Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be an author.
It started when my dad brought home The Wall by Pink Floyd. It was an epic tale told through music and it inspired me to write my first play. It was my first peek inside storytelling, even as messed up as that story might be.
My dad would do that often - bring home albums for us to listen to. He took me to my first concert (Genesis at the Rosemont Horizon) when I was eleven and hundreds more as I was growing up. Thanks to his influence, I always have music playing - at work, in the car, at home. It’s like breathing, I need it to survive. And it inspires a lot of the stories I write.
Through my teen years, I devoured Judy Blume, S.E. Hinton, and Stephen King. I would watch movies daily, renting them from the local video stores. The way those books and movies made me feel, I knew I had my own stories that needed to get out. The Outsiders inspired me to write my first novel about high school gangs similar to Hinton’s story. I wrote it long-hand (yes, kids, with a pen in a notebook) and still have it.
The first novel I ever attempted to write was inspired by The Outsiders - oh how I wanted Rob Lowe to star in the movie version of my book. Sodapop was the cutest!
I may have been addicted to Booker (the spin-off of 21 Jump Street)
But it was 1999, when I saw a movie called Go and fell in love with Timothy Olyphant (who plays “the good drug dealer”). He would go on to become the model for my first serious novel (minus the drug dealer part).
Nuthin but a Santa hat? Yes please. And Olyphant only gets better with age.
Thanks to that love of music I mentioned above, I created a story about a reclusive rock star’s comeback. It’s at 60,000 words right now, but a majority of that will be cut and rewritten. You see, I’ve learned a lot about writing since I wrote that first story back in grade school, so while some of the story beats are there, it needs a major overhaul. It’s something I've been chipping away at for a few decades (time flies when your muse sends you off in different directions) and I hope to release it later this year.
But let’s get to the book that I’m actually releasing in February, because that my friends, is what has me excited and nervous and buzzing with anticipation.
My first full-length novel is Tame My Racing Heart. It’s in the process of being formatted and soon I will upload it to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple Books. The cover artist totally nailed it and I can’t wait to have a copy in my hot little hands.
It’s about Sami Jo McLean, a race car driver who’ll let nothing get in the way of her success. Hired bodyguard Grayson Finch is pretty sure Sami Jo still hates him but that won’t stop him from keeping her safe after she receives threats on her life.
If you click the link below and sign up for my monthly newsletter, you can read the first chapter for free. In the meantime, I’m prepping it for a February 14th on-sale.
I look forward to your reviews of this book. They’ll only make me a better writer.
I hope 2021 has been good to you so far.
All the best,
XO Kelly