Psst… I’ve Been Keeping a Secret. There’s a Book Involved

Saying this out loud makes me VERY uncomfy.

Somewhere in the distance, I can already hear the Greek gods loading the thunderbolt over the blatant hubris.

I wrote a book, and my friends tell me it’s very good.

I DETEST hot weather and the sun. And as we know, for the most part, I’m in the right place.

But two summers ago, after one too many friends said, “Let’s sit on the patio and enjoy the weather,” I snapped, wrote my personal villain story and imagined an eleven-year-old redheaded girl who could change the weather.  

Enter Cloudia Gray, squinting and scowling.

Cloudia and her dog Gloom live in the PNW town of Tempest Ridge on the Aeolus River, surrounded by the Umbra Mountain Range.

Sound familiar?

What started as a way to exact fictional revenge on people who insist sunshine is a good thing somehow turned into a nearly 60,000-word middle-grade fantasy novel.

Nobody was more surprised than I was.

The rough draft of The Unusual Conditions of Cloudia Gray came out in one giant lump in about three months.

I was so proud and, on the advice of an author friend, started entering writing contests.

So far, it has received recognition in seven contests. Clearly, I was quickly on my way to becoming the next JK Rowling (with fewer opinions about other people’s lives), and I should start pricing private jets!

Adorable.

After a brief pause to be oh-so-proud of myself, the next year and a half of my life was devoted to finding beta readers, editing, formatting, and now querying literary agents.

And LOTS of rejection.

Along the way, I decided I needed cover art for my “maybe never anything but a fun project book” and hired the very talented Josh Tuniniga from North Bend’s The Medium to illustrate the girl in my head.

I was DIFFICULT.

It turns out sharing custody of an eleven-year-old fictional child is harder than I thought, but his artistic vision turned out to be better than my imagination.

I was blissfully unaware of all the work that goes into a book. I pictured myself as Jo March in Little Women, writing a book. Turns out writing a book is closer to Annie Wilkes torturing Paul Sheldon in Misery.

But here I am.

I am currently querying agents who may or may not want to represent me and send my book out to publishers who may or may not want to publish it.

BIG emphasis on may.

Anyhoo…

Unless this thing gets published, this will be the one and only time you hear about it here. However, if you want to follow along with the process, you can do so on Instagram @melissagrantwrites or on my writer blog https://melissagrantwrites.com/.

I will tell you, it’s a wee bit unhinged, so proceed with caution.

Arg, still uncomfy…is that thunder?

Zeus?