I won't lie. My story is based a fair bit of luck, which is something I don't take lightly. 
 

Of course, I worked hard too. I still remember the first time I decided to write a book. I was thirteen. For years, I had always enjoyed writing and had been doing it since I was about nine, but this time it was different. This was a conscious 'I want to be a writer' choice.

Every morning, before my dad would come home to pick me up for school, I would pull up Word on the family computer and write. It took me about a year to finish it. I told my parents, who wanted to read it, and it was in this moment, I think, that they realized this was something I really wanted to do. And despite all the ups and downs in my life, I have always taken writing seriously. Being an author is my dream; as I'm sure it is for a lot of other people. That was where my journey started. 

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Coming up with ideas has never been difficult for me. It's the writing process I sometimes get stuck on. Not because it's hard to write, but because I have so many ideas that focusing isn't always easy. So, for a while, I bounced around a lot. I finished a few novels here and there, but nothing that really stood out. In 2018, I came up with an idea about a pirate, while on revenge for her father, being forced to impersonate a dead princes and decided to sail with it. Pun totally intended. It was an on-and-off project for a while until 2022 when I finally wrapped it up. In September, on a complete whim, joined a pitching event on Twitter. 

I received two agent likes that turned into full requests. Let me tell you, I was absolutely thrilled! I knew it wasn't a 'yes', but this was the step I needed to show me that this dream could be possible. Neither one of those fulls turned into a request, but I have great interactions with one of the agents now and I wish her the best on all her projects. 

After that, I received a lot of rejections, but also some partials and some fulls. Nothing that really stuck. Still, I wasn't about to give up. I slowed down querying because of life, and maybe also because of exhaustion, but I never wanted to stop trying. And while I queried, I started another project on the side for fun that I honestly didn't think I would query. This one was a YA Mystery with speculative fiction. 

This one was Chasing Ever. 

I wrote it so fast, and loved it so deeply. This one came to me while I was skimming a book at work. The synopsis had mentions of children going into a forest and never coming back out, and I remember running into the backroom for paper, telling my coworker I just had an idea for a book and I needed to write it down. When I got home, I scribbled out everything I could think of, including the title. 

Come August 2024, it was done. And, even though I still wasn't sure I was going to query it (or if I was, it was going to be in the new year), I asked a few friends if they would read it and tell me what they thought. Andie was one of them. 

See, I met Andie when I first joined Twitter. We talked a little here and there, and I was always excited to see what she was working on. When she became an agent, I had asked her if she would check out Pirates. Unfortunately, at the time, one of her new clients had something similar, so I kept querying. 

With Chasing Ever, I wasn't looking for an agent, just some insight. Andie had been kind enough to agree to beta read (despite her busy schedule, which I will always be grateful for) and when she did...Oh, boy, that changed everything. She read it in one day. ONE DAY. And when she was done, she sent me a message asking if I would have a call with her because she wanted to rep my book. 

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I don't think I've ever been so confused, stunned, and excited all at once before. Immediately, I said 'yes' because how could I not? And that call told me everything I needed to know: Andie loved my book just like I did, and she was going to be able to champion it better than anyone I could have hoped for. Not only is she knowledgeable, but she's patient and kind, and I knew we were going to be a match. I didn't even wait the two weeks before accepting her offer because I just knew. 

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While this definitely wasn't how I thought I would find my agent, I certainly can't complain. Somehow, the connection I made two years ago  was the one connection that brought me my dream. And, yes, I still have to go through being on sub and, yes, there is still more steps to go through for becoming an official author on a bookstore shelf, but getting an agent is a major step and I'm so thrilled to have gotten this far. Every step further is further than I was before. 

So, I worked hard and I got a little lucky, and ended up with the best agent I could have asked for. I can't wait to see how far we go! 

And I hope that, one day, you will all get to read Chasing Ever, and that you will achieve your own dream. It may just come out of a very unexpected place.

~Sio