We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Missy Michaels a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Missy, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

When I was still in elementary school, I was already so fascinated by words that became stories that became full length books. I was the little girl who would sit at the table and read every single word on the cereal box or the bottle of syrup. When we were driving to church, out to dinner or on a road trip I would read the store signs, the billboards and the ads on the side of the bus as we drove by. Our school would have book fairs each year and my parents had to set a budget for me because I wanted to buy every single book that caught my eye. So basically, if there was something I could read anywhere I was there for it.

My parents had a subscription to Ebony magazine which was very much geared to adults and it was the first magazine that I actively read. I would look forward to the magazine coming in the mail as much my parents did. By high school I was reading all the teen magazines and outside of going to see movies with friends one of my favorite places to go was the library. And to this very day I still very much enjoy going to the library, book stores and writing events.

For my very first writing project in junior high I wrote a short play but I was too shy to assemble a cast to perform it. In high school I wrote for our school newspaper and during my senior year I was the editor of the magazine included in our yearbook. I enjoyed everything about the process of developing story ideas and interviewing my classmates for the articles that I wanted to feature and it became my dream to be a writer.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

During my marriage my now ex-husband transferred his position with his company in Missouri to a position in Tennessee. While living in Memphis I took a job working in the front office of a hotel and stayed busy raising our children. As my marriage fell apart I had experiences that literally made me think once I survive this I’m going to pursue my dream to write a book. I wrote the first chapter of my novel fresh from chaos in my personal life. I set it aside for over eight years but I was still thinking about my novel and even developing story line ideas. But at that point I was divorced and a busy working single mom. Then I was fired from my job two weeks before Christmas. While I was job hunting I pulled out my notebook with that first chapter written years before and wrote out my cast of characters and my storyline and wrote my first novel I titled it To the Swift. I set up my writing desk and my writing schedule.
Typically, writers breaking into the industry send out batches of query letters and it is not unusual to have hundreds of rejection letters. For writers who are absolutely determined to have an agent represent them with publishing houses they stick to it and that is good. For those who are willing. After less than ten rejection letters I decided that I wanted to see my book published and I did not want to stay with the query, rejection cycle so I designed the cover and published with Amazon’s KDP Author Program.
I have written two novels in the Domestic Suspense subgenre. To the Swift, my first novel, is an eBook available on Amazon. My first novel is set in Breaux Bridge, LA and Memphis,TN. My second novel, Loyal, is also available on Amazon as an eBook or additionally as a soft cover. The setting for my second novel is Dallas, Texas which is one of my favorite cities. Loyal is also available at Little Elm, Texas and Fort Worth, Texas libraries. If you enjoy Shari Lapena and Wanda M Morris novels then you will likely enjoy what both To the Swift and Loyal have to offer. I’m currently at work on my third novel with a setting in Springfield, Missouri.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

An excellent way to support new and emerging writers is to post written reviews in addition to the star rating system. When a writer presents a story to the world we are sharing with you and are quite excited to do so. And feedback is phenomenal on more than one level. Reviews serve the purpose of drumming up interest in a novel which is of course wonderful for the writer. And honest reviews, when read by the writer, are excellent resources. We may see that a character became a crowd favorite or that a character brought a reader to tears. Reviews let me see strengths as well as weaknesses which is beneficial to the writing craft. Whenever I sit down to write a novel my goal is to intrigue and entertain you. And writing reviews or posting on social media is an excellent way to let me know if I did or of I did not. When I see a review for anything I’ve written I always appreciate the opinions of the reader as much as the stars, no matter how many or how little are given. And I think many writers putting their work out there for the reader feel this same way.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

As a child I played the piano, I loved to draw and paint and I loved reading. I have always been drawn to the arts so writing is as natural as eating and breathing. I’m introverted and a good listener and that has helped me so much with writing dialogue for my characters. I have a pretty good imagination which is fantastic for fiction. It’s rewarding to me when someone goes on social media and mentions characters from my book by name telling me how much they enjoyed reading the novel or going to Facebook to tell me to write another book with specific characters because they want their story to continue. It works! Loyal, my second novel, is written as a stand alone but on social media readers were asking about Blake and Monica from my first novel so those characters got a story line in both. Including those characters in Loyal made the story even better. And I thank my readers for that.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.missywritenow.com
• Instagram: @missywritenow
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/missy.michaels.18
• Twitter: @michaels_missy

Image Credits
Darius Fountain