of being published (I have another title waiting for that day.) 

Second, I love birds. Not living, breathing, chirping birds that wake you up in the morning, but like dark silhouettes of birds (which I have on my bedroom wall). 

 The idea of birds fascinate me. Furthermore, I’ve always been a fan of fantasy and what’s the first fantasy bird most people think of? A phoenix. (I swear this will all make sense at the end of this post, so just bear with me.)

Third, I’m the type of person to find beauty in sadness. I have a penchant for darker, more negative things—don’t you ever just wonder what makes something so…dark. I like to consider it a residual part of my “moody years” which amounted to me wearing a black t-shirt now and then and refusing to believe anyone outside of my family and friends really understood me at all—oh how I don’t miss middle school (before I started writing at least).

So now to bring it all together. As subtitle for my blog so kindly puts: “After we exhaust the fire and passion in our minds, all that’s left is ash”, the title of my blog revolves around passion. I have a passion for writing and while passion is usually associated with the heart, I figured it would adept to correlate my passion with my mind because of all the story ideas that form in my head. Also sometimes the passion is so intense, so hot, and so bright that I can’t do anything but write it all down and get it all out there leaving only ash. The moment when you’re completely lost to writing that you can’t hear a thing around you is the moment I live for. The time when I can just forget everything else in my life and just focus on my writing, my story, and my passion.

It’s not as morbid as it seems. I swear it. My title’s not about burning out. It’s not literally about the ash that fire leaves. It’s my way of expressing how much writing consumes me. It takes over every square inch of my mind and when I’ve finally written all of it down. I’m left with the residual, the ash, in my mind. That’s the only way I know how to handle this. The only way I know how to deal with writing. It’s about how a phoenix has to rise from the ashes to be born again. With the exhaustion of our passion by transferring it onto paper only breathes more life into more ideas and more stories. 

That’s why I named it Ash In Our Minds. 

Comment below if you have any thoughts you want to share. I would love to hear them! 

Fearlessness

Hi everyone! Sorry I’m posting this a day later than I said I would, but I have a good excuse. I swear. I was writing my story which is tentatively called GUARDIANS (yes, I know it’s a  horrible title—I’m the worst with creating titles and) and my next blog post will be about that story and Nanowrimo. 

Short interlude for Nanowrimo—you have to write 50,000 words in 30 days. It’s an amazing way to get the motivation to write. It’s torture and bliss at the same time. I suggest it for anyone who wants an external motivation and a community to cheer you on. 

Either way, I was up late writing and finally caught up on my word count. I’m even ahead of schedule since I am officially at 36,209 words! To give you a picture of how horribly behind I was, let’s just say I wrote about 10,000 words just yesterday. 

Now onto the real topic of this post—fearlessness as the title of this post so kindly puts it. 

So last night, I attended a writer’s group and it was my third time going. It’s where the local writers in my area meet up to talk about their writing, share writing resources, and bask in the glow of other writers. I’m usually the youngest one there, but yesterday there was a 12 year old girl. Let’s call her Amy. 

Amy was…interesting. You could see how much she loved writing and she was super excited to be at the writer’s group for the first time. Her enthusiasm for writing was great to see. Especially considering how young she was and the fact that I started writing when I was just one year older than her. 

The thing that really shocked me was how fearless she was. She was very vocal about wanting more writing time in her school classroom. She was eager to get her stories read. She was willing to butt herself into the conversation with adults 40 years and older as they talked about writing.

I don’t do that. I didn’t even think about asking my teachers in middle school for time to write instead of read. I don’t bring any writing to have them read it and I definitely say less than I want to just because I’m terribly shy. I still have trouble telling people that I write novels in real life. 

An author runs the writer’s group and asked Amy what the hardest thing about writing was. Do you know what her response was? She said her hand cramps up. This question was directed to a 12 year old girl who should be the most self-conscious out of all of us with writing, but she was the exact opposite. Her only problem with writing was that she couldn’t physically write fast enough to get her story down. 

True, she most likely misunderstood the question since the author was asking more about the “craft of writing” and wanted an answer like world building, POV, or plotting. We can just ignore that tidbit because in my opinion, she answered in the way that any author should. Her hand cramps. 

