Please Welcome Carmen Stefanescu Romania Author to my blog.
I
am Carmen Stefanescu from
http://shadowspastmystery.blogspot.ro/
I
live in Romania , better
known as Dracula's country, in Eastern Europe .
Books have
always meant so much to me. They still do. I cannot imagine having no books in
my life, either in print or e-books nowadays. Books created, in my mind, a new
landscape that allowed me to see life differently. It was the only way to
escape, evade reality during the grim years before 1989, the fifty years of
communist dictatorship when just speaking about God, faith, reincarnation or
paranormal phenomena could have led someone to great trouble - the psychiatric
hospital if not to prison.
My novel, Shadows of the Past, was released on 4th December 2012 by Wild Child Publishing,USA
My novel, Shadows of the Past, was released on 4th December 2012 by Wild Child Publishing,
The
fact that writing my novel took me two months, while finding acceptance for its
publishing took more than seven years, took me by surprise. I looked for literary
agents at first and then, receiving rejection after rejection, I started
contacting publishers directly.
The only solution for me was e-publishing. However, in this long process I have
learned much and keep doing it. Now I’m at a new stage in my learning
experience with promoting, blogs, websites, review requests, etc.
The fact that people who read Shadows of the Past say it's a compelling
story, "that will keep
you glued to the pages" showing they enjoy it, even "could relate to the characters" makes me happy;
it feels nice and warm.
People ask why I publish abroad and
above all why English. As a teacher of English for so many years, I felt
it easy to express my thoughts and feelings in English, even if vocabulary
usage may be a bit tricky. I started with poems that met acceptance abroad and
in 2004 I was awarded the Silver Cup for poetry.
Regarding my novel, I absolutely didn’t want to go
self-publishing. I wanted to know, and this could be told only by a
professional editor, if my writing had any value. It appears it has.
I would suggest to aspiring authors to roll with the punch of rejections and stand up and
try again. And above all: Read! Write! Read and write! In my opinion,
these are the main rules to becoming a writer: read a lot and write a lot. You
can’t do one without the other, no matter how much you try.
I
want to thank again my editor Shawn for making my debut novel a dream come true,
and for inviting me as guest on her blog!
Happy Writing and Reading
