My year: 2014

A couple of years ago, the movie Twilight was playing on the TV for its fourth or fifth repeat.  I’d missed the first twenty minutes of the movie, but sat down to watch anyway.  I thought to myself, “Everyone is going on about this vampire shit.  I wonder what it is.”

I enjoyed the movie – not loved, but enjoyed.  One must admit that Robert Pattinson can smoulder his way into your heart.  The acting was pretty good for most of the characters, but I did feel there were things missing from the movie – so I had to go out and buy the book.  Yes, that’s right.  The movie made me buy the book. 

After reading the entire series, I went and purchased the next couple of movies.  The last two movies were gifted to me and are still sitting in their packaging, unopened.  I’ll watch them.  One day.  Maybe.

The point of my story is that by the second movie there was this HUGE Robert Pattinson/Kristen Stewart/Taylor Lautner thing going on, and I often wondered how the extras in the movie felt.  There are a lot of school scenes were everyday teenagers are seen in the cafeteria and the hallways of the movie.  And I bet a heck of a lot of them had crushes on Rob and Tay.  Did they freeze-frame their moment of stardom and hang it on their wall, showing people that they were a mere 61 inches away from Robert Pattinson as he walked down the hall in this scene?

Did they measure their brush with stardom?  Did they tell everyone how Taylor shook their hand – not once, but twice?

So how does a plain, ordinary woman react to stardom?  A plain, ordinary woman, whose brushes with fame prior to 2014 came from playing the lead character in the school play when she was sixteen, and being at a party at the same time as a famous (but drug addicted) footballer  because he is great mates with her brother-in-law?  How does this woman react when her stars (which are brilliant authors instead of drop-dead gorgeous actors) talk to her?  They may not be 61 inches away from her, but that doesn’t matter.  Because it’s their words that bewitched her in the first place.

So in January 2014, this OW (ordinary woman) was nervously making her way through her first edits.  She was completely excited – NR Walker had emailed her and introduced her to a number of other people.  OMG – NR Walker!!  Like THE NR Walker.

By March 2014, this OW was in melt-down mode.  No one knew who she was, apart from several people who’d talked to her on Facebook.  This OW clung to her new friend, Nic Starr, another Australian, and another debut author making her first foray into the world of publishing.  Then something strange happened. 

You see, this OW had done something she thought was a little bit special.  She’d written a book called Loving Jay.  In March 2014 it hit Dreamspinner’s “Coming Soon” page.  And someone bought it. 

Okay, okay – I admit it.  This OW is me.  And I remember logging into the Dreamspinner Author Page and seeing that I had seven sales of my book.  SEVEN!  I can remember looking at the screen of my computer and saying, “What?  You’re buying my book?  You don’t even know if it is any good.”

If you were one of those seven people?  Oh, myyyy.  I love you.  I love you for taking a chance on a strange new author. 

Then I started to have close encounters with my author-stars.  One of the first was my good friend Cardeno C.  I remember messaging Cardeno and saying, “OMG – completely honoured that we are releasing a book on the same day!”  And Cardeno WROTE BACK!

Having my name up on a website, just a couple of inches away from Cardeno’s name was better than being 61 inches from Robert Pattinson.  I also talked with a lot of author-stars over Facebook.  Rhys Ford, JP Barnaby, BG Thomas, Jacob Flores, Jay Bell, Susan Mac Nichol, Wade Kelly… OMG!  THEY TALKED BACK TO ME.

I have been in heaven ever since.

I have to pinch myself sometimes, and remind myself that it hasn’t even been a year.  A year.  Only 9 months since my first book.  And what has happened since then?

Loving Jay was released, The Blinding Light was released and went to #1 on Amazon, Bear Chasing was included in the A Taste Of Honey anthology, The Shearing Gun was released, Safe In His Arms was released.  WOW – I was BUSY!

If that wasn’t enough, I hit a whole bunch of other milestones:  created a Twitter account, received 1000 ratings on Loving Jay on Goodreads, was nominated for 19 awards in the Goodreads M/M romance reader’s choice awards, lingered around the top of the Dreamspinner’s bestsellers list and had readers use the word “fangirl” when referring to my books.  Professional reviewers praised me (and sometimes didn’t).  And lo-and-behold, my OMG moment?  Other authors said they read my book.

It’s not always good for my star-authors to know my name.  It leads to bruises.

Yes.

When my jaw drops and hits the ground.  Like when Cardeno C emailed me and said, “Hey, Renae?  Would you like to join Café Risque as a weekly blogger?”

So yes, 2014 was a HUGE year for me.  One for the record books.  Or at least one for this OW.  The highlights of each month for me was:

January:  Received my first lot of edits for Loving Jay.

February:  Finished my edits on my first book.

March:  Loving Jay hit the “Coming Soon” page of Dreamspinner, and I made my first sale.

April:  Loving Jay was released.

May:  Bear Chasing was accepted for publication and I realised this would make 5 stories in my debut year.

June:  The Blinding Light hit the “Coming Soon” page of Dreamspinner.

July:  The Blinding Light was released and climbed to #1 on Amazon.

August:  Bear Chasing was released in the A Taste of Honey anthology.

September:  The Shearing Gun was released – I’m so goddamned proud of that book.

October:  I got the cover for Safe In His Arms and swooned.

November:  Safe In His Arms was released.

December:  Collapsed in a heap from all the excitement.

So what does 2015 have in store for me?  I really don’t know, but gosh I can’t wait.