I'm Back With Another Story For You!
Hi y'all! So I wanted to share another story but this time it's about one of my favorite things to do and that is writing! I love to write fiction and nonfiction and I guess that love of words came from being such an avid reader that I wanted to share my own stories! So without further adieu, let's get writing!
How I Fell For Words
As a child, I loved to read and I still do. I learned pretty young and even before that you could find little me sitting in a spot on the carpet enthralled by pictures in books or even trying to eat them I loved them so much (sorry Goodnight Moon for the teeth marks)! Anyway, I was a pretty advanced reader in elementary school and I was reading series aimed at older kids like the Series of Unfortunate Events books in third grade and loving them as they taught me words like hostile and penultimate in their own creative way. I will admit I was late to the Harry Potter mania falling for that series at the same time as my Twilight days were coming to a much-needed end and I'm still a proud Potterhead and will definitely read them aloud to all my future dogs. So, of course with all these books impacting my life I naturally veered towards wanting to write my own stories but there was a problem, I couldn't type! So, I set out to change that!
Typing = Freedom to Write
In middle school, I had tried my hand at Five Finger Typist which is a program aimed at teaching keyboarding with one hand and it didn't work for me so well. Not saying it won't work for you if you're interested in looking into it, give it a shot for sure. Anyway, this left me really discouraged as back in 2007 computer skills were becoming the much-needed things they are for this new generation growing up with all this fancy technology at their disposal. My yearn to write little Harry Potter or Twilight themed stories (or fanfictions if you want the technical term) seemed silly if I couldn't type them so I sought out on a journey for words with a keyboard and guess what: I figured it out! What I figured worked for me is actually keyboarding with my right index finger with help from my thumb to do an exclamation point or another symbol (sometimes that gets tricky, I'll admit!). I can keyboard with my right index, middle, and ring fingers so sometimes I rotate but usually my pointer finger is my go-to. I've been told by my mom that my typing is actually pretty fast, but hey I have lots of ideas I want to get out so maybe that's why!
Original Projects
After years in the fanfiction domain, I again wanted to expand my horizons and write my own story. I started working on it when I was 14 and it took me a year to complete to the end and 417 pages on Word too. I fell so in love with the prospect of making my own characters and world that I to this day am still enamored with that very prospect. While my first book was not the best from a plot or eloquence standpoint it did prove to me that I could see an original work through to self-publication the next year. After that book, I published another in 2014 that was a different story and that one turned out to teach me that I had developed as a writer but still had stuff I could work on and that's what I love about writing, the developmental process and the lessons you learn to use in your next book. Currently, I'm working on the first original series I've had time to write while in college and I'm really excited about this trilogy and kind of sad that now writing the third book I'll soon have to say goodbye to these characters I've grown so attached to but I'm excited for the editing process and hoping this go around I can actually publish with a publishing house to spread the word about this series in particular as it's some of my best work to date in my opinion.
To Learn More
If you want to know more about my books (names or how to buy them) feel free to contact me on Instagram @helonoftroy and Twitter @helonoftroy17 and I'd love to point you in the right direction. Thanks for reading!
