When I was in fourth grade, my teacher did extensive writing lessons. We wrote different formats of poetry. We even wrote and published our own short stories, which included printing and illustrating the pages then binding them together. It was in this class that I realized I wanted to be an author.
I always wrote. I kept a journal compulsively over the years. I wrote short stories that I would pass around to my friends in spiral notebooks between junior high classes. I placed in every writing contest to which I ever submitted.
Writing came easy to me. It was just what I did. And all I wanted to do.
I pursued writing in college, of course. I took every creative writing class they offered (beside poetry). I caused controversy when I made a satire out of suicide. It was just not enough for a career, and I surely could not make a living off of what I was producing and publishing.
After college, I faced a fork in my writing life. I was offered a job as a technical writer for a Department of Defense contractor and as a community writer assistant at a newspaper. It was write for salary and benefits or write for the hope of doing what I love eventually.
I chose salary and benefits; I sold my writing soul for comfort.
And I do not regret that decision, though I do sometimes wonder what if. I have financed a beautiful life; I have supported the growth of my family. I have been comfortable. And eventually, that comfort left me to be able to write my first book.
The seed was planted during my brief civilian deployment to Iraq (another side effect of the soul selling). I went to train soldiers on software but ultimately ended up just writing software user manuals in a trailer in a war zone. I didn’t see any action, but I was immersed into military wartime culture, exposed to things that never could seem so real on the news. My three months there changed everything, shifted every perspective I had.
Later, I nurtured this unconsummated idea with full season marathons of The Walking Dead (complete with my gothic belly dancers for company and lots of booze). The way The Walking Dead explored the survivors made me question the ideas of humanity I had seen in a war zone.
What would we become without all our civilization? What are we really underneath all the comfortable pretense?
And so my novella, Savages, was born.
The story infected me. I woke in the middle of the night to write sections and scenes. I lived inside it.
Then, on a whim, at the recommendation of a dear friend, I entered Savages into a contest from Assent Publishing. I placed as a finalist; I won a publishing contract. It all happened, and my dream since fourth grade was finally realized.
And a year later, after promoting and prepping and editing and reviewing, Savages is released!
I cannot wait until next month, when I can hold the paperback copy in my hands. Maybe then it will feel less surreal than sales numbers on an ebook. Maybe then it will feel like I have finally made it to being a published author.
Find Savages on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Savages-Christina-Bergling-ebook/dp/B00R8YRBYY
Fiery Pen 