Sharing my old school books, yo

I'm still waiting to get The Darkest Gate back from my last proofreader, so I'm feeling pretty antsy. I NEED TO GET THIS BOOK OUT. In the meantime, though, I thought it would be fun to share one of my very, VERY old books with you guys—the kind of novel all writers produce as beginners that should never see the light of day.

A little back story:

I wrote my very first novel when I was thirteen years old and spent the next few years “mastering the craft.” Everything I wrote at this time was equally terrible and fairly short. I completed my next book at seventeen years old, but it was summarily rejected by every single literary agent in the business, much to my disappointment. This book was called Hunter.

Self-publishing wasn’t much of an option at the time, so the book was “trunked.” But I kept revisiting it, unable to get the idea of a young female exorcist out of my head, and I went through a good three or four drafts on Hunter. The sixth draft was retitled Death’s Hand and became my bestseller. In its current incarnation, Death’s Hand is worlds apart from its predecessor—embarrassingly so—but there are some amusing ways in which they’re similar.

Noteworthy differences between Death’s Hand and Hunter include:

• Elise as a bubbly-but-sarcastic, Hello Kitty-loving Mary Sue, who lives in the college dorms with her best friend Betty. Her parents are dead, not that you can tell from her bright disposition. But don’t all heroes have dead parents? 
• Daniel (who you would know as James) as a professor from England, whose witchiness is barely touched upon. 
• Anthony as some blond guy named Justin.
• Lucinde as a little girl strangely named Clarice. 
• No kopides or aspides.
• No cohesive plot worth speaking of. 

There are quite a few other differences as well, but there are also a lot of concepts and faces you should find familiar. Hunter is much more of a young adult novel, and some of you might actually prefer Elise as a spunky, engaging first-person narrator. Despite being over six years old, it’s kind of a fun read, and I hope you enjoy it.

So if you're feeling masochistic, go ahead and grab your free copy off Smashwords!