And just to illustrate how driven Amy was, let me just tell you that she has a plan written down for what type of story she wants to write very month from last June all the way to December 2015. Every month she had a plan. I distinctly remember next February is her horror/romance story. 

This girl….I am in awe of this girl and her fearlessness. Some people will comment and just say that she’s a little girl that she doesn’t know what she’s actually doing. She’s not actually writing things that could be published, but I’m a firm believer that you don’t have to be the best writer in order to love it (I’m proof of that honestly). She might not be able to publish anything at this age, but if her love of writing continues, she might just beat me in a race to getting a book deal. 

So next time someone asks me what’s the hardest thing about writing—I want to take a page from Amy’s book and answer that my hand cramps (which wouldn’t make much sense because I long abandoned writing with a standard pencil and notebook—computers are amazing inventions). 

That’s all I wanted to say.

Comment below if you want to talk. I’m always looking for more friends!

Hello, my name is...

Hello, my name is….

Sarah. If you’re reading this, that’s great. If you’re casually pressing the back button because you realized this is definitely not the page you’re looking for, that’s great too. Have a great day! 

If you’re still reading, let me introduce myself. You already know my name so I won’t repeat that. I’m twenty years old. I’m a full time college student with only a semester left until I have to face the “real world” and frankly, I have no plans past the next four months.

I don’t really know what happened, but one day it was like someone just flipped a switch on and with that my desire to be published was alit. Now you’re muttering, “So what, Sarah”. Yeah, I know how it seems. Another twenty year old writing stories in her spare time hoping to be published. That seems like what all English majors want. 

Well, I’m not a English major. I’m studying Biochemistry and it is far too late for me to start over and choose English as my major (not that I really believe that I would, I love biochemistry, honestly). 

I mean I definitely considered English/Creative Writing when I started college, but that got lost in the hustle and bustle of choosing a more “stable” major, something that I could use to get into Medical School. Yep, I’m also Pre-Med…or I was. I might be Pre-Pharmacy now. Or I might just decide to forgo either of those options and go into writing. 

Which is why I started this blog. It’s a way to record my path to publishing (if I ever get there) and make some friends along the way. I originally decided to start this blog at the start of the new year (sort of like a New Years’ Resolution) and because my semester is rather busy, but I’ve been itching to start it, so I literally said “screw it” on my way back to my apartment after class today. I want to blog. I can have two readers or 2000 readers. I’m going to make the effort to blog at least every other day about writing and life in general so I can find out what it is I want out of life. 

Now that’s out of the way. Let me introduce myself again, just because I can -shrugs-. 

Hi, my name is Sarah. I’m a twenty year old completely and utterly in love with writing and reading YA books. I’ve been writing since I was fourteen—it all started with a  girl named Faith a healer who had to learn she had far more wounds to heal on herself before she could heal others. 

I continued writing in high school and then came to college. Writing my freshman year was non-existent, truthfully. I was struggling enough with classes and eating alone in the dining hall and making some new friends. Sophomore year I didn’t write very much either. But the summers after freshman and sophomore year—I wrote like a madwomen. I finished one manuscript the freshman year summer and 1.75 manuscripts this past summer. 

Now as a junior graduating early, I’ve been hit with those “big, important” questions. What am I going to do with my life? What do I need to do to get into this school or that one? What’s going to get me a stable job in the future?

And with all of these questions, I realized how much I love writing. How much I want to be published. How much being a YA author would be the dream job. 

So I decided I’m actually going to revise these manuscripts on my computer, continuing writing new ones, and start to eventually query agents. Basically, I’m going to take one step into the publishing/writing path. This isn’t something I ever want to forget—whether it works out the way I want it to (if I get an agent and a book deal) or if it doesn’t (if it doesn’t work and I have to return to my writer’s cave writing manuscripts that won’t see the light of day). 

I don’t ever want to forget. This is my way of recording everything. This is me taking a chance. This is me making writing a priority. This is me loving writing more than I’m scared of failing at it. This is me following my passion. Most of all, this is me being honest with myself. 

Whether you’re only going to read this post or all the subsequent ones—Hi, my name is Sarah and I’m an aspiring writer/author. (Pretend I shouted that from the highest hill/mountain/building in your respective town or city).