I’m Erica Kay. I live in a small town of Idaho. I grew up in a big family with two brothers and two sisters. I’m the oldest sibling and the glue for my family. I’m also the oldest grandchild of both sides of my parents. There was a lot of babysitting. But now I’m part of a small family of my own with my husband and cat.
My cat’s name is Raine, he’s my fluffy baby! We sing songs most days…well I sing to him and he follows me around the house. My husband is number one in my book. If I could describe Colby…hmm…he’s just…well, he’s superman. He flies to my rescue whether it be to the bedroom to dry my tears or to the store to get me a large pint of ice cream…ladies, you know what I mean. He laser beams the spiders in our house with ultra-sensitive toilet paper and gets rid of the mice (Because our cat runs away from them).
When I’m not writing, I’m watching anime, jamming out to Taylor Swift, composing music on the piano or drawing characters from my stories.
Hi, I’m Erica and I’m on a journey to further improve my writing.
Since I was small I loved everything about the arts, from music to drawing. When I was little, I actually had a hard time reading, and it wasn’t until I came across wonderful English teachers that I got through my hurdle. I started with Junie B. Jones and because I did have such a hard time reading, my mom would read them to me. It had such a large impact that I read tirelessly. At that time, Harry Potter was catching fire at my school and to help my reading, I read the entire series OUT LOUD. Then I read them again, but silently.
I always had a good imagination when I was younger and often made up elaborate stories, involving imaginary characters that I grew up with. I had my world graphed out, with its own language. Later I used the writing from that world to pass secret notes in class to friends. I used it for so many years that I could read it more fluently than English. When I got to high school my reading journey expanded. I visited the library regularly, always bringing home five books at a time.
During my period of grief when my mom died, I was inspired to write a short story that began my journey. I found myself more immersed in writing than I ever did reading a book. I was obsessed and needed to know more of the story. I wrote every day until I was finished with my first novel. I was a sophomore in high school. I continued writing in my spare time and soon my friends were reading my stories, and then it was passed to others by word of mouth. I got so many compliments and questions. Out of high school, I attended some college but decided to pursue my dreams.
By this time I had written five full-length manuscripts. I felt more than ready to conquer and get my name out there. It was time for publishing. Holy cow, it’s hard. Being young and naïve, I thought all I needed was a manuscript with a few proof readers, a letter and then send it away to the publishers. Nope. I got rejected hard core. I also had a run-in with a scam publisher—that was fun. My heart was so broken that I didn’t want to pursue publishing ever again. I pulled everything back and reevaluated.
Sigh, then I found out that I needed a literary agent. So, again, as someone completely unexperienced…I tried again with my romantic fantasy novel. It wasn’t a good decision. I got rejected like twenty times and pulled it back.
I decided that I wanted to stop trying to get published and work on new stories. Considering I had literally ten storylines going. I finished another two full novels when a friend mentioned Amazon publishing. He had published through them and loved it. So, I checked it out and got started. Naïve me, didn’t get it proof read enough and it looks awful. No one will ever read it, it’s in the vault.
I pulled back again and this time, I really made sure I knew what I was doing. I went through two years of writing ONE book. To put it in perspective, I crank out at least two books a year. This one is my baby, my soul, like my diary come to life, and I swore to my husband that no one was allowed to read it. I studied literary agents, studied publishers, got into an online critique group. Then a year ago, I made the hardest leap. I realized that Jean and Merra—my characters from Dark Diamonds, deserved to be brought out. They helped me survive trials that I never thought I could survive, since 2016 hit me like a tank. I knew that if I was going to make it, they were going to get me there.
I didn’t want just a few people proof reading my work, so I hired professional editors to help me. It took all of my hard earned money, but it was worth it. All the things that I learned from them were outstanding and I felt like they helped me do my characters justice. Thank you Lisa and Adrian, you were amazing!
After I was done editing, I pressed send to all the contacts that I could get for more advice and feedback. I’m still on the search for agents, but I know that with hard work I can do it. I can put up a website, market myself, and break into the competition. I have the stories, I have the means and the dedication. Now all I have to do is get out there and you can help me do that!