How’d I Get Here? by Debutante Kristy

Anna might have had it tough being the first Debutante to grace our pages with her brilliance, but surely I am to be pitied for having to follow FIVE brilliant introductions?

I shall do my best.

I am actually rather bewildered by the fact that I am blogging. Many things that I’m doing these days seem to bewilder me. I always wanted to write for a living, there was never any question about that. And so the fact that I have a novel coming out is exciting, exhiliarating, terrifying, and yet it also feels oddly inevitable.

But I never considered writing beyond the scope of a novel. I have stories, yeesh, do I have stories. And like my family before me, I think I’ve entertained people over the years with them (or bored them to tears). But as a novelist, when you get your fiction fix, is there anything left for you to say? I didn’t know there was until this year.

Now, suddenly I am writing book reviews for Bookpage (a bit of my review showed up in the NYT in an ad for The Thirteenth Tale! Okay, they didn’t use my name, but, still, I’m THERE!), and joining the most exciting new voices in women’s fiction to grog!

So I’m really a writer. I have a contract to prove it. But now I learn that there are all sorts of ways to be a writer, and I am excited, exhiliarated, and terrified at these new ways. And I’m hoping that they’ll eventually feel inevitable too (yeah, that’s right, no comma, I don’t believe in the terminal too comma…sue me. Oooooh, see? When was I ever going to work that mini-rant into fiction?)

I would be remiss, and worse, kind of a jerk, if I did not give thanks to “the lovely and fiercely talented” (according to J.D. RhoadesTasha Alexander of Good Girls Kill For Money for throwing us a fabulous Debutante Cocktail Party last night (Anna, I know you’re clearheaded, but is anyone else feeling foggy from those Smartinis?), as well as Allison Winn Scotch for her outstanding contributions.

I’m looking forward to this year, and next, of course. I’ll figure this whole writing thing out, and I’m lucky enough to do it with these five extraordinary and talented women by my side. 

6 Replies to “How’d I Get Here? by Debutante Kristy”

  1. I’m glad we’re bewildered together!

    And here it is, not just the morning after, but the afternoon after, and I still can’t get my head clear after those Smartinis. I’m not sure whether to blame the vodka or the Canadian chocolate.

  2. JT, how nice of you to stop by! And certainly, we all owe a debt to Killer Year (see link on our home page), which has done such an excellent job for the debut thriller authors of 2007. Y’all are why we had to start our own!

    I do hope you’ll stop by again, because do we have PLANS! Big plans, folks, big plans 🙂

  3. Kristy, we wouldn’t be here without you, and that’s no joke! So now we all get to bask in our writerly, groggerly selves, except this time we have friends to celebrate with.

    So stoked to be on the 2007 bandwagon, and with five other Debs who are truly amazing!

  4. Kristy, way to clarify your “too” comma stance, right up front.

    Note to Jennifer and any other American Girls out there, did you know Canadian chocolate and cheese taste very different? More like Swiss. There may be other advantages to living here, I don’t know, can’t get past the chocolate.

    Why don’t we have that large-mouthed green emoticon on this site? No fair.

  5. Obviously, I love any piece of writing that manages to work my name and the word brilliant into the first sentence but regardless, Kristy, this is a wonderful entry and I relate to it. There are so many different ways to write and there’s something about the blog format that seems to tap into a different part of my creativity than fiction, or magazine writing, does. Meanwhile, kudos to you for getting your review in an ad. Out there, influencing the public in their cultural awareness — I love it.

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