INDIE SPOTLIGHT – YA AUTHOR MELODY DELGADO: PERSEVERANCE PAYS OFF

Today we welcome Melody Delgado, an accomplished YA author whose new book, Royally Entitled (link below), has just come out and looks like great summer read. Melody discusses the value of persistence and perseverance in your writing/publishing goals. Take it away, Melody.

Many writers grow up wanting to be authors. While being an author wasn’t something I first considered, I did want to be work the arts. And I did just that. I was a vocalist for many years as well as a music educator and loved being able to work in a creative field.

In order to stay certified as a music teacher, I had to continue taking college level courses. After enrolling and sitting through music courses on topics I already knew backwards and forwards because I was teaching them, it became clear I needed to take courses that would be of interest. Courses where I could actually learn new information. I enrolled in a writing course, wrote a short story, had it published in a magazine and I was hooked on writing ever since.

As most writers know, however, writing a short story and writing a book are two entirely different animals. While several of my other stories were published in anthologies or magazines and I was also lucky enough have two picture books published, again, writing and publishing a longer work is a different kind of battle. Not necessarily harder, but different.

It took me years to write my first novel. It’s a humorous novel for young readers called OOPS-A-DAISY and it is coming to print, audio and digital platforms on September 5^th. (I actually got interested in children’s stories while reading with my own children.) Even though OOPS-A-DAISY is only about 40,000 words or 160 pages long, it still was a bear to write because of having to  make sure my writing would still be readable by children in third or fourth grade.

Once my middle-grade novel was completed, I set out to write a novel for teens. I’d always been interested in European history and loved medieval stories featuring knights and princes. Since I didn’t want to be bound by actual historical events I created my own country, the nation of Brevalia. My protagonist had to be someone many people could relate to, so I made her a farmer’s daughter. That’s how ROYALLY ENTITLED came to be. It was released in May of this year and is available on all digital platforms.

What does all of this have to do with perseverance? Well, I started writing novels when my daughter was a toddler. She is now in college. I didn’t land my agent until 2016 and did not sign a contract for a novel until 2017. By the end of this year, I will not only have released two novels, but will be working on sequels of each novel, because my agent got me a contract for a three-book series for both The Brides of Brevalia, with ROYALLY ENTITLED as book one, and The De La Cruz diaries, with OOPS-A-DAISY as book one. Sounds like a lot, and it is. (Especially typing wise!) But none of this would have happened if I’d given up or allowed myself to become discouraged.

Many of us, writers and readers alike, will go through tough times or have to travel on long journeys in order to reach our goals. But if we give up, we won’t get to see where the journey may take us. Both of my main characters had to deal with adversity. Both Anika Pembrie, only 17, and Daisy De La Cruz, only 12, had to become fighters in order to beat the odds and strive for their goals. I won’t ruin the stories by telling you if they reached them or not. But I will tell you that both of them persevered and gave it their best shot. And in the end, that’s all that any of us can do.

Melody Delgado has been a published writer since 2000.  Her short stories have appeared in national magazines such as AIM (America’s Intercultural Magazine), VISTA, and CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE LATINO SOUL.

 She has published two picture books. TEN ROARING DINOSAURS was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and DO YOU KNOW HOW I GOT MY NAME? was recently published by Little Debbie/McKee Foods.

Her inspirational, historical romance for women and teens, ROYALLY ENTITLED, was released digitally by Clean Reads in May, 2017. It is the first in a three-book series called The Brides of Brevalia. A humorous children’s novel, OOPS-A-DAISY, is coming to print on September 5th of this year and is also the first in a children’s series, The De La Cruz Diaries. It will also be published by Clean Reads.