Last Christmas, I decided to begin my journey as a writer. I have always loved to read and write, and English was my strongest subject in school. With teaching, I only wrote on Christmas break and spring break, and then June came. In June I chose to dive in and complete my first book. I redid all the illustrations in watercolor at our kitchen table, worked with a writing coach, and went through the entire publishing process. In August I became a published author.

Here’s how I did it.

I decided to write about themes that I was passionate about as a teacher- teasing and bullying, friendship, self-acceptance, belonging, bravery, etc. Once I had my themes, I thought about my long term goals and decided to write multiple books with similar layouts. My first book is in the ocean and the main character is an octopus. Each book will be a different biome and a different animal. I also have minors in science, math, and language arts. I wanted to connect writing to my background in science, so every animal is based on a real-life animal.

After writing, I illustrated my story using water color paint and used Adobe Illustrator to put those paintings together into the pictures you see in the books.

Then I worked with my writing coach, Lauren, who went through the story with me and offered advice on any changes that may need to be made to make the story better. Once I was happy with the story, she walked me through the publishing process on Amazon.

My paperback is published in Amazon, and I have a hardcover currently being published on Lulu. My next goal would be to publish on IngramSpark. I have a second book about halfway done and then will go through the publishing process again. My hope is to have it released around Christmas. I have so many other ideas in my journal for children’s books that I can’t wait to release into the world!

If you are local to southeast Michigan and are a teacher who may want a class visit, you can always contact me at emilymooreauthor1@gmail.com. If you published your own story and want to share it, as always, you can comment below!