I remember when I first started writing my novel. Things that go bump was a fever dream that happened because I was watching A Korean Oddessy on Netflix (an amazing tv show btw). I had all these ideas and things I wanted to happen. At the time, I’d just started going to SNHU for my Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (I’ll write a separate post about my experience here). But back to the story, I had tons of ideas. I wanted sirens, blood, gore, special snowflakes, and romance, but when I sat down to write, it was a clusterfuck trying to get all my ideas together. I was stressed pushing a world together that didn’t work. However, I was determined to finish a novel. For me, finishing was more important since I’ve always started them and never finished. Anyway, I did it. Finished in 3 months and had nothing but issues. For starters, I did try to find an editor but she took my money and ghosted me. Do not look for editors in Facebook groups as most are scammers and want your money. Luckily I paid on PayPal so I disputed it and got my money back. Moving on, I found an alpha reader on Fivver who was slightly helpful. I looked for feedback everywhere. I sent it to friends (they don’t read them unless they are book friends), and I asked in groups. Anywhere I could, I searched for feedback, but my story was awful; it was too busy. It was so bad, that I didn’t want to re-read it. I still published it on Ingramspark, so, if you read it before I republished it, I’m sorry. Feel free to message me for a new copy. I wanted to be able to say I wrote something and published it, but that’s not what writing is about. I didn’t have the skills I needed then, they were emerging but not there yet. It took nearly 1.5 years for me to want to read it again, and that was only after writing Where your eyes linger. I needed to spend time figuring out who I was as a writer. I had to figure out ways to group my thoughts. In the time it took me to group my thoughts, I created a whole new world even going so far as to create a map. And that’s why there will be six books for the Hollow Ocean series. I hope you all like them as much as I do. Cheers!