The 5th novel is one of 2 handfuls I've written that were always original work. It has the distinction of being the first story I ever wrote with a Black female protagonist. I didn't even know how to write Black women, I didn't read a lot of books or see movies in my fave genres with women like me.

OK, I'm done bragging. I'm proud of the fanfiction I wrote, 15 years over 8 fandoms. Then I took an incredible AU I wrote for Criminal Minds and turned it into an even better original character suspense trilogy. And, shock and awe, folks paid money for my books, read them, and left awesome reviews.

🙌🏿👌🏿🤛🏿🤩

I had someone pretend to be me on LiveJournal and Tumblr. The Tumblr one was a big deal. When you've got a doppelganger on Tumblr, you've truly made it in fandom spaces. I even had 2 actors from a show I was writing in read my fiction about their characters and loved it. They wrote to me.

I may not have been Mary Higgins Clark, Stephen King, or Terry McMillan, but I would get DMs all the time saying, "oh my god are you the mcgarrygirl78 that wrote [insert fanfic from a decade ago]? I fuckin love that story." Its why I haven't changed my name in 2 decades. Mcgarrygirl78 is a brand.

I became a B list fanfic celeb on the internet and it was the awards, accolades, friends, and fans that finally made me realize the passion I'd had since I was 8 years old was really a fuckin gift and I was good at it. It was OK to be good and say I was good. I was a writer, dammit.

I first completed the novel in 2003. It was the last story I wrote before my 2 year battle with deep depression and writer's block. I was brought out of that writer's block by my introduction to fanfiction, and the rest as they say is history.

After I complete the first draft of a novel, it usually takes another 6-9 months to final completion. Sometimes a year. 3 edits, a super final edit, and then it's ready. It can be 2-3 months between edits so my brain can forget things so I won't go brain blind to mistakes I've read too many times.

$1,000? That's Robbin Hoodie.

I recently saw a hoodie in a fancy department store (OK, Nordstrom) that cost almost $1000. I think it looked cheap, and people would only buy it for the brand name. I’d never buy that. But I worry I could fall for a branded $120 hoodie that’s badly overpriced. Hard to tell for beginners.