Kyra Gregory
When people hear of a younger writer they
often have this image of someone very inexperienced. While I don't claim to be
a perfect writer I can say that I am far from inexperienced because my road as
a writer has been a long one.
I've been writing novel-length stories for
about ten years now starting with short stories, lyrics and fanfictions. From
the beginning there were very few people who knew that I wrote anything at all.
It was only after being caught writing lyrics for a song my friend had composed
that I started being pushed to write more. At the time I wrote in order to save
myself; to come to terms with things that I couldn't any other way. I never
really thought I was particularly good at it, regardless of what readers told
me. The thing that I loved the most about writing was that I got to do it from
the heart; I was able to be open and honest about numerous issues and I was
able to share these feelings with others.
By my mid teens I had heard a decent amount
of praise and more than a decent amount of criticism. After making adjustments
I began to format the manuscript for one of my novels. Now, at this point, I
didn't have the slightest inkling in me of "I want to be a writer!"
but I thought it would be fun to test myself as a writer. I sent my novel out
to six publishers that would accept work without an agent and got back four
rejections, one acceptance and one remained unanswered. The problem was that
there was a catch to that acceptance. I would have to, in their words,
"make the gay couple a straight one" in order for it to truly be
accepted and considered worthy for publishing. I always knew that there were
going to be things I would have to change but I had never thought it would be
something that would change an entire story. I wanted to be thrilled but
couldn't be; the fact that I couldn't do things the way I wanted totally
shattered me.
I always knew the writing world was going
to be competitive and that there were going to be things that people loved and
hated but it never really hit me until that point that there were people who
weren't going to be given a chance because of what they wrote. From then on I
knew that I would never go back to traditional publishing. I was a control
freak and I was proud of it; I wanted a hand in each and every part of the
production of each project I was a part of and I wasn't willing to negotiate on
that. I went on writing for years and in June 2012 I self-published a novella,
Despair & Decision, through Amazon's KDP. On 10th September I'll
be releasing my first book, Secrets Clad in Light in just a few months of
self-publishing. It's been an adventure and I'm still learning as I go along
but it's easily the best decision I've made. As long as I keep doing things
this way I can keep writing in the way that I've always loved; honestly.
If you want to get a hold of Kyra Gregory here are some links you might be interested in:
