I’ve touched on it before, maybe even too much, but fan fiction essentially started my writing journey.

It began with fan fiction of sorts about my own life (involving my real-life friends, crushes, etc.), then moved onto celebrities. Well, really only one celebrity.

Eleven years ago, I was obsessed with Twilight. Eleven years ago, I watched Taylor Lautner win at the Teen Choice Awards.

I then proceeded to have a dream about him that night… which began my multi-year, multi-binder, hand-written fan fiction about me getting pulled on-stage at (you guessed it) the TCAs, where we proceeded to fall in love, get married, have a million affairs and fights and drama, etc. Once I switched my fandom from Twilight to The Hunger Games, we got divorced and I married Josh Hutcherson instead. As you can see, it’s a wild, wild ride.

Book 1 had twelve chapters, including but not limited to: waking up and realizing something was all a dream, an actual tsunami destroying our home, a chapter titled “I’m in LA Trick!”, and many more embarrassing, melodramatic, and ridiculously badly written moments.

Book 2 had six chapters, consisting of affairs with other celebrities (including someone I loved from Degrassi at the time), me becoming a famous singer, and a blossoming friendship with… you guessed it, Justin Bieber. (Yeah, you probably didn’t guess it.)

Book 3 had that kid from Degrassi getting shot and dying, then me falling for Josh Hutcherson (lol) and realizing we were childhood best friends all along. The first ending I wrote was that the entire thing with Taylor was all a dream and I ended up with Josh… but then I decided I didn’t want to stop writing so I continued the story with Book 4 and gave up after a couple chapters.

Like I said, wild, wild ride.

Look, as embarrassing as this all was for me to admit, I realize how significant of an impact those five years of writing made in my life. And I think it’s really important to own that.

While In the Sky (the novel I’m trying to get published now) isn’t necessarily a direct consequence of that fan fiction, my second novel absolutely is.

I went on to write an entire book about a girl (me, duh) winning a trip to an island with Josh Hutcherson. After about a thousand re-writes and character name changes, it turned into Unattainable Reality, the book I will try to get published after this one. It’s funny how now that it’s been so long, the characters have morphed into completely different ones—ones that are almost unrecognizable from who they were based upon.

“At that moment, I know I should shove him away. I know stupid things about him—his favorite football team, his favorite color, favorite food—but in reality, I know nothing. He’s a complete and utter stranger; I know nothing. I know nothing, and I don’t care. “

Unattainable Reality

In summary, I was a weird kid. But I don’t regret a damn word I wrote.

I wanted to pour my embarrassing heart out this week because I currently have a podcast in the works… where we will surely get into all this even more!

Keep an eye out for that. 😉

Love you all.