When I first decided to follow my dream to become a published writer, I never expected the road to be easy. I also never expected to run into the obstacles that I have in the past two years. I don't want to bring anyone down with my post, in fact, I hope that this post will encourage you to never give up on your dream to become a writer. Sometimes life will test how bad you want something and your response will answer the question.

The first obstacle I faced as a writer, would have to be the day that my laptop was stolen out of my car in 2015. A friend had introduced me to someone who owned their own publishing company. After speaking with her, she expressed interest in reading my work.

For two weeks, I worked hard on finishing the story I had been working on. One morning, I spent hours at a Starbucks finishing the story. I left feeling accomplished and ready to send my work to the publisher. I made a quick stop at a store and when I returned, I noticed that my car had been broken into. Not only did the thieves steal my new laptop bag and laptop, but they also stole my writing notebook which contained two years of my story ideas and notes. It was the notebook I carried with me everywhere and held so many of my private thoughts.

I hadn't backed up my work that morning so I lost everything that I had worked on that day. I was crushed, I felt violated and furious with the person who did this to me. The authorities weren't able to help me and I was never able to recover any of it. I cried for weeks. I couldn't even look at notebooks or laptops without feeling actual physical chest pain.

I told my husband that I didn't want to write anymore. He encouraged me to come up with new ideas and to keep going. Along with purchasing me a new laptop, he got me a new writing notebook. Slowly but surely, I eventually started writing again.

When I finally finished my story, I sent it off to the publisher. Months went by and I didn't hear back from them. When I finally reached out to them to find out the status, I was told that they were moving in a new direction as a publishing company and that they weren't in the position to take on any new authors. I translated it all to mean that they weren't interested in my work.

I began to question if writing was even my gift or if I just enjoyed doing it. What was the point in publishing a book if nobody was going to like it?

I began to write for myself and one day I came across Wattpad through someone promoting their Justin Bieber fanfic on Twitter. The fanfic was awful, but through this individual, I was exposed to this incredible writing community.

After reading several books, I finally took a chance to write my first Wattpad story in May 2016. It was my first time writing a fanfic, but I found it to be the easiest way to get readers to give my story a chance. I wanted unbiased opinions on my work so that I could decide if I really had writing talent or not. I wanted to know if people cared about the world buried inside of me.

As people began to read my story and my followers increased, I began to feel more confident in my gift. I was excited that strangers from around the world were interested in what I was writing. The more followers I gained, the more I cranked out stories. By the fall of 2017, I had completed fourteen stories and had almost 6K followers. I decided that I was ready to try and publish my work off of Wattpad thanks to the support and feedback from my readers who I felt helped me to become a stronger writer.

The most painful obstacle happened on September 15, 2017. I was on a high after attending an event and was ready to start my next Wattpad story as well as shop my first manuscript. All of that excitement was quickly erased when I learned that someone had stolen one of my Wattpad stories.

Imagine receiving a message from one of your Wattpad readers asking if you published one of your stories under a different name because it was on the Amazon hot list at #4. Now imagine going to the link and reading a sample of the story only to see that you are reading your exact story with someone else's name on it. Now imagine seeing social media posts of that same author taking credit for your work.

I can't describe to you how I felt in that moment. I felt like I was in the twilight zone or something worse. I was visiting my in-laws at the time and began to scream throughout the house that someone had stolen my story. Once I got over the initial shock, we all worked to try to find out what to do to expose the person who did this. While I contacted Kindle and

Wattpad, my husband contacted the publisher directly. The publisher reached out to me that same night and we talked on the phone for an hour. She apologized to me for what happened and told me that the author admitted to stealing my story from Wattpad. She dropped him from her publishing company and removed the story from everywhere.

I assumed that everything would be resolved after that, unfortunately it wasn't that simple. I won't go into details about everything I had to go through because this post would go on forever. I wasn't able to get any writing done during this time because all of my focus was on making sure that this author was no longer taking credit for my work (which he was still doing on social media). I learned so much about the US Copyright laws in the process. Of all the stories on Wattpad, I couldn't understand why this individual targeted me! I learned a tough lesson from this obstacle and it drove me to fight harder for my dream to one day become published.

I started submitting manuscripts and ended up signing with an indie publisher in October 2018. I found myself regretting that choice because of things that were happening behind the scenes. I waited for months before I was able to finally start working on my book. I was given a release date of July 3, 2018 and was thrilled that I was finally going to be able to say that I was a published author.

While in the middle of working with my editing and graphics team in Spring 2018, I learned (for reasons I will not disclose) that my publisher had to release all of her Authors. Talk about another blow! Once again I found myself crying for several days about this new predicament. It felt as if I was always close to reaching the finish line, only to be tripped before I could actually cross it.

By this point, I was ready to give up. I wanted to shut down my Wattpad page and throw in the towel. To me, I had suffered too much heartbreak related to writing.

I then decided to try and take things into my own hands and began to research self-publishing. I found myself feeling overwhelmed and discouraged by the amount of information that was out there. After speaking to a few self-publishers, I decided that self-publishing wasn't for me. The horror stories I heard about their struggle turned me off. I decided that I wanted my published work to be done professionally and I wasn't confident in my ability to do that. (I'm not knocking anyone who self-publishes, I'm only explaining what was best for me.)

I considered contacting other publishers who had sent me offers before, but I didn't feel confident about any of them and I didn't want to land in another heartbreaking predicament. So I listened to my gut and contacted a publisher who I had been following for years. I was a huge fan of the CEO and how she ran her business, including her publishing company. I wanted to be a part of her company so that I could learn from her.

I reached out to them and submitted my work again. After successfully interviewing, I was accepted as an author for Delphine Publications. From the moment I signed with them, I hit the ground running. The first 90 Days were grueling. I had training classes to watch and assignments to complete before I was even able to discuss my book. And in the short amount of time that I've been with Delphine, I've learned so much about branding and publishing in general.

I received my debut release date during a conference call and found myself becoming emotional once again. My first book, ROOKIE MISTAKES, will be out on November 28, 2018 and the sequel will follow in April 2019. I know you're thinking, why are you so excited? You've been this close before and had the rug pulled from underneath you. And you are right about that happening to me. However, I can't see myself living in fear of failure. I've chosen to believe that everything will work out this time and I also trust that I have gone through all of these obstacles because there is something greater waiting for me on the other side when I finally release my book.

If you only take away one thing from this post, I want you to reflect on my unconventional journey and be encouraged. No matter what the challenge you face looks like, you have to find a way to push past it. If you are passionate about your work, then you can't give up!

We each have a unique writing gift and we see the world in different ways. All of our stories are needed. There is no one path to follow when it comes to releasing your story to the world, but you are the only one who is able to write your story. Many writers have found success in different platforms. The one thing that we can all agree on is that every journey is different and the challenges that we are all faced with are varied. If you allow an obstacle to stop you, I guarantee you will spend your life full of regrets.

I can't count how many times after a disappointment, that I told my family and friends "that's it, I quit." Even though I felt that way in the moment, I knew deep down that I wouldn't feel fulfilled as a person if I didn't follow my dream of becoming a published author. Writing is like breathing for me, it's what makes me feel alive. If you believe in your gift, continue to fight for it with everything that you have. If you don't, did you every really love it to begin with?