There was a girl who wanted to be a writer. It started in high school where she would write stories for her friends and whoever their current boyfriend/crush was. From fairy tales to mafia mysteries, nothing was outside her realm of imagination. Fast forward a few years and besides those short action romances, all of her writing was contained in secret notebooks that she vowed no one would ever see. And then one day an announcement was made in the kingdom; one of her favorite authors was coming to town and hosting a writing workshop. She and a friend signed up immediately, but then the friend had to go and add a plot twist to the fairy tale.
"If you write the first pages of a short story and submit it, you may be one of a handful of people picked to spend all week at Orson Scott Card's Literary Bootcamp."
A whole week learning about writing from the author of Enchantment and Stone Tables? (Yeah, Ender's Game was great and all that, but these were her two favorites at the time.) It sounded like a dream come true, but still it meant she had to write something--and have Orson Scott Card read it! Still, she summoned her courage and wrote the first three pages of a story that had been tickling the back of her mind.
Three weeks later she got her acceptance into Orson Scott Card's Literary Bootcamp and the rest as they say is history. Well not really, because a funny thing happened when she went to the bootcamp. She learned she had a knack for helping other people fix their stories. That, along with an invitation to test at a new local (now award-winning) editing company, and the next ten years flew by in a craze of manuscripts and edits and helping other people publish their stories. And she loved it.
But something was missing.
Everyday she still continued to secretly write her own stories. She got a short creative nonfiction story in motivational book and even published a novella as part of a series with a group of friends. Still, the one story that she wanted to share the most was the one she kept hidden from the world.
Then one day another friend (have you ever noticed how pesky friends like to push you outside of your comfort zone?) talked her into entering a contest where agents and editors would read your story pitch and ask for more if they liked it. So, she came up with a pitch, and then at the last minute decided that the story she was going to push wasn't ready, but that other story, the one she had polished and kept hidden, that she could send if someone actually liked it. (Yeah, she was a little bit of a pessimist, but is getting better.)
Someone did like it. And after they read the whole thing, they liked it even more. And then another someone liked it, and a book offer was made, and suddenly this girl who had spent years helping other people publish their stories had turned from an editor to an author (don't worry, she still edits because everyone should have a shot at turning their dreams into reality).
And that is the story of how Sabine Berlin, Author & Editor came to be. I am so excited to share my publishing journey, as well as all sorts of tips for editing, and probably a picture or twenty of the best dog in the world. So, I hope you'll come around and see what I am working on, learning, or even just what K-drama I might be watching. I'm aiming for a happily ever after here, and excited to have all of you be part of that!