Guest Post: How I Got My Start by Susan X Meagher |

There are days when I have to control my fangirl urge. This is one of those days. Dude, Susan X Meagher is here!!!!!

Okay, I clearly need to bring it down a notch or ten. But, Susan X Meagher is here! And, she’s giving away one copy of FAME to a lucky winner. Details are below.

I’m going to hand over the reins to Susan so I can do my happy dance.

Please welcome Susan X Meagher.

I appreciated reading Niamh Murphy’s guest blog on how she got her start, and decided to follow her lead, partly because we both got our feet wet via the same website.

I was introduced to Xena:WP when it was in its fourth season, and I was hooked by the end of the first episode. Over the next year, I began to read fanfic to the exclusion of just about anything else.

I’d never been intensely interested in a show before, but I was all in with Xena. I had a real craving to write about the characters, but I wasn’t interested in placing them in their ancient Greek timeline. Once I read Melissa Good’s Dar and Kerry books, I knew I’d found my spot. I could write about my favorite characters while making them contemporary women.

I’m a bit of an obsessive, so I started writing with every spare minute I had. Before long, I had hundreds of pages, but no hint of an ending. I’d never written fiction before, and had no idea how to structure this manuscript that was badly in need of massive cuts. But I didn’t really know that, so I just kept going. Eventually, I structured it into rough parts, what I considered chapters, each consisting of hundreds of pages. My wife was unfailingly supportive, and we started our nightly ritual of my reading her what I’d written that day, then going for a walk so I could figure out what to write the next.

Because she enjoyed the story so much, she kept urging me to send it the Royal Academy of Bards, or to Mary D’s site, which eventually became AUS:XIP. I was VERY certain that what I’d written was nowhere near good enough to let other people read it, but she persisted. When I didn’t act, she secretly sent the first “chapter” to both sites, and they both agreed to post it. Normally, I wouldn’t appreciate her taking over like that, but I was so unsure of myself I probably would have continued to write for only her for a long time.

I got a lot of good feedback, and found myself declaring in public that I’d keep going until I’d written 26 parts. That was nuts, but it seemed so easy! Little did I know that I had the zeal of the newly converted, and that things would get tougher when I started to work with beta readers, then editors. Those women helped me grow as a writer, but actually plotting out a coherent novel was more difficult than just writing scenes that I’d cobbled together the night before.

The millennium was a heady time for lesfic writers, with new publishers popping up on what seemed like a daily basis. After a short stint with a publisher who quickly lost interest in her company, I decided to go out on my own and form Brisk Press. It’s been fifteen years now, and besides starting to write and having my work posted on The Academy and Mary D’s sites, self-publishing was the best choice I’ve made. Well, marrying my wife Carrie was the very best choice I’ve made, but in terms of writing, going solo was the perfect option for me.

I can’t imagine many writers are more clueless than I was, so if you’re worried you aren’t polished enough to try—abandon that idea! There are many ways to enhance your skills, and many people to guide you. Why not start today?

FAME by Susan X Meagher

E-book $9.99
Paperback $16.00
Romance
Release Date: June 27, 2017

Piper Campbell has spent the last fifteen years of her life raising her younger sister Charlie, who is now an adult—and on the brink of stardom.

While puppy-sitting for her sister, Piper meets Haley, a dog trainer who appeals to Piper on every level.

Piper swears she can keep her head even as she’s recruited into Charlie’s retinue, but Haley has been burned too many times to believe the vow of a woman who hasn’t yet experienced the seductive, entrancing power of Fame.

Amazon US / Amazon UK

MEET THE AUTHOR

Susan X Meagher began her writing career posting Uber Xena fan fiction in the late nineties, progressing to publishing her debut novel with Fortitude Press in 2002. This July she will publish her newest, Fame, her fortieth.

Born in East St. Louis, Illinois, Susan has spent significant amounts of time in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, where she now lives with her long-suffering wife, Carrie.

Susan was awarded a 2011 Lesbian Fiction Readers’ Choice Award for Favorite Lesbian Fiction Writer, and was also the recipient of the 2014 Alice B. Medal for her body of work. She has won three Golden Crown Literary Society “Goldie” awards – 2010 for Short Stories, 2013 for Contemporary Romance and 2016 for Contemporary Romance.

Nearly all of Susan’s novels are contemporary romances, a genre that speaks to her belief in happy endings for all who seek them.

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Now here’s your chance to win a copy of FAME