Me, an author? Surely you must be joking.

A first post is a very delicate thing. Truth be told, as much as I love to wax lyrical about my loved ones, my cat, my last plot change, my culinary creations, or the book I just finished, I am very shy when it comes to talking about myself. I guess I'll learn as I go, and post the silly nonsense that happens to me every day. I just hope that my narcissistic babble won't bore you to tears in the process.

I've always written stories, but didn't consider myself an author until very recently. My latest and current novel had been building itself in the back of my mind for years, I just needed to put it on paper. Eventually I did, sometimes in January or February of 2009, and Fargerik the dragon-wizard was officially born. I showed the first few chapters to my husband. Who hates to read (figures).

But somehow, he loved the story. And asked me to write more--which I did. I even sent it to a few friends of mine, a couple of which authors themselves; some of them even had a few short stories published. Two of them were kind enough to review my work and helped me tremendously. The feedback I received was phenomenal, and encouraged me to keep on going. Everybody that read the story agreed that I was on to something.

Somewhere during the summer, I decided to get a reality check, and applied for the New York Pitch and Shop Conference. Nobody was as surprised as me when they emailed me back and told me I got accepted. I dove into my novel with even more enthusiasm, and before I knew it September was here. My manuscript under my arm I left for New York, ready to conquer the literary world.

I won't lie: the conference was rough. Our workshop leader, Michael Neff, was brutally honest, and a few very unpleasant truths were told. But that's what I had asked for, so I sucked it up, licked my bruised ego, and worked on my pitch until I finally passed muster. I'll never be able to thank him enough for being that tough on me. Thanks to his advice, one of the editors I pitched to, an Executive Editor with a big name from a major US publishing house, wants to see my manuscript. To this day, I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming. I guess I am an author after all.

The other fabulous thing that happened during that conference was the absolutely amazing group of people I met. People who, like me, wrote stories. Authors, with the same doubts, the same dreams, the same insecurities as the ones I had. It was really amazing to be part of a group containing so much talent, so much creativity, so much energy! Only for that, New York would have been a wonderful experience. Of course, being requested didn't hurt the trip either.

I came back from New York flying on a pink cloud, my head full of edits, a list of books to read to perfect my craft in my pocket. I'm still not done with all the reading, which frustrates me a tad, but if I learned one thing in New York, it's that I have a lot to learn.

A friend of ours arrived from Germany on Saturday, and will stay with us for two weeks. Then in December, my mother will fly in from Monaco, and spend the month with us. Since we are already in October, and because I doubt I'll be able to do much writing while they are here, I don't expect to be able to do much work on my novel before January arrives. Hopefully I'll be able to compile my notes and start my actual edits by the end of the year.

After that, I have 3 months to do a full re-write (or four) of my novel. Then in April, I plan to sign up for another session of torture with Michael Neff, and attend another Algonkian Conference. After which I'll probably have to re-write my entire manuscript once more--but that's ok. If I learn half as much as I did during the New York event, it will be well worth the blood sweat and tears.

Once that rewrite will be done, I guess I'll have to find a good editor to proof check my novel. Then it will be time to find myself one of those elusive and highly hard to catch creatures known as "agents". Then, and only then, will I be ready to send my manuscript to that famous big name Editor... and hope he likes it.

So there. You have the recap of what has been happening in the world of Sherine this summer.

Are you still awake? ;)