Updated January 2026
Today, I want to tell you about my writing journey. Many teen readers have asked:
“When did you know you wanted to be a writer?”
“How long did it take to write your first novel?”
“Why do you have two pen names?”
Here are the answers, and the main takeaway I want to convey to any aspiring teen writer is that none of this happened overnight or without extensive study and research. It was and still is hard work. But lucky for me, I love it!
I’m ashamed to say I wasn’t an avid reader until college. Think of all the book-reading time I lost! (Don’t be like me, kids! Be a reader!) So I didn’t consider becoming an author until I was well into adulthood. My first-ever manuscript (and published novel) is a fantasy called This Dreamer, published under a different name. Voice memos containing ideas that helped form this book date back to 2011. But it wasn’t until January of 2016 that I started taking notes, planning, and learning. I considered myself an aspiring author at that time, so I suppose you could say that’s when I started. During the summer of 2016, I came up with a complete outline and even hand-made a timeline by taping several pieces of paper together and writing out when and where each character would be over the course of the series. I spent hours and hours reading everything I could find about writing, outlining, structuring, and publishing fiction. Here’s a page with some of my favorite writing books and plotting techniques.
I wrote the first 50,000 words of the first draft during National Novel Writing Month in November of 2016. After that intense month, I cut back on my daily word count and finished the first draft in May 2017. Little did I know, the hard work was just beginning. Over the next few years, I went through many drafts and rewrites. (And continued learning about writing.) During that time, I also worked on a few other projects, including outlining and starting book two of that series and my yet-untitled, still unpublished science fiction novel. (I WILL finish it someday!)
I decided This Dreamer was finished to the best of my ability at the end of 2019 and began querying agents. (Two years after finishing the first draft!) I entered a contest for new writers and received fabulous feedback. I didn’t win, but the connection I made and the suggestions I received were invaluable. I edited again with those in mind and sent more queries. I received a full manuscript request from an agent and got more great feedback and suggestions. Though it was ultimately rejected, I gained the confidence to persue another avenue: self-publishing. My heart had been pointing me in that direction since the beginning, so I finally listened.
I hired an editor in January 2021 and spent months working through her MANY fabulous deletions, edits, suggestions, and comments. I serial-published it first on Kindle Vella (which no longer exists) and spent that November writing the first draft of My Favorite Color is Your Something Blue. I then set YSB aside and officially published This Dreamer in May of 2022. So if you’re counting, it was eleven years from the time I first came up with the idea for This Dreamer to the time it was finally published. And I spent six years (off and on) writing it. Whew!
The next year was spent finishing Your Something Blue.
Then, November and December of 2023 were big months! This Dreamer won the 2023 Christy Award in the young adult division, and I published the first My Favorite Color Novel under a new pen name, Eva Austin. (And if you’re wondering, I never queried this book at all, meaning I never searched for an agent or publisher. I went straight to self-publishing. Absolutely no regrets on that.)
So why a new name? I have conducted extensive research on this subject as it applies to self-publishing. The majority of the most successful independent authors stick to one genre. There are many reasons, but one of the biggest is the way Amazon categorizes and recommends books. So I decided my fantasy novels and my rom-coms needed separate pen names. And I don’t regret it at all! Why the name Eva Austin? I don’t know. I guess I liked it! (And there are already a ton of romance and YA authors with the name Sara/Sarah.)
It was at this point that I felt like I finally knew what I was doing when it came to plotting, drafting, and publishing a novel, and I was able to write more quickly. I wrote my next book, My Favorite Color is the Golden Hour, in six months and published it in November 2024. Same with the following book. I wrote My Favorite Color is Mistletoe in six months and published it in October 2025. I learned at the end of 2025 that The Golden Hour was nominated for the 2026 Teen Readers’ Choice award in the contemporary category! I’m so honored!
I’m finally working on book two of my fantasy series. I hope to have it out in November 2026. And perhaps the final My Favorite Color novel in May of 2027. We’ll see!
I still use my extensive outlines. Here’s a photo of my desk:
