The Lyrical Foxfire Tour - Alexandra Lanc Guest Post!

Hello everyone!

I am pleased to present a guest post from the fabulous Alexandra Lanc on her Lyrical Foxfire Tour. I'd just like to say a big thanks to Alexandra for including me in her tour!

The Picture, the Words, and the Solace

For me, writing is like breathing -- in fact, it always has been like breathing, ever since I was a kid and picked up my first pencil, my first crayon, my first pen.

When I was little, I loved making up stories, and if I look back, most of the young memories I have are of TV shows or movies -- stories that I picked up on -- and I’ve always loved to read. When I was in kindergarten, I used to draw a lot of pictures, and that continued through my school grades, though as time went on, I added words with those pictures.

I remember that the first real “story” I ever wrote was about Yoshi (from Super Mario Bros.) and his friends. Most of the story was in pictures, but I wrote some short “verses” as well, and then I bought a plastic school “binder” and put the pages in it. I liked the “book” so much that I wrote more, going on to various other video game and TV characters (which included, but were not limited to: Kirby, Sailor Moon, and the TMNT).

When I was in middle school, I wrote my first novel. It was mainly about a girl who had superpowers, and how she discovered the uses of those powers, and dealt with everyday life at school (as well as an evil villain who was trying to take over the world, who just so happened to be her long-lost father). Middle school was hard for me, and my friends and I were bullied quite extensively. Looking back, I think that is part of what pushed me into writing novels in the first place -- I had words, and they had to be said, and though I couldn’t do anything about my situation in real life, I could do something about it in the book.

I finished the novel when I was thirteen, and I went onto write many more things through middle and high-school -- mostly crazy comedies, dark drabbles, and fanfiction. I loved writing, but I could never actually finish anything, and I had new ideas all of the time, so I started new books constantly, and then left the old ones, pushing them aside.

I was home-schooled, so instead of attending normal classes, I dual enrolled and went to college for most of high school. I also took theater and chorus classes at a local high school for extras credit, so I spent most of my time at school, and didn’t have as much time for writing. During that time, I really missed it, but it wasn’t until I reached the summer of my sixteenth year that I really got back into writing.

It went like this: tragedy struck again, and I had to have an outlet, a place to say things, to get out what was bothering me. The tragedy was my brother’s motorcycle accident, and the outlet was a story that you are probably familiar with. It’s called “Shadows of Past Memories”.

Of course, it wasn’t called that at the time, and it was nothing like it is now (and well over 700 pages), but that is when I started writing it. The change in my life -- my brother’s accident, him coming to live with us, and the growing up that I had to do -- fueled my writing again, and led me to writing Shadows of Past Memories. And the things that I went through trying to sort my life out, and trying to become someone that others could depend on, were my inspiration for the book, as well as the things that I liked to read, and the authors who I looked up to (most notably Mr. Eoin Colfer, whose book Artemis Fowl made me want to write for others).

Now, I write because I love it, and I can look back on everything that I’ve been through in my writing and truly marvel at it. Because though things were hard then, I love my job now, and I have more than enough things to write about -- experiences I’ve been through, and things that I’ve learned from them. Writing will continue to be my life, but now I hope that I can write not only for entertainment, but to say something and to help someone -- because I know that books were my solace when I was going through rough times, and I want my writings to be a solace to someone else.

Thank you to the Queen of Teen Fiction, Katie, for having me, and I hope you all enjoyed the post!

Thanks again Alexandra!

Read more about The Foxfire Chronicles here.

And be sure to read Lyrics of the Heart, due out January 20th!