One might call this post a shameless plug, however I am going to endeavor to make it slightly less shameless by sharing a little about myself as I tell you about this pretty nifty thing I made.

In 2006, my very good friend of many years took on what seemed like an impossible task, so called “National Novel Writing Month,” NaNoWriMo, or, for us super lazy folks, NaNo. It’s a challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days or less in the month of November. She casually tried to get me to take this challenge with her, and as a very good and loyal friend, I nope’ed right out of that.

I wrote for fun, because I wanted to – and when I wanted to, as much as I wanted to. 50,000 words in a month was insanity (it still totally is).

So I sat back and was a spectator as she miraculously cranked out a pretty damn good, and fun, YA-type novel.

When 2007 rolled around, her success made it a little easier for me to reticently say OKAY, I GUESS I’LL DO IT.

That year I wrote 50,000 words in 13 days. You may be asking yourself, how is that even possible? Let me break it down for you:

The atmosphere in November in the NaNo community is electric. Forcing myself to sit down and come up with a plot, plot twists, and interesting characters resulted in an violent waterfall of enthusiastic (if not particularly GOOD) writing. Good ol’ fashion competition. I wasn’t just racing my friend on word count, I was racing the entire NaNo forums. As an INTJ, I take my challenges VERY seriously.

The creative high was like none other. I ended up being so grateful that my friend had twisted my arm until I finally caved. Every year since 2007, I have participated and met the 50k challenge. You can check out my NaNo page (and become writing buddies with me!) here.

For seven years, I happily wrote my one-novel-a-year and left it at that. That was, of course, until I met my now good friend Maurnas, who is also a writer. I agreed to let her read some of my stuff and being the bibliophile that she is, she tore through my novels easily. This was a turning point for me because when she was done with one novel in particular, she called and asked me, in a somewhat accusatory tone,

“Why aren’t you published yet?!”

Sure, I had always thought of one day getting published. But it just seemed like one of those lovely daydreams you have to pass the time. Like winning the lottery or being the hero in a crisis situation. But with her very pointed question, I began to understand that publishing was nothing like winning the lottery. It was 100% within my abilities to do. And so I did. I busted a move and self-published my 2014 NaNoWriMo novel Children of the Fallen.

This, however, was not the novel Maurnas was so insistent I publish. That honor goes to the novel that hits the virtual shelves today, October 20th, 2015: Colony One.

This novel was the result of a brainchild between myself and two friends I met standing in line at a little convention you might have heard of (coughDragonConcough). We originally conceived of it as a TV show, being all big fans of Battlestar Galactica and Firefly and all that. Since my script writing talents are shit, I decided to take on this story as my 2013 NaNo novel and loved every second of writing it. We still hope to one day make that TV show happen, but someone with better script writing abilities is in charge of that!

I digress. Colony One is a story that explores the natural progression of untapped capitalism, the after affects of world wide war, world government and government corruption, population control, the human spirit and the core values of humanity. It also imagines a world where we are able to travel to the Alpha Centauri system, and the kinds of people who would willingly make a one-way trip to save Earth from themselves.

So, thanks to a handful of amazing friends who have been, in various ways, my motivation, muse, and inspiration, I have been able to see one of my life’s dreams realized. I can now call myself an author and be proud of the work I put out there.

Colony One might be the best thing I’ve written to date, but it is by no means the last great thing that I will be writing. With November right around the corner, I plan to bust a move on a new novel set in the same universe as Children of the Fallen with alternative characters (see: LGBT). The world will see more of my work, and I hope they are inspired and delighted by it.

You can check out Colony One on Amazon here: http://amzn.com/1516950127. If you read it, and enjoy it, please let me know! Leave a comment, write a review, blog about it, take a joyous picture… it would seriously make my life.

Eve is the founder of Some Nerd Girl and the author of urban fantasy novel Children of the Fallen and science fiction novel Colony One. She has been writing since the age of 13 and has been flying her nerd flag for the past 16 years. You can visit her website at www.somenerdgirl.com and look up her works of fiction on Amazon